I had a dream
I guess you could call it a nightmare
You were there

I don't remember what we were doing
I was distracted by my leg
The bad leg that never stops hurting
It turned bright red
Swelled up
Hurt so bad I writhed around until
I finally decide to saw it off
To stop the pain

I don't remember what you were doing
Just watching i think
Or maybe you didn't notice
But I was glad that
you were there.

...

Perhaps one day I might find myself at peaceful
equilibrium. A state of quiet contentment far
more pure and gratifying than the manic
thrills I once mistook for happiness.

Perhaps one day I might find myself on a modest
plot of land out near Bozeman, Montana. Standing there
naked and free in the golden chill of dawn,
drinking my morning coffee in quiet miracle bliss.

Perhaps one day I might find myself as unbroken,
and as worthy of love, as I always was from the start. My soul
unbound and independent, yet even still connected
umbilical with another just as whole.

I am learning a lot these days.
Or at least I'm trying.

I am trying to learn about bread and blood types and shale oil economics and Rocky Balboa.
The triangular fibrocartilage complex.
The Kennedy family.
Chinese billionaire real estate investment and the reign of Xi Jinping.
And, you know, other similarly interesting kinds of things.

But, most importantly,
I am trying to learn how to be happy.
Or, at the very least,
I am trying to learn how to try to be happy.

I am trying to learn what happiness really is.

If it's some strange ethereal something in plain view just behind some stranger still wall of glass that I haven't quite learned how phase my mind and body through
--or by what strength or courage or cowardice it might take to shatter and simply walk past.
Or if it's something else entirely...
A myth, intangible yet important.
A legend, absurd.
A god, disturbingly ambivalent.
Perhaps it is the warmth on my skin and the chill in the breeze on this first month of spring.
Perhaps it is the water and oxygen that flows through every living thing.
Perhaps it is that wall of glass itself.

I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know if happiness is real.
I don't know.
I don't even know what it is I'm actually trying to learn.
I don't know if I am learning what happiness really is or if I am learning that it truly doesn't matter either way.

I am learning a lot these days.
Or at least I'm trying.

I am learning that perhaps it is less salient to try to be to be happy
and perhaps instead I should just
simply be
happy.

We used to be twenty
sitting around complaining
and smoking
like twenty year olds do.

Now we're thirty
sitting around complaining
and vaping
like twenty years olds do.

"Free speech is dead!"
He proclaimed loudly
into the

microphone.

You asked me if I felt okay
You said I looked so tired that day
It’s not something I can hide
You could see it in my eyes

I told you that I felt blue
You said that you felt sad too
You said that you felt so sad
You said you felt so sad
Like me

You asked me if I felt okay
You said I was so quiet that day
Every step is misery
Every thought’s an awful thing

I told you that I felt fine
We both knew that was a lie
You said that you felt so sad
You said you felt so sad
Like me

You asked me if I felt okay
You said I cut too deep that day
My only semblance of control
Shredded skin; fat cells exposed

I told you I had no choice
You cried ‘til you lost your voice
You said that you felt so sad
You said you felt so sad
Like me

I've always hated
that question.

I've wanted to die
since I was
eleven years old.

Isn't that
reason
enough?

No one taught me self care.
No one even tried.
All I know of life and love
are broken home lies.

I learned all the wrong things,
like how to cry and scream.
Alcohol, antipathy,
and other violent things.

Sometimes I think of better days;
I like to play make believe.
I think about who I could have been
were it not all done to me.

How easily I would function.
How that would just come naturally.
How I wouldn't do the things I do
if I hadn't seen the things I've seen.

I learned how to stay alive.
No one taught me how to live.

When you leave
I don't want you
to break my heart
I want you
to mutilate my soul.
Please
don’t take just a part of me
I want you
to devour me whole.

When you leave
don’t slip out
quietly at night.
Please
will you snap my spine in two?
Leave me heartbreak paralyzed
just for you.

When you leave
I want you to have left
only after having become
my everything.
I want you
to leave me
with nothing.
I want you to leave me
as nothing.
A distant shadow.
A hollow shell.
A nightmare memory
of what
I could have been
had I never loved you.

I want to love you so fully
so recklessly
that in the moment
that you leave
there would be nothing
at all
left to leave.

When you leave
please
leave me like that.

And
please
never leave.

I have run out of reasons to hate myself tonight
I'm sure I'll wake up with more in the morning

But for now, a stony silence has fallen upon my brain
so otherwise self-obsessed with self-hate.

I do not recognize the stranger in the bathroom mirror
and although he appears too tired and sad
to be any sort of handsome
he doesn't look as ugly
as the man I normally see standing there looking back
always so tired and sad and confused
and ugly.

So ugly.

