9:18

Nine Eighteen in the evening
98 degrees outside my window.
I'm a thousand miles from where once was home
now a memory.

The house is quiet.
My two friends sleeping soundly
but I'm awake.

Awake.

You've seen me before,
read my words, some honest
some lies. The timeline
evident.

Do the strings still work on this guitar?
I don't remember the melodies
but my fingers act of their own accord.
I'm simply watching the words appear
and agreeing with them.

I've been analyzed by others
and have spent my time analyzing myself
and finding no serious defect. Merely
a reassignment of cognitive function
to another case.

But I want to remember how to write.
Remember to feel
Remember to pause a moment in the rat race
and smell that flower on the side of the road
whose aroma mixes with the perfume
of high-octane fuel.

I stopped writing since I feared my words,
feared my readers.
feared myself.
But I'm not afraid anymore. I can't go back to where I used to be
but I can try to rekindle a spark
of the earlier flame.

I'm on again.

Nine Eighteen in the evening
98 degrees outside my window.
I'm a thousand miles from where once was home
now a memory.

The house is quiet.
My two friends sleeping soundly
but I'm awake.

Awake.

You've seen me before,
read my words, some honest
some lies. The timeline
evident.

Do the strings still work on this guitar?
I don't remember the melodies
but my fingers act of their own accord.
I'm simply watching the words appear
and agreeing with them.

I've been analyzed by others
and have spent my time analyzing myself
and finding no serious defect. Merely
a reassignment of cognitive function
to another case.

But I want to remember how to write.
Remember to feel
Remember to pause a moment in the rat race
and smell that flower on the side of the road
whose aroma mixes with the perfume
of high-octane fuel.

I stopped writing since I feared my words,
feared my readers.
feared myself.
But I'm not afraid anymore. I can't go back to where I used to be
but I can try to rekindle a spark
of the earlier flame.

I'm on again.