the poltergeist of quarter-life crises washed ashore tonight
searching for quarter, life, a coroner, sight, and other mortal blights
rearview recorder psychic, a moralizing hoarder of “I wish”
morbid magi of peripheral sleight – fortified as my cornea’s pilot
he scythes,writhing into my mind – his unmooring asylum
lording the lines blinding my cortex from its hippocampus –
his grip is tantric – bordering tyrant. holding me tight I listen in panic
As he whispers me a melody: a prisoners anthem
“Kid, understand your glistening plans for the future are sinking in quickening sand,
Give into demands, get your hands on some lucre, crash then maneuver permission to land.”
He finished and vanished, residual shadows still ringing in echoes
To cling or to let go?
The epitaph of my past
Memories sting till they get cold
The final laps of my lapse
To be forgetful – on purpose
Forget what piety has purchased
And refunded, a merchant’s
Only good as his ending budget
So fuck it
Sometimes I get racked with nostalgia – paralysis
Anxiety from tryin to see if the past exists –
In the present moment, I’ve never spoken truer thoughts than to say I’m destined to be broken
I’ll never be as open as this, a ghost that persists to live
Can I have some validation? Can I get some witnesses?
The veneer of my experiences is golden, a worthy crown
That shines bright enough to show the wrinkles forming from my furrowed-brow
To turn around or burn it down – another potential eulogy
I used to be half the man I wished I was, now I wish I was half the man I used to be
It’s foolery, I know. I’ve traded callowness for callouses
Hallowed rest for hollowness; what happened to my palaces?
(For the love of god don’t mention happiness)
In my analysis: The past exists. I hold it in focus till it’s real to me
in doing so I block out everything in immediacy
to live there just a little more, feel the wilderness of hope and excitement –
And fear. The moments I felt closest to life when
My reflection beamed so bright it eclipsed any cynicism
The adolescent confidence that birthed electricity from indecision
I wanna go back, please let me go back,
to when the winds and the waves were the soundness in my sleep.
Before I felt the weight of the ground beneath my feet
The Finite Life 