Post Published: October 30, 2022

Artful fantasies these were

the decrepit diseases, receipts stained

by coffee and ash, a few dried

and caked-on remains of last night’s

trash activities

Alas,

we could never throw them out,

our printed records, the digitized scans

from wartime heartaches,

our birthright pains, the damage we caused,

what we endured, our psychic sprains

We could not, should we?

Maybe, but we would not forget

from what and where and whom we came

For this was us:

The whole family, gang-gang,

the demi-god squad, the screwed crew,

the dour-pathed kids

with their endless gifts and talents,

forever connected by self-imposed

isolation, left alone and trekking on

the barren canvas of adulthood to peace

together this patchwork quilt,

sporadically matching, in fleeting dings,

for dramatic dust-ups and terribly-timed,

deliriously romanticized flings

But no matter

what may come, or who goes,

which shoe drops and shatters the glass,

that wastes the wine, we’ll be fine and

haunted still with the knowing sewn into our skins,

an irretrievable link to all that’s gone on,

our maiming marked in permanent ink,

that our inside faces don’t belong

in the masked-mandated new world,

So show them whoever,

write and paint and dance

and sing your song just as long

as you always remember this is it,

your lot in life

and dream and cry and lie all you want,

run and hide and drink and swallow your pride,

but you will carry this guilt

and only the Moon or Fate can ever decide,

for us in the end,

we are only waiting staff to the real artist.

And we never actually get to quit.

June 10, 2021

Tell me what you think before we both die