So very fucking tired
of these walls this bed these shoes
which aren’t old enough to talk
yet not new enough to wonder.
And, were I a tramp,
I’d tie my bandana tight
and talk big enough that,
were I alone? Even the moon;
she’d have to listen.
Hell
I’d probably even have more friends than I do now.
-J. Sheetz
No one should have to watch lonely movies by themselves.
And we shouldn’t be alone when we dream of
grandiose mountains and skyscrapers and bookshelves.
But if we weren’t lonely sometimes
we wouldn’t appreciate what
it looks like from the top of the lime tree.
And if certain people didn’t slam the door
on the way out of your life,
the hinges would rust and the wreath that adorns it
would never fall off.
-J. Sheetz
“3/4”
Stop all the clocks, cut off
the telephone. Save these last precious
days for us.
One of you had “What you think, you become”
penned on your shoulder,
and you wore your shirts so everyone could see
because you wanted them to know.
And you had two dogs and a round scar
from an exhaust pipe.
Another of you was a folk singer,
but you joined a death metal band because you wanted to escape yourself,
and you told me “Time will make saints of us all, but our fears we must face,”
and that I was one of the closest things
you ever had to a “best friend”
because you didn’t have “best friends”.
The third of you liked to smoke cheap cigars
and spin scissors on your finger.
And you would sharpen knives by
leaning out the car window and scraping
them on back-roads.
But the fourth of this group is myself,
and soon enough you three will be freed from
this damned labyrinth of crowded halls
and fire drills.
And I’ll be left here to write
poems about who you were and
what you were to me,
and my hopes that you won’t forget me.
So I’m begging the ones in charge
to stop the clocks and rip
that God damned phone off the wall,
so that the end doesn’t have to come
until we’re ready.
-J. Sheetz
“Oh, my son
I wish I could have been a better husband to your mother
for she was the reincarnation of Venus,
and she had the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen.
And I wish I could have been a better father
to you and your sister. We never played catch.
Or house.
Not even once.
And I wish I wouldn’t have fallen in with those fiends,
so I wouldn’t have lost my job to keep my arm full,
and your mother wouldn’t have put me out
for stealing from her.
But, most of all, my son
I wish that I didn’t have only five minutes left on my phone,
for this call.
And I wish I had more than ten minutes before those hard hat men
demolish the building I’m in.
Tell them all I love them and I never meant to be
such a fuck up.
Bye son, I lo-“
-J. Sheetz
Shitty poem by myself.
