Lying in Bed #1

I feel my mind, sticking together like rice in a wet pot
My thoughts take time to peel apart and dry in the sun
Laid against hard, sea coated rocks
As the lights from rooms down the hall
Trickle under my doorway
Dancing like the aurora borealis, a silk sheet in the wind
A golden stream, climbing and falling on my carpet

And out my window I can see friends all great distances from here
Some sitting on rooftops thinking of love and the great sorrows of time
Some asleep in their beds dreaming of something they won't remember
Some writing books of great things, wonderful things, ideas I love to ponder
Others writing simple songs and poetry to the beats of their hearts
While still some read up on days events, or classical literature
Some curling their hair, some washing it after days gone by
Some sitting on chairs behind desks beside bare walls counting money
Some hoping their families live through the night
Others smoking marijuana in tiny cubicles, talking about the mechanical future
While still some drink a days work, and write a days life out in black ink on their arms

And I look about this dead, white room
Sick beige curtains pulled shut, night kept out
A single light bulb flickering, almost dead above me
And I wonder if this is how they see me
Alienated by thoughts of bewilderment and awe
Kept up at night thinking of the shadow I cast, the sounds I make
Wondering if the urge I feel to break my castings is real or just what the american value wants me to believe
Am I the caged spirit I think I am, or just an experiment in social animosity?

Each night I try to change myself
Hang my skin up for a time in the wind
And sculpt my body, my mind, my soul
Make myself into whatever feels right
Whatever works best in this atomsphere
In this climate
Then take it to the hills, march it through the earth
Make myself something stronger, smarter

And return to my rooftop, my bed, my books, songs and poetry, news and literature
And I can't tell the difference between my thoughts anymore
So I just leave the rice in the pot, melting together, unedible
And feel so sick while I go on, a greedy hunger bellowing in my organs
And again out my window I see my friends
Some breathing in a chilled wind, their breath floating away twirling in the moonlight
Some sipping hot drinks, or slurping cold ones through straws
Some in their baths and showers, alone in the water, some even crying
Others walking the highways with no direction but where the inifinte white line leads
And more of them crouched beneath a great idea, burying their gifts by its roots
While still some kill themselves, knives through flesh, bullets through thoughts
Leaving me with only the saddest songs to sing for them

    [ I am no longer a poet...
    Never really was...
    I am but an obeservant...
    I catalog my thoughts and put them in order
    Not sequential, but however I feel them to be best interpreted
    I am just an onlooker to this world full of dreams ]

I think I'm going away for a while
And upon my return there will be no one left to welcome me back
And that makes for a terrible party, doesn't it?
But I'll be a brand new being by that time anyway, so perhaps its for the best
Maybe dying and returning as something completely different is nessecary
So we don't cry over the friends we've lost in the great storms of life
Somewhere in that dense fog, wandering, calling out for them
But they are thousands of lives away, dying of cancer in some bed in Miami
Or playing golf on some long plain and plateau in Scotland
Maybe they're swimming in the waters off the coast of Cape Town
Or what if they're asleep in their lovers arms? Their mother's wombs? Their college dorms?
How the endless misery would plow the fields we plant our lives on
How short our hope would last us in such an existence-

So when I go away, you will not recall my name, or remember how I looked
What I do now will only be a monument to a stranger I may hear about later
Whom I will dust off my bookshelf and replace with some new idea I find
So let me go, and I will let you go, do the things you wish, for they only last a time with a precise measure
Sit on your roof, learn to cook something, write a story, believe in ghosts, paint your naked body
Offer your change to strangers, live alone in a mountain range, don't eat meat, or rob a bank
Steal from your mothers purse, pray to your God, learn to sail, sleep and dream,
Blow something up, find adventure, realize beauty, know happiness, know sadness, know anger, learn from them all
But know this journey only ends in a confusion you will find yourself strangled by
It will all last you until you wake up crying in your fathers hands, but only the place is new
The voices and sounds are foreign but inviting
And soon enough you'll find yourself smiling, nothing on your mind but mothers milk
Isn't that just beautiful?

    [ I just want to be a voice in a hall, bellowing like a holy ghost in the Cathedral
    And maybe some young blonde boy will preach of my work after I'm done and I'll comeback and fight my dead mind ]

I can't stop myself anymore...
I'm just dying,
Getting old and dying,
And that's the final word, isn't it...

[ This has been the most beautiful life I have ever known... ]