The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

Night dawned, day fell
in an upside-down metaphor of
us and all we stood for, all
we claimed to want for one another.
Mired in echoes of words that meant
all but what they should,
I struggled;
tangled and tripped up by
all the traps I set for you,
I realized how there was never anything
but fog and mirrors and
truths about myself.
Feeling like
day-old smoke and shadows,
I thought about
yesterday, and you, and quitting drinking--
all those shining, unreachable motes
floating in the span of forever--
and about how much I wish
I could live in today.
Humming along with notes linking
fingers and breath and emotion,
I dreamed a more pleasant life,
made all the more appealing
by its nonexistence,
and I wondered why the syllables of "impossible"
taste so much like "desire."
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[drunk on] Sunshine

It doesn't help to know that it's
all in my head, all in my skull,
just chemicals exploding and
dancing with each other,
like I dance with
you and you and you,
an endless twirl
until we
all fall down
amid the posies and the ashes
of our lives, to start again.
Amazing human machine,
grinding gears on gears until we
fall apart, fall out of ourselves
into a blue, blue sky that
embraces, holds, and hurls us back
to face a gray tomorrow
with masks and lies and guile.
Against my better judgement, I
throw away my smile-and-nod,
my falsity;
I will be ME,
right now and always.
Inappropriate and loud,
senseless and young--
enjoying summer like a bee drunk on sunshine,
like a girl drunk on you,
with your
starshine eyes and danger-daring smile.
But I'm not in love with
you or you or you,
I'm just in love with
life, and love, and pain, and
being human,
with remembering
how to feel at all.
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