Life In 28 Lines

My life's a map of places that can hide me
But none of them protect me like they should.
I talk to friends as if they're here beside me
But they can't say more than I think they would.

This loneliness is colder then December.
I just hear echoes every time I pray.
I cling to all the good times I remember,
Then wonder why the future slips away.

Each dawn arrives with something to upset me.
By sunset, it defeats me or I grow.
I think the universe is out to get me--
It really likes to tell me where to go.

And every time the moment's crystal clear,
Life is a voice that says "You can't stay here."


No matter where I move, it's a direction.
No matter where I wind up, it's a stand.
Even when I'm withdrawn, it's a connection.
Even when it's spontaneous, it's planned.

Each false step that I take is done to teach me
That I am my own life's most dearest foe.
Each true step sees a goal that wants to reach me--
And when it does, I'll be the last to know.

For knowledge is just ignorance times pride
And learning is a never-ending road.
And even if I travel with a guide,
He passes on a wisdom that's in code--

And every pitfall where I stumble proves
To be the right kind of all the wrong moves.


Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 30

I look back at the places where I’ve been

And only see the ones I never went to.

I’m told how much I’m blessed, but hear the sin

Of failing to accomplish what I meant to.

I feel regret for missteps, like each towed

Me down a path that led to imperfection.

But one step won’t put me on the wrong road

Unless I choose to walk in that direction.

And what else can I do when I look back

Except perceive the single path I carved

Through possibilities, and feel the lack

Of all that could have fed me when I starved?

But they're yesterday's hungers: met, or dead.

Look forward. Feed the ones that lie ahead.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 27

My ignorance about the world is vast.

My ignorance about myself is vaster.

I stretch my gifts, and still wind up typecast.

I hold myself back, and it’s a disaster.

The way I think about my life is not

The way I feel about it. What I do

Is based on instinct and caprice, not thought;

And who I am’s not deed, but follow-through.

I worry more about what may or might

Than I prepare for all that will and must.

My faith is ignorance with piercing sight;

My ignorance a crafty form of trust.

My knowledge? One unalterable text:

Life has no afterwards—just now, and next.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Down In the Dumps

I see tomorrow's failure, not its hope.

I hear how my guitar strings are untuned.

I live my life through the past’s microscope—

It makes my smallest flaw gape like a wound.

No matter what I own, I feel my lack.

No matter where I go, I never stay.

My freeway winds up in a cul de sac.

Hard work has got me nowhere, day by day.

My progress has no movement—only motion.

Because I fear defeat, it worships me.

I wear self-pity like it’s suntan lotion.

I throw away the lock to spite the key.

But why? Why crawl as if the ground might drop me?

I’m on my own. So who is there to stop me?

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life Says

Life says: “I am the only thing you get.”

   I say: “Then I will make you what I need.”

Life says: “You want to win? Then make a bet!”

   I say: “It’s not the winning—it’s the deed.”

Life says: “All your achievements I’ll anoint.”

   I say: “Yeah; right—maybe posthumously.”

Life says: “I really hate to disappoint.”

   I say: “You sure love doing it to me.”

Life says: “Swallow your pride and win a medal.”

   I say: “I take pride in what I’ve created.”

Life says: “I will not love you till you settle.”

   I say: “Then I’ll be happy to be hated.”

      Life says: “Then there is nothing I can give you.”

      I say: “Then my gift is, I get to live you.”

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life iIn 14 Lines - 24: The Past

The Past’s an unforgiving dictionary,

Defining me by what I did and said.

Its purpose is to keep me stationary.

It paints me in what’s over, done and dead.

The past’s a lover who just won’t move on—

Telling me that her feelings mean I owe her,

Guilting me with a duty that’s long gone,

Blaming me because I dared to outgrow her.

Dressing me up in what no longer fits—

Humming me like an old familiar song—

Freezing my heart and licking it to bits—

Making me feel like growth and change are wrong—

My past defines me, on this one condition:

It cannot haunt me without my permission.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 23

My love’s an angry guard dog on a chain.

My hate’s a warming campfire in the cold.

My feelings never make it to my brain—

They melt and harden in a bullet mold.

My afternoons are what I take a nap in.

My nights are all about the exploration.

The disappointment when it doesn’t happen

Is ten times stronger than the expectation.

I hug the chaos but I hate the shoddy.

I love tradition but despise the rut.

Only my fingerprints are on my body.

The doorway to my heart is rusted shut.

Yet they will all dissolve, these fears that freeze me,

When someone looks at me and truly sees me.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 22

I back away whenever I’m too close.

I make a joke whenever it’s too real.

Love is the drug on which I overdose.

Feeling it makes me feel as if I feel.

Days are for loss and struggle, nights for grieving.

Dreams are for digging tunnels till I’m free.

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help believing

If I don’t move, the world will come to me.

The self-worth car I’m driving is a clunker.

I weave the rope on which my hopes are hung.

Deep down inside, I’m Hitler in the bunker

Hallucinating Götterdämmerung.

And when I’m dead, my life will be a quarrel

That offers either false hope or a moral.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 21

I look down on the fools who dare to love me.

I look up to the dead for ways to live.

Since I can’t read minds, friends don’t think well of me.

Since my heart’s pawned, there’s nothing there to give.

Yesterday’s “Not a chance!” is today’s go-to.

Remembered slights are poison in my cup.

I feel rejected by what I said no to.

I feel abandoned by what I gave up.

I carry so much that I’ll never need.

I’ll leave behind much more that is undone.

Is hope the curse I dine on or I feed?

Is love the finish or the race I run?

