the longest goodbye.

oh, sh!t, duders.
it's all really happening,
and none of it is expert.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
who had a busted up furnace wrecking his weekend?
yeah, it was me. good guess.
who ate dinner alone again for the millionth time?
yeah. me again. nice work.
a vegan cheesy pizza helped fill the empty place in my body, yo,
but it was purely mechanical function.
(and really, there are other empty places not yet sated)
my appetite isn't what it was a week ago.
still,
i got it poppin'.
i'm not an A*-hole after all.
check the flatbread teleport:

stuffing my face was like plugging up the drafts in my freezing house.
the cold is finding it's way in through hidey-holes,
because there's missing pieces where the whole used to be.
*
you know it, friends-
the first of the month is tomorrow.
a.k.a. moving day.
the big departure, the final step, the emptiest nest,
the bare walls and blank spaces where pieces of my old life used to be.
ugh.
january ends today, kids,
and while there are a few points of interest impending with the onset of february,
mostly,
all the balls in the whole wide world are being sucked as hard as ever.
uh-huh, that's real.
really real, in fact.
after today, it all changes all over again.
i'd like to say i have no regrets.
i'd like to say it was all worth it.
i'd like a lot of things that aren't the F*ing truth, y'all.
but this is how it actually ends, friends-
an indifferent shrug and other plans made.
no somber salute to the serendipitous series of happenings and stances,
no acknowledgement of the actual elapsed and spanned times.
just a shudder, a sharp intake, and a slow exhale.
ah.
i don't think i mean goodbye,
and i sure as sh!t don't mean farewell.
i guess that leaves us with 'so long'as our swan song, huh?
and in so many different ways, too.
it's one thing to know someone is dying,
but a whole other 'nother thing to watch them take their last breath.
(with apologies to my friend greg for co-opting his line)
i'm here, alone,
and i'm watching those metaphoric eyes close for what must be the last time.
i've never been one for going quietly,
but you can't force conversation on the close-lipped.
that equates to tyrannical tirade parades up and down the stairs,
talking exclusively to my own damn self.
at least it's clever, and brutally honest, and savagely poignant,
albeit rhetoric of the first order since i'm already on board with all of it.
*
that's right neighbors.
february is coming,
but everything about the last eleven years has left the building,
and that is a literal fact.
or at least, it will be when the movers show up tomorrow.
today is the day, again.
the last day.
of the month;
of the reign of tandem cohabitational warrior poetry;
of the entire era of woodsly goodsly teamwork and cooperation;
of ALL of it.
the Fortress will remain in my safe keeping for as long as i can manage it.
so there's that.
the rural reality of white-mountainous remote dwelling is intact, too;
it's just the contents therein that are all kinds of F*ed up.
echoes of yesterday, and actual echoes inside the sparsely furnished former hottness.
yuck, mutha-uckers.
no me gusta.
the Folk Life & Poverty Fortress just has not got the same flair, does it?
awwwwwwwww, man.
broke, broken, and dope.
that's the set-up for the second month of '13, i suppose.
starting now.
***********
you know the drill.
i mean,
you've read it all before now, and you probably will again-
i repeat myself when i'm lonely.
i repeat myself when i'm broken.
i repeat myself when i'm ugly.
i repeat myself every day, don't i?
check it out.
what's black and white and worst all over:

just the right face for this sh!t-salad sendoff.
some truths are harder, some styles are uglier,
and some ugly truths rep a damn hard style for sure.
spirits and memories and concentric overlapping ghost circles
and evaporating ephemeral smoke rings.
all of them are oppressively present at this precipice.
there's an edge we're stepping over, y'know?
it's not letting go that's scary,
it's choosing to fall in order to learn to fly.
rocks tend to plummet, not rise,
and albie rocks are doubly so inclined to descending.
i guess this is it, kids.
nobody leaves with the title,
but everybody leaves eventually;
never quiet, never soft.....