1.
This piano player makes me want to join him in chorus. As he plays the piano, the lights lower, the smoke rises. And she walks through me, into the night. And as she walks, the cigarette burns into the air, smoke, fresh, diseased. And I want to walk away with her as she stops by the river bank. As she stops to see the angel cheek of the moon resting on the reflection of the water. I wonder what her breath on my neck would feel like in winter. I wonder where it all went. Where did the wars take us? When did the ghost of every horrid thing begin to ruminate our dreams? Another ghost into the night, and I keep walking.

2.
What is this cold feeling on my neck, like a dead kiss? When did it all become like this? Another walk down the corridor of the old school, abandoned, and there I am. And it begins to make sense. I was only good at one thing. And it was dreaming. And this world, this cacophonous world, that doesn’t stop till you bleed out in a bath tub, till you scale a mountain, or make a million, or die in a street corner. So many options. One day though, that heart you hold caged will cease, and with all the memories of those lovers, those liars, those you lied to, you lied for, those membranes in your brain will dissolve into ash. Death, however tragic, is a great way to finish any long saga. It’s the only way things end. Your dreams, you are born again, and in each day we slowly die. But this truth, that death is a diving bell, it really is the only thing that makes sense. I mean life doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a lot of noise. But it doesn’t mean that I am not in love with it. Or am in a rush to go.

3.
I am not depressed. I am a thinker. I am a writer. And a reader. I am a poet. What a cop out. Poetry. It is so much harder to write down line after line of solid prose, then it is to write my flowery poetry nonsense.
Sure it is introspective, and rhythmic. But who is the Salinger and the Harper Lee? My favorite poet god would say my poetry sucks. He would say it is self-serving, and pathetic. And I would agree with him. It’s a fucking diary, it’s not poetry. But I will say a lot of that flowery poetry you write, poet, sucks too.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His new book is Train of Thought.