So ugly, save for tonight.
For I have been set free from those intrusive spirals
the burdened repetition of every unfortunate thing
the burdened repetition of every petty thing
the burdened repetition of every monstrous thing
the burdened repetition of every made up thing
I have ever said, done, thought,
or been forced by demonic circumstance
to bear witness to.

For once I do not dread the thought of another day.
I am not crippled by questions of how exactly
I will grind through it all.
All the things that I must do
that I will inevitably not do.
All the promises that I have yet to make.
All the promises that I have yet to break.
All the lies that I tell myself and others
so as to briefly pretend
that I am capable of living
that strange thing
called life.

I am sorry.
I am ashamed.
I hope one day to be forgiven.
Or at least I hope for more nights like this one:

far too sad for sadness
far too tired to sleep
far too unhinged to remember to forget
that everyone, myself included, deserves to be loved.

I have run out of reasons to hate myself tonight
I'm sure I'll wake up with more in the morning

You said that we were the best of friends
But then me met our bitter end.
You said you saw me, honest and true
Yet you ran from the broken and blue.
You said you loved my troubled mind
You said said I was ugly, sad, and unkind.

You said I was your soulmate
But you don't have a soul

I think you just loved having a lover
That you didn't have to love.

we meet
in the cracks between
the love you lost
and the love you're
walking away from
we meet
in a dark quiet refuge
of cold secrets and comfortable silence
a sad romance world
where you don't love me
like I love you
and I convince myself that
that is okay
so long as you're next to me
and maybe
we might get to meet again
one last time
before you change your mind
and walk away from me too
but at least
I knew that it would happen
that I would be alone again
left only to feel grateful
for that crack in time
where you loved me too
before you realized
that you didn't

scarlet lies
bloodshot eyes
broken bench where bats fly
perfect night imperfect still
soft embrace on jagged metal
a night that ends in moans
until we depart to
homes that are not homes

I said I loved you
you said you were falling in love with me
which is different

I said I hated everything
you said you didn’t hate wildflowers

...and we drank by the river
because we had nowhere else to go.
I fought back the urge to tell you
that I loved you.
Because I was finally learning
that love isn't always enough.

I saw you in the morning
you hadn't slept all night.
You looked so tired but
said you felt alright.
I knew that was a lie
you lie all the time.
You can't hide how you're feeling.

You said you felt so empty
at least you told the truth.
You said you felt so sorry, well
all of us do.

You said something that
sounded too sad to be true.
You said life is just a game
and then you lose.

I saw you in the evening
it was clear that nothing changed.
You said that you felt better but
acted kind of strange.
I could see it in your eyes
how you didn't want to cry.
I don't know what to say.

Disconsolate perspectives on what I
can't see.
There's a splinter in your nail bed
and you never can sleep.
There's a broken, sad statue of who you
used to be.
Now you're left to imagine what
it's like to dream.

And I don't think
You know what it's like
To need to leave
When everything around you
Is screaming not to.

That disappointment
When you leave
Anyways.

Years later
Hangover Saturday
Post-stimulant headache
Still chainsmoking like I did back then
Still thinking of you entirely too much
Still checking this ******* website for poems about me
everyday
(Narcissicm still in full swing)

One question that I never got the answer to:

Would you have
loved me
(back when you loved me)
more or less
if I wasn't
married?

I think this is what it feels like
to be even somewhat a normal person?

Is that what it feels like
to be stable?
Not sad?
Not manic?
No some god-awful mixture
of both at the same time?

I don't have much to say.
I only write poems when I'm sad.
Or manic.
Or mixed.
And I'm not.

I'm really not.

At the party...
talking to my best friend's older brother.
He's a few years out of law school.

He sues small oil companies for environmental reasons.
But represents medium-sized ones
for some reason that I can't care to retain.
Net-neutral enough...
I suppose.

I get the feeling that he feels out of place.
That he'd rather be talking to someone
more similar.
More naturally engaged.

I can't blame him.
I feel the same way
myself.

I'm snorting coke in the bathroom
And what's sad is I'm thinking of you
I lost myself yet once again
I lost myself and I lost you, too.

It's 8 months since I last saw you,
I talked to you once from a Texas jail cell.
The clock it was ticking
And I knew that was well
fitting for the love that we had.

I'm not sure that you will read this
I'm not that I want you to.

I've spent this whole summer
Snorting coke in various bathrooms.
I can't claim that I've always thought of you.
But I can't claim that I am alone.

You are, you will
Forever haunt me.
Just like how these poems
Always fall apart.
I lose track of rhyme
And of reason
But never of thoughts of you.

Ashley,
I will love you always.
Even though
We've drifted along.
The paths we've always needed
To float upon.

Even though
I still die in my sleep.
All the time.
Every night.
I think of you
and then I die.

