Soft, fuzzy man —
no hard edge to him,
nothing like a stone ledge

or anything like one —
he’s borne along on a wave
of softness, no edge to speak of;

he wonders at those who have one.
He can’t imagine a man without one
like him, like himself.

Ashamed of himself, he crawls
into his soft house, into
his fuzzy abode; wishes

he knew a diamond solely
to appreciate how it might cut him.
He longs for blood to spurt from

some outlet he has just now
discovered in himself. He longs
for his life to end that way

but not so soon, not so quickly as that.
Picks up his gentle blanket. This will do,
he thinks through his tears.

How much he wants to go there
is unfathomable at best, but
the focus is sharp on the future.

For now, anyway. Instead he will cuddle
in the warmth of the burrow and dream,
fuzzy and warm, of what could be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Drugs were fun for several years
until I wised up and gave up.
Booze was fun too until
I stopped that as well.

Now I just sit at home and wonder
if I missed anything at all
not getting altered or changed
or even, you know, messed up
even a little on the substances.

In my current chair or state of grace
can’t imagine what it would still
be like to shut my eyes and wonder
if I what I saw when they were open
would compare at all to the sights
and noises when they were closed.

In my current state of grace or chair
I open my eyes to a state of flux
devoid of fantasy monsters
and heroes of daring and wonderment
and I wonder where they went;
I marvel at how quickly they disappeared;

I am surprised by the time I spend
not wishing for drugs, not longing for booze,
instead hoping and then hoping some more
for one anomaly to shake me up,
to carry me away.

My stunted and stiffened left hand and
my stronger but still-numbed right;
my feet walking clumsy until I stop
to adjust for two, three seconds and then
they fall away again, and I sigh
a touch angrily, a touch in panic;
this is how I get up in the morning,
this is how I spend my day.

I keep my eyes shut tight
for long minutes until it’s time
to take medicine — so much medicine,
so many drugs — and after those pills
are washed down I can’t talk for a bit,
can’t describe a thing or an event or
a moment, and this is how
I get up and move through the hours,
this is how I spend my day.

You folks reading this are bored, I’m sure.
That is no poem, you say. That is just a recital
of mundane details; that is just a retiree’s
and disabled’s details of a typical day.
You turn off to your own excitement,
to your ownership of exciting lives full of mystery
and derring-do, turn away from me with
dismissal, with a touch of contempt,
perhaps a little fear —

but you don’t know
how at night I fasten the breathing tube,
smear my ruined eyes with the magic cream;
how I wake up slowly in first light
to do it all again after moments of wondering
how different it won’t be, how different
memory is from day to day until
it settles upon itself; how amazing the stars
looked in dreams that seemed real enough —
this is how I begin and end my hours;
this is how I spend and spent my day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

No reason behind me,
no reason in front of me;
no reason anywhere, really,

at least none I can sense so
I ghost it,
ghost the reason;
I ghost it
the way I ghosted you
the last time I saw
you in my mirror;

I turned off, left you wanting,
turned away and vanished
like a — well, like a ghost,
like a fairy tale
or a nightmare; like
an advertising slogan I’d grown
weary of hearing.

The TV
is full of them now — ads
for this medication, that food
additive, that junk science
promising neurological wonderment
and dissipation of brain fog — eh,
what do they know? I sit in one cloud daily
counting second by second,
counting then not counting
seconds, then minutes, until at last
it’s been an hour — Christ,
has it been that long?
Are you still here?

My ghost, my gal, my guy;
my unknown being, or perhaps nothing
of the sort. I turned away long ago,
after all. I don’t know why you are still here
but you are; I can’t look away.

Maybe I’m the ghost now. Maybe
I depend on you to watch commercials
for me and then vanish — you do it this time,
you disappear and take all of this with you —
I’m afraid of the mist around them
and of the puff of something like smoke
I can’t see but is always pulling me in
toward them. So,
take me away. I beg you:
close my eyes,
take me, take me away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T