23 Wishes
I wish I was handsome.
I wish I was rich.
I wish my ex wife
wasn’t a bitch.
I wish I had more money.
I wish I had more sex.
I wish the steps weren’t rotting
on my back deck.
I wish I wasn’t suicidal.
I wish I wasn’t crazy.
I wish my higher power
wasn’t so lazy.
I wish I had more weed.
I wish I could drink.
I wish the pen on my nightstand
had more ink.
I wish women loved me.
I wish someone loved me.
But most of all
I wish you loved me.
I wish you would read
something I wrote
the way you used to
before I broke.
I wish my life
had a little less dying.
I wish my nights
weren’t spent jerking off and crying.
I wish people would read
my poems and books.
I wish our politicians
weren’t all crooks.
I wish people didn’t suck.
I wish someone cared.
I wish the face in the mirror
wasn’t so scared.
Fantasy Worlds
I’m hanging on by threads
of music and poetry.
My life is such a shit stain
the only way I can survive
is through art.
I can create livable worlds.
Worlds where dreams can still exist,
where love is a real thing,
where happiness is a possibility.
Not this world of endless pain and suffering,
this nightmare reality
where the only things that survive
are rats and cockroaches
that feast on my rotting corpse.
Bipolar
I’m happy today
or at least content
but is this real
or the dreaded chemical change?
There’s nothing
for me to be happy about.
But I’m running and lifting weights.
Looking forward to the evening.
But will this happiness
become giddy excitement
followed by a flurry of activity,
an avalanche of creativity?
That becomes sleepless restlessness,
frustration and anger,
throwing shit and screaming
until the bottom drops out
and I sink to the bottom of existence
where all that’s there is a long, dark death
and me at the bottom of a pit
pointing a gun to my head.
But today I’m happy
or at least content
so maybe I should allow myself
some respite.
But I’ll tell my shrink tomorrow
either way
because for me,
content is unusual.
Exhausted
I’m getting so tired
of having to convince myself
it’s worth it to stay alive.
Always an uphill battle.
No love, no life, no future.
Just fighting and fighting
and for what?
As I watch everything fall apart
anyway.
I’m punching brick walls,
breaking my bones,
knuckles all bloody.
I could stand still
and let the flies eat away
at this decaying corpse of a body.
I want to shield my kids
from this shitstorm.
Keep their eyes closed
to the horrors and monsters.
But I’m afraid
I’m going to be called the monster.
I’m going to be blamed
for this asteroid that fell on my head.
And here I am,
no love, no life, no future.
A marionette being pulled
by some hellish puppet master
who apparently loves nothing more
than tearing lives to pieces.
I’m getting so tired
of having to convince myself
it’s worth it to stay alive.
But I have to find a way
for the sake of my kids.
They’re all I’ve got
until they’re gone too
just like everyone else.
A Day in the Eighties
A day in the eighties? In the eighties I was a kid. I had a good childhood but I was bullied and have felt like trash ever since. Eighty years old is alien to me. I’ll be lucky to make it through my forties. I don’t even think I want to be eighty. I hate being old. I never thought I’d live to see forty, let alone eighty. Eighty degrees is too hot. Eighty lonely days. More like years. See above. Eighty broken hearts. Eighty knives stabbing me in the back. Eighty bullets in my head. Yeah. I got nothin.
Memory and Grief
I grieve the life I could have had,
the years I’ve lost,
the decades that have disappeared,
the loves I’ve lost,
the loves that never were,
and the tears have formed rivers
that curve through the mountains
of my sadness and discontent
and empty into an ocean of anger,
resentment, hatred, spite,
and there’s no release, no escape,
just a build up, a swelling
waiting for an explosion
or an implosion,
a fiery flight
or a dark death.
Nothing
I keep writing the same poem,
living the same nightmare,
like Groundhog Day in Hell,
I can’t get out of love
with a ghost, a shadow,
a love that was never really there.
And I can’t break free
from these shackles, these chains
and the years fall away
like leaves in Autumn
and my skin is wrinkling
like raisins in the sun
and my heart is shrinking
like a star burning out
into a black hole of anger,
hatred and spite.
And this is my nightmare,
my hell of a life
and I’m just clinging on
waiting for any sort of end
that can finally bring relief.
I just want this star to burn out
leaving any sort of nothing.
The Dating Game
So you think you can help me
but what can you do?
If I tie a noose around my neck
will you tighten the loop?
Will you kick out the stool
from under my feet?
Or just watch as I dangle?
Would that be neat?
If I’m doused in gasoline
would you light the match?
Would a burnt crispy body
be a good catch?
Or would you rather leave
and forget I exist?
Just walk away
or run to the exit.
You say you adore me
then spit in my face.
I’d rather you deplore me
than give me space.
I wish just one time
you’d admit you hate me.
That you’d rather die
than love me or date me.
So I’ll just wait
for your next text.
We’ll go out, have fun,
eat some food, have sex.
I don’t blame you.
They’re all the same.
I’m not sure
what’s the point of this game.
But I’ll just play
cause you’re all I’ve got.
And yeah, everything’s fine
until it’s not.