I forgot how to live.

Couches were for comfort
and laziness was for coping.
Excuses, poor behavior
and more excuses.

Baked lays and ginger ale,
sometimes an episode of Doctor Who
or Coed Confidential if I was feeling frisky.
Uninspired, without motivation, I festered in stagnation.

Chocolate was the color of my pipe,
tobacco flew about like confetti.
(I set fire to it)

People don't smoke for the head highs
or for the relief, or for the escape -
They smoke to be close to death.

The continuous clicking of a keyboard,
the fake lives in fiction on television,
the self hatred of a man enamored by excuses
led to my many deaths.

Friendships devolved into hurtful titles,
'The abusive ex boyfriend I never had'.
Vehicles exploded and tuition payment was delayed.
This stranded me in a distant town called Blackfoot,
Summer classes had all too short a date
and I was certain they would be akin to myself - Failed.
Mind you, this was week one of two.

In the weird land of desert sage and snake rivers
I was condemned to a jail sentence with my mirror for a cellmate.
No one to talk to, with guilt starting to fill my lungs
for I had left my pipe at home.

Walks were frequent, challenges just continued piling on;
A lack of work, a lack of money,
A lack of friendship, meeting a long lost ex.
Broken vehicles, forgotten hearts.

The climax came about when the sky was purple with night,

and speckled by shining stars.

My brown longcoat hugged me as I walked to the Snake River,

my pockets were filled with nearby stones,

and I was ready to become one with Virginia Woolf.

Yet, God shot a star out of his galactic revolver

and the bullet flew across the sky so brightly

that all I could do was write about it,

because some words must be said.

Life is pain.
It is the challenge and the struggle
which our youth,
myself included,
has come to forget.
Technology broke children
and molded them anew.
With the drive to find all the answers,
without any of the work,
and the common complaint:

"I have to walk?"

Inspiration came in the form of laziness quelled
and though I look at a harrowing future
wherein everything looks so intense,
so foreboding,
I grab my margaritas, my paper and pencil
and I say to that oncoming storm:

"C'est la vie."