Odysseus - or - Villanelle Unbroken

Hold on for one day more.
The waves are wrought with chance
that I may touch the shore
and scatter kisses,
Sore across your patient glance.
Hold on for one day more.
I steer this plank-wood floor within the night.
A dance that I may touch the shore you guarded.
Once before,
sharp masts shot cannon lance.
Hold on for one day more this love of loss.
This lore,
which suffocates romance.
That I may touch the shore and learn of decades,
four gone, wasted in a trance.
Hold on for
one day more
that I may touch the shore.

argh ar! ehr! Stupid playwrite muddafukkas!
why can't I screeeeeeee
am.
Why?
Blastid bullshit blarney pre-cognitive
selfish.
We are all far too selfish.
If I weren't me,
I would pity me.
I would pity everything I'd ever thought I might be.
[pity pity pity pity]
Sounds like I might be
If only I were
does everything think I'm
crazy?
no, they love me. They all love me.
I'm so glad I've met the persona of
my drudging. she's sweet,
and cute.
I pretend sometimes we might belong to classifications other than
alive.
But we don't.
We don't belong.

Selfish,
blubbering idiots.
And the like.
Presence becomes
to us
post-occupation. What
was I left with? Value
the brutal honesty stuffed in to
compliments and kindness and
pasted-around passed-up.
Quit making up meaning.
Start prescriptions with,
"All we've ever become is a
transition between birth
and true wisdom"
But truly believe.

I owed you one.

If i was beautiful,
like cherries and their blossoms, would
it matter? Not much belongs
inside these arms. Not much.
But yet, can't we stop reaching for something
other than our occupation?
So fulfilling in vivid essence.
There is a plant in her living room
that once wilted,
but grew upwards again.
She had given up on the sun.
Became a believer.
What could be the word for trying so
hard you would
forgive your mistakes?
Monopathic?
Telesition?
Renaissance belongs
in books and lectures.
New starts belong
in fairy tales and pop culture.
Not me.
Not here.
Not without blood,
spilled across
an imagination so ignorant
it couldn't understand
lessons learned.
But what is it? A poem?
pardon me for the attempt.

Act 1

That night when I drove home,
it was foggy, and I was stoned.
So, at a pace of one-stop-light an hour.
I put in Notorius BIG and started writing
a movie about you.
It started with a close-up of your ears.
Zooming out to show they were small, like your nose.
Then,
it transitions to a scene where I
watched you scratch your neck for 23 seconds.
The whole plot line centered around the fact
that I don't know how to talk to you.
At least about this.
And is this why art really exists?
Too many people scared to speak
about what they think.
Well then don't think.
Feel.
I'm writing this to tell you I do.
I feel.
Like the cracks in your smile.
I'm writing you this to tell you I have patience
like starlight.
I'd wait a million years
just to catch your eye one night.
Keep looking.
The thought of love must be enough
to keep trying.
Why am I still writing?
I don't know who this poem is about, anymore.
Was Michaelangelo's next big accomplishment
to chisel nesting crescents into the moon?
Was the chapel not enough of an "I Love You"?
Edward Leedskalnin was just five feet tall.
After his fiance left, he spent the rest of his life
moving 56 tons of coral in the dead of night
to build a castle that would
be fit for his queen.
She never came back.
Why am I still writing?
Is it to find you?
Are these jumbled lines
and mashed confessions my attempt
at navigation?
I don't know who this poem is about, anymore.
Maybe you became a better lover
and I became a better liar
so let's fuck each other
one last time.

I've been tossing a lot,
in my sleep.
This morning, I awoke with
the blankets wrapped
around my neck, tied
as a noose.
I wonder how dark
my nightmares really are.
While I slept?
I didn't know sadness
could permeate dreams.
But I didn't know many things
until I had learned the difference
of cried and wept.

When your toys
were strewn across the carpet,
I would have thought to myself - Three years
from now, I will not miss you
as much as
I thought I would. But more than
everyone else did -
And then, I'll think
of all the stars that have
burned up. All the bottles
of wine I've drank. All
the nightmares I wrote like
love.
And I'll fail at writing a poem about you.