at three forty seven
on a rainy english morning
there is no such thing as love

there is passion and lust
sex and violence
there is friendship worn thin by time and distance
there is a family who stare back at me like warped reflections
who echo in my head like maybes and might have beens
there are my weary hands
and my cold feet
but there is no love
none in this messy cluttered room
with too many clothes and too many pictures but not enough people
there is some on the horizon, standing like sticks in the sun,
and it is growing closer by the day
but that is not fast enough for it to catch me when I fall

The ground will rush up to meet me like some ancient rotting relative
ready with stony arms and a hug of full of gravity, pain, and bony violence
My consolations, and they are few, are that the bones will knit and the pain will pass
but the scars will never fade
I would keep them even if I didn't have to, to remind me of where I've been
sick souvenirs in spidery white script written in my skin
a road map of memories in case I cared to return to this place
and guaranteeing that I won't

four oh nine, though the spare minutes have given me no perspective
only time to contemplate the distance between the ground and me
to feel the blood, to know the wind by name, to ask and remain unanswered
so I ask you, with grey eyes and cold feet, what is the measure of sky?
What is the purpose of birdsong and sunshine? How does the rain know when to fall?

Don't fret, I don't know either, and it wouldn't save me if I did
Someone knows, but he's not telling today
and hasn't been for two thousand years
but ask my mother, she's heard his voice,
she might be willing to let slip a secret or two, if you ask her right
until then sit quietly and listen to Adam sing
with a voice like a raincloud over Baltimore
let all your worries fade
let the day begin
and drop without fear into the rocks below

AcB 04.22.01