Forgetfulness shot sour
can be bitter to my bones
--Hit me.

and fatal to the heart
--Again.

attack the blood stream like a disease
turn me blue, weathered, bruised
Or into an animal who has been humiliated
left without tribe, a morsel of pride to feast on
to burn slowly without struggle

the pillow is spectacular
red and raw in color

the walls sit as blank as eyes
--mesmerized
by the savage sounds of a punctured organ
drawing darkness

Want and need sit like two devils
Pinned to my shoulders
but today they are one in the same
Furious and hopeful all at once

Please prove me wrong.

I descend,
fall!

laughter spikes then staggers
into silence

where are the guests?

the balloons, the gifts?
indiations of today being a special occasion
a happy one.

blood is thicker than water but memory
will outlast our bones
and the bad ones burn more than you think

I should have sensed this
seen the clouds
Don’t get excited
this will be just like the year before and the year before that
it never changes
and the cloud never wavers

it sits like lead on your shoulder
a burden to take with you to the next life

Or perhaps it will dissolve into ash

Rebirth will take the shape of a blank wall
uncluttered and free of longing for
something
that is more than what it is

Lao tzu’s uncarved block

To be nothing
is to be everything

the tree bending in the wind
but never surrendering

Yet perhaps the bright side to this is
In the absence of celebration
I will never grow old
and this defining milestone
will wear out like an old shoe discarded in a waste bin
never to be seen again
under mountains of rubble and other regrets
where passion goes to die

Here the lonely spirit will not be amplified
and love will sustain
like a clear note running forth through water
sailing towards a slit in the sky
to a void as large as my mind

white, bright
and
spotless.