"faces"

My friends had no faces
I never saw the years
Wear them down
The graying hair
The crow's feet
The gradual stagnation and slowing
This would have been too much to bear
No, they were timeless, ageless
Even before I knew them
Brilliant rays of mind, one shy of infinite
Nothing but names
Collections of opinions
"Yea"s and "Nays" and "I don't give a shit"s
That was ALL some of them were
Others became more
So that I tried to give them expressions
To conjure visages
"I will fool myself into believing
This is what he looks like
That is her, yes, that is her, I recognize her
This is how I want to remember them
This is the image I will assign to each
To the memories I want to have, to hold
Each one of them."
I felt as if I had the right
After all, they had no faces
They never had
Spirit, nothing for light to bounce from
More often than not, I found
My vision uninspired, unworthy of creation
I wasn't even sure if they had
Souls
Still, I always suspected they were ONE
Part of ONE, parts of ONE
They were a portal for me
A doorway into a universe
A room with 100 doors
No "EXIT" signs above any of them
A hall full of strangers
With nothing in common
I liked to mingle in that crowd
But I wanted nothing to do with them
With their crooked smiles
Their rictus grins baring stained fangs
The hungry, greedy, hateful look in their eyes
The frowns plastered permanently to their brows
They all looked like they wanted something I could not give them
Acceptance
Respect, maybe
The time of day
A precious moment of my time
A place in my heart
Connection, compassion
Everything but love
Only for my friends
Only to my friends
Only from my friends
For my friends had no faces
And I liked it that way

I have no face
If I had one
I fear
I would have no friends

Trying to Sleep

Stuck here in the middle
With my thoughts swirlin' 'round me
Like a storm come to sweep me away
Who's doing the thinking?
It sure ain't me, I'm tired of my own voice
Won't be silent and it ain't got nothing to say

Says it anyway

I perceive a point...

I perceive the point of nothing
That sucks and squeezes reality into it's vacuum
Always consuming, offering nothing
It is mine, I own it
I who have nothing

He seems to know this
To understand it completely
He takes it into account
As he judges me
Not entirely satisfied

He has the appearance of a man
Who has a handle on the situation
A man who knows more than he lets on
Who knew what his choices were long before he chose them
Silently observing his handiwork
Through some kind of dirty Coke bottle lens
(Maybe he lies
Perhaps I have no head)
Filing imperfections, cataloging them all
For use the next time around

Still, when he catches my eye
When our gazes lock
He knows the game is up
He can tell I have him all figured out
Frightens him
Frightens me even more
Because I have learned his lesson
I may feel, I may think, I may know
But in his flat land
I am nothing but a hand puppet
He talks to
When his empty room bores
And he gets lonely

LoveBirds

She had a needle prick pin for his dream balloon
He laughed at her faith
Mocked it
Loathed it for what he perceived
It had done to him
Long before she ever came around
This was something that she never knew
But what she did know was enough
She had a Mason jar for his unearned tears
She kept a wooden box full of nails
To hold up the boards
That blocked the sun
And kept the birds out
He wanted to jump off a mountain cliff
To feel free in the fall
To prove her wrong
She had a cat of nine tails and a whiplash smile
When he asked her to dance she said it wasn't her style

talking to myself

I find I'm talking to myself more often these days
No one else to talk to
So I like to pretend
I'm talking to God
I call it "praying"
But I still think I'm crazy
Because I know that I'm the only one who can hear me
The things I say
No God would tolerate without some semblance of repentance
I have none
Not because I don't think I should
I should
It's just that I'm too far gone for that, knowing well the only repentance I ever knew got tossed out like a baby with bath water within days
Sometimes hours
Sometimes minutes
So if it's repentance God requires
I'm afraid
He'll have to look for it elsewhere
All I have for Him is a sharp tongue
A madman's babbling prayer
A conversation of one
A criticism and a forgiving, both exaggerated, neither meaning
A Goddamn thing
I try to convince myself that it's the SuperSoul doing all the talking, that I'm listening in, eavesdropping on a party, someone else's house where I'm not supposed to be
It takes more convincing than I'm capable of
Because I'm struck mute
When the Holy Spirit speaks
My rational mind shuts down each and every suggestion that
I may be a vessel
I've always believed that my body is a vessel
What troubles me, though
Is to know
That so
Is my soul