digging up, towards the dying sun

and

every

last one of

us an emotional cripple,

and that none of the gods we

profess to believe in

ever really seem to

give a shit

thirty years of

suicides and overdoses, of

rapes and beatings and runaway children,

and tell the truth

did you feel anything other than

relief after mary’s abortion?

were you trying to figure out if

you still had enough cash to

get the windows tinted?

or fuck that

maybe it’s time to

head out to california,

find maria,

live on the beach

maybe it’s time to tell your

father what an asshole

he was

tell him how glad you are

that he’s dead

wait to feel whatever pain he’s

still willing to cause you

at this late date

the failure you imagine is never as terrible as the one you become

but here in the season of the resurrection and

one hundred thousand miles away from

those rooms where diego was busy fucking

frida’s sister, we wake up to snow

we wake up to blood on the sheets and the

image of christ etched into the frost that films

the bedroom window, but what good are

miracles when the transmission is shot?

how far into the forest do we have to

walk until we’re truly free?

all of these circular goddamn questions

that i save for the drowning boy only to

realize too late that he was dead long

before i was ever born

[the band in heaven, they play my favorite song; play it one more time,  

play it all night long]

thinking about death, or maybe

not thinking about much at all

breathing

driving to work and then,

eight hours later,

driving back home

and it’s one way of living,

sure,

but it’s not a life

it’s killing time

it’s drowning

on dry land

you panic a little at first,

but it gets easier

with time