For time I cannot wait.
I will close my eyes,
and take a reverse Farris wheel back.
Back past memories of tearful childhood,
and abusive teachers.
A childhood smattered in vomit on Christmas morning
and sitting on the bed with my mom
crying.
She said she’d be ok,
and I said that too.
I knew, that sometimes you need to be
sad.

I’d take carefully calculated steps
on a stone fireplace
chasing cats,
and figuring out the words to songs
on the record player, with the bumpy needle.

I listen back
to memories of a state,
long moved away
thinking of what I may have gained.
Who I may not have met yet.
A past full of large woodchips,
that softened our falls from the slides.
And ended up lodged in our shoes.
In an elementary school,
rich with arson.

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Two by two the customers shuffle in,
grimacing the fact at their choice in dining,
scowling long faces and silent bickering break out
but they stay anyhow.
The whir of a milkshake machine,
sounds like a jet ski that is clutter with seaweed.
From the back,
in the kitchen
there is a mix of English and Spanish
as a waitress and cook
yell about an order, neither one understanding
the other.

The waitress tells me I’m a curse,
that the nights I arrive on the scene,
the businessmen are just that much more murky.
I am privy to more crude
frat boys, yelling and belching
over hot wings and Coors light.

On the far window, near the booth
I like to sit in
bullet holes are riddle throughout.
Spider webs of cracked glass are crudely covered
by Grand Slam specials static cling stickers.

I sit sipping coffee
which is protocol for those low
on money and high
on time. Avoiding sideways glances
from the ugly old man at the bar
eating runny eggs that look like liquid sunlight,
dusted heavily with pepper.
His leather face rebounds
on his creaking dusty jaw
as he chews his late night breakfast.
I hear him share stories
about wars I nor my parents were around for.
He gets up and announces
he needs a Lucky Strike.
On his way out he stops
at my booth.
His pale grey eyes meet my mine
young and tired
and he tells me
“It’s hell getting old”
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Just something new. Enjoy! (This has nothing to do with my 'Closure' series!)
===================================
I look up at a ceiling
popcorned in stucco.
I see things
images of a woman or a lion
with a full mane of hair.
amongst the erratic patterns.
My head is swirling
and I ask God to help me
turn my arms to sand.
So that for once, in a week,
I can sleep
for more than four hours.

I focus on a frosted bulb on a lamp,
searching it for some meaning
to help ease my mind.
I stare so long, that when I look away
I see a bright blue orb
when I blink.

My eyes feel like two paddle balls
that have been pulled
violently by a frustrated child,
and are left
to slowly tighten back up.
My neck, a freshly mended suspension bridge
tight with new wires, that I didn’t know were there.

These are the nights
that I wish
I had someone
to work the out knots with.
The nights that whiskey
and cigarettes don’t cuddle too closely.
The nights when alone sounds like sickness.

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