I’m having trouble with endings.
I’m not drinking enough water
or listening to any new music.
To me it all sounds like a cell phone
ringing and tastes like repetition.
Look, you can’t hand me a hammer
and not expect me to pound something.
Sure, the Grand Canyon is amazing,
but what about the Colorado River?
What about the moon? What about
the boat we found run aground in the forest.
That was unexpected. As was the taste
of the gun barrel. As was the 
waitress who used to be a nun. 
Sometimes I can’t believe people
can do things like play Rachmaninoff’s
third piano concerto or paint a picture
like Dogs Playing Poker when it’s all I can do
to wind my alarm clock knowing full well
I will hate myself in the morning.
Is that deranged mumbling or a
magical incantation I hear?         
Are you buying any of this? Would it help
if I started over from the beginning?

Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review among others.