I Could Never Leave A Friend

I could never leave a friend
That’s why they leave me
For everyone reaches the wall
That stands around me eventually

I could never leave my castle
The iron maiden that I’ve built
Even though the moat is drained
And all the doors are silk

I could never invite someone in
And share my empty halls
For all is blackened brimstone
The castle is not what it was

I see sculptures with outstretched hands
Who beg for me to stay
But their hands turn into grasping claws
So I bat them away

My throne is lonely. My hearth is cold
It’s hard for me to breathe.
I am the one who leaves my friends
They never leave me

AS

I saw your mother and sister at Burlington Coat Factory
A faded friendship that still haunted me
The garbage bag of dirty clothes rolled across your living room
It is hard to make peace with zero words
It is hard to move on when you can’t move forward
How can I forgive when I don’t know what went wrong?

When I look around me now, I see the dissolution you left
The doubt that lingers with me in other’s eyes
Heightened senses telling me that they will all leave
I can’t be anything more that I was then
For I’m frozen in the moment where I saw your mother and sister
At Burlington Coat Factory

Apathy

Padded ankle restraints under a weighted blanket
A cocoon of endless comfort
All I see is gray, all I feel is pressure
Sitting up as the fog sloughs from my brain
My perception cracks and distorts, fault lines fracturing
Prisms rotating through endless refractions
But all the light is muted and beige
When was my world technicolor

I am seduced by the call of complacency
Lulled by its unhurried whispers
Chains of mists formed from anxiety
Knot my wrists and over my relaxed sighs
I hear the click of the rack as it cranks
Stretching me so thin that I become paper
Folded around a smooth stone and dropped
Into a frigid, silent lake at the top of the world
All I see is gray, all I feel is pressure.

June 19

Our lives are the barest blink
A piece of kelp in an endless ocean
Brought to the surface and then forgotten
The world does not notice

It does not matter the streets you walk
The lives you touch, the people you hurt
There is only dust on the lonely road
And an implacable destination in the distance

The living scream I am here, breath fades,
Every rough-throated sob echoes across
The empty desolation, a sonar plea
For an unknowable meaning

In the end, when the axe swings down
And you are gone, the eye shuts,
Tears well up, a hand reaches to
Grasp another, words have no use

A Morse code message from the
Black space in between the stars
Pushes out a plaintive finale that
Resonates in the empty dark

I am gone.
Hold me close.
I am here.
Let me go

How Did You Get So Small?

How did you get so small?
Was it the weight of who you were?
The pull of the pit below?
The feeling of falling trapped in your throat?
Knowing that you would never hit bottom?

It took your compassion. Your belief. Your trust.
You think it made you more when you gave into gravity.
All it did was make you less.

Powerlessness

Pouring salt into a colander
Watching it fall through the holes
Little pieces slipping away
Until there is nothing left

It erodes your hope
Making you feel small
A pebble trying to crawl
Up a mountain

I can only do so much
Becomes
I can only do so little

Impact is deadened
When space dust hits
The atmosphere it burns
Away, leaving nothing behind

My words feel like condolences
At a funeral for an old acquaintance
Hollow and empty, not able to fix anything
Or change what will happen after

A ghost floats through a wall
Calling out to the ones they love
The confessions leaving their spectral lips
And dissolving into the stale air

Day 30 – MSH

Many moonless nights
I spent staring at the stars
Spinning spurious meaning
From my messy mind

I’d make my psyche spit
Salty and sour sayings
At me, hoping to be happy
Having no idea how to get there

The page brings me meaning
Helps my messy mind mend
Sanity sinking into the skin
Makes me more like Matt
And less than Matt

Day 29 – Untitled 2

When I sit at my desk
Type-type-typing away
I wish I was in the mud

Pulling and straining
On your fluid-soaked hooves
Hoping to see you born

I miss the smell of manure
So sweet and naturalistic
Reminding me of the earth

I need to be back in the stable
Helping a cow give birth
And when its all over

I’ll get back in my car
I’ll drive back to my house
In the heart of the city

I’ll remember what it felt like
To bring life into this world
And will sleep soundly that night

What greater joy can anyone have?
Then to make the world just a bit
More alive and although it may not change

Change anything in a big way
I know that if I die tomorrow
That I helped make it a better place

Day 28 – Nerd Statues

I wear my passions on my sleeve
Most of the time literally
A comic book logo on my chest
Some obscure reference as well

I feel like a child, trapped in their own world
Imagining impossible shapes and sounds
I let my child rule me, shaping who I am
Even as a corporate drone 30-year old

So when I see the array of statues above me,
I smile at the faint memories of superhero fights,
Nights spent reading and hoping my parents
Didn’t see my light peeking underneath the door

Running through my neighborhood with a fabric cape
As the wind rushed past and I believed I could fly
When I look down from the statues, I can feel my feet
Hovering and when I close my eyes, I am soaring

Day 27-Flood!

Wow! Look at the water rushing
Down the streets. Pretty soon
It will be high enough for us to
Grab our floaties and swim our way
Down to the ocean.
Took out Charlie’s house, but it
Needed renovations anyway.
Oh well! That’s life! What can
You do about it? No agency or
Control, when the hurricane hits
It doesn’t matter whether you accept
It or not, your house is still going to
Get washed away.
Looks like Canal Street is actually
A Canal! Wow!