It caught his attention
Like a shot in the distance.
The realization that it
Was finally over,
Overwhelmed him
Like the Sun moving
Across the daytime sky.
Slowly but,
With each moment
Passing, he gets
A little bit warmer.

Life is comfortable
In this well-deserved,
Aptly named,
Lazy chair.
Just sitting there
Waiting to be sat.

The next item
On this list of things
To-do and done:
"Toss out list"
With not a box
To be checked.

Swimming in a lazy daydream ocean,
Fed by a nine-hour tributary
Of nightly rest.
I now toss and turn in my head
And rock on my chair's hind legs
--My draft animal in bearing this load
Of my increasingly fatter ass.

Contented in my life,
I feel I've lost my drive.
Many muscles atrophied,
It's that time of the year
To get back up and ride.

Try again, with my new friend
In shaping something better.
Let's live healthier
And breathe happier.
Bask in this new atmosphere
With a little bit of haze
To block out the Sun
And give us some shade.

Great, Now My Other Ear Is Bleeding

Chained to this chair I sit
A junkie needing a fix for life.
Zoning into the soft blue horizon
With a thousand-yard stare,
Wishing with an itchy trigger-finger
That I could get my nerve up,
But frankly
I've had enough.

Wanting to bash my brains in
With this naked wall taunting
Me with its simplicity
Being fine with being barren.
But with my mashed up skull
I can pick through the bits of matter
And find the meaning like a jigsaw,
Putting together piece and piece
Getting the picture.
Finding connections with everything
Out in the open.

Buyer's Remorse

            When the shit was cleaned up, the blood wiped off, and the screaming had ceased, he got a good look at the little thing that came out of his wife. Newborns are never a pretty sight, the product of pain dancing with an epidural in the midst of crisis—Nero playing his anachronistic fiddle while Rome is up in smoke. However, he could just tell, this baby is going to be ugly, and will probably remain ugly. Such an assumption he begrudgingly made with guilt shooting through his chest.

            He asked himself how this could happen. His wife and him were by no means ugly people, coming from beautiful stock of ancestors with symmetrical features. This infant was the third begat from their union. Each sibling prior came out in a backdrop of glories, with angel trumpets, and cherub banners. Beautiful babies who will get by on talent and their looks. He loved their potential, speculating on the future. Yet, as much as he wished, and as hard as he tried, he didn’t think he could love this child in the same regards as its predecessors. Was he this shallow? He thought he wasn’t, but his dismay slowly grew into contempt with enough sunlight and water.

            Doctors and Nurses were congratulating him on such, “a beautiful baby.” Smug, lying, motherfuckers he thought of them. They were probably in the hallway snickering, while his wife was half-delirious in the relief from pain. The physicians knew he was going to provide for this child, keep it sustained in a world already competitive in over-population, like it was some sick joke. It couldn’t just be his eyes that were seeing this. He wished for his wife to be of able mind so he could say, “Look honey, look at this disgusting thing that came out of you,” but she was too relieved to think straight, so she saw double, swimming in hazy thoughts. And there he stood with this child he did not think he could love, rejected before it made any controversial life decisions. This wasn’t just some phase. Sometimes ugly ducklings grew into swans, but swans could be just as ugly.

We're those things that go bump in the night.

Adults talking in the other room, making decisions
---The ones that shape your life while you're trying to sleep.

Those twentysomethings humping, smashing hipbones
After shaking them to a beat with the backing of alcohol.

Teenagers sneaking in late, waking the dog who's glassy-eyed
And intrigued by the scent of your marijuana and beer scented pores.

Kids sneaking downstairs on Christmas morning long before dawn,
Creaking on that one wooden step, as they shift their weight on the tips of toes.

Cats knocking over the butter, and breaking the dish on the floor.
Drops, leaps, and counter-top bounds knocking around noise in the kitchen.

Shadows back-lit by the midnight snack housed in the refrigerator,
Pickle jars and beer bottles clinking and yawning.

Keep that noise down, people are trying to sleep.
Mute those night terrors.