Flavor Saver

Flavor Saver

I was waiting for you to realize 

that we don’t have to do the things 

that everyone else is doing,

a one-in-a-million type of life,

and to be deemed willing 

we need to know where this leads,

but on this side of the 405

all I can see is mountainside,

it took a restricted view 

to paint a clear picture 

of the memory of you,

like when a formally renowned artist 

begins to lose his voice 

and starts to use auto-tune,

or the time 

I got off from my night shift early, 

walked thru the door,

and I knew by your eyes

that you were high.

Something left undone, 

and after enough time went by

what was left became artificial,

as if 

you or I 

hadn’t been willing participants,

purgatory isn’t a place for settling,

and it makes me wonder

if all this waiting 

was a gift,

idle hands 

turn into the Devil's grip,

sticks and stones 

can break bones,

but it’s as if we forgot

the words to use

so that we could make a home.

We didn’t have to always tell the truth,

but it would have been a good start 

to hold back the lies, 

it’s interesting that deceiving 

always begins within,

a sin now

was penance back then

and a question for you

posed in the present,

“When does forgiveness end?”

Trial by fire at midnight

as the light 

of this laptop burns bright, 

desktop philosophy 

quoting those who came before,

memorizing lines, 

and dreaming about things to be written,

all while simultaneously 

forgetting you 

and me 

had together 

made a ‘we’.

After all that

it could be asked if

I’d have a memory

that I’d keep with me,

“All of them,” I’d say.

“Because I think that 

it’s better to have had something

and lost, forgotten, or fucked it up

then to have never found anything

and not known 

what it was like 

to actually live.”