After And After Hours

My life is in this bag
And these pockets
I will not go home tonight
For tonight I have no home

The road before me is scary yet inviting
The day ahead of me full of challenges
But I'm ready

There's no rest for the weary
Or the crazy

The former, I definitely am
The latter, I've probably always been

And some might think me crazy tonight
My life carried on my shoulders
And in these jeans
My wandering spirit refusing to let me be a prisoner
Of four walls holding a human-made hell

Some might think me crazy as I run
Not merely from agony
But to freedom

Some might think me crazy not to settle for the unacceptable
"The inevitable," they might say...

In that case, sanity is overrated

For here is my life
In these pockets
In this bag
Flowing from this pen to this paper

And here I am

And here I go.

More Or Less Of The Same

I will be your sympathy when I just cannot empathize
I will be your empathy when I can more than sympathize
I will be the shoulder you can wet when rain falls from your eyes
But one thing I won't be is surprised

I will listen as you tell me how he wasted your affection
I will listen even when I know you don't need my attention
I will bite my tongue, suppressing thoughts you don't want me to mention
Like "Be pickier about your next connection"

I will take a step back, knowing how this new chapter will end
I will watch you from a distance as you hurt yourself again
But I won't be out of touch, lest you think me a bad friend
Still, I may just be one now and then

I will forget all about you until somehow you remind me
That it only burdened both of us for me to treat you kindly
It's not that I don't love you, but I can't let my love blind me
Why can't I just leave you behind me?

And now that once again, you've been abused and used and burned
By yet another opportunist to whom you have turned
I know you still won't recognize the lesson you must learn
And I've run out of time to be concerned.