EVERY DAY I FORGET THE SAME FIVE IMPORTANT FACTS OF LIVING.
(I AM THE ONLY ONE INSIDE THIS ROCKET. I AM THE ONE WHO ENFORCES THE BODY, AND NOT ITS FEELINGS, BUT EVERYTHING ELSE. I AM YOUNG. I AM NOT ALONE. TOMORROW DOES NOT NEED ME TO INITIATE IT, I CAN WAIT WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE.)
IT IS AN EVER-CYCLE OF THE SAME THING.
THAT SPECIAL AMBITION OF LIVING,
A LOVER I LOSE IN THE MORNING WHO I FIND ONCE MORE IN THE EVENING, BUT ONLY AS THE SUN SETS, AS THE PRESSURE IN MY BODY STEAMS FROM MY WOUNDS AND PROBLEMS AND ORIFICES AND MOLECULES AND I GRIEVE AND ACCEPT THE AILMENT OF LIVING, THAT IT OCCURS IN STAGES AND EACH ONE IS MORE MISERABLE THAN THE LAST, AND EACH ADVANCING STAGE IS ENVIOUS OF HIS PREVIOUS LIFE, AND NOBODY CAN TELL ONE ANOTHER HOW TO FIX OR STOP OR HELP OR NOTHING
EVERY DAY I FORGET THE SAME FIVE IMPORTANT PILLARS OF LIVING IN AN OVERACTIVE MIND WHICH PREFERS AND FINDS IMMENSE COMFORT IN THE HYPOTHETICAL ACT OF DYING. AND THEN AT THE END OF THE DAY, I AM EXORCISED FROM THE STRESS OF TOMORROW AS MY TIGHT ATOMS RELEASE THE TIGHT GRIP ON THEIR OWN HANDS SO THAT I SINK INTO THE FLOOR. A SMALL CAT APPEARS FROM BENEATH THE SOFA, LOOKING INTO MY EYES AS IF MY STEAM IS VISIBLE IN HER SPECIAL CAT FREQUENCY SENSORS. SHE STEPS UP AND ONTO MY CHEST AND I PUT MY HAND INTO HER FUR AND SHE RESTS HER HEAD INTO MY FINGERS WITHOUT HESITATION, BECAUSE I WOULD NEVER DROP HER, AND SHE KNOWS THAT, AND THE SOUL OF ME KNOWS THAT TOO. THE ONE WHO WATCHES AND DOES NOTHING WHEN I MOST NEED HIM.
HE SIGHS AND CLICKS THE SEATBELT BACK ON. THE LEVERS ARE COLD BUT HE IS READY TO PILOT ONCE MORE, AND HE IS NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT, BUT THERE IS SOMETHING MUCH BETTER THAN DYING AND SOMETHING SOMEHOW BETTER THAN LIVING, THE HOUR BETWEEN THE INTENT AND THE ACTION, THE MIS-ACTION, THE UNDOING OF ILLOGICAL THREADS AS THE FINAL FACT LICKS MY AT MY FACE. AT ONCE, I AM PERFECTLY UNHAPPENING. I AM A PATCH OF CARPET FUR, AND SO IS SHE, AND SILENTLY, WE BOTH ARE ALIVE WITHOUT HAVING TO DO A SINGLE THING. I AM COMFORTED BY THE EFFORTLESSNESS OF LIFE, OF HER LIFE, LITTLE AND INTELLIGENT, PETTING HERSELF ON THE WET POINT OF MY NOSE. I TELL HER THE FIVE IMPORTANT FACTS OF LIVING AND SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND BUT SHE IS ATOMS TOO AND CERTAINLY CAN LISTEN.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 10:21 AM UTC
i am in a place unfamiliar to me.
the city creaks and groans when i move.
i am told that the world
is the biggest and oldest vessel, that
there have been millions of feet before mine
to tread here. surely, the world croaks
for them too. still, i am guilty for trespassing.
people pass the windows and it does not
occur to them that anyone could be looking from
above.
most people are busy with things
going on outside of their head.
the work is gone. the buzz has died.
i am being forgotten again,
as they do when the seasons change.
alone, i am reacquainted with those
twin sisters of discomfort,
being full of potential and
starved for ideas.
there are pieces of me now,
scattered across the country,
i left them behind in the move
on purpose, for ease.
the grief sets in a week later,
when my body realizes how little
there is left of what was, before,
a life already empty.
the house is in boxes. i am
shuffling them around in
different formations.
i clear a path, no real progress made,
then i step outside to smoke.
the city groans, sways, but remains upright.
i balance on the concrete steps, watch cars
swim by. the world chokes with me. we cough
together but i am entirely alone.
Jul 9, 2025
Jul 9, 2025 at 5:05 PM UTC
i am drowning.
the work is becoming me.
i am not living
moment to moment
but task by task. my phone is
a long list of numbers and names,
and they all need me now,
now, now,
and yesterday and tomorrow,
but i rank them,
because life is a long
list of ranking and doing,
but the ranking is a chore
already, and i get tired,
my feet sink up to
the **** of my ankle,
and i'm no further ahead
than i was before,
the same spot, just
a few inches lower,
a few pounds heavier.
i am in no condition
to write.
so i smoke, i
let the spirit run
all through me,
and through him,
i find the second
mask of mine that
loves to write letters.
i am drowning
in letters.
the list swells,
shifts, squirms
in my hand.
every screen begs
me to write to it.
and everyone's got
a different medium,
language, favor,
passion and preference.
i am thanking and apologizing.
i am scheduling and dismissing.
i am losing steam trying to
wear all these hats; i
am sinking, i
am sinking, i am
sinking, i am sinking,
i am fifteen people at
once, all singing and
stepping on themselves,
i am so noisy, and grateful.
i am so sickeningly small.
i am drowning.
i am grateful. i
am swelling; i am
building an image;
i am becoming. it
is so uncomfortable.
it is night when i finally
sit to paint. these are the
things that sell and yet i
feel so much like a glass
jar already stuffed full
of change. nothing to
show for it yet though.
so i put the
ink in a big
circle on the
canvas and i
crawl inside it
and it is warm
and soft and
unforgiving
and it doesn't
expect a thing
from me but
color.
