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"OUR LAST GOODBYE"
my deep and
sincere
apologies for all my
insecurities, my wall,
my profound
cynical
nature and whatever
other faults i'm sure
you'd be so
quick
to point out
judging from our last
correspondence
you
seem to have given into
my need and desire
to sabotage
every
relationship i've ever
been in
and while i'm
not
very proud of
my victory
i'm,
i'm...
well,
you'd have to know
the pitfalls and trappings
here behind my wall
to
understand my feelings
have a good life
may your heart get
all
that it so truly deserves
and put down the
bottle
alcohol will only distort
your memories of me
and make
them much
worse than they actually
already are
© J.J. Campbell
"SIGNS OF MATURING"
i have more moments
now as i grow older
that i wonder what
my
father is up to
his 58th birthday just
passed a few days
ago
i actually wished him well
when i prayed that
night
i'll still be the first in
line though to
shovel
dirt on his grave
forgiveness is one
thing
forgetting is another © J.J.
Campbell
"REGRET"
i remember this girl back in
high school telling me that she
knew
she was going to regret
not going out with me
because i was
intelligent, funny,
special, sure to be a success,
yadda yadda
yadda
i don't know what ever
became of her
but here i
am
unemployed, damn near broke,
thirty seconds away
from
selling what i have left
and living in my car
i would
hope that she
has realized by now
that she has nothing to
regret
about missing this
fucking train ride
unless of
course
she was longing for a life
of apathy, drunken nights
in
shitty bars and the
occasional burning sensation
with the morning
piss
© J.J. Campbell
"WITH THE HELP OF MY TRUSTY KNIFE"
i asked my sister if i could have
the pennies from her
glass
snoopy coin bank
she said if i could get them
all out
without breaking it
they were mine
one hour and 577 pennies
later
i handed her back the
glass bank
she laughed and asked
if
i was hard up for money
i chuckled and told her to
be
thankful that she has
a well paying job and
wasn't cursed
with
this gift of poetry
she laughed and mentioned
something
about laziness
and apathy
but i couldn't make it out
i
had already left the room
off to go roll my newly
acquired
fortune © J.J. Campbell
"TO THE GODS OF SECOND CHANCES"
they're playing our
song again and for
all i know you could
be
on the other
side of the earth
and every time i try
to
replace your eyes,
your smile, your
insatiable desire for
what
life has to offer
i end up choking on
the regrets of what
might
have been
so i raise my glass to
you tonight and offer
a word
or two to the
gods of second chances
hoping one day
you'll
find a phone
or a stamp or bump
into me in one of my
rare public
appearances
for it appears out of the
two of us i'm the
one
blessed with the good
fortune of not going
anywhere in my
life
i keep telling myself
that is simply patience
at work
but as each
day passes i keep
thinking part of me is
full of shit
© J.J. Campbell
"SPEEDING UP THE
INEVITABLE"
there are mice living
in the basement
they've become quite
the
nuisance, they have
infiltrated my dreams
i swear i can
feel them walking
on me in my sleep, nibbling on
my skin, slowly
driving me insane
sometimes i'll go down to the
basement and
find one of them
its body clearly being ravaged
by the poison
i've set out for it
back legs paralyzed, front legs
struggling
to move, heart rate and
breathing slowly coming to a
halt
sometimes i just want to pull up a
chair and watch it
die
but after about five minutes
i realize even i'm not
that
sick of a fuck
so i pick it up and go drown it
in a
bucket of water
i'll then scoop it out, put it in a
plastic bag
and take it out to the trash
and while i know how i kill
the
mice is not necessarily
considered humane
i do think they are
appreciative
of me speeding up the inevitable
at least, i know i
would be © J.J. Campbell
"HOPING THIS TENSION WILL BRING THE TRUTH"
you could cut the tension between us
with the same knife you've
threatened
to run across your wrists for years now
with each
touch of your lips
i could taste the blood that
will connect us
forever
and whether we wanted it,
needed it, or even cared that
the
moment had arrived
it was over now
much like when boys
throw rocks
at the stained glass windows of a church
when that glass
shatters, do you run
and hide or do you confess?
we're at that
crossroad now
stumbling over the empty boxes of wine
and
ashtrays overflowing with
the remnants of drunken
intellectuals
i imagine this is as good a time
as any to start
the killing spree
but we both know we can't trust
anyone who
bleeds better than the
warrior in our souls
so, like any
struggle of good
and evil, it is that lonely path
that we both must
ride
hoping that our faith
brings us truth
for i don't
think either of us
seek salvation
just the truth to
bring
this journey
to an end will suffice ©
J.J. Campbell
"WITHDRAWN"
bloody hands
wrapped around what i thought
was the
future
dreams/love/forever
it was only another fantasy
turned
into a slit wrist night
of loneliness
heartbreak
the tragedy
of balcony alcohol
too much time on my hands
the stars rekindling
old dreams
of her eyes
whispering into my soul
the back alley
screams of passion
recollecting scenes of lust from my past
cars
drive by
the neon lights blitz my head
i want to jump
drive a
stake through this heart
see if i can fly
show the world what murder
really is
but i succumb to fear
dreams of someone else
some
fucked up thought that
everything happens for a reason
i'll grow
from this
soon i'll be inward
withdrawn
drinking
uncontrollably
smoking three packs a day
watching old films of
bogart
polishing my guns
peeking through the window
hoping to
see the sun
women
laughter of children
only to see
death
paranoia
hypodermic needles
marching through the
streets
of los angeles
the roaches break through the wall
of
my existence
they crawl on my skin
have sex
eat/drink
get into
long conversations
about the national debt
i can feel them
killing me
nibbling at this tattered skin
soon i'm nothing
but
old bones
broken dreams
a burning cigarette resting
at
the base of my soul
i wonder who'll bring
the gasoline
© J.J. Campbell | 