And you are a ghost
And I love you too
Always and forever
I will think of you.

I 'm drunk on a park bench
You won't leave my mind.

How typical I think
Yet another man who thinks
That he can take your mind.

You're suffering without me.
You suffered so much with me.

What else is there to say?
I'm snorting coke in the bathroom
Of a bar where I don't want to be.
I don't want to be thinking of you
Yet still you penetrate my night.

Maybe this will
make more sense
in the morning

Maybe this will
make more sense
with a bullet in my skull

Please not again
I don't think I can take it this time
I don't have anything left

We drank tequila straight from the bottle
and danced naked in the unfenced backyard

We chainsmoked the entire pack
And argued the difference between harassment and assault

We passed around the **** pen
and I don't remember what we were doing by that point

We woke up still naked
and asked ourselves if it was worth it

And I talk too much about politics
And people watching
And other things that no one seems
To care about

I walk alone at night
And watch the people pass me by

I'm not sure if I'm happy
Or if I'm sad
Or if that even
really
******* matters

What's great about this whole situation
is how easy it is
to fall back into old habits.

A subtle benefit to male privilege:
being able to have anorexia
without anyone batting an eye.

My highs are too high
My lows are too low
My flats aren't flat enough

My life is not life enough
My hatred is too much
My sadness is my love

My medicine is prescribed
My voice is in my eyes
My mind is set aside
My body is no paradise

Abilifuck

My soul was set inflamed
pinched nerves i thought i was dreaming
i took the neuropathy less travelled
this turned out to be bad
bipolar affective disorder BAD

But now (thanks doc)
I have the Abilify to do anything I want
I've made a Paxil to myself
to be as sane as I can be

Geometry melting
Prismatic projections
love songs on repeat
Strangest friendships
Stranger still, our suffering
Anamolous Uniformity, this heartache
that which we all desire
the love you love until you hate
the hate you love but only on your saddest days
a hand to hold, a concept still
a heart in your chest, or so you're told
A watcher always -- your lot in life
Emburdened steps by the light of Orion
Stranger sighs this lustful hatred of life
as if there were nothing else - nothing more
so much more or so we hope
worldly compensation for cerebral sorrows
that which we all feel -- at the bottom of life
at the bottom of it all
and here we all culminate -- in this strangest of places
all that we are -- all that we were & will be
so much more and so much better than it could have been
and at least for that we're grateful,
at least for that we can make amends
at least for that we can find some meaning
at least for that we've found our home.

I wish you could have my body for a day
I wish you could borrow my brain
I wonder then what would change
If you could know my pain

I wish you could have my body for a day
I wish you could borrow my brain

But since that can't happen
I'll take the second best option
Which would be you thinking  twice
Before giving me
Your ******* advice

i never felt much sadder
than the day that we first met
'cause i new it didn't matter
that one day you would forget

all the nights we spent together
and the days we stayed in bed
and the words that i would whisper
so softly as you slept

no i never would have pictured
just how hard i'd fall for you
but the gold it turned to silver
and my heart turned back to blue

and i never felt much sadder
than the day you finally left
'cause i couldn't even lie to myself
and say 'i tried my best'

and now i'm left here wondering
what else i could have done
all the the things i should have said
and the fact that i'm no fun

i wish that i felt better
i wish you were still here
i wish i didn't have to be
so bi ******* polar

and i never felt much sadder
than the day that i confessed
that i loved you more than life itself
even though i wished for death

i should have seen it coming
you warned me you were cold
but the silence doesn't hurt much less
just because it was foretold

Pain does not make you stronger.
That's a ******* lie
preached by people convinced that
you have to be cursed to be brilliant.

The saddest part is not the pain
nor its never-ending presence.
It's the fact that you could have been
so much more.
You could have done so many things.

I could have been so much more
than the person I've become.

And for the record,
I don't need any help realizing
That I am a hypocrite.

I've got a solid grasp
on everything that's slipping
out of my fingers.

I don't act like anyone but myself
It's not a role I'd recommend
but at least I'm not tortured
by what people don't see

I embrace the patterns I generate
In my downward spiral
and I don't blame anyone
but myself

I awake from night terrors
and scrape through the day
i'm failing that's fine
can you say the same?

We built our home in the high tide sand.
Four crumbling walls where we mourn
the death of a love stillborn

Painfully aware of the waves.
Just a few fleeting months
to live out a lifetime of loving

And I can't ever find the words
or the literary comparisons
to convey how much you mean to me
the magnitude of your presence

You're not my Juliet
I'm not your Romeo
You are not Annabelle Lee
And I am no Poe

I never know what to say
Maybe I'm just sick of missing you
before you even leave
Maybe this isn't the kind of pain
we both so constantly crave

Maybe I'm Prufrock
Maybe you're a mermaid
Maybe we're both drowning
in a sea of terrible voices

Sometimes I feel like this cat is my only true friend --
like he is the only warmth I have
in my world sealed so tightly
in cold comforts.

