This is My Life

A poem day

a stifling, hot, hateful day

a day for the city to sweat from its own hot air

A journey inward

trying, trying for a good feeling

zombies running in a term paper maze

be exact

do it right

this is your life

sleepless nights 

daytime haze

tomorrow looks gray is today already

stomach hurts

wanting to double over

wanting to forget for just one moment the constricting

walls of this prison

nervous laughter

no real smiles

tears from unknown wells

broken bonds

broken promises

plastic people in pastel cages

this is my life

a whisper from a distant realm of my heart

tells me to find peace

no peace

only aching moments

only tomorrow is tomorrow is another day

but not a new one

trying to see beyond the deadline

to life again

everyone wilts beneath the pressure

not today -

tomorrow, I'll try

only promises to myself

take a bow

for something real

one day off is all I need - 

one night on the town

but no one sees the real thing

their heads are turned down

to the words

the words mean well

but are destroyed

I've come so far so fast

and now, what's this?

it is not yet time to break loose

another week and I'll be complete

holding out and holding on

night and day come as extremes

I wanted summer until it arrived

now, I'd do anything for a cold winter

summer only brings fall

and downfall

I will see it through

I will live again

it will happen, I know

Egypt to Falsetto

Falstaff to Francke

Goethe to Hearst

nothing more in this place

but this is my life

I will see it through

- April 27, 1984, A.D.