Touch the madness
feel the force of yesterday.
see those who were lost
on the road to nowhere
and the path to peace
were hell ruled and dreams were corrupted.
Chemical waves riding us
while we thought we rode them.

Look at the rope where
Rodney now hangs........
He had the answers -
Mine were all wrong.

Who could have made him listen?
No one.
the wave rode him...
into the ground.

Chris had dreams of reaching the sky.
Confident that he would be a star.
He flew -
eight stories, straight down.
He flew - was famous -
in limited circles for a few days.
The wave rode him -
straight into the ground.

Craig - the world owed him something.
He owed someone else...
His mother
screaming screaming screaming screaming
and today her heart screams still -
as she picks up a drink and tries to ride
the wave
the wave
that rode Craig into the ground.

I woke to see the tubes
and wondered what they were.
Elephants flew carrying away
bags of trash.
Butterflies landed on my bed -
angering me
but the handcuffs would let me kill them...
The guard laughed...
I panicked -
unable to form the words that screamed in my mind
unable to see beyond the tubes
the elephants
the butterflies
and the colors that danced
making me dizzy....
thought of Chris
missing him....
Craig smiling at me from behind
a butterfly the size of me...

Doctor telling me I should be dead.
Hell,
why do you think I ride so hard?
Why do you think I jump into the flames?
I crave death!
Don't I?

Darkness for days...
the wave rides me hard,
and yet unlike my friends
I lived to be ridden another day.

Now I look back... and feel
what?
Everything.
Nothing.
Tears.
Rage.
Peace.
Remorse.
Gulit...
I don't know.
I do know however -
That I do the riding now -
but the waves are different.

24/05/98
© Barry Wayne Veinotte