Tastes like Anis

I cannot seem to keep my eyes open for anything some days
Malaise of life you pass me while I mumble (but never stutter)
And think maybe I should grasp onto the positive light
Expand it like a prism
Repeat the good thoughts circulating
Above this aching chasm
I flounder,
And want
For words which will transport me beyond the funk I’m in
I seek the capacity for bullshit, and I am stumped.
So I slump, mellow in my shoes,
Slower and softer than I would if I thought this were to have some consequence
Or taint my social graces
So I let my words linger, draw them lazy on the air
Sparing no one the painstaking creation of
My lethargy. It isn’t fair
I think, to let myself go like this
Wishing that I could pull myself up by the strands,
The wisps that fall slovenly and solemn around my tired cherub’s face
I embrace the wallowing
The walking slumber
The dusty charcoal sketched upon my tangerine skin
I notice that I’m looking a bit orange
Before I remark casually three or four times
That I might be hungover
But nothing will condone for the empty bowl that I have left there
Sitting on the counter surrounded by its neighbors
Who wish that I would really just suck it up and attend to responsibility
But instead I linger
In the warm cove that I call languor
Eat a pastry and remark that the next (unnecessary) one tastes of anis

I will do anything to avoid sitting down to write this tome
So much potential,
Yet by the dearth of information, I am overwhelmed
So instead, I seek to fill it with mind games
Fillers of sorts,
Cotton candy
And those literal sweets in which I have recently delighted
Which satiate something in me that I cannot define
I will sit,
And sleep,
And watch,
Breathing in the reverie
Of the English countryside
The stereotype depicted on the silver screen
Which lights my warm cocoon
Finally, I emerge
Not wanting to step on the cold tile, lest I catch a chill
Wanting this warmth to last forever
At least until May 17th (or I guess I should say the 28th of April)
I disguise my time racking up slightly bitter exploits
Like checking my email for the third (or countless) time today
And then answering a friend request on facebook
Answering a late message
And finding the answer to my lethargy in a poem by a new “friend”, Anis, who I know from poetry and fell for once before
Watching reams of videos on youtube while I felt the freedom rise inside me

What a perfect culmination to a day
Whose morning was spent gorging
On some shared and borrowed histories
Not realizing I might have been eating at D-----land
But no, no, really. It wasn’t that kitschy
It was good food with prepared plates and plastic cutlery
I found it all so restorative
The tired void's been rendered
Now only a lazy vice at my temples
After the first bite
My ability to shoot the shit was restored
No need for real bullshit here
Just a little tact and good timing.
I could navigate the social situation after eating
And then spend the rest of the day anxiously languoring
Waiting for a phone call that never came
Which was a pleasant surprise
And fulfilling a contract to father
That I might have had to break
Though I try as I might
I could never truly open my eyes

Light sleeper

If sleep is the moment of death
Then I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t immortal
I, lying dormant in my portal,
Hibernate but never find the time to make my subconscious happy
I neglect my circumstances
And make up nuanced stories
Flirt with moonlight dances
And resign myself to boredom
So much potential sleep
Like the moment after a run
Exalted from exhaustion
Ready for another one
I crave the steady rhythm
Crazy we are falling in love with ourselves we are spinning into oblivion
We never know
How we got there
I find solace in the moment of wakening
Rise not refreshed but submissive
A loner too
Keep private my deprivation
I wouldn’t call it wanting necessarily
But merely lacking what nourishes me
Nevertheless, the simplicity of nothingness eludes me
I paint sheep into gophers
And dig holes in the cerebral canvas, bury them by number
Counting 1, 2, 3…
I have
Crossed fences and county lines even
Dreamt of sleepwalking
And losing myself in the purgatory of a featureless night
Remembering things
Sometimes I find it hard to distinguish between dreams and reality
As if I had forgotten them since the night before
As if remembering could restore the light back to my psyche
But no, I am no such head case
Just a restless sleeper dabbling in psychoses
Wishing for a reason or a joke or a number to keep me going
Something that would explain my sleepless nights
Like the countless reasons to keep on living.