Workday Traffic

Sometimes I forget
I can only go as fast
as the car in front of me,
joining in with the
multitude of motorists
heading along the roadway,
going to wherever their
daily location dictates.
I'm here
driving right along with them
in a mass of repetition.
Some would say
this is a good thing,
but being caught behind and beside
some of these drivers who choose
to go under the speed limit
and staring straight ahead,
unaware of what's surrounding them
sometimes drives me
up a proverbial wall.
I want to go faster.
I want to get to where I need to be
and get out of this mess,
out of this monotomy,
out of this road
which is making me as dull as
the driver next to me.
But the thought passes by
as I finally reach my exit,
finally able to drive
with a little bit of space to myself
and just a little bit closer
to where I need to be.

Just A Friend

She's told me about
every man that's gone to bed with her.
That in itself should tell me
I don't stand a chance.

Sometimes I think
she doesn't even see me as a man,
that somehow I've become
a sounding board to help her

figure out her problems
and her confusions, never to be
more than that.  And all this time
I've been happy to oblige.

But last night as I lay
in an empty bed, waking up
to find myself clutching
a pillow to fill my empty arms,

I realized that being a human diary
doesn't fulfill my own needs
and worrying about her future
is doing harm to mine.

So let me step away for now
and let her figure things out.
I need to lose myself in someone else,
a lover who'll fill up my essence.

Let's Hang Out

It's not a marriage proposal.
All this is
is me asking you
to spend some time together
and watch the world go 'round.

There's no agenda here.
You're interesting
and I'd like to know more
about who you are
and what you're thinking.

So let's hang out
and not worry about
what will happen tomorrow.
Let's chat a while
and enjoy each other's company.

Happy at Work?

If people knew what I was thinking
at exactly 10:00 on this Wednesday morning,
they would say that I'm crazy.
They would say that the thoughts in my head
need to immediately leave my thinking
because in this American landscape
I'm in a good place.

But staring out of my window
at exactly 10:00 on this Wednesday morning,
I feel like I'm slowly dying,
the juices within me are stagnant
as I perform my daily tasks
from this corner office
one more time.

I guess I should be happy where I am,
happy that in this American landscape
of job loss and company realignment,
of bigwigs saving theirs by taking from others.
Happy that I'm not of the casualties,
one of the stories of the dream
and how it came crashing down.

But this day and this hour
is just one of those times where
I just don't feel the love
and right now I need to feel the love
because sitting in this corner office
at this hour and at this day
I feel alone.

I'm not happy right now
and I know the paycheck that I'll get
won't help much either
because life is more than dollars and cents.
What's the point of
having dollars and cents
if you feel like you're losing all other sense?