An Ode to Nothing [12-05-01]

Time is catching up with me.
I'm pressured, twisted, and implored
to finish projects, fill up space.
Someone else just won first place,

and here I am, still racing on.
My cause and balance shifted when
the seconds ticked and tumbled, and
my laces tied together.

I've sat on bench and pew, read pamphlets,
waited for some bell to sound,
reinsured my soul for heaven,
damned it on the rebound.

I've talked to preachers, doctors, wise
and foolish men, children, whores,
degenerates; I've lost my hope,
worked up courage and united

with a total stranger. Once,
I drove a stick-shift,
pedaled faster than my brother,
raced a dog and lost with teeth-marks

in my leg. I've heard a gun,
I've fired one,
and felt the sting of
wounds on others

and myself. I've sliced my
wrists and neck with kitchen knives,
cornered bugs to tear their wings,
let them go, or set them in a web

to be devoured. Then one night
I cried for hours,
wished upon the faintest star
of hope that I could

run away, from life and someone's
heart that beat against my
chest, inside... And
seasons later, cried again,

never wanted fingers
to unwrap the warmth against
my arms.

Here I sit,
mundane and different all the same.
No one can claim
my life's been wasted...

Still, I wonder
what I've wasted,
writing on a pixeled matte;
or how the seconds
here devour me.