poem of the day 02.21.11

the restless years

the restless years
are coming to an end for you and i

at least that’s what i think

sitting in the apartment
quietly comparing cities
listening to the wind howl
down seventy-fifth street

those restless years
of packing boxes haphazardly
and hauling ass across another faceless state
in a futile effort to escape
the same things awaiting us when we get there

the restless years

neither of us
want to reawaken them

it seems so hard to get up the motivation
so hard to get up off of this old couch
and grab a map

even if the jobs seem better
that the ones we have
even if existence seems better
than the one we are slogging through

the restless years
they are cruel beasts
trying to rip out our hearts
trying to fool us

we know that the restless years
are never what they promise to be

and it can take years to recover from them

the restless years
we’ve driven over jagged cliffs with them
so many times
i don’t think i have the strength
to do them all over again

tonight
i just want to sit here with you
and contemplate the missed paint splotches
on the walls
in the only place we’ve ever lived in longer
than our childhood homes

i want to drink this wine and figure out
if this conversation
is either madness or contentment setting in

before we scratch the belly
of the restless years
and it’s too late to make them stop

because i used to think that people
needed something more than they
were getting out of life

or maybe that was just true for you and i

but now i think that sometimes having a life
means giving up and saying goodbye
to the restless years

sometimes i think i like knowing
where the sun is going to set on us
at night

and which way we should turn
away from it
when it rises again in the next morning