Homefront\/Battlefront

Homefront

Emotional Rx (prescribed)

My emotions fill like water in a cup—

overflowing.

Their addiction is that of cocaine—

content.

Their power is uncontrollable—

expanding.

Their destruction is a decaying flower—

morose.

I am but the shell in which feelings fester.

Until I am the cup

holding that flower

that is uncontrollable

under the influence of cocaine.

Walden

Thoreau once said to

live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

So when I carved out my heart

and used it as an inkwell

dipping my boney fingers in blood

to write with my emotions

I forgot I no longer had a heart...

Fast Forward To The End

She said it wasn't fair

that I wasn't even there

as I became an

absentee ballot

absentee father

absentee husband.

My lack of presence

feeling like that of a ghost

omnipresent yet

discerningly memorialized

through flickering lights

or static on a screen

that I was not there to fix.

The time

spent

used

collected

missed

were but moments

solidified by a clock

I could not bear witness to.

Second hands that trembled

like shackles on a skeleton

hour hands that drifted

like a canoe on a stream

there would be a limit

a length separated by links

a path guided by rocks

where I would reach

only the things I'd already missed.

There I'd be

at the finish line

with arms outstretched

like chewed up gum

being pulled from my mouth