Tomorrow We Party, Tomorrow We're Boring

Lie down upon the warmth of the day,
Where green and blue cloth covers your eyes
As you think on all your failures and all your sighs,
And breathe, wait and listen to her say,

"What are you doing, because I'm curious
About where you are and what you're doing,
And if soon you desire to be going
To that place, then wait for me, I'm serious!"

And then the afternoon comes around
When those failures grab and begin to haunt
Every sharp dream and every doubt you fought,
Though you know there is truth, because you found

That viruses are tricky things and need to be guarded,
But in the meanwhile, "I'm so happy for you!"
She says as she makes you proud for what you do.
"Tomorrow we'll have a party, and once it's started—"

But wait, you think, didn't it start the day you decided
That life is most well worth living
When you can rest and be boring?
Though now you know you have someone to confide in.

And the day goes slowly by, as you wait,
Wasting your time and your brain
On things that might not help you be sane,
Until finally you open that sweet gate

And hear her say, "So what's new,
Besides all those wonderful things?"
And truly, it's as if she sings,
Because that's how you know you are you.

(All great equations have proofs.)

Spinning Schrödinger's Cat

You know the world is upside down
When the snow is falling up.
And you know you have a lesson to learn
When the dark glass through which you are looking
Shatters in your face.

I suspect that's when wise men go blind
And blind men learn to see.

The Nuclear Force and Colorful Garments

When a star explodes,
it is caused by the gravitational pull of its great mass
no longer being able to overcome
the extreme outward pressure of its inner electromagnetic forces.
And thus, the particles of the core
are pushed outward at a high velocity.

Likewise, when a well-adjusted human being
can no longer withhold the tendency
of their limbs to spread forth,
and internal pressures can no longer be pulled within,
the common result is observed to be
a violent outward impulse.

This is what happened when Marco—
on the day he ran over his wife's tulips at the end of the driveway,
had his favorite pen burst in his front pocket,
and found the cookies he had saved for lunch crushed at the bottom of his bag—
saw a man wearing a green-and-brown plaid jacket,
and thought to himself,
What a terribly ugly and offensive thing to wear!

When the police arrived,
they used a new package of Oreos to finally convince Marco
that yes, it was okay to spare the life of the plaid jacket
and the man wearing it,
and no, it really didn't seem necessary
to drag that man out into the street to be shot.

When they took Marco away,
he screamed obscenities about the evils of poor loom design
and the absurdities of clashing color schemes.
For the sake of politeness, not wanting
to bear Marco's embarrassment further,
nobody listened.

After Midnight

How long until you rise again?
Because the lame will learn to walk
and the slaves will be set free,
but the more I know about the things I don't,
the more I see that something grand
is meant to be. And we don't know
what we can't hear and are too blind
to see with these tired eyes.
But these sleepy eyes are all we have
to prove that we still believe
and still wait up, watching,
listening, and breathing.

And death descends upon these wistful houses,
so put your sword away,
the sword you brought with you,
the sword you want with you,
because this cup overflows
as sweat drips to the ground like blood,
and put your sword away,
because death has passed over you;
it is mine.
I am life.

Not Forgotten, a World, Now a Place of Beautiful Dreams

I may never understand what inspired me to write
That winter has come and winter has gone,
That she is here and she is there,
Or why I felt the desire to respond that way.

But I know that despite all of it,
Despite any wrong turn that I could have made
And any that I did make, I have been blessed
In this moment, on this day, and in the future.

And today it strikes me, as I walk alone,
That I am no longer running around,
Searching for a hope I can't find on my own.
Instead, I patiently wait as plum blossoms bloom.

And I hear,
"Brilliant array of lights caught the evening dusk.
Glowing on us as one who smiles.
You say you’re not perfect.
Curled up in a corner like a cat."

And I should laugh and laugh and rejoice,
Because it is calm, like an undisturbed lake,
A fresh field of snow in the morning
Or a bright blue sky that goes upwards forever.

How We Know We are Blessed

Despite all of it,
Despite what we deserve,
Despite this flesh,
We still breathe in
And breathe out.

Blood still flows hot and cold
Through my veins.
Each morning I still rise
From my rest.
Daily I yet receive
From the bread of life,
And I am blessed
When I don't have to ask,
What is this?

Each hour I may wait impatiently,
But penitence tempers me.
Each day I might find no hope,
But the infinite bursts through me.

I have seen nothing,
I have known nothing,
I have held nothing,
That can compare to this beauty.

And I know.
And I know
We are cared for,
No matter how long the night.