Grasping Straws

Eternal youths, and the harbingers of
Grasping straws.
Fold my collective like a piece of paper,
Momentary shiver,
Is there a window open?
See the lines spelling out some detail
Of some framed fortune I bid on in
The past. It did not surface;
Eternal youth will never last.

Grow a little older. See a bit more plain.
And though the time is speed and sloppy
It cannot be completely in vain.
How I question...
What is right, and who is right?
Inner monologue depreciates the value,
I grow tired from this fight.
Wanton just the same. Want a reason,
Simple, sane. Framed fortune;
Did I fail to ascertain?

I did not acquire a peaceful heart.
I have been out longing from the start,
Tried to be wise, tried to be cautious,
Found out how easy it is
To be torn apart.
Rebuild, reshape. Reinvent the self.
Always shaving off a layer.
Never savor very long.
Always strange and new behavior.
Can't I write my simple song?

I am wilted, it's a wash.
The tidal flood has ripped the boughs.
The cosmic churning isn't crossing
This plane I'm on, it's just a loss,
And I am grasping at straws...
See me dance to this rhythm
In the chaos of a spinning wind
That I began, and I can't seem to end.

Before the summit is the hill,
Before the storm it's always quiet.
Amidst my struggle in this night
I look around me and I'm frightened.

Lightening quick flash,
And the pang of that feeling
Brought on by a not so distant
Memory of a lonely little house,
And a song someone wrote about you.
I remember the first rehearsal;
Crash, wave, cosmic suffering;
Climax, then low longing as night
Came through the window and squinted
At all the lights left flickering.
My cup was half full then,
My heart drunk on distance.
Telephone recovery.
Proximity illusions foreboding.
Now a silent afternoon of
Insignificance.
Everyday is dull and dismembered
From the once remembered meaning
That I presently do not feel.
Someone took the man in me
And made him his own worst enemy.
Call it by the shades of indifference
Witnessed, can it be like this?
Can it be so?
Everybody has a plan,
I'm sitting on my hands,
Pretending I'm still capable of
Being a good and solid man.
I drown in the wake shifted
By this passing vessel of change.

Time gets away from we that
Have much to long for.
Framed in a fortunate blaze by
Degrees and sections we see ourselves
Stock still, stopped motion,
prolonged history rewound
And binding together the cadence
Of every feeling felt all at once
In the circumference of our lives.

That sentence is chock full of
Elongated bullshit.

Feeling is real.
Feeling is a great friend,
A fond liar,
A tall teller of stories past and present.
His best friend is Memory.
They often laugh at our expense.

Feel and me war much.
It's a tough battle of high praise
And words and fooling one another
In and out of choice.
Choice is the boss.
Choice doesn't care who wins.
He's only there to see it through,
No matter who brings the argument.

Choice is a necessary asshole.

Heart in pieces.
Believe what you need to believe.
I want to believe in something.
I want to see a way out,
But it's always dark and quiet.
Inside my head is a riot,
All these voices shouting at once
For the things that I can be,
And choosing is impossible.
I am lost and lost in being so.
All is automatic.
The things I know to be real
Are fleeing from me in haste
And I push them away too;
I'm not going to hurt another person
For as long as I live.
I've died in that plight so many times
I think the body is all that's left
And the mind can only
Pump blood, feel bone and
Draw breath.

A flood of words just yesterday,
But nothing now inside me.
As if like drink I consumed them
In haste, now I'm left with the
Bitter taste of afterthought.
When they leave I feel empty.
Starved and used. Vulnerable,
Naked and afraid. They are not
Me any longer. They are aloneness.
Like good people, they take bits
Of me I'll never have again.
I worry what they'll do without
Their host. I let them fly anyhow.

Busy little bee, and the nature of this
Suffering;
Wilted flower, I follow your limbs
As they brush against the incognizant
Petals of my lazy existence.
Fortunate freeing by a drench, a drop
Of your lifted nature,
Favored visit, the light, sun-spatter
And a sway of memorable delight
Rippling throughout a meager life
As mine.
If you still need my nectar, please collect
In all that is in me to be had.
I am simple. I give all that I have.
From you will I grow again.