The Loser's Prayer

Defeat can leave you winded,

So take the jeers of the fair-weather fans,

Those who dare not play,

and breathe them all in.

Defeat can leave you exhausted,

So take all of those hateful words,

and swallow them down inside of you.

Defeat is thirsty work indeed,

So drink in the sickening feel of it.

Defeat can leave you cold,

So wrap yourself in the hate of it.

If you lost this week,

It is time to rebuild.

It is time to reload,

Because the only one on the field this week

Who can stop you again next week

Is you.

The Heart or The Stomach?

When you walk into the room,

I mistype my password.

When you sit down beside me,

I forget myself, and remember my posture.

When you speak to others,

I reach out for every word,

Wishing each was made for me.

When you speak to me,

I try with all my might to listen,

and I fail as fully as ever.

Your gesture is my signal.

Your joke is my gospel.

Your wish is my command.

I think I can promise you my attentions,

(Tied in a grubby, Gordian knot,)

Whether we want that or not.

Fallen Angel

I see fell meaning in the commonplace.

I see the meaningless in rituals.

I see sins in the simplest things.

I see tragedies in mere trappings.

I see the same world as you see.

I look through fire-colored glasses.

I see shadows in people.

I see shadows in shadows.

I am among strangers.

I think I have always been.

I think I do not belong.

I do not see a way out.

My Personal World, Part 19: Bittersweet Time Machine

I remember the first time that rhythm caught me.

It didn't exactly hit me in the head.

It was nothing nearly so violent as that.

It kind of grabbed me under the arm

and yanked me a quarter-turn around.

If you want to pick nits,

It was an illegal block above the waist.

Today, again, that same rhythm caught me.

It didn't exactly pull me to the ground.

After all, this isn't the first time around.

It kind of got in real close, face to face,

Until I let it take me by the hand

and lead me right back into the other moment.

If you want to pick nits,

It didn't leave room for the Holy Spirit.

I wonder when the rhythm will catch me again.

I wonder how gentle it will be next time.

Will it remind me of the winter, the couch, the friends,

Or the tragedies of the spring that followed behind?

Will it come with a caress or a kick?

All I know is that the rhythm is finished,

and it left me at least a little bit tired–

Perhaps not of it...

If you want to pick nits.

The Tao of the Yo-Yo

Don't leave too soon, and don't stay away.

Come back within earshot. I'm dying to say

That you make me demented, deranged, foolhardy,

and I like the way that you make me feel.

Don't forget that romance happens only in the mind.

Don't search long and hard enough to leave yourself behind.

Everything about you that makes us not work

Is exactly what made you stand out from the first.

Pulling and Pulling

I need a pull-starter just to speak up.

It's like pulling taffy to stay engaged,

and like pulling teeth to walk away.

It's even an effort; it even feels strange,

Like drinking a milkshake, every time I inhale.

I think the air between us is unusually full.

The Invitation

We dearly wish that you would join, in time,

A future found unbound among the stars.

We realize this for you means quite a climb

From lunar foothills barely past the start.

We must remark it's strange that so complex

An animal as yours should live in hives.

Our scientists believe that this reflects

Potential genius living bounded lives.

Perhaps to reach the stars you must boycott

This self-sustaining, self-destructive course

If so, we'll find your kind and ours are not

So different as intrigued us at the first.

Despair that you can't make it now? Don't fear.

Just as you're stuck there, we are stuck here.