Carlsbad by John Patrick Robbins

I don't remember a point in my life when I was not a writer.

I only recall a time when I was not alone.

I recall when the old folks didn't seem a marker of my life's direction.

As youth wasn't something I had wasted en route to this void, I fully understand now.

In typing this, there is a mouse who does not fear me that comes out late at night.

As I work, or should I say attempt to capture glimmers of that once brilliant fire that was my life's passion and now just resembles a talent that's long eclipsed its host.

I no longer feel at one with anything remotely alive.

The sun's beautiful illumination through the forest's canopy.

The ocean's call to adventure and past regrets of far better men than myself.

I am worn to all new voices, as I am simply serving a fading life's sentence with my own.

My body aches as an old ship creaks upon the seas.

A reminder of my existence as it puzzles even myself as to how it's stayed afloat this long.

I sit penning the last few truths of my worn soul's existence, my new friend watching me with neither fear nor pity.

We understand our truths fully as I pour my poison; he gnaws at crumbs wanting nothing of me.

As I am thankful, for even the page would be asking far too much tonight.

I have little else to give but an all too distant stare and silence; where once my words breathed life, now they merely collect dust.

To realize the best of you has long since left the building, and somehow you were locked within this vacant hall to haunt only memories.

That are slowly fading like the evening’s ever too quickly approaching the setting sun.

We all find the answers when we're too jaded or maybe just too old to care.

When the night's embrace and the fire's warmth replace the comforts of others far better suited for sentimental reflections and ever so tired poems.

Tonight the page sits in wait; it's as vast as the sea, dangerous yet alluring in its possibilities.

I never wanted to reach the top of the mountain, for even a blind man could view this situation and summarize.

It's all downhill from here.

John Patrick Robbins, is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review and Off The Coast Magazine.

His work has been published by. The Dope Fiend Daily, Piker Press, Fearless Poetry Zine, Fixator Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Spill The Words, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine, 

Impspired Magazine, 

Lothlorien Journal Of Poetry.

His work is always unfiltered.