It’s an odd thing, that certain something.
I remember not so long ago
A moment when I felt severed from all.
I was a phantom walking,
And I felt a certain kind of power
As I stalked those crowded halls.
I’d kept my hood up and my sleeves down.
And paced to the sounds of Sunny Moore.
I am bad was my thought as I gave cutting looks.
But I was only ever a fake.
All was a charade I used to keep the kids at bay
After one mocked me for my orange shoes.
“We don’t like fags around here, kiddo,”
Bucktooth said, knife in hand.
Soccer never was respected here, was all I thought
As I escaped without a scar.

Understand yet? Mine is the false kind.
And sometimes…. I’d just watch the cars.
All the while thinking that juvenile (yet grounded) thought:
We are like ants on this Earth
And even less than sand further on.
Mine were never the perceptible kind.
I couldn't show them as pail signs of the battle
I was waging because Mine was the fake kind.
Mine came because I wasn't sad enough
When a loved one passed…and then another.
I saw everyone crumble as she died.
I saw my entire family break down because of a flood
That took away everything we had.
But I was never sad enough for my liking.
And then as the cars sped by,
As the kids starting kicking my desk again,
As some girl flirted with me,
As someone ‘pantsed’ me in the locker room,
One thought remained, one source for what I named my certain something:
E------, you are less than sand. You couldn’t even cry for your aunt.
And not once did I ever act. Or will I ever.
But I will never be false again,
Just a little older, a little wiser
For knowing my certain kind of something.

I wasnt always good with words
until I learn they can be manipulated
stripped of its meaning
treated
reworded and planted as if sod
sound the same
rebuilt like a cars: thesauruses are essentially junk yards
they allow you to play tennis with your mind
they can replace signs
are intimidated by the weak and rejoiced by the blind
and,
and
in the end
I  know words can do more than just rhyme
they chime in during chimes and relate simple parking tickets to fines
politicians use them as smoke screen
with word
I can
metaphorically call them ninja’s
the way they evade questions and attack with their sharp tongues
so i won
well
winning the battle with words, just know i can curse you out now without saying a curse

Sometimes,
It's okay to be a crater in the moon
The sidewalks sleek slipperiness
Teases my vulnerable boot
One false move and I'm
Face down in the gutter
Whatever.

Sometimes,
I need to be the lone, cumulus cloud in the sky
The black ink of an unidentifiable
bird
Breaks my white, puffy monotony
One cloud
"How strange,
how
interesting."
"Yes,
quite."

Sometimes,
It's important to be thrust into the cluster on those who walk too closely
A pungent pallet
Of too many different smells
Foreign hands
sway like chopsticks against mine
The end of someone's coat
grazes my outer thigh
Sickening.

Sometimes,
I need to be thrust into the cold cave that is my loneliness
I need to hear my own breath
flowing with the rhythm of the cars
cruising through the unread chapter of the
dark, quiet streets
The walls,
my prison
My body,
the evil captor

Sometimes,
I need to be sorry
and, oh, I am
A thousand times over
My apologies are bigger than
every Redwood tree in existence
I'm so out of controlWhiplash
Five cuts in your back
I'm right there
to heal them
before they even had a chance to bleed

But sometimes,
I'd rather leave you banging on the back door
Even when the sun sinks
I won't listen
to your pleas
The road ahead of you
is lonely
I won't be the lantern that fuels your unctuous behavior
I can't run with the rats forever
The mirror feeds me a different reflection every time I look into it
Today,
my hand doesn't shake in fear
It rests in quiet resolution
Soundly over my other

After looking back on the last few years with depth and hind sight. I've realized that I never really took a look at myself and what I was doing to the people around me. The selfish glut is over and the stark reality of the bed I've made is terrifying. I'm slashed deep and wide and my emotions are flowing out and my most guarded feelings are being shared with complete strangers. I've begin to cry infront of far too many people. I met a man today who's wife just left him also and in one look we shared the shame of what we've done to those we adored the most. We fought back tears in control of our composer tripping slightly at the raw we couldn't hide. The insight I refused to use could of saved me the love of my life. Instead I hid in our time of need the emotions I felt because I lost a child and couldn't deal with the consequences that my actions brought me. I realize now that I hid my real self from that moment on. The fears and sarrow that I had felt before were paled by light pulled to the depths of this black hole in my heart. I tore myself apart and threw the vulnerable parts to the bottom of my soul. Inadvertently cutting off myself emotionally from everyone around me. I weep at the relationships I missed out on. I just swallowed my aderals and drowned myself in work. Telling myself that success at my job is what my wife needed. More pay, more things, more happiness. The whole time I was snubbing those around me in brash strokes. I look back on a version of myself as a scout tilling and planting a yard for an old lady and compare that to a man who wouldn't open the door for his wife. What did I think I was doing? On the way home each day after long nights at work, I'd drown my stress in a couple cigarettes, deep breaths of sweet death, just to get home and hide my life in a bowl of pot. Letting the white clouds engulf me in the sparkling mess I didn't want to face. Stripping myself from the crutches was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I remember following a co-worker all the way to his car for a cigarette, after I vowed to never buy another. After that my resolve was strengthened and I stopped getting high. Little did I know the darkness just layers beneath the skin that clawed itself to Alcohol. In gulps I drowned out my sanity and made way for demons within. I write as if this was the first time, and I wish so badly this was the last. The demon downed a bottled of aderal, trying to finally wipe this disgust from the face of the earth. At the same moment failing completely and letting another demon in. The birth of "Paranoid K.C." My drunken rampage was the beginning of the end. I accused her of cheating losely based on texts I can't remember, forever ending the trust we shared, and losing the security that I would be there for her by trying to kill myself. Those were the moments my acts smeared the hallow ground that was our first home. The place my wife so beautifully asked me to marry her. The hearts still hang in my room. The socks I wore wrapped in the elastic that she wore in her hair still lays hidden. Secret relics to the religion of our past. Three days straight I was awake after swallowing that bottle. The first I lied awake jumping at every sound within our house thinking that someone was breaking in. The second was bad, the cars that drove by were people attacking. The whole world a nightmare. I had a class at work that day, regrettably I attended. I knew full well my eyes were dialated like two endless holes gaping into my black soul. In one long gaze with eyes dramatically pronounced the teacher acknowledged he noticed without alerting the rest of the class. Or was that just, "Paranoid K.C."? I felt such shame. The third night, we drove all night while the imaginary people followed ready to attack us. From that moment on, they stopped giving me the aderal. Thats when I realized the addiction it had become. Picking up the pieces of our life we made best of the waste I had left. We moved again not able to stand the terrible memories I, K.C., had created. We moved and bought a third of my parents house desperate for a third chance. This was our new hope. Our fresh start and it was looking good. We'd well mended from our wounds and the foundations of trust were in the horizon. In flippant disregard to who and what I am, we celebrated our new found haven. The Alcohol poured forth and we partied at our new found luck unaware of what was comming. Two nights in a row I let the demons back again in three bottles of bitter bases. I remember nothing, so Alyssa filled me in. Not only that I hurt Alyssa but was verbally abusive. Yelling and telling her that I never trusted her. Making fresh wounds of old scars. Finalizing her grabbing enough confidence to let me go. She left because I was selfish, and I have to live with that everyday. She says its her fault to, but that's something I can't believe from a faithful wife who stuck with me through all that. I feel like I have brain washed her without either of us knowing. LOOK AT WHAT I'VE DONE!!!!

Busy summer highway,
the same music on the radio,
but on a different continent.

I am moving forward, but my thoughts
They are stuck in the same place
Because that’s where I find you.

I have forgotten many things
Like the day of our first kiss
Or your mother’s first name

But I haven’t forgotten the way
You made me feel so much bigger than
I had ever thought I could be.

Everywhere I go today,
Jeeps are the cars right in front of me
Reminding me of you
And it feels like I am not supposed to forget

And it makes me wonder
If it is possible to remember and forget at the same time
Or if that,
given enough time,
Will tear my loving heart apart
until I forget
Who I really am-
Me without You.

Life wasn't what was expected
We sat around thinking we would make something of ourselves
That we would drive nice cars
Have big houses
And a career
We had virgin minds to the real world
We would wake up every morning with smiles on our faces and such big enthusiasm
Thinking everything would be okay and we would go the right way
But that was all until the next day
When you woke up feeling not the same
And then that's when it all hit you.
The world wasn't the same
There was all this pity and shame
And you walked right its way
How could you let this go?
You don't even know
So what was life now?
Nothing more than just frowns
Sitting up all night thinking "how?"
So that's how you chose to live life
Because now you had the mentality of "why try when we all just die?"
And you wait and HOPE that there is a turn somewhere at some point
But you sit and hope only to find out one that there's no more
But that wasn't the same for your neighbor next door.
Because while you were living a rundown life
He was living the dream
He made it big.
And then that very last day
You finally figure it all out.
Life's what you make it
And every action has a consequence
But by then it was too late
Now all you have is nothing but shame
You do nothing but hope
Because hope never leaves us
But instead of hoping for your life to turn
You hope for the worse
For the day it all goes away
So you can finally
Rest.

i just want some sort of sign from you
that you want me to still love you
in two years.

i will sit here and wait for you to come home to me,
i will.

i will wait two long fucking years.


if you wanted me to.


i swear i would;
if you could only swear that you would forgive me

for the hearts that i will have broken while you were away


and i would kiss you
                                             r
                                                    mind and your
                         heart

for being so understanding


it's funny
my hair has stopped falling out

and it feels thicker

                   i want to shave it all off in the bathroom

(with the same razor i used to drag across this wrist)
and put it in a wooden box, and send it to you.

it would just be yours to keep

(sometimes, when i am feeling insane
i take a box cutter at work
and cut my fingertips, just a little bit.
or i take the blood that naturally flows from between my legs
and smear it on the walls of the shower
and on my legs and arms

i lay down under the stream of water
in the same shower where you once made love to me
i let it cover me
and i cry
i cry out for you)




and then maybe months later, i would buy a plane ticket to see you


and it would make you so angry

(because you told me to leave you alone.
you told me to leave you alone
and then you kissed me
and you told me you loved me.
you just don't want to talk to me anymore.
i'm trying so hard to figure out where your words and your actions match up.)

you would of course just send me home
and the plane might  crash down
and in death i would be happy
that you might finally care about me



i wish i could explain to you,
how much i love you.

and how fucked up i am without you here.

and how strong i am without you.

but how weak i feel

and how i want to scream until you hear my voice, miles and miles away

and i cough up blood

and lose my voice

you hear it
and you get in your car,
and you drive into the sunset
and you see the city skyline

just a few minutes from my house

but don't even bother to call

you sit on the side of the road
staring at the cars driving by

concentrating on this decision
then, turn around and drive the two hours back home

didn't even bother to tell me you were here


and i can't even think about our home
the bed we slept in together

because in that little town
in that little room
you were the only thing that made any fucking sense,

and i am a mess now


and so is this p
o
e
m

My legs shake on our shaking ground
I see you flickering like these fickle streetlights
and I press my forehead against yours
trying to extract thoughts from your nightsky mind
I hold you in the pit of my stomach.
In knots in my throat, In the lines of my fingers,
I hold the way you looked on docks, in cars, in casinos
in bed, lying next to me.
Arms around your waist, lips opening mine, quick breaths, slow minds,
Wood paneled euphoria in hazel eyes, gone the second you shut them.
We’ve gotten so good at goodbyes, one step forward in our tortured waltz.
Shooting horses we go, reaching for your phantom limbs, I will see your ghost everywhere.
In that last embrace, your pulse is too reminiscent of a clock’s mocking heartbeat.
Your gasps are too similar to those of previous nights when you made me whole.
And I watch you for the last time, disappearing behind curves in roads,
straight into someone else. who will give you everything. who won’t break you.