The nudge of his head against the bridge
of my nose. The gentle caress
of claws he never quite learned
how to fully retract. The weight of his
fat, spoiled body against my abdomen.

The sharp pains of the world melt away
in the softness of his fur.

But he only gets this way when he's hungry
and I have been too sad to get out of bed
to feed him
or me.

my mistakes are mine to make
my head is mine to shake

my time is mine to waste

my bones are mine to break
my life is mine to take

Everything I have to say
has been said to death
by people far more clever than me.

I'm too hungry to feel sad.
I'm too hungry to feel hungry.
I'm not asking for sympathy,
I'd rather not be seen.

I went to the doctor for advice
but all he saw were dollar signs.

And lately it's started to seem
that the best medicine for me
is a good night's sleep
and a breakfast of kerosene.

That other form of self mutilation.

Because at least empty stomachs don't get infected
And at least the high lasts longer than a few minutes
And at least skinny is in vogue
And at least I have something to focus on
And at least it keeps me from talking too much

ill-conceived pet project
some sort of point to prove

slow things down in my brain
until I have only one principle concern
and at least it's something I can control
there is no shame here
rot from the inside
crater down implode
collapse
but that's my choice
or at least I can tell myself that it is

and what was I getting at?
sorry
i forgot what I was saying
just a little lightheaded
my thoughts escape me these days
i wonder why

Broken glass shimmering like diamonds
along the shoulder of the highway.
I wonder who had to die
to place them there.

I clean the mold out of the rice cooker
and make another ***.

Glad I caught it when I did,
before it filled up
with maggots again.

I'm too tired to remember
just how sad I am.
And I'm too ******* sad
to fall asleep.

I smoked five cigarettes
before I left my bed this morning.
I brewed a *** of coffee
and I turned on the TV.

I don't need friends
I've got myself.
But god I wish
I was someone else.

And they say
there's strength in pain,
but I'd rather not
feel this way.

'Cause it don't take much strength
to **** every day away.
And that's all I want to do
anyways.

Glorify me
I know the names and stars
Of seven constellations
In the winter sky

Worship me
I'm too stubborn to be a sub
And too lazy to be a dom
But I'll lay on the bed
And let you play with my ****

Idolize me
I'm dark and quiet
But sometimes I forget
To let other people talk

Conceptualize me
I'm plastic and shrapnel
And my tears fit well into vials
That could sell for maybe three dollars
From a gas station counter top
Between the lighters
Fidget spinners
And smartphone chargers

I wandered blackout drunk lost
trading cigarettes for directions
from crustpunks who took swigs
from bottles of cheap plasticsugar alcohol

Muttering to myself in selfdefense
sublimating the toxic fire in my eyes
into soundwave echoes
bouncing off of plywood windows
and abandoned stolen cars

Angry limping at breakleg pace
down the heroinblessed streets
of yet another vibrant American slum.

Your polycystic heart bleeds through the dim lit window
of a low-income apartment building
just a few blocks away.

I sit alone on the bathroom floor and
it takes me **** near twenty minutes to take apart the razor blade.
You have to take care not to pry too hard,
otherwise the blades will cut up your fingers.

And no, that irony is not lost on me.

I hate the suburbs
Because of the yuppies.
I hate the ghetto
Because of the anxiety.
I hate the country
Because of the lonely.

I hate trucks
Because of the waste.
I hate mirrors
Because of my face.
I hate food
Because of the taste.

I hate love
Because of the exposure.
I hate ***
Because then it's over.
I hate goodbyes
Because of the closure.

I hate talking
Because of my voice.
I hate my body
Because of its poise.
I hate living
Because I have no choice.

??????

everyone's got a suggestion
everyone has a solution
but nothing helps me sleep at night
and nothing takes my pain away

i never wanted nothing else
than to be an honest man
but there's only one way
for me to execute this plan:

not talking to my family or friends
not even saying goodbye
cause every time i talk to them
all i say are lies

i could be an olympic athlete
in the hundred meter limp
i could write a best selling novel
about all the things that i never did

i've sailed across a thousand seas
but that's just the distance
from the bed to the tv

i tried to **** myself when i was just fifteen
i tried it again when i was seventeen
i never tried it after that
but i still smoke a pack a day

i fall in love
every month or two
i never turn down
a fresh heart
to consume

it's not enough to have your love
you have to have my pain
because love is fickle
one day it will fade
but you'll still have my sorrow
happily long
forever after
I forget your name