Like A Stone

Like a stone,

     We sink like a stone.

Another rock at the bottom.

It’s numb down here.

   Ghosts of what we would’ve been circle us.

      Unfulfilled dreams and promises haunt us.

        The Reaper hunts us.

Time moves so slow.

     It’s cold. 

We never could live a shallow life,

       But this is too deep.

          We took it all too far.

The masks we wear are cracking.

The performance is done.

   The next act waits in the distance, unwritten.

We threw our wishes down to a wishing well,

   And prayed to a tree whose branches touch heaven,

And whose roots touch hell.

   It didn't help.

     The White Rabbit is back,

But we are more Alice In Chains,

   Then Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, aren’t we?

These chains are strange. 

      This doesn’t quite feel like a cage,

But more like a stage . . .

   How long have we been playing a role? . . . What for? To be accepted? . . . By who? Me? You? Us? That’s not real.

   It doesn’t quite seem like the end. 

    Pretend,

        This is where we stop playing pretend.

We burn the stage

   And let the masks break. 

I’d rather our masks break 

               then our hearts break.

I’d rather be who I really am and see if you love it,

then let this end. 

I’d rather we burn the stage.

than accept that these are: 

        the last words, the last songs, the last pictures, the last calls, the last of us left . . .

    Can’t we jump in and begin again? 

It’ll be us against the world. And if we need a moment or two 

to curl up in a ball and hide from our own reflections, 

I’ll bake cookies and put on our movies;

Because, Love, a few times a year, I smoke myself into a coma for days and do nothing but exist. 

I do this until I get sick of it. I do this until I catch a glimpse of my reflection and see a zombie staring back at me. And then I’ll move again. We can cocoon when we need to. 

It’s everything at once, isn't it? The dishes, the laundry, the dogs, the job, the parents, me, us, the distance, the sinking, the missing, the weight, being 33: it’s everything all at once isn’t it?

I’m sorry I didn’t see it. 

I’m sorry for being an ass. 

I’m sorry for wanting to disappear. 

I just wish you were here . . .

CH 9/7/26