The Lichen

A life lead with no sense of spirit
No perceived responsibility or sense of duty
Gratification at every turn, pleasing only me.
Yet knowing every answer to the Real Questions
I am my hypocrite, I am my doing as I say, not as I do.
I am equally vain and ashamed
I am confounding contradiction
After confounding contradiction
Artfully brazen, eager to leap
Socially introspective, risk averse
I am a fat man and an athlete
I am of this world and still spiritual
I am longing for love yet feel unloveable
I am a good man, and a conniving man
Depending on who you ask
I am oft taken advantage of
Yet equally a user of others for my gain
I am selectively moral,
Equally accountable to myself
And dismissive of my transgression
I should teach no one anything
Yet want to share wisdom
I am partly ever present
And never fully wandered
I am 6 hours of sleep
Deprived yet refreshed
Functional
I am not 8 hours
Nor am I 4 hours
I am broke, with no assets
Yet I own the highest quality goods
I could ever want
I am punctual
Except when I am not
I'm the one who doesn't vote
Yet rails against both candidates
I am a stickler for not accepting charity
Yet I seek it when I need something
I am talented and also very average
Deeply troubled
Yet mentally stable
I am my Mother
And most definitely my Father
Without the separation of the two
I am fortunate and guided by Grace
Yet always learn the hard way
I am every 5 out of 10 person you'd ever meet
Who feels there's an ocean of depth that makes me a 9
A life of karmic understanding
And gross abuse
I am 18
And 42
All at once
I am 2012
And 1983
Nature and nurture
In a perfectly flawed
Symbiosis.

Operation Reclamation Realization

I look back at months ago
And it's this awkward hypnosis
Set in motion from spatially sitting
In the same place as before
(Some attempts at reclamation are futile)
I get sucked inward
To that alternative universe
Of what might have been
Or occurred
And the prospect of what happened
And how it happened
And what it would have taken.
An intangible dizziness
A cross of unrealistic yearning
And realistic thankfulness
That it never really was supposed to work out.
It's like a real-life time/space portal
The rain falls
Outside the Cafe
While I plod away with pen and paper
Pumping in music through my earphones
Feeling desperate
That everything was at stake.
Hopped on caffeine
Muscles ache from the constant exertion
This isn't my favorite cafe
But it is it's most genuine self
And for that I glance past
The shitty drinks
The worst
And the lack of outlets to keep my devices full of juice
Normal people come here
Make phone calls here
Do homework here
And to them
I am writing some kind of notes for class
Or writing a grocery list
And what a list it is!
My soul gets borne
In these cafes on Third Avenue
My own soap opera
-if only it were that truly interesting!-
Playing out in my mind
And today it's a clip show
Montages of the mayhem
That ensued
I feel I'm at the end of the pilot season
And our protagonist has made
Drastic Changes
And many, many more to come.
Thank God for friends that give me things
Books, etc.
because I learned the inefficiency
Of residing in the portal
And I instead snap myself out of it
Feel the rosiness of my cheeks
The softness of my fleece
The sizzle of over-steeped tea
From a different barista than before.
Maybe we aren't meant to reclaim all the locations
Maybe they were never ours to begin with.

I wonder if the sum total
Of what I've done to others
Is to blame
For all the rapid change?
How an outward morph
Spirals inward
Into intangible?
My mind is but a product
Of my outward self
At 317: entirely self-serving
Over-compensating
Lazy
At 235:
Now concerned
In paying in karma.
Moreover
I struggle with a
Not-so-unnatural
Case of Vanity
BUT YOU ARE NOT DONE, sir.

I refuse to get sick.
No amount of hot/cold
Cold/hot transition
Will shake my resolve.
No season change
No breathing, hacking
8-year-old,
No readings of posts
About sore throats
Callings out of work
Or warm forehead sensations
Will wear down
My defenses.
I refuse to get sick
And when I move
And move all day,
It's not possible.

New Ones

I had a picture of what it would be like
If I moved back home in the spring
I'd get a job, and a downtown apartment
And we'd find a place for your things

It's eating away at me
All those moments alone
When I'm drunk and I'm hopeless and weak
It's eating away at me
I'm incomplete.

I had an idea of what it feel like
When all of my plans had been set
I'd sing you songs while you cooked me lasagna
And I'd kiss that spot on your neck

It's eating away at me
When the woman I'm with
Doesn't make me feel quite as at peace
It's eating away at me
I'm incomplete.

Well, this ain't a turning around
This ain't a lost and found
So look me in the eye and tell me why
(JS/JR)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time
We knew what our love was for
Before we melted down our hearts
And turned them into tools of war

Too much black and white together
We've turned it all to grey
So take all the blurs and shadows
From the words that I say
That I say

Lover, please stand down
There's no more fight in me now

Our voices are so cold and lonely
Somewhere down the wire
So I'm calling cross the field
Baby hold your fire
Your fire

Lover, please stand down
There's no more fight in me now
Lover, please stand down
There's no more fight in me now

Someone's got blood on their hands
Someone's got blood on their hands
And I don't understand
We don't understand

Lover, please stand down
There's no more fight in me now
(JS/AM/LF)