Gone

I went to bed one day and realized that it was gone.

All that pain.

All that hurt, anger, insecurity, jealousy, ugliness.

It didn't happen overnight, but I just realized it one night. I actually felt like I had been telling myself I should feel all along. It's amazing when those things you tell yourself and the reality actually do match up.

The only weird thing is that I feel like I am missing something. I feel like an amputee. That gangrened limb is finally gone (thank god), but still...it was a part of me.

Don't worry, it's just the ghost pains now.

This lonesome feeling

I'd make a song of, if I knew how.
That's what JC Oates said to me.
And this empty feeling
I'd make a poem of, if I knew how.
That's what I said to you.

but instead of writing singing or crying thinking or running fucking I just maintain. sort through open bins of precious jewels, sink my fingers deeper in and choose which ones would shine when hanging around my plump neck, imagine myself like that, then put them all back and walk away. write lines and plot meter and verse, then control-a, delete, walk away. out on the street corner, pawning my eyes for a pack of hubba-bubba gum, please sir anything helps, god bless. walk away. truth is, between you and me, it's not tragic or happy or anything like that. the truth is that there are appointments to keep and to not keep, there are things to do and to not do, and everything else gets lost in between. truth is, between you and me, you aren't even there anymore. but that's okay because i think i am gone too. i wonder which one of us left first.

the sun has come out now and it's time to go.

i am leaving, clutching onto those few words and holding them close to my breast. i bring them to my mouth and gasp like a diver gasps for those first few breaths of air. those few words, unsaid, but not unknown.

what were they again?

that was a joke.
i can't forget.

Great Divide

In the canyons of the great divide
Familiar places
that we can run and hide
Are filled with strangers
Walking in our houses alone

In the great divide
Nothing to decide
No one else to care for or love
In the great divide
You won't fit in too well

On the horses of the carousel
She rides alone with you and me
She rides like she knows
Wherever she goes, we'll be there

On the carousel
Life is going well
Anyone can tell, we're in love
On the Carousel
You're gonna like the way you feel

You and I we got caught down there
In the twisted canyons
of the great divide
We walked the floor
Now we don't go there anymore

In the great divide
Nothing to decide
No one else to care for or love
In the great divide
You don't fit in too well

In the great divide
Nothing to decide
No one else to care for or love
In the great divide
You won't fit in too well