I saw you.

full on stared at your frame, as you released her hand.

I saw you as your lips brushed lightly across her cheek.

The same lips that sang me love songs, spoke life, and healed scars.

The same lips that delicately placed on my forehead and reminded me I was yours.

I saw you.

Lace your fingers with hers and drawing her towards you moving them to the small of her back.

I saw you.

Your eyes were hungry for a stranger. Someone who wasn’t me.

I saw you.

Spin her around, hair following her motion, laughter and smile catching passing glances.

I saw you.

see me.

and then

unsee me.

In the deli glass.

I saw me.

All that glitters, isn’t gold.

and as for me.

I am free.

I missed it, the taste of cantaloupe and coffee in the morning.

The feel of whiskey as it slid past my tongue and burned my chest.

How the fog hovered over the bay like a grey cashmere blanket and the flickering feel of mist in tiny droplets on my skin.

The tingling sensation of skin and the shivers I would get from the slightest touch to the nape of my neck.

The deep breath after a long walk through the streets of the city, and the warm feel of oxygen that surged through my blood as I sat down to rest on a park bench.

All of those brilliant sensations of being alive, they were so tangible in the darkness. Like your favorite sad song coming to an end and the realization that your shirt is drenched with tears.

All the spectrums of light faded into memory as I flew away from the weight of my body. Surrounded only by the knowledge of rising upward towards something that seemed so familiar, so eternal. I no longer knew my name or the names of those I loved, only their faces, and the way they made me feel, and how devoutly and deeply I loved them.

Just a knowing and the weightless expanse of forgetting.

As it goes, I am here. Brought back to life by science and mankind’s fear of death. Wounded in the back of an ambulance, burdened by loud sirens and medics frantically screaming in my ear. That moment stands still in my memory. The look on their faces as I opened my eyes.

I smiled at them, my existence now a reflection of their accomplishments. “We thought we lost you!”

They did, they just didn’t understand, few people do.

I’ve been wandering the streets ever since.

Swallowing the world whole with my desire for all of the things I know I will miss.

He was there, really just as a joke.

The plastic lion toy in the fridge.

His purpose?

To scare my wife.

It was a ridiculous thing;

Entirely juvenile and sophomoric…

And that’s exactly why I loved it!

Just a chance to be a big kid.

It didn’t work, but it was fun-

Fun to make her laugh

When things have been so serious of late.

We needed that. We need more cold lions.

I saw a fly stuck between the window and the screen

buzzing around like a mindless lunatic,

then sitting still and waiting for a few seconds

only to buzz wildly again and again.

The rest between torrents of activity

was pointless and short;

waiting to regain its energy

for another sporadic buzzing session.

As I pondered the fly,

I realized I’ve been stuck in a waiting zone,

angry that I can’t buzz sporadically and pointlessly,

when perhaps I need to be okay with the resting,

and I looked at the fly again

and realized the sporadic, seemingly insane buzzing

is actually the most important thing in the universe,

the thing that gives life its meaning:

the struggle, the pursuit,

and then I saw the fly finally find

that tiny hole in the screen

and escape…

and buzz off into the infinite blue sky

to who knows where

to do who knows what

with who knows which other flies.

I turned away

and jested about the silliness of the fly

and I sat down to write a poem

but was unsuccessful.

When rejection has become the norm:

rejection from editors, publishers,

rejection from women,

rejection after rejection

from wife, from friends,

divorce and decay, sexless, loveless,

lifeless,

it’s impossible not to feel worthless,

small like a tiny insect

fighting for life in a hurricane,

clinging to a car windshield,

speeding down a highway

waiting to see

what finally does the squishing.

There are days when I look up,

and the sky gleams a fluorescent blue.

Diamond clouds dotting the expansive sky,

like chocolates on a cake.

There are days when I look up,

and the sky is torn in two.

Scarred by black burns and cut by thunder,

like remnants of a home.

The sun, quick in its escape, would hide.

and the clouds, despairingly abandoned, would cry.

The winds would pick up, cutting the mast,

leaving me adrift for days on end.

I found myself alone.

Clutching my small paper sides against the towering river walls,

with nothing for comfort but the quiet remembrance of the past.

The past of a childhood with simple pleasures,

jumping off the bus, running along the sidewalk, and heading home.

Before I knew it, the past was over, I had to go.

My parents had taught me that to exist was to ready my stern and set sail,

yet nobody had told me what laid beyond,

nobody had told me how to return.