Harmonics

I always used to say,
“Someday,
I’ll look back at all this and laugh.”
“Someday,
I’ll wonder why I even cared.”

I don’t know if it’s Someday yet,
but I can already see
that those notions of eventual triumph
were more naive than the petty emotions
they were meant to overcome.

As I’ve drawn closer to the turgid purgatory of middle age
I’ve become increasingly certain,
that whichever maladies or malaises
are crawling around in my skull,
they’re following me into the grave.

Sometimes a silent surrender
is an invisible victory.

Sometimes balance
is the best umbrella.

The Pharaohs' Tomb

I know without any doubt,
that my childhood self would love
the person we’ve become–
of course he would,
my house is a
monument to his memory,
right down to the Star Wars bed-sheets.

Unfortunately the one of us
that’s actually alive
needs somewhat more than
a boxed copy of Battletoads to make him happy.

Sometimes being surrounded by
these cluttered walls feels like living
in the tomb of a postmodern child-king:
A Tut for the new millennium,
surrounded by hoarded treasures,
and enough entertainment to weather
the eternal afterlife of adulthood.

Roman Rooms

My survival is built
on an elaborate system of workarounds,
dams and bridges
criss-crossing my brain
like a second set of veins,
or a neural treasure map
with x’s marking the spots,
most marked by exes.

Still I find myself wandering,
in moments of fragility,
the twisting backroads
of memory.