When I was a boy,
I saw a man with an eye patch.
I looked at mom and asked,
“Is that man a pirate?”

“No.” Said my mother,
Pirates are not real.
I needed to know, what was this man’s deal.
So I walked up and asked him.

“Are you a pirate?”
The man gave a boisterous laugh,
And slapped his knee, jiggling his calf.
“No my son, I am not a pirate.”

“Did you lose your eye in the war?”
The man let out a soft breath,
Perhaps he had seen, the commodity of death.
“No my son, I was not in the war.”

“I know what it is!
You didn’t wear safety glasses.”
Thinking back to my woods classes.
“No, boy.  I have never done the craft.”

I finally gave up.
“Well what was it then?”
With the wisdom of wise men,
The man replied-

“I never had my right eye.
It has never been there.
Life is not fair.
We do not all start equal.”

I suddenly felt a slight guilt.
I had overstayed my welcome,
Something I do seldom.
I apologized and shuffled away.

This man was used to the cruel words
Of young boys who mean nothing.
Their words are shallow, and forthcoming.
Even when they are not wanted.

Nonetheless, I learned something that day.
Life is not fair,
But I didn’t care.
Because for me, it was.

The lighting in the bar is,
Darker than the street.
People hide their faces,
As they shuffle their feet.

The drinks blur their vision,
Tell them lies about reality.
Until they wake up in prison.
Just for playing the game.

The prison of the head,
Is full of inmates, yet no guards.
You’d much sooner be dead,
Then feel the rattle of your cell.

As if you have an option.
The warden is not your mind but your tongue.
Between water and whiskey, you choose toxin.
By now, it’s habit.

This drug shoots through my body.
It makes my muscle movements, shoddy.
My skin itches, my bones tingle.
Yet this is completely legal.

I can’t go to the gym without it.
This concoction, I cannot quit.
It gives me strength and focus,
While making feel like a Crocus.

Slender and strong, yet weak.
Motivated, yet past my peak.
Looking back on the day when,
I was young and thin.

Caffeine is my nicotine.
Mixed with a little protein.

A deer gallops through the suburb.
Untouched, yet out of place.
She pants and smells every herb.
This is not her usual space.

The unfamiliar coddles her,
She feels almost safe in this cut and paste.
What to make of it, she is not sure.
She only knows she feels no haste.

There is no gunshots,
Only the sound of a falling pin
This place of still robots.
She does not fit in.

Melancholy is my state of mind.
In my mind mania is what you find.
On the outside I’m collected.
Organized and well connected.

I’m tall, yet built.
Forgiven, filled with guilt.
Fat, yet thin,
With very pale skin.

People seem to like me.
So why don’t I like me?
In the advertisement age,
I see what I should be,
On the front page.

We lie to ourselves to get by.
We say that we want to die.
Shouldn’t that be a clear sign of strife?
When our society would choose death over life.

Yet I understand.
The call of the void touches us all.
Death is not a blessing.
It is a curse.

When I’m older, I’ll make the rules.
This is a quote of fools.
As children we think adulthood,
Will actually being something good.

What we don’t know,
Is that things don’t go,
The way that we plan,
When working for the man.

Do you really make the rules?
Or does your job work like schools?
Show up at this time,
Do your work and you’ll be just fine.

You don’t make the rules,
You follow them.

I’m laying on the floor,
Three feet from my bed.
Wondering if there was more,
That could have been said.

I think I’ll sleep here tonight.
I’ll grab that bottle, it warms to the bone.
If I had said sorry, then I might,
Not be sleeping alone.

The ground is cold,
Her words were ice.
My feelings were once more untold.
So I take a sip of the cinnamon spice.

And drift slowly into sleep.

The train’s whistle screeched,
As it came into the station.
It was time to say goodbye.
Time to end youth’s vacation.

Johnny was heading to Nashville,
To fulfill his mother’s dream.
He only had two things,
A guitar, and one suitcase, crocodile green.

Both were gifts from his grandpa.
Johnny knew that old guitar
And that ratty green suitcase,
Would someday take him far.

He said goodbye to mama.
And looked down at his ticket.
Birmingham to Nashville.
He felt odd, just a bit.

Johnny didn’t really want to go.
His mother was living through him.
He was raised vicariously.
This faded dream of fame, was not for him.

He wanted simplicity.
He wanted the daring life of nine to five.
He wanted two boys and one girl.
He wanted only one car to drive.

But parents push their lost dreams
Onto their children.
Much like those before them,
The grand parent’s generation.

That guitar had made this trip twice before.
The suitcase had been stowed on this very train.
Both came back harmed.
Bruised by the harsh life of failed fame, and lonely pain.

Johnny sat in his seat.
Knowing, that when he had kids,
He would raise them differently.
He was wrong.

Fastened from a broken home,
He thinks he has nowhere to run to.
Like a puppet in a show,
He is only there to entertain.

Entertainment.
If that’s what you call it.
Around here, the only entertainment
Is solidarity containment.

Left alone to his thoughts,
He has but two options.
He can pull that smooth trigger,
Or take another sharp swigger.

Perhaps he’ll hunt in the morning.
He doesn’t know what for.
Maybe for a moose.
Maybe for a noose.

He sleeps in instead.
Too hungover to put any pressure on his head,
He walks into the kitchen,
And smells something to feel again.

It’s the smell of his coffee.
He grabs a cup.
He takes a sip of that bitter revival.
And tries another day, at this survival.