Can we ever go back?
To the blankness
To the potential
Before it was harnessed
And broke for the eventual
Taming of the page.

The Page, the Tyrant!
I've been opressed and uplifted
By the same page
On different days.
Have you?

Did you overthrow the tyrant
With the violence of your words?
Or did you see him how he is,
Vulnerable.
Stubborn, but weak.

I greive for this page,
Stained with my words.
He was stubborn indeed,
But I had to write
So you could read.

I do not regret it,
But with every poem there is pain.
The potential, lost
All too easily
With a few careless strokes of a pen.

I got six Caddilacs.
Five Lincolns,
Four Fords,
Six Mercurys,
Three T-Birds,
Mustang, oooh!

A crotch rocket and a
Dirtbike and
A cruiser, too.

Just for good measure.

I've breathed the spark of life
Into more machines
Than most people
Have ever thought about.

I've been upside down,
Backwards,
On fire,
Faster than most people have ever gone.

And yet.
And yet.

The one thing
That eludes me still,
I don't think it's eluding me,
I tell you, I can feel.
Is Time.

I can't outrun it.
It's grip is stonger than me.
It won't be cheated.
There's nothing it can't see.

This gambler can't bet
and win the past.
This scoundrel can't find a purchase
On a heart long gone.
This thief can't steal even a bit,
And so he'll have to settle and deal
With all his past shit.

Have you ever wondered what's on the other side
Of the river?
Of the moon?
Of the mirror?

Have you ever wondered who's on the other side
Of the strife?
Of the wall?
Of this life?

They talk about the spaces between the words
Like the pain only hides there.
The last thing she said,
Nobody heard.

We talk without end,
So the silence doesn't get us.
We talk of trifles and outrage and God,
But never what we need to say.

Then it seems like we can't talk
For fear we'll say the wrong thing.
That we'll ruin something we only imagine we had.

Fact is, we can.
We will.
Someone has to speak their mind
Before they lose it.

Throw it away really,
For you can't accidentally let go of your mind.
You leave it because you want to,
Just as people throw away relics that don't suit them.
If I'm the only one not scared
To say what has to be said,
So be it.

And I'd do it again.

I'd admit it eats me up.
That I nearly tore myself apart.
I'd cry when no-one was looking
And come up with a smile.

I'd raise a toast to the day before it's gone
And laugh at Misery himself.
He can take what he wants,
But he'll never get my soul.

The trick is to be glib,
To be wry and rude and uncanny.
You have to be yourself
Especially in those times it seems like you can't,
Because nobody else will.