Author: Tim (Page 2 of 12)

Schrodinger’s Old Man

The rain falls hard on the streets outside.
I’m by the fire, a gin and tonic in hand.
Middle age has come like a cold wind,
not with a warning but suddenly,
like the silence before a storm.

There is no mistaking it.
The young man I was,
the one who chased the sun and the nights,
has slipped away without me noticing.

Now, I’m here.
And I’m not here.
Half-alive, half-gone,
waiting for something,
maybe nothing.

Christmas is always the same.
The tree in the corner,
the same old ornaments,
the same hands wrapping presents.
The faces of those I’m with, familiar but distant,
like people I could have known,
if I had been someone else.

I think of the cat in the box.
Alive, dead, or both.
Maybe that’s what I am.
Half-man, half-memory,
waiting for a door to open,
for something to decide.

But it doesn’t matter.
The fire crackles,
the gin goes down smooth.
And outside, the rain is falling.
It’s Christmas.
And I’m here,
and I’m not.

Today’s poem, I’ll admit, didn’t just happen today. My goal is generally to draft and revise and publish a poem each day in December. This poem has been sitting, unfinished, in my notebook, for several months. I started working on it during my last course of talk therapy as the themes of friendship and gratitude were significant in those sessions.

Today’s verse is the product of a few months, and realistically, a few decades of thinking about friends and what they mean to me. A lot of people have passed through my life, some leaving without a word or trace, but a few have stayed and walked and talked and listened and this poem is for them. I think they know who they are. Enjoy.

Church

I wake to the warmth of sunlight,
it spills itself in quiet rivers
across the floor, warm and welcome
as the presence of a friend. 

There is a hush that follows, 
a sigh of nature, a patient waiting.
I could live here, in this sun and silence,
where words fall like gentle stones
into a deep pool of knowing—
the right ones,
the ones that say enough
without asking for more.

Friendship is like that,
a space where the air isn’t heavy
with all the things unsaid—
where gratitude sits
on the edge of every laugh,
and we do not need to speak
to feel the warmth of each other’s being.

The world outside is wild,
but here, it is still—
the light is a prayer,
and we, in our muted voices,
are its answer.

Killing Time

The house is dead quiet,
just me,
my chair, grousing like it’s tired too.
No phone calls, no emails,
no goddamn noise—
finally.

I crack open a Fanta
it spits a little fizz dripping down the side
like it’s laughing at me
or with me. who knows.
I take a swig.
It’s cheap and sharp,
too sweet,
but it tastes like the kind of freedom
you don’t have to explain.

A movie plays.
Some actor saying lines he doesn’t mean,
but it’s fine.
he’s doing his job.
I’m doing mine:
sitting here,
letting the hours bleed out
like there’s no rush to patch them up.

Outside, the world is gray,
but right here,
it’s just me,
an orange soda buzz,
and the feeling
that, for now,
everything’s right where it should be.

Leaving

The fog’s thick this morning,
I drag my tired ass out of bed,
feet cold,
head heavier than the world outside.

Leaves—they don’t care.
they just fall,
dull, tattered, and soaked,
smothering the ground like bad decisions, wasting away like forgotten dreams.

I rake them up,
but it’s pointless,
eventually they just scatter again
like too many people in life,
fading into the fog.

It’s cold,
and I’m tired,
but the leaves?
They keep falling.
They keep going.
So do I.

Principal’d contemplation.

I stepped into the gray evening,
the fog wrapping the jungle gym in a ghostly pause,
no squeals of tag, no bounce of the kickball—
just the echos of the day, fading.

Hallways hum with fluorescent stillness,
no boiler groaning, no papers rustling,
no lost-and-found gloves left behind.
My keys jangle, louder than expected
in this realm without citizens.

For a moment, the to-do list sits obedient,
not spilling over, not chasing me down the corridor—
and I sit in the quiet,
listening to nothing.

I don’t miss the chaos, not yet.
Not the scuffed floors, not the lunch trays clattering,
not the throng of hands reaching out
for pencils, for passes, for reassurance.

Still, the fog hangs heavy.
The building feels like a story waiting to happen,
its walls holding their breath for
the noise to return—
the sound of them,
alive and running, breaking the stillness
I thought I wanted.

For now, I wait,
this place mine alone,
fogged windows, empty desks,
a clock ticking softly toward January.

Trial by Fire

In the ash,
a single coal—
adorned in glowing red
still cooling
beneath my hands.

I stand,
smoke rising
from the folds
of my shadow,
the weight
of wings
I cannot see
bearing down
on my shoulders.

The fire waits—
it always does—
hungry
for the soft edges
of who I am.

A Sick Day

The world moves without me
beyond the window’s quiet frame;
the wind bends branches, stirs the leaves,
and whispers none to blame.

Here, still and tired, I lay,
the body's work under repair; 
no tasks to chase, no field to tend,
but only rest and air.

The earth, I know, will wait—
its soil unchanged, its rivers sure.
This day is given not for loss,
but simply to endure.

Go Outside

It’s been weeks of gray and rain,
weather gnawing the edges of things—
But this morning, the sky
is clean as an empty page…
Ready for my verse.

I lace my shoes and step out
into the humming quiet of the world, light leans in like an old friend.
A crow flaps off the telephone wire,
its wings a slow applause.

I move through it-
the sharp air filling my chest.

Everywhere, wet pavement smells,
and grass stretching toward the sun.
Isn’t it something,
how quickly the heart clears
when the sky does?

The body remembers—
not the heavy weeks of gray,
but this:
the brief, blessed brightness,
the feeling of being made new.