On Writing

On Writing

I take my beatings for not fitting into molds

for not following instructions

for doing my thing

for doing the wrong thing

then I start writing

I lose out on opportunity and love

lose cash and prizes

gain something back

lose it all again

get another chance

they keep coming

one after one

sometimes

two by two

or even

three by three

but, I keep writing

I take flight into the world of no certain destination

moving like a target that is hard to hit

near misses and head on collisions

almost take me out for good

almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

so I keep writing

I get cut open and live with scar tissue

get shot and it is through and through

my spleen survives it all

my liver falls for hep

fire water burns my heart

I get run down by wheels but get up later

the breaks heal slow and crooked, but they heal

I watch others not be so lucky

I keep writing

I watch others get born and buried

funerals in fields and ashes spread on oceans

I feel my friends blood seep out quickly

leaving me behind with open eyes of shock

I wake up next to a lover who dies in the night

I find another in a hot tub of her own blood soup

I watch another die the slow cancer dance

I hear MS stop a beautiful heart

I sit alone in silence for days

I keep writing

I make many friends for life in my travels

the dope takes so many

the violence and the prisons take so many more

drunken driving into nothingness like

darwinian angels of mercy takes

my little girl away while I

languish in a cold room

on a steel cot

puking my forgiveness

into steel toilets for two

I keep writing

I hear warning shots from invisible guard towers

in my restless sleep forever

watch indoctrination into death

for believers of an honor that was

betrayed long ago by human greed

I keep writing

I ride trains across midnight prairies

hoping to become dust devils above corn fields

as I look at the Brooklyn Bridge become

the Golden Gate become an old stone transom

across the Mississippi River that I walk across

alone after love is just a dead cat that I give

a viking funeral to with lighter fluid on a guitar case barge

in the dark cold river below

and I have to keep writing

I have to move my fingers

across the page even when

they are bloody and broken

or cramping into claws of

eternal damnation that tells

me not to quit or give up or

give in I just have to keep

writing

even as I sit here writing this

on a laptop in echo park

not knowing what will

happen next

listening to birds

dogs in the distance

helicopters in the air

I am moved to keep my fingers moving

to keep writing still

in case I missed something

that might be catching up to me