Once upon a time I knew everyone that crept on the sidewalk,

now I couldn't name one face in the county.

I used to be embraced every time I walked in the door.

Days gone by, days gone by.

I don't long for the past

but I weep for the future.

This mountain of money can't buy me a connection,

success is measured with a fool's ruler.

My kingdom for one familiar face.

I'm not very good at staying in touch.
But I am good at judging you when you don't try.

To be reminded of the loss of someone in my life hurts too much.

I dont like to feel sadness and to miss someone is pain.
Pain that I don't want,
and pain that I don't need.

So I check in rarely,
and never properly by phone.

I don't ignore when you call,
I watch the phone intently,
and I wait until the ringing stops

wishing that I was near you.

But I'm not sure what that means anymore.
I feel too raw to be seen.

I don't look like I used to
and I haven't seen a drug in years.

So I let you just love my memory,
from afar,
and never let you in.

Solitude and silence.
I regret but I cannot change.

I rise and pull the curtains back
the sun climbs in and I miss no one.

The room is quiet and the walls are white
I pay my rent and I miss no one.

Coffee beans, the kettle sings
Birds in the sky and I miss no one.

I think today that I'll go anywhere,
a life all mine and
I'll miss
no
one.

I fear I only love
the story of you and what you were.
Your bright eyed promise has given way
to any angry and bittering woman,
the product of our troubled age.

I have no desire for your flaws,

I only want your child summer eyes
hands unspoiled,
the empty vessel of optimistic youth.

I want you the way I left you and not the way you're found.

In selfish honesty and shallow pursuit...

Everything I write just sounds like a midlife crisis.

The girls are gone,
that didn't take long,
and nobody cares what I am doing
alone at the computer on a Friday night.

I tried on some pity but
Carrie didn't seem to think it fit.

Fair enough.

I don't understand my post-war reflection,
gaunt and terrified.

Swagger takes a day off.

I'm tired of this guy already,
he's always
in my
face.

I hope you're well.
I hope you're smiling and
you have everything
you
need.

There is no harm in that.

There were friendly faces everywhere
and you were always so pretty in the sun.

You had young skin
and bright eyes
and notebooks spilled out of every corner
and drawer
of your small rented
room.

There were pens and pencils,
some colored,
and there was music
and orgasms and
promises.

But the sun kept passing by
and the passage of time,
unabated,
made us cautious and
practical.

So we settled at the first opportunity
because death
is so hard to face
if no one cares that
you were
there.

I found a trove of my old messages.
Things I said to faces now long gone
while I was very drunk or
very
high.

Throughout my life I've often manipulated,
played the martyr,
and acted the
victim.

I preyed on people with real feelings for me
that I never once returned.
But their infatuation brought an intoxication,
and I poured it into the depthless black of my self-hatred.

I railed against a world so shallow
when I was thinner than a dime.

I admit my sins, though I arrive too late.

Our mistakes are not ours alone,
the bodies stack like towers
in our wake.

Totems that remind us
that though we are sometimes unforgivable
we are never irredeemable,
and next time
we can choose
the right thing
to
do.

I guard you savagely
my gentle reminder,
that the harshness of life can be tempered
by innocent devotion
held in twice smaller hands.

You who always had luck on her lips
and cared for the lonely,
a balm for our aches and
a salve for our wounds.

We devoured your compassions
in the innocence of our depthless need,
and life, in the usual course,
returned little on the investment.

So let me be tangible.

Living proof that you're seen:
in the dark,
through the pain,
among the crowds,
among the stars.

A backstop for you to fall against
when in life's frenetic inevitibilities
you should ever lose sight of your feet.

I love you M,

from when you open your eyes
until you silently rest.

I promise you,
you will never be truly
alone.

I died in the afternoon
thats the end of me,
I thought the South would last forever
that there would always be a home.

Burn it all down now.
Not a soul will speak my name.
I am obsolete and outdated,
too old for 2am and on.

Why do all my outward gains feel so much like losses?

We searched so long for Eden
until the concrete became our blood.
Who are all these children that have covered up my walls?

Was I ever
really
there?

The only city I'll ever know again is the ink under my skin.

The cruelty of the changing season is almost too much for one to bear.

And in this moment I am again reminded
that life is still a tragedy
after
all.

In the end everything whole is broken,
the final scene written before the first line is said.
And though the story is always the same
the knowledge bears little comfort,
for there is no pain quite like
the loss of one leaving.

A girl's admiration
rightfully yields
to a wiser woman's understanding
that

I was a moment

one day remembered fondly.
A fever dream cocktail
of liquor,
sex,
powder,
and
sweat.

We hold on to nothing
as time offers no grip.
Today will vanish to be tomorrow recalled
and you will leave me forever
without ceremony or farewell,
because you too were a moment
and you were never meant
to
stay.