familiar noose

martyrdom is such a guilty pleasure
especially when you
put yourself on a pedestal
for the proximity

you have to other people’s pain
you’re so predictable
with your use of crutches
they lied

when they told you
that people change grow
mature you’re still the same
timid boy

you’ve always been
somewhere in the middle you
discovered strategies to keep the madness at bay
music drink words

hard to decipher on tuesday nights
in november at midlife whether
these habits are swaths
of light guiding you through the encroaching

darkness or a familiar noose
don’t be so morbid
you will worry the people
who can’t know these poems are designed

merely to break the glass and dance on the shards
your childrens'
innocence can’t save you now
a reckless compass needle spinning

you don’t know how to say, you’re afraid
someone to keep you safe
no images or metaphor
feel adequate you were meant

to have found your bearings by now
empty glasses
years of bravado
songs you’ve still can’t play

a lifetime of feelings you’ll never name
expectant hopeful
these are the times we dreamt about
all of your empty spaces

allowed to creep and occupy
a pit of ashes before they float away