Thanksgiving

“I struggle finding thanks this year,
I miss your warm embrace.
Yet gazing at your photograph,
A smile adorns my face.

So when it’s time to give our thanks,
The truth we can’t ignore.
It’s memories of loved ones lost,
That we are thankful for.”









I miss you

The Funeral

I have a friend I call,
When I've bored myself to tears.
And we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves.

The end.

The end of the road. The end of the journey. The final chapter.

The end.

This all started as a Eulogy. A farewell. The end was always coming. I could feel it. I could feel myself giving in, more and more each day. I could feel the way the days no longer mattered. Where the morning came and I was less a part of it. Now it's over. One day after another, it got worse.

Today it broke.

I can't wake up one more day, with a gaping hole in my chest. I can't wake up one more day, screaming and crying and feeling like that hole is going to consume me. It has. There's nothing left but a rotting core stuck deep in the skeleton of what's left of me.

It's time.

And I have this dream where I'm screaming underwater,
While my friends are all waving from the shore.
And I don't need you to tell me what that means,
I don't believe in that stuff anymore. 

The thing about Eulogies is this: they're read at a funeral. The Eulogy is over.

The Funeral has begun.

Eulogy Part 2

The sun will rise and we will try again

I wish I could tell you that the sun rises and I try again. I wish I could say that I get up, make a cup of coffee, stretch, meditate, and begin my day smiling. I wish that's what happened.

Certainly the sun rises each morning. Some days I rise before it does. Not literally, but I'm already awake. After hours of tossing, turning, dreaming, dreading. The peculiar thing about new days is that we never seem to run out of them. A new day, a new bird song, a new sun. The day is there for the taking, but it is never taken. Not by me at least.

I do this from time to time, where I can never wake from a bad dream

The sun comes up, and I lay in bed. Time passes. Minutes, hours, days. It never seems to change. Each day is the same. But it's getting worse. Each day gets a little bit worse. And today, today is the worst of them all. I don't know how much longer I can do this. I don't know how much longer I can live. I'm so tired of waking up not being able to breathe. To feel like the world is sitting on my chest. There's this hole and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I don't think it can get much bigger without taking over.

The Eulogy is coming. And the Eulogy means the end.

Eulogy

Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can fight my fear

Isn't it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home

Tear me to pieces. Skin to bone. That's all that's left of me. Bone. Skeleton. Empty. Empty like the echos that fill my house. My home. My home, it used to be full, alive, grand. Now it, like me, is empty.

Hello, welcome home. A home of my own making, of my own doing. "I built this home with my own two hands." I tore this home down with my own two words. Sleeping alone. Speaking alone. Living alone. Dying alone.

But isn't it lovely? All alone? Right. Lovely. Alone.

Maybe some day I will make it out of here. Out of the pain, out of the sadness, out of this place. But for today, for tomorrow, and for the unforeseeable future. I'm here. I'm here and you're there.

Trying desperately to find a place to hide. Drinks. Drugs. Sleep. They all give me temporary relief. Or do they? Is it really better? Or is this crippling sadness pushed down so deep that it manifests itself with triumph over every other thought or feeling I have. Sober. Drunk. High. It's all the same. It's always the same. There's no where to hide. It's only me.

This is my Eulogy. An empty man, with an empty home, and an empty heart.

People say that the rain washes things away. Problems. Worries. Fears. Agony. Today the rain is different. With each drop that hits my skin, a drop of sadness enters in. Memories. Pain. Self-depreciation. This is not a good rain storm. This is not a friend. This is an undoing; a breaking down; an execution.

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
               - e.e. cummings

The moments that feel like the end are often the end. The rain strikes one final time and seems to reach it's goal. But then it doesn't. The wind keeps blowing. The rain continues to fall. And the spiral tightens once again.

Is this all i was meant to be? A man tormented by rain and crushed by freedom? Is there more to find, more to become? Or is this the end?

Is today my expiration date?