Wishes that won’t come true Jan. 15, 2026

 

The chill returns, a reminder that we still reside in the heart of winter, even on days of bright sunlight and the absence of snow or rain, the countdown already started towards days that are longer than night, less dark time to get haunted by, dreams thick with wish fulfillment, for dreams never fulfilled, all the more reason to stay awake or to wake before the cock crows, to get up, drink coffee, await the return of sun, dreams too thick with remembrances, of all that could have been, a life lived without mist and shadow, melting clocks, the timelessness of our most acute desires, when we need warmth again, of spring, still too many days in the future to have faith in.

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Abandoned dog aug 2012

  

I know how an abandoned dog feels

cast out after nipping his master

too many times

 love tolerates only so much

 before it wears out

and ceases to mean anything

 if it meant anything at all

when it started

dog days of summer

 taking on a whole new meaning

the drudgery of daily routine

 the heat that keeps sleep away

 along with worry

 this fear that doom might descend

 at any moment

like an unexpected thunderstorm

against which there is no shelter

all going on as if normal

 when it is all but that

 and she offering compassion

as a belated birthday gift

hers recently mine now so long ago

 compassion that feels like pity

which in itself is a gift of God'

something being better than nothing

 in a world where all that once was

or might have been evaporates

under too much hot sun

breathing impossible to take in

too deeply the loss

to severe .

to accept too easily

dog Days

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Swan song? April 19, 2026

 I didn't hear the song until today

 though for more than a decade it is something that I craved

 The missing Link in a story untold

why she needed to come back to her old world

 a song about her one true love from when she was very young

 and here each time he left her again she felt so alone

 and how when she began to sing

she felt the light of joy her song could bring

 and how at a time now two years past.

 she has come back at home at last

 A song for a love she always craved

 and I wonder now was she finally saved

 the voice as vivid as it was back when

 I turned her in again and again

A song I missed along the way

 and maybe how she was finally saved 

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Private sign language (2014)

  

I remember

Looking down at her fingers

When she forbade me

To look into her eyes,

Ringed fingers

Some of the time.

Animated with

A life of their own,

Gestures telling tales

I struggled to read

As private sign language

Not so much dedicated

To the deaf,

But for those gifted enough

To understand these

Messages she would

Share with no one else,

Tales of adventure,

Of woe, of hunger,

Or of lust,

Fingers sometimes poised

Into a temple

Before her face,

The tips touching

The edge of her lips,

Seductive, teasing,

Unbridled when moving

About, a billboard

To her soul, about her life

Her aspirations

Carving art out of the air,

Fingers touching

And aching to be touched,

Only not by me.

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Up to my chin July 30, 2012

I’m up to my chin

In this shit

She tells me

It’s easier if I

Don’t resist,

You can’t stop

The inevitable,

I might as well

Surrender.

Words of wisdom

Cast to me like

A life line

After I tried to

Sink her boat

On her birthday,

She has the upper hand,

Knows I’m helpless

To do anything other

Than give up,

The qualify of mercy

Unstained,

Not nearly as bitter

As when she

Forgave me,

I think she means it

This time,

Knows she has won,

Only she just doesn’t

Know me,

I never surrender,

And so, push my toes

Down into this muck

Feeling for the bottom,

While I still have

Breath to breathe,

Thinking the whole time

How pointless it is,

Even if I find the bottom,

Standing on tip toes

As I bask in the fucking

Muck I’ve made.

 

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I put my hand on it

I put my hand on it, slip
between the buttons, they
tremble like jello too
warm but stiff at
the peak -- the drip of it
like milk on the tip of
my finger and then by
tongue -- the feel of it
like all I ever imagined
my mouth on your mouth
seated in the dark where
I wait for permission
to take the next step,
move up or down
or more like in or
out, the scent of something
in me overheating
so I hold on, quivering
like it quivers
stiffing like it stiffens
waiting for you to grab
hold and shake it up,
quivering inside and out

Forgive me father (mother, goddess) I have sinned July 23, 2012

  

I read the poem

I react,

I can’t help it

Dismissed as if

I never mattered,

Outraged at my own stupidity,

Having said foolish things

Committed foolish acts,

Thought foolish thoughts,

Still, feeling the stink of being

Hit in the face with truth

I know is true

I read the poem

And I want to unread it,

How she dismisses me,

How little I matter,

Or ever will,

Lies might shock me

Less than truth does,

I have become as brittle

As peanut brittle,

Feeling myself breaking up

One small piece at a time,

A once-sweet puzzle

That has turned to bitter fruit,

A cluster-fuck puzzle

The chunks of which

I’ll never put back together

I read the poem

Over and over

Like a fanatic religious supplicant,

Beating myself up over sins

I know I’ve committed,

Slapped in the face with each

Until I can long longer feel

Anything but pain.

I read the poem

And ache to cry,

Only I lack any tears to shed,

Truth is truth,

Bitter as it is,

I can’t dispute.

 

AD's Journal

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