Ten Minutes

 “TEN MINUTES”

Like a dream,

                It came to me

The truth, the vision

I add up the expense of my actions

I calculate the cost of desires

                And the sum of my decisions

Time spent

                Sitting

Surrounded by ME

Overwhelmed and un-objectified

Too close to see the diamonds

Too close to feel the heartbeat

Far too close

                To love the human

That is the man

So I build walls

                Plastered with icons of failure

And furnished with beds of nails

Beds I built with intention

And I hope that staring at the fallen down

                And lying on the pain

And curling up with the vipers I call my own guts,

Will make me a better hu-MAN

Pissed off that I can tell the difference

                Between right and wrong

Peace, and love and kindred joy

                And the stench of waste and spoiled success

All the while, the me that I hate

The self that I loathe

                So dearly

Is clinging to a thread of redemption

Knowing, hoping

That one day

After however many days,

I can look myself in the eye again

And this lie, this twist, this dance

                Of giving a little bit

And wanting to get a lot

Of living a few seconds each day

But craving the fullness of life –

It’s all a machine that I built on my own

Doing what I created it to do

Offering the result that I’d intended

So afraid to just be me

Coiled up in fear

Worried about the past, the present

                The future

The bills

The family

The car

The job

The next word to spill out of my mouth

The high

The comedown

The lust

The reflex

The people shouting

                And pushing, and shoving and bustling to get to their own place

                And get their own way

And me, as big as a mountain

As vast as the ocean

As difficult to see as viewing the corner of the universe

So where does the ME end

And then begin?

And why do I keep writing poems about myself?

And why is every other word “I”?

And who needs someone to live for them

                And forget about themselves for ten minutes, at least?

Can I get ten minutes out of this shell?

Or will the world sneak in

And gobble me up in five?

There’s a crazy person living in my body

But he loves so much

                That he can’t see straight

Or can he?