Daniel Thomas

I read until the sun did fall, the light it stole from me,

The last, glimmering beams

Shone through trees so tall,

Their bases I could not see.

.

But as I rose, and moved up-ground,

More light did fall on me.

And made me think,

This light, it was not thieved.

.

It merely moved to share its warmth,

To those I could not see.

.

And right it was to spread

It’s warmth; selfish was I being.

So as it fell again from me,

I turned to you and said,

.

“Though you are gone, I understand,

Taken not you were from me.

A life was then born in your stead,

And peace, this brings to me.”

A sample of strong stimulants
courses through my veins, my brain;
and moves with an ironic latency
that I can’t explain or name.

Sniff, snort, slurp, sip, shit;
This can’t be it.
My mind still ticks and flicks,
from thought to thought.

No, no, where’s the calm,
concentrated clarity I sought?
All for naught. I sit and stare,
and wonder when and where.

I might find a place or time-
A place. A time. To call my own,
To be my chess, Check Mate;
I take my prize, forget the whys,
Reclaim my guise.

I’m far to real; too real?
Plain like Jane, no need to know
my name, what claim
to fame can I proclaim?

No, no, not me,
too much just to be;
Be what? I cut
Myself apart; distraught,
Lost for want

Passion does not find me
in times of Sorrow,
which claims all of my tomorrows.
No point, this joint;
I smoke

So now, no matter how hard I try,
this cliche I ride, on the wave
of simple words that rhyme,
sometimes. Wait. This shit
has got to stop.

You must be bored; my words
seem inadequate to describe.
Any significance you can derive,
can’t possibly be of assistance,
to finding the lost Meaning,
that is, Paranoia.

I depreciate. Far too late
to reclaim my pride;
Pride? Pride.
Pride, ha.

But I’m a Fool, afraid to try.
Failure is my only Fear,
and thus, I sit and stare,
at this glare, in my eyes.

And this brings me to my
Demise.

This one’s for the paranoids

Trying to fill the voids

That come when the religion

Of connectedness crumbles around them

.

When the climax of their lives

Comes not from the climax of their body

But from he acceptance of the anti

A perception so heartless

that so few bear to maintain it

Less their hearts have seized

To beat in time with their time

.

For the Slothrops, the Odeipas

The Bokonons, Pavolovians

The Hughes, and Nashes

The Orwells and Huxleys

.

For those who ask why a road leads to another

For those who take it anyway

For those who think about what should

What would, what could

have happened.

.

This one’s for the hypocondriachs

And the disease that aattacks

Without looking back on the mess it has made

In the brain of the one

they have touched

.

The WebMd’s of the scene

Thats so extreme and obscene

Seethed with irony

of that paranoid dream

That we all could be

connected.

There’s something about the darkness that I never quite understood.

When I was young it was simply petrifying. If the bulb in my nightlight went out, I would scream for my mother to come back into my room. The idea of the closet door being left ajar was appalling.

I kept the nightlight far past the “normal” age. The fear of what might come from the deepest corners of my closet was crippling. Eventually, the adolescent society that defined this normalcy came in, and effectively ushered out the era of the nightlight. I couldn’t possibly admit at the age of twelve that I was still afraid of the dark. The only thing worse was to still believe in Santa Claus. But, nonetheless, afraid I was.  

So in the darkness I would lay, peering out from behind the covers, waiting for the closet door to open. Slowly, but surely, time passed and no zombies, ghosts, or other monsters of the deep came to claim my life. I found peace, or at least rest.

But now, the darkness still consumes me, though this time, from a closet of different sorts. Inside, there is a door, and that door is locked up tight, with a padlock of fear, and a chain lock of shame. This time it’s different, for I know what is inside, but I fear for Its escape. For when It comes out of the closet, It will infect my mind and poison my thoughts. It wages war on my identity; It sheds the blood of my insecurity; It molests my inadequacy.

So now when darkness comes, I do not hide under the covers or yell for the aid of my mother. I just shut my eyes real tight, and hope that sleep, or death will take me, before the Darkness.

Sitting.

Feeling words

That run through me

Sitting.

Feeling.

Sitting words

That sit in me

Feeling.

Strong drinkers,

Deep thinkers,

Mind tinkers.

Life’s absurd,

Minds are blurred.

Thoughts incurred.

It’s illogical

Almost mythological

It’s the way that I say

What I mean, it’s obscene

I dream big.

I talked the talk

But never walk the walk

I can’t help but obsess

About the mess I’ve made

These thoughts I’ve saved

These things I’ve done

To become, whoever

I am.

Whoever I was, was I before

So insecure

I wish

it would

go slow.

But I know what I know,

Which is that I can go back.

I am here.

I often find myself in the same place,

But I rarely am in the same place,

Finding myself.

There is no place for me to go

Wherein a lens of clarity is prescribed

Like candy for a child.

Like xanax for a housewife.

It’s the same feeling that we feel

      It has no name.

For that is exactly what it is.

    It had no name.

It’s an ode to Deprecation,

Deprecation of myself,

The self I haven’t found

Might as well be

              In the ground.

I have no power

I have no skill

Except that I

Know all that I

Don’t know.

I feel all that I

Can’t feel.

I see all that I

Can’t see.

I long all that I

Can’t have.

Anything.

And yet I sit

Audacious- to be kind-

Claiming definitions

Of an existence

I hardly understand

So who am I to talk to you?

So who am I say whats true?

Who am I to use these words?

Who am I to feign a clue,

Of what this means, of who I am

Of what is right, I’m overdue

In saying anything meaningful to you

Might as well be an ingénue

For all I am, for all I know,

I know not nothing

there is to know.

So here I sit, alone, again

Never listen to my words

Again.

I was back home, I guess. There are places and people I remember, but few that I long for again. Driving in the same friends’ cars, going the same places this town has to offer: the basement or den of a friend, or worse, an acquaintance; and that looming knowledge that wherever I go, there may be a person to make me remember my feeling of insignificance in this place. It’s the drab basements, filled with damp, sodden, furniture and mismatched décor; these places we seek to feign independence, inside our parents’ homes. My juvenile tendencies begin to resurface as I realize how blatantly I am dependent upon falseness. Lying about where I am and where I’m going. Buying cigarettes and simultaneously filling my tank. The Febreeze and cologne in the car. The use of the high school as my own personal “park and ride.” Rolling joints in the confines of a car lain with ash, in the same parking lot where the “popular” kids used to drink their “Bud-heavies” and toss around a football, claiming their territory under the brush of the trees hanging over the far side of the lot. When I think about it now, I’m glad I wasn’t one of them. They are all stuck; stuck in the “glory days” of High School, stuck thinking it was the best time of their lives. Maybe it was. But now they live on, merely reminiscing in days spent in parking lots that won’t remember their names, or faces. Their footprints upon the pavement have seen many others before them. Though the ground may have seen them on winter days, when boots would leave imprints compacting on the fluffy white snow, or on spring days when the rain has passed, trudging through puddles, leaving behind a wet shoe stain, erased by the warmth of the summer sun. The parking lot absorbs the imprint of your soles. All that remain are the memories you hold, and your own two feet, longing to leave a footprint that will last.