A Poem Upon Returning

 Concrete Beat

By

Christopher Nadeau

Stretching, spreading, growing,

Everywhere at once.

Weeds between the cracks, mothers with broken backs.

Cold. Hot. Always changing,

Footfalls echo, fade, recede, back and forth,

Blood everywhere, unnoticed, unrecognized, unacknowledged.

Bodies soften the surface for those whose feet,

Rarely tread upon roughness.

Sounds fill the air, the mind, the soul,

As dim light hits the eyes just right.

Addictions abound, stenches surround,

Who cares?

Does anyone care?

Did anyone ever care?

It has always been here, unfolding, enveloping.

Leading nowhere, sometimes somewhere, rarely and always

Everywhere. There. Up ahead. 

More.

Enormous, jutting things, filled with

People. Empty, unfulfilled people.

Dwelling and toiling inside the same

Material that leads to them.

Who cares?

Who gives a fuck?

Where does it end?

Shall we go for a stroll?

First Patreon Post of July

So I've been a tad lax with my Patreon page this month. But have no fear, the first post is up and, no worries, mate, it is sure to depress the hell out of you!

Don't ask me what it is because I'm not sure. A poem, perhaps. I intentionally avoided using any personal pronouns but it is most definitely about me.

Click the link here, sign up to donate at least one dollar per month and bask in the gentle despair OF "Auto-Pilot," a Patreon original...

A Peek Inside the Real Me.

I don't know if this is a poem but it felt like one as I was writing it a few minutes ago. It hasn't been edited except for spelling and repetition nor will it be. I also don't have a title. Anyway, this is me at my most raw:

The man who went to bed last night,

Is not the man who woke up in the same bed this morning.

The face in the mirror is similar, but

There is a shadow over it.

The eyes lack focus for they gaze long away,

To a place that is not a place, that

Cannot be seen by anyone else.

The man eats the same meals and

Performs the same menial tasks.

He says all the things he is expected to say,

Despite feeling nothing when he says them.

The man who went to bed last night felt things.

He found hope in the tiniest moments,

He looked for the bright spot in the darkest times.

He may have seemed cynical but he was secretly, embarrassingly,

A hopeless romantic burdened with the cruel presence

Of realism.

He was a fool.

The man who awoke knows this because

He remembers all of it as if having interrupted

A dream he suddenly controlled.

But dreams are lies we tell ourselves in order to

Not give in.

For there is a pit that awaits us all just outside our daily vision.

Neither malevolent nor loving, it simply waits.

Some of us never feel its pull. Some of us

Have enough inside to avoid it altogether.

But not the man who woke up in bed. He feels each day,

Each moment slipping away.

The pit widens and reaches for him because he is ready.

The man who went to bed is not the man

Who woke up.

That man was not awake.

This one wants to sleep forever.