Coated

Syrup through which your throat can no longer painfully hack
Cat fur tickle still there penetrating consciousness
Marked, what is still there under drug induced comfort
Like any medicinal utopia that numbs:
Sinuses -- or in my case -- mind
And I never really forget you, the tickle in the back of my throat
Like a cocaine drip, or too much Ritalin
Crushed up in a spoon or with a credit card
Mixed with sugar and water unless a low-carb diet requires
That it go up a nostril. But back to ny-quil
Just as good, but safer. Leaves all those chemicals
Up there, where they were -- same thing really:
Still feel bad and just don't know it
Courageous efforts to fix me undaunted because
I really like this legal high that I disbelieved
For so long. Liberating dependence upon a will
That is not mine and a cough that won't go away.
Dec. 28, 1999

Breakwater

Sometimes I hate her; I wish her away
Just too much to drink, but that's that
And I'm already on my way
Back to my prison where she keeps me
With funds and hopes without
Regard for genius in the family
There can't be two. I think about
All my aspirations, to accomplish but
Where is the line drawn between
Mine and theirs? Worn out, drawn out
Kicked out. No one on which to lean.
What can I kick on my floor tonight?
I'm too tired tonight, Christmas, to put up a fight.
Dec. 26, 1999

Faces

Are they all avoiding controversy just as I seek it?
Do those taking medicines for their fears of others
Want to offer me some so I'll break away?
I chose to surround myself with more like you.
I need them to be me. Wondering where I hope to
Attend the new lives I've created for each of you.
Tomorrow your nose will be different,
Tomorrow
Your father will create a new you because you haven't
Done it yet. Faced with a choice, would you make
This one? With no choice, I know I would. Your
School picture stares happily, blankly at my face as
I type, and I visualize the new you, the improved you,
As I wish I could improve myself. The easy way out.
This is as everything is. Money and opportunity. Never
Inspiration or drive, you don't need those things to
Become better between everyone crowded around.
What will they believe at school? What do you want
Them to believe, and how can I follow?
Dec. 17, 1999

Empty Suitcase

I'm suffocating as I'm sitting here
And she just walked upstairs to find
You because you called to her.
I want you to call to me and not
Leave the country or my heart
Behind because a part of me
Really likes the dislocating spiral
Your desperate, deliberate, difficulty
Sent me down. Without warning
And after denial and before I
Could disagree or displace it all
And now its gone anyway. I felt
It last night, and the day before.
Usually that's what happens when
There was nothing there to begin with
Except for lust and loneliness.
Dec. 15, 99

8:00 Wed. Evening

Battered brain lumbers to auditorium A
Social constructions and missed rendezvous
Mixed because my head is separating terms
20 hours depleted by food and the telephone
never enough. 42 hours without
depletion
insanity. True, the point of surrender
drops quickly
Dec. 8, 1999

Semester

Dave Matthews disrupts the quiet
Which is necessary to study, much like avoiding a kiss
My mind is frantic like a riot
Because I want to stay with you and reduce our abyss
The snow covers all of the barren trees
And I will miss you during more snows, delayed until June
I feel a shudder in my knees
Holding on, lengthening this short night, knowing that soon
Your life will form crystal
Shining in a new life with new classes and new people in a London bar
You've cocked the hammer of a pistol
To temporarily wound the life with Preoccupations over which your heart has brooded
Now there is too little time, I've concluded.
Dec. 7, 1999