459 and 460

The morning isn’t much for pretty thoughts.

Not much, at least, for me. I am, instead,

much more the one who wakes while his mind rots,

and spends his morn cutting his binds from bed.

Yesterday took two hours, laying there.

The dull knife of a bath could break no cord.

I tried the scissor, too, of song and prayer,

but found I was still lifeless afterward.

Not new—for man or me. This tale’s well known.

And still they say you think best when you wake.

If that is true, my sanity has shown

the best of me is what I must forsake.

The best of me. The one that will not crave—

the one who wants, more than all things, his grave.

~~~

A boy I knew when we were kids in school

went home each day and spoke to none of us;

and some of us (we who were the more cruel)

thought little of him when we saw him thus.

But fools were we, not only for our child-

-ish guesses of his estimated state,

but fools indeed because we were so wild-

-ly wrong about the truth of our debate.

He’d walk inside his home and find his way

to solitary projects he enjoyed.

It’s more than all the rest of us could say—

ours was to gossip (and such dreams avoid).

He was the one to win. He lived, while we

believed success was popularity.