Sep 16, 2024
Sep 16, 2024 at 12:01 AM UTC
wake up, get kissed on the head.
one-two, just like that.
if the day must be what he makes it,
this is how he’s got to start it out.
it’s got to be gentle. and genuine.
warm and earnest. it’s got to be all
of these things without hesitance
and without fail, because this,
and only this,
is how paper men can keep
themselves comfortably distant
from the betrayal of being cut.
there are many betrayals wrought down
upon the fragile and feeling man;
many of which he has imagined,
or predestined. maybe wished for.
it is more comfortable to admit failure
through a burst lip.
he must be cured of this notion,
radicalized only by love.
awakened by seeing his body treasured,
read. he is no longer a napkin, in love,
but an almanac . no longer a paper man
but a hefty recollection
of his plentiful passing paper peers.
Jul 9, 2024
Jul 9, 2024 at 2:47 AM UTC
an accidental intimacy is committed
between the right-now me
and the me-a-few-minutes-ago
as i slip onto my body,
(made cold by the air of the room,)
the warmest shirt i have ever felt,
soft and hot with the heat of
my own body
that i had already forgotten.
two me's converge, here.
i wrap my arms around myself.
i forgive my old self for all he has done to me
yesterday
because look what he would do for me
today,
he would keep himself warm
so that one day he would be cold
so that one day i could pick this hot shirt up
and wear it.
we waltz, we dance,
until the heat calms under the fan,
and then we are just one man
and i catch myself missing him.
Jan 30, 2024
Jan 30, 2024 at 1:57 AM UTC
taking the trash out one night,
i begin to fantasize about my own disappearance.
with the way it's raining, loud against the
metal of the house,
of the car,
of the little, singing bud in my ear,
i think to myself,
i don't think anyone would have seen this coming.
i find my place between the mazda and the bins,
walk there to the beat of this song which sounds
so much like an insistentlyapproaching bootfall,
and the bag is heavy as i swing it up and in,
and i return inside for the second.
right, the second.
i think about the documentary after i'm gone,
when they do the re-enactment.
and he walked inside again, mom will say and
dab at her eyes, for the second bag. i saw him, saw him go.
out of focus, the false me will wooshslowmotion with
a grocery bag of scraps around her and out the door
and then he will be gone forever
and he will have been taken so much for granted
and he will have incredible ratings.
this bag is smaller.
it takes no effort to toss,
and i latch the lid of the bin closed
with bungee rope like needy restraints
and i slip through the gate,
unfollowed,
close it behind me,
untaken,
up the steps beneath the awning which shouts
with rain,
and when i enter the house,
it is empty and sleeping
and dark and nothing.
there is no one to miss me in here.
Dec 25, 2023
Dec 25, 2023 at 11:57 PM UTC
it's been cloudy for so long,
she thinks, as her head falls back,
squinting up at the tear in the sky,
she almost doesn't recognize the city
without its hat on.
Sep 9, 2023
Sep 9, 2023 at 1:27 AM UTC
does woman love woman
on the same floor,
or is it merely that
men get to their knees
and place themselves beneath
and weep about the sensation of
being beneath,
so low that they feel below the floor,
being beneath,
and does man love man
still on this floor,
still lower-than,
still on his knees,
or do they have their own floor,
do they have their own world,
do they love each other
with the beauty that
they prescribe onto
the girls, the girls,
the girls in heels,
so above,
or do they love each other
competitively,
flattening themselves,
killing themselves,
proving they will be smaller
for their fellow, but greater,
taller, safer,
stronger, realer
prettier man?
Sep 16, 2022
Sep 16, 2022 at 9:57 AM UTC
crescent nail between bottom teeth,
weak enough to bend with the tongue
and fidget with until fracturing
into something invisible
and perfectly sized to swallow.
it picks things off its body
to feed itself with.
its cells, its scabs,
its nails, its spots,
its hands, its eyes,
its touch, touch,
touch, touch, touch,
searching for so long,
for so long, it says,
and gropes the corners of the room
feeling across the floor,
through the dust, tracing grooves of wood,
for something important.
it picks things off its body until there's
nothing left to search with.
it wants a friend, and it wants more
and i want more than more than more than that.
Sep 1, 2022
Sep 1, 2022 at 1:43 PM UTC
i spill the words like coins into the couch cushions.
you look at me.
i say, hello,
in that way that people say hello when they
really need an answer now,
before panic, ideally,
before regret.
you look at me.
you look at me.
you look at me.
is anybody in there?
is anybody in there? i joke,
because i'm joking now
because that is how to salvage things
or, at least, it used to be,
pretend it's humor,
pretend it's a misunderstanding,
pretend it's anything other than what it is,
but you're grabbing my face
and your nails are sharp
and you're pulling me into you like limp cloth
and my hands are out to the sides like limp cloth
and you're calling me
idiot, idiot, idiot
and i'm saying
sorry, sorry, sorry
and i feel the metal of my cents start to warm
under the bodies we've got
Apr 22, 2022
Apr 22, 2022 at 6:46 PM UTC