Bus rides, hurried sprints

Leave me at my resting place.

I want to be home.

—–

Driver was my friend,

But I was just his paycheck.

Cash me in, not out.

—–

My ear rocks backwards.

His name is resale value.

And me? A coupon.

Barista Queen, listen to me.

Make my drink, but keep me company.

A dream I had has left me with only mysterious things,

Like how do I know that these shoes are mine?

How can these clumsy feet arrive on time?

How many people were kind when I assumed they were mean

Spirited?

Barista Queen,

Lay down truth and say,

If you can, that these were merely

Nightmares without meaning or truth;

My doubt leaving traces in my morning mind.

Half-lit smiles fill up people now,

Unlike their predecessors in appropriate dresses

And ladder-climbing impressers.

Pull me out from white and black.

Push me under yellow and blue.

Fill my tank with the natural view,

God and eager man’s fuel.

Grace me with a full-smile.

Just don’t leave me with wiesels 

And diesel-powered

Construct-carrying

Empty folk.

Left to my sweater,

I’ve been told I’m right in thinking,

The strands are warmer when pulled together.

Metaphors are masterpieces nowadays.

Character flaws surface among half-though statements

And insecurities rise to the call.

I’ve masked most of me with subtle abatement

But found some blood in my bear stalls.

With summer trees and an oven-hot breeze

I manage to think more deeply

And ponder near ponds wrapped in solstice suns.

I’m hungry for peace

But thought is a thief

Of such things.

I’ve run abrick, I’ve run aground, I’ve run amud.

I’ve stuck my feet too deep into this flood.

It’s seeped inside, it’s seeped around, it’s spelled disaster.

For I can’t move one single inch, and now I’m sinking faster.

The more I struggle, if I could,

The more is struggle in vain, and would

You be so kind to lend me a

Branch?

I looked out my glasses and

I looked out the window and

I looked outside

For the first time in days.

—–

I saw two people and

I saw my reflection and

I see-sawed for

Just a few seconds.

The words on the page were convincing enough.

They listed my fears, my faults, and strangely, my loves.

Strange because even I was unaware

Of the ones I cared for so deeply and heart-bare.

No memory of writing.

No intention of keeping.

I’ll take first steps to righting

This wrong.

But what happened on rain drenched nights,

For me to confess things not even in my own light?

Too much not sleep.

Too little breathing and eating and living?

The hills called to the plow,

But it wasn’t made for such deep curves.

It knew deep down that it preferred the straight,

The narrow,

The average.

—

The cold swept in, and the steel froze and broke.

The only plow was the straight and narrow,

But he sat in his shed and whispered

To the rest,

“I’m in shambles like all of you.”

I’m always the last to send a letter,

Whether the start or finish, worse or better

Than the ones I receive.

–

People lose the rhyme in surface speaking.

The meaning goes AWOL among the leaking

Anecdotes and ‘how are you’s and the ‘I am fine’s.

–

And I’m left with more stamps than return addresses.

I sent a memory and got back anticipation time lapses.

I guess I’ll try with someone new.