Poetry / Funny Stories About Thirst & Drowning

I was trying to write a poem using drowning as a metaphor. You know how at the end of a relationship you fight, and care more about winning the argument than being truthful. It’s like two people standing in boats full of holes, bailing the water out into the other person’s boat. Not trying to patch the holes, or figure out what caused them. Just wanting to make sure that they survive longer. But the poem didn’t work out, the details took over and it got muddy and messy and lost its purpose. Kind of like the relationship. Oh, that’s funny.
Sorta.

How I miss your cuddly pudginess
with warm faded yellow
and a lot surrounded by trees
to your memory
I get down on both knees.

This soda
now has
two
straws in it
and
this McDonalds
used to be a bank

These are joyfully
obvious.

Quit smoking man
so we can outlive our wives and
mack on eighty year old chicks
together.

100 miles from home
and a jug of milk between us
chocolate in every bite
the whole box relieved
and with it all of our problems.

I
cannot
say
how I feel about you
because Peter Gabriel
has a copyright on those words
at Peter Gabriel Ltd, Box Mill, Mill Lane, Box, Wiltshire, SN13 8PL
England.

If I were Jesus Christ
I would have broken a
meatball sandwich
on that
last night

If I were Judas Iscariot
I would have changed my mind
then and there.

One morning,

You broke camp and crossed enemy lines to find love. However triggered by thirst you retreated. So with an empty canteen between us, we thirsted together. Our fingertips touched as it passed back and forth, and with it every potential and impossibility. Each word contained both surrender and volley. We baited traps for one another with olive branches and white flags. We were like two empty cups trying to fill each other up.

It was how you say,
a feeling.

Figurative cuts leave figurative scars
for strangers to stumble across

so if your looking for me tonight I’ll be at Burger King
in the parking lot, under the trees
living the dream
practicing skateboard moves
to beguile my age.

I was a bright
husky kid
who grew into an angry
chubby teen

and by the time I got muscles
from the Army
I had made
my peace
with
the world

so I faced it
with fabulous muscles
and a smile

then one day
it happened
I asked her, “Do you love him too?”
and she said, “No”
and then,
“I don’t know.”

So I roamed the streets
drunk
empty
and thinking
this is how murder happens.

I saw a garage light on in the middle of the night, so I walked down to it.
The light was orange, and there were trees around making complicated shadows.
It smelled like fall.

I studied my hand as I moved it through the
amber light
into the dark
and back
I was hoping to feel it all roll over my fingers like a pencil

and I said to myself after a few moments,
“Lueders, this just isn’t working for you anymore.”
In third person like that.

and I thought about how
my ex-girlfriend
and my ex-bestfriend
cut me out of the picture
and it felt gross & inescapable

when I got home
I still studied my hands
I made a fist and looked
at my face
and I thought about
how I’d become exceedingly
fluent in both anger and
self-pity

then I looked at the sink
“I’ll thank myself in the morning”
if I do dishes, tonight

and i did
and thats that.

The moon casts
high-definition
shadows at night
that are just begging
to be walked through

but riding your bicycle
through them
too fast
is funner.

You get shit on
a lot
in life

but shit’s really good
for growing things
like roses

so when it hits the fan, grab a bag
take a shower
and plant some fucking seeds!

There is a belief, an understanding
before all else
that you are capable

and this is important to remember
when you are outdoors
on hills, looking at mtns
in rain, looking at yr feet
or standing in fog, alon.

you have
capability.

The three of us walked down a cozy alley
could be anywhere, like Nebraska
and there is a comfort between us all
we correspond
as if
as if one of us could be wearing a wig
or one of us could expose themselves to us

and that would be fine
too.

I once became so exceedingly
fluent in anger and self-pity
that I lost my native tongue

but now I have it back
and I think doing dishes
helped
and jogging.

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