Ugly Lies The Bone

for Lindsey Ferrentino

What do you choose?  Pretending it’s the same

   Tortures you worse than shrapnel in your head.

Each step you take reminds you you’re so lame;

   Each mirror shows you someone who’s half-dead.

Reality is virtually flaky

   Just like your sister’s boyfriend and his beard.

Seeing your married heartthrob leaves you shaky—

   Once it was Paradise; now it’s just weird.

Fantasy teaches you unhealthy tricks;

   It sets a finish line that pain can cross.

But that race never ends—there is no fix.

   Choose Life.  And though it’s all about the loss,

      Life’s like your mother—though you feel defiled,

      She’ll always see you as her little child.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells

The Road I Walk

 

The road I walk is all turns, small and great.

   When I look forward, I see no design.

But when I look behind, my path is straight—

   From there to here, in one determined line.

I cannot see the daily fits and starts

   That hobbled me each time I tried to move,

For every move transformed those random parts

   Into a path, like notes into a groove.

Ahead are canyons I must cross or fill;

   I feel half weary and half terrified,

And wonder, always, if I have the will

   To take these detours and delays in stride—

      Then look back at that path, which will remind me

      How right the wrongs become when put behind me.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells

 

Absent Friend

                             for Meir Ribalow

 

I tend to think of when the room goes dark,

   Not when the lights come on, when I remember

You, absent friend—the August death (foul, stark,

   And wrenching), not the birthday in September.

And though the loss is only fit for scorning,

   Because the life was never less than great,

I fall into the soothing trap of mourning

   The very thing that I should celebrate.

So let my heart not grieve for you, but kvell,

   Because you chose to share your time with me.

We all die.  Few live.  Fewer still live well,

   Like you did.  Let that be your legacy:

      No blind despair without an eye for worth

      And no world-ending loss without new birth.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells

 

Here’s Why Love Feels Like A Colossal Gyp

 

Here’s why Love feels like a colossal gyp—

   A lottery that nobody can win:

Falling in love is always such a trip.

   Being in love?  Well, that’s like landing in

Cleveland.  Game over, man.  What meets your eyes

   Is not so much Love ruling as Love slaving,

Where lust has sad affairs with compromise

   And passion gets seduced into behaving.

Falling is easy—landing is what’s hard,

   Like comedy.  It comes without a perk.

To keep love safe, you have to drop your guard.

   To keep love playful, you must do the work—

      And every time you feel as if you’re crawling,

      Find a new way to keep each other falling.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells