I'll remind myself to keep my head on tight.

To dot my "i"s and cross my "t"s,

To watch my step and mind my manners.

To take it all in.

To ride the wave from crest to crash,

To breathe deep and laugh loud,

To hold me close and have my back.

I will do my best to tread lightly,

Except when you don't want me to.

I will try to handle you with care,

If you do the same.


I will do my best to keep my balance,

And not lean too far in.

Unless you're leaning too,

Then I'll meet you halfway;



I promise.

I sit,
anxious and tense as a squeezed spring.
Nervously checking my phone awaiting that buzz.
As the minutes tick bye my chest is ratchet strapped a tad bit tighter.
I've been on paths like this before, in similar forests, and the deja vu feeling im experiencing is giving me PTSD.

"Can I at least hug you?"
The question crawled from her throat in a scratchy and pitiful way.
For a split second I realized she was starting to cry.
"If you want, sure"
She wrapped her little arms around me and I left mine at my side. We had had a final farewell hug more than once before this one.
I was always distraught. My world was collapsing. This time when she pulled the rug from under my feet, my world really did collapse. I cried like a child taking his first confused breath, at the top of my lungs and so full of fear and confusion.
  I cried and hurt so much that when this hug finally came, I had hardened over. I couldn't be soft for her anymore She had broken that.
    Her arms dropped from my side and she stepped back, looked at me, silently.
    "Anything else?" I asked.
    "...I don't think so"
    "OK well best of luck in everything you do, see ya around."
And then I turned, walked away, got in my car and drove down the street. I didn't look back at her gate. I drove home, cried some more and probably drank, because I don't remember.
    This is a form of farewell too. You've thrown me aside and its not fair to myself to still have you as a subconscious muse. This will be the last time I write about you in a long long time. If you happen to see this, know that there was nothing I wanted more than for that embrace to last an eternity.
    So there it is, so long, see ya around.

In my past my fears have gotten the best of me on occasion, but I swear I would face all my fears for you, if you gave me the chance.

There's light at the end of the tunnel.

After all this time in the dark, my mind might be playing tricks on me.

The golden glow that, even from this distance seems so warm and clean,

could very well be a mirage.

Real or fake it's beautiful,

And im running as fast as I can in that direction.

See you on the other side.

I think of you less now, if you could believe that.

I still see you in poetry and in music and in art and the little habits I learned from you, and in food and in snails,

The list goes on but it really does happen less often now, and when it does im much less confused. Much more capable.

When this was all very fresh a friend of mine told me a day would come where, there wouldn't be the same pain anymore. Like an old bruise fading from a deep purple to a sickly yellow. Still tender and ugly, but dull and familiar.
    And that the dulling of that pain, the yellowing of that bruise as it heals comes with its own painful realization. The realization that we've grown so far apart from each other I don't even hurt for you anymore. At least not the same.

Its a type of magic really,

The way your gaze could hold me like a straight jacket.

Those clever marbles,

The piercing, calm blue of a winter morning sky.

What have they seen?

Id sit and listen to you tell me till you decided you were done,

Id lap up every bit of your story you offered me,

And never have my fill.

The pile of black paper butterflies in the center of the table grew ever larger,

Seeming some sort of monument to the night.

By the end it was a wave, big enough to send me rolling,

But I'll find my footing and I'll keep moving forward.

I hate you so much.

I hate you I swear I hate you.

I hate you for your double standards and your venomous outbursts,

I hate you for the way that you made me feel so whole,

I hate you for your dark curls and your subtle lisp,

I hate you for the days you made my life a movie,

For the days you made my life feel small and unimportant,

For the pedestal I drug around for you,

For your soft skin and loving eyes,

I hate you for the way everyone likes you effortlessly,

I hate you for how you left me,

I hate you.

I hate you so much it hurts me.

I hate you so much for making me hate you.

I hate you for the days I cried at the thought of us as old people, still by each others side,

I hate you for the days you made me feel so special,

I hate you for every beautiful second of those 7 years.

I hate you and I hope that you're living well, sleeping well, eating well. I hope you're loved. I know you are.

To tell the truth im absolutely miserable and not worthy of a shred of pity.

You prepared us a bowl of the tender juicy flesh,

Wet to the touch and the warmest orange hue,

I've always enjoyed cantaloupe, even as a kid it was a favorite of mine.

We agreed this was one of the best either of us had ever had and ate each morsel.

Each chunk melting in my mouth as if willingly being eaten.

The way id willingly melt in your mouth if it was your wish,

I'll never look at cantaloupe the same.

I thought I'd been weathering this storm quietly, but my friends have been the support beams through it all.

Silently stepping in to hold me up on the days I've lost the heart to do it myself.

The summer heat bores forever on, the iced cream man is hard at work.

As a kid I couldn't contain my excitement enough to savor the treat, id haphazardly  discard the wrapper and let it melt all over my hands while I ate it.


These days I eat mine in the shade, and try to catch every runny drop as it melts away.

Life was such a beautiful dream then.

I guess it still is really, quite a beautiful dream.

Its a toss up,
Its a potluck,

Its a wash out,
Its a cold shower,

An open wound,
And a clean bandage,

Its a great song,
Its a boring sermon,

Its a brand new day,
Its the same old ****,

Its a load of crap,
But its a beautiful thing.

I try to do little things for myself,
Take a few liberties to try and break through the barrier between being alive and living my life.
I read books and take walks, I have beers and write poems.
    I enjoy those things but sometimes its not enough to break through that barrier. Sometimes I'm just here. My first weekend back home my brother took us tubing on the lake. Its kind of weird to think but sometimes that's what life feels like. Like everyone's on a boat and I'm behind it on a raft holding on for dear life. Mostly I'm good though, I always enjoyed tubing.

Do you still chase sunsets like we used to?
Do they hit the same?
Or did truly everything get old?

Lately I prefer the sunrise, and the clean slate they offer.
They feel full of the calm I crave so starvingly.
So full of beauty, so full of potential for good things.

How did it feel,
Your second wind,
Your heartfelt final effort?

When I try to look back,
It all feels like a drunken stupor.

How you started so brightly,
With visions of delusional grandeur,

How the path seemed only to lead up,
Into the hills,

It seemed easy to get lost in those ups and downs,
The moon hung like a silver dollar at the end of the path,
Forever and always,

Before we knew it the coast had claimed us,

Swept from our foothold in the hills we clung to each other tightly,
As each tidal wave crested our mouths and our eyes stung with the anger of the ocean,


Our lungs burning to breathe,

You broke from my grasp,
At first I would scramble to regain it,

Soon to realize it was your will,
And it could not be undone,

I bobbed lonely and sunbaked on the open sea for countless days,

I had all the time I needed to think the thoughts I always pushed away,

As I lay baking,

How dark, and quietly you ended,
Not many to bear witness,

How long and cold your warm summers were,
To look back on after wiping the lenses clear.

In 350 weeks I went through alot of pain, had an uncountable number of dream like days. Went through moving and losing my mom, being fired, losing my dog and many childhood friends.
  In so many ways the pain I've faced these passed 8 weeks hasn't been something totally unfamiliar, its not as though I've never met the anxieties im dealing with now. But for some reason they are so scary, they seem so big. It took me a second to realize that the reason why is because before I knew I didn't have to face those moments alone. I always had backup.
   Its not that I think I'll never have backup again, its not that at all. And I know ill be just fine without it for now. Its scary to feel so alone after 350 weeks of having each other's backs. 8 weeks from now I'll feel much differently im sure, and 8 weeks from then things will be much different, I can't imagine 350 weeks from now. With any luck, well see each other around by then, cheers.

Most people have had a moment where they are just living their life, and then suddenly their nose picks up on something and they are brought back in time. You walk into a restaurant and a smell takes you back to being a child on Christmas morning in your grandmas kitchen. Maybe you go to a new friends house and their hand soap brings you back to moments that you haven't thought of in years.
    This is such a strong phenomenon that most people can give you an example of, and it's very interesting. Scientists believe that this is such, because the parts of the brain related to memory, and emotional memories specifically, are directly connected to the parts that decipher our olfactory senses. These associative memories are often very vivid and visceral, because the connections are so strong and direct within the brain.
   I have burned every candle we bought together down to the end, partially because I want to forget you, and partially because I'd do anything to be taken back in time to the way things were for just a second.
  Its actually been weeks since I threw the last one out. If you're wondering, it didn't work. I wasn't brought back to better times. But as the last breath of life burned from the wick in the cinnamon apple candle you loved, I smiled.
   Its time for me to buy new candles, and I am so excited.

The other day I read an article about how climate scientists were recording a heat wave in Eastern Antarctica unlike anything we've seen before.  The article mentioned certain regions being 50-90 degrees hotter than usual.
Accross the world, Vladimir Putin initiates a "special military operation" wherein he invades Ukraine, and begins killing innocent civilians. The west is on eggshells as to how they should respond. The tension is thick, and the world is watching.
The Amazon burned for almost 9 months straight in 2020, 72,000 Square miles of Australian bushland was scorched by wildfires in 2020, California has seen record amounts of homes destroyed in its own wildfire seasons the past few years.
Amidst it all Harry styles drops his new hit single "as it was" and destroys spotify records. Will Smith is slapping chris rock for a woman who doesn't love him at the oscars. Betty white died, Bob Saget died, DMX died. Kimye split up. Rhianna gets pregnant.
  All of this is happening around us, the world is quite literally falling apart. And there's an image of humanity that I honestly love in my head. Which is us sitting on the edge of it all, playing our favorite songs, watching the end play out. Its beautiful to think that even as the flames lap at our toes, well probably find something to sing about.

I'm not sure if it was the music,
The ****, or the sheer dreamlike joy of it all, that disguised and distracted me from the click-click-click of our coaster cart climbing ever higher.
  Strapped in tight, I had long gotten over my fear and anxiety of the ride we were on.
  After all, we had waited in line for what seemed like years before getting to experience the thrill they all sing about.
  Before I knew it we had reached the top.
We sat there for a brief eternity, appreciating the view, enjoying each other's company. Your hair looked so dark against the blue sky, and my skin felt so warm, in the high-sky breeze. The birds we always watched were practically our peers for just a moment.
  In a thousandth of the time it took to reach the peak, we were halfway through our freefall, all the beauty we were enveloped in, now merely a blur.
  Although at first fear gripped at my mind when my stomach turned as our cart plummeted, it soon gave way to joy, as I slowly realized this was the true ******. These moments of helplessness as we are whipped around each curve and loop, are the parts we climbed that hill for. The parts that end up in songs, and poems.
  The view was great and calm, but the rough parts, the parts that might leave bruises, are the parts that give it meaning.

In a meadow, capped with canyons on either end,
There Is a spot in a field where the grass stays short for me. A pact between us that each night in my dreams I will read to the meadow, and it in turn stays short and soft for me to rest my head and wake. This place,
Where the day and night see eye to eye through the canyons as the sun and moon trade places,
And a quiet brook babbles to the silvery fish within it fictional stories of adventurers and dragons and tyrannical governments and even a species of fish known to fly,
is the only place that I can be alone.
It's covered in the sweet smell of honey and patchouli during the day, filled with the sounds of bees and wind chimes the trees grew themselves. At night is almost silent, except for the crickets, and the occasional owl, and my melodramatic voice as I read to the tentative flowers blossomed and budded all around me, every creature in earshot paying full attention. There are trees here that love to provide, provided you provide them with a riddle or two. Ive never brought anyone here, to the place where I can be alone. But strangley I want you here,
And thats dangerous.

My tongue is covered in scars,
Can you feel them when we kiss?
Even then, do you understand why they exist?
Almost daily there are words whos lives got cut short before they started,
The potential of some being far more vast than any aborted fetus or abandoned plans. The weight they carried stays on my tongue making speech harder with each slain saying. Making laughing a workout. And making kissing interpretive dance,
Me trying to tell if you can read Braille well enough to read what wasbt said. You trying to decide if this is still worth it, if this, like your major, is what you ACTUALLY wanted.

I remember when I first felt the warmth of your brain;
The illuminating light that came from those pulsing electric tendrils of grey matter and the utter comfortability I felt when yours collided with mine and tiny nuclear bombs went off all over my skin leaving me with goosebumps everytime you spoke.
As we lay in fates womb,
Before we were aborted,
I couldnt help but know I wasnt worthy.
I still am not,
Alas,
This is a different life anyway, for a different person.

My mind dresses you in the colors of fall and my heart smiles at the image.
Your dark hair falling down over a rusty orange sweater and the olive skin on your hands peeking out from the sleeves.
I often wonder if maybe I read the whole thing wrong.
That you were as into me as I was into you.
But the night we lay there,
And I lay in awe,
Literally prone to your beauty,
And I built up the gaul to bring my lips to yours and yours sat still,
I felt the wronger.
I felt as though I was treading waters you hadnt mapped,
That this wasnt in your itinerary.
So I backed off,
Shock turned to sorrow,
Sorrow was slain by shame and shame fell to sourness and I stamped out most all the flames around us.
But I kept one and will keep it always,
It burns forever a still image of you,
Smiling, looking up at the night sky,
Random nameless decrepit buildings all around us and a spotlight of warmth and connection and humanity in the middle of it all.