In the time it took me to start over
I died by your side with closure
on my self-imposed solitude
from every soul in a fighting mood
with inherited axes to grind
in line
to use the men’s bathroom
during the last game,
immune to the toxic byproducts
of extended cab pick-up trucks
circling the drain of
made up
settling sentiment trickling
through the air connecting
you lungs with mine,
an irredeemable line
in the low tide sand
and
inescapable memory holes
fret the yet again brethren
sending their regards
while they take up arms
against mended fences
wrestling
with a cost,
the interest,
and late fees eternal
grown from the infernal
jest we let foment
into rent checks and
a stale hex
revealed next
to nothing
in a book I did not write
that you read all the same
Jan 14, 2025
Jan 14, 2025 at 12:14 AM UTC
Your self sabotage is a transient orchestration
in soft pursuit of a potent vexation,
juggling vices as a decade old
one trick pony
circling pastures to meet itself
in the middle of an argument;
You’ll dawdle in the toy aisle,
linger in the doorway,
and parse the wounds of
a family member standing afield;
It could end when you let it,
yet the turmoils have you rattled
like a baby shower gift
presented in glass,
refracting sandy memories
that turned to pleas by a
roadside marquee;
Lone hotel escapades
with uncertainties
set sights on useful
youthful hastenings
brigaded into shoe boxes,
skipped lunches,
and a forgotten birthday
and ripple harm into a harmful world
while we reel at the
second hand trauma
which announces your presence;
The countless open-minded scars
that set you apart
can consume all but echoes,
reminiscent of muddy punk tunes
appearing out of thick air
and plucked with the vengeance
of a forsaken child
who never had enough candles to
blow out,
who conceded happiness to pollinate
fall out,
who branched into nothing to escape
burn out
and who stitched longings into trials
that all end with the conviction
of a jealous ghost
Jan 14, 2025
Jan 14, 2025 at 12:12 AM UTC
Various contentions commandeer the gossamer
threading of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it amateur
apertures
free loading and buffering to the hammer strikes
of daring digital darlings
raising stakes in the race
to the bottom
All our ever present neurons
raining clusters of chemicals into challenge videos
and lip-sync contests fray under the drip
of toxic positivity and special guests
with arcana wit and a pithy redress
to the hectic tempest control
of foreign fingers
These chance tragedies and reality puppet shows
commune and presume to know better than best
in show
about the circumstance of happenstance
when the fickle turn away
to gaze fiery into a rabbit hole
curated for those who
skew chaotic
No cogent tightrope margin tricksters
will condone the manic viral feel-good fixtures
hanging from the yellowed wind chime
keys which only lock up fever rituals
with dancing flame and ridicule
made wholly manifest from
distant voices
Suburban haze arrangements rot eternal
while withered updates wax nocturnal
failures
in feeds of fomented fragility
lost among our endless
search for an end
of searching
Planned spontaneity burns borrowed minutes
festering in the better world we prohibit
and all along the symptom was
buried with the cure
as we the ill incarnate
toiling with clicking tongues
red from cherry picked plights,
block windmills
and declare defeat
Jan 14, 2025
Jan 14, 2025 at 12:06 AM UTC
She bled the day the universe was built,
walking on tissue so broken
she called it art
Broadcasting cryptic wartime stump speeches,
in the morning she picked flowers
and read the part
The tired eyes awaited their salvation,
a release into salted balms
of letting go
But she persisted into the encore,
owning the role forged over a
lifetime ago
Soup lines turned to soup cans in the fallout,
merits grew with city limits
over lost bones
While music trespassed sunken hunting grounds,
mounds of soil and debt would not rest
with plastic thrones
When a hasty destiny came to pass,
and art turned to desperate prayer
she learned to wait
And now her brazen footsteps mark the halls,
the air tastes of tales that once were
hers to make
Jan 13, 2025
Jan 13, 2025 at 11:52 PM UTC