I sit in my room and turn off the lights.
Windows draped with black out curtains.
My eyes are wide open, but it doesn’t make a difference.
It’s the same color as when they’re closed.
Most people like their canvases to be white..
But I draw better in the dark.
I speak and let the words surround me until I can see them
I allow them to join together in holy matrimony,
I listen to them say their vows to one another, pledging the sweetest allegiance to themselves
They conceive pictures that I could have never fathomed
Paintings I could never draw
I watch them dance all around me
Vibrant
So vibrant
I want to touch them, but I let them be  instead
I can’t believe they once lived inside of me
This is love
This is existence
This is creation
I am Mother Nature.

I found a way to make it painless, to make god good, to make myself good, to make myself god—me—Joshua Jerome Hutton, sound familiar?  

God I hope so.

I found a way to make it painless in the checkout line, while the bleary-eyed maidens of South Moore, one in front, one behind, talk 3 a.m. rallies and resurrections right through me.

I found a way to make it painless at the eternal stoplight, watching the eternal Vietnam veteran in eternal rags holding eternal cardboard, summoning crumpled bills from anyone other than me.

I found a way to make it painless during the photo shoot, a way to place my chin so thoughtfully in my hand, a way to look into the middle-distance, a way to imply self-deprecation, a way to find near perfection—only under ample light, of course.

I found a way to make it painless in the soup queue, amongst my fellow unshaven, shamed naked, shamed to the bone, shamed pure, shamed to one flybuzz drive: I must consume.

I found a way to make it painless, to make it to the center of the white space, to suspend, inking out the worst parts of me, an all caps ATTRACTION, impossible to pinpoint, all for the review of books and the cabal of the slowed-down and insane still reading the review of books.

I found a way to make it painless by never breaking eye contact nor speaking a word as you talk yourself deeper into what you hate about yourself, and I stir my drink with a black cocktail straw, and I clear my throat, and I hahaha to myself, and I say these little issues just seem like problems. Just wait. You just wait.

I found a way to make it painless, to eek out of my own borderlines, to meld with the air and chemtrail across the sky, to observe from a holy distance the tightrope walker, the controlled demolition, the desperate young men lagging five feet behind the elusive loves of their lives, firing every clever phrase, hoping for one to land, to glean one little pause, a moment to catch up, and here, I must admit, it gives me great relief to be this removed, this far gone, this far god.

all day long the internet sells wisdom like
fruit in bins fronting the bodegas,
the one Spanish word every New Yorker speaks,
some ripe, some not and
some on the cusp of going home as mulch to the wet earth,
sooner than later

you can't squeeze the wisdoms proffered like a piece of fruit,
from the exterior, there rarely be a dashboard indicator saying
check engine light or this one is one worth picking

so gobsmack like Dylan croaking in an obvious in a way something obvious yet you thinking hey! that's interesting, read
earn good friends
something I ain't done so well and yet here I am,
passing it on like I know what the fruit-picking trick is,  
but on your fourth cup of joe and it's barely noon,
in your seventh decade you take the right to croak,
even if you aint got no expertise, that the emphisis
is on the earn part

you dont buy 'em in the store, no winning the lottery,
gotta use your eyes and no, lovers don't count neither,
guess you gotta stick out that hand, have somebody's back,
unasked,
and being gracious when saying thanks,
but then again never had more than one or two,
but for fhem
I'd lay down my life for them to survive so not exactly clueless

earn good friends, that sounds bout right...that, the right way...

The hike up the steep grassy knoll was arduous.
My legs had laboured for the heart that yearns.
The peak had called with a chorus of promise;
The lyrics sung of vantage and foresight
and of clarity that burns.

The summit now conquered...
Strained eyes blinked away the sting from
trickling rivulets of sweat.
I was perched atop a boulder anticipating a view
which I had expected different but inadvertently get.

The sun was kind and air was sweet.
I tried to see as hard as my lungs had fought...
But my eyes couldn't puncture the shroud
of fog and mist
that lingered over the future I had sought.

Attention brought back to where I had trudged.
I can't move forward without looking back...
At the path through which I had decided to pass.
Gasping at the result of conscious footfalls and clumsy missteps.
I can't help but regret and weep
over the wake of the devastation,
my reckless feet had made apparent in the grass.

dont denigrate the naysayer
for saying what he sees
while you may not believe your eyes
belief is not to be believed
nothing real needs proving
but everything real can be
there is no need for blind devotion
when with your eyes open you simply see

Somebody bundled
it into a clock
and slung it up high on a wall,

with numbers
like bars between us,
where there had been nothing before;

before,
my days had come open,
open and endless like sky,

but boxed on the wall
there looked no room for all
of the rest of my lifetime and I.

when are you the child you had always hoped to be
today is gone tomorrow and the past is all you see
if yesterday's a liar will you ask why it has come
or has it proven honest by the rising of the sun
it's not for me to question anything you won't accept
but on the edge of reason I am bowing with respect
for knowledge at its greatest cannot stand the test of time
eternity surpasses every border in our mind
continue with the maybes and you'll learn to understand
Humanity has challenged the beginning with its hands
we've built so many cities while we've torn so many down
the likelihood of lasting begs the future not to drown
the children we're creating bare the weight of all we've done
I'm forfeiting my body for the sake of *everyone