Is life the hidden prospect or the mask?

And who am I—and who am I—to ask?

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 20

I’m never happy in a single place.

The quiet life is one I’ll never master.

If I stop moving, then I'll have to face

My loneliness—so I start running faster.

I’m drawn to women who drive me insane.

I give my soul to those who could care less.

Because I’m only whole when I’m in pain,

Passion’s not pleasure—it’s an SOS.

I’d give my heart, but it’s under embargo

Because it’s so susceptible to lies.

Where Love’s concerned, I am my own Iago

Except he isn’t caught and never dies

But sends me down a road I never stray from

That feeds the hollowness I run away from.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 19

I share my body with an egotist

Who thinks that life and love owe him a debt.

He's half self-centered dick, half masochist,

And all I hate about the way I get.

When someone else comes first, he cries "Unfair!"

He's generous so he'll be deified.

Unless you worship him, you just don't care.

Unless he's wounded, then it isn't pride.

He dreams of shouting what can't be unsaid.

When it comes to resentment, he's a whiz.

I choke him and he comes back from the dead.

He sees the worst because that's what he is:

Jealous, malevolent, melodramatic,

My heart's dark twin—the madman in my attic.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 18

I have a lot of faith, but not in me.

I blame myself for what I can’t prevent.

I feel desire, but never hopefully.

My tenant’s Love—she owes me years of rent.

I take a lot of pains and feel each one.

I know the score, but not what I can play.

Jokes are my bullets, loneliness my gun.

I know the island as a castaway.

I trust in promises more than I should.

I walk into the minefield like a native.

My soul is always greedy for the good

And selfless when it comes to the creative.

I treat Life like a gift, when it’s a loan,

And write all stories well except my own.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 14

My scars have roots in other people’s gardens.

They wind like clinging vines through space and time,

Invuln’rable to weedings or to pardons—

Each one the record of a loss or crime.

This one is where my trusting heart was broken.

This one is where I lost my innocence.

This one from words I never should have spoken.

This is the one that still—still—makes no sense.

And though the skin is dead, it’s still connected

To something in me that pain understands—

I shy away from what got me rejected;

I never reach for what once cut my hands—

Yet still I search for love that, like a seed,

Can grow through all those scars and make me bleed.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 9

My inner mirror says that I’m nineteen.

I like to think that Life’s a piece of cake.

My ego drives me like a limousine.

Low self-esteem keeps stepping on the brake.

My fears are quaking in the shotgun seat.

My lust is in the trunk, ballgagged and bound.

No matter where I stop or who I meet,

I wind up swimming where my old self drowned.

There’s only one road and it can deliver

A man to heaven or the calaboose.

It’s caked and dusty, like a dried-up river,

And twines around this country like a noose.

I feed the engine that keeps me alive.

My dream is down the road, so I just drive.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 7

                    for Arika Larson

I write. I have a muse who’s my work wife.

I’m either thinking “What if?” or “What gives?”

I only have one foot in quote, real life,

Unquote. I like to dream where Maybe lives.

The foot in the unreal takes all my weight.

It’s where I move from and I go to rest.

I feel inept unless I can create

And that real life is trivial at best.

I have one rule, unbroken since my youth:

If it happens to me, then it’s fair game.

I’ll bend the facts to aim straight for a truth.

You’ll know I love you if I change your name.

Real life’s the stove I use to bake the bread

Someone will chew on, long after I’m dead.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 5

I think of change and never make a move;

And when I make a move, there is no motion.

When pushed, I renovate, but don’t improve.

All tides ripple unturning in my ocean.

I can’t stand where I live, but love the view.

The less things change, the fewer my vexations.

I say I can evolve, but that’s untrue—

We don’t evolve except by generations.

I knew a girl; I said, “It’s you I love.”

She said, “If things were different, I’d be game.”

“If things were different” is the motto of

Anyone who wants things to stay the same.

My soul’s a loafer I can’t energize

Unless I’m not just smart, but otherwise.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 4

There is a petty me who always whines

That I deserve to win the race because

I entered it, and loathes the little swines

Who see me and don’t greet me with applause.

There is a lonely me who falls in love

Because it feeds his insecurities

And always proves that I’m unworthy of

Happiness, satisfaction, and heart’s ease.

And there’s an angry me who feeds on hate,

An empty me who swallows all my dreams,

A vengeful me who yearns to dominate,

And a sly me who bides his time and schemes.

And I will only draw a happy breath

When I can starve each one of them to death.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 3

My life obeys the power of suggestion:

The way I feel is why I fall or fly.

I’m here to think about and ask the question

And trust the world will give me a reply.

I learn the consequence of my decisions

Each time I wonder why or wonder at,

And suffer through the day-to-day collisions

When what I want and what I get go splat.

All I can do is tell you how I feel—

I cannot make you answer that you care—

And then embrace denial or the real

Each time the world fills in my questionnaire.

I may not get the ones I want to hear

But they will all be answers, loud and clear.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Life In 14 Lines - 1

I live my life mostly inside my head—

Talk to myself when no one is around,

Imagine love, think about being dead,

And always look for higher vantage ground. 

I order Happiness; Life serves me habits.

My heart forgives the crimes it should condemn.

My fears disguise themselves as little rabbits—

They are so cute, I have to cuddle them. 

I only feel great joy when I stop thinking.

For all I talk, there’s more I’ll never say.

There’s nothing that cannot be solved by drinking

Except for drinking. Which I’ll quit. Someday. 

And like all promises I make myself,

That gathers lots of dust on my life’s shelf.

 

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells