??????

I'm losing money by the second
I'm losing my mind most every day
I lost my car keys twice this morning
I lost your love just yesterday

I found myself alone again
I found myself drunk at 5 am
I found myself how I find me best
I found myself in another mess

I'm smoking like I did before I met you.
Before and after
Each and every task.

When I was young I said I felt so old
I didn't know how much worse it'd get.

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.

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've defined my sorrow
with a series of clever, worn-out platitudes.
Something about those obscure synonyms
always made me feel unique --
like there was something inside of me
worth staying alive to find.
Something worthwhile
in some corner of my mind.

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.

I’ve finally realized
what it is to be an American,
I think.

To gaze upon all this progress,
to live within the midst of all this cleverness
and wealth,
and without a dollar
in your pocket
to finally start asking yourself those overwhelmingly obvious questions:

what was all this for?
To what greater purpose did I suffer so much?
…and why?

.....)
I will oscillate without rhyme
purpose pattern
or reason
between jagged velvet nihilism
and hedonism soft toothed
until I eventually maybe
improbably possibly
discover something worth living for or drown in numbful lustness
unconcernedly disturbed
disturbedly unconcerned
that I never found it
(.....

So maybe a burned down church
adorned with graffiti words of love and satan
with light shimmering off broken glass
from windows you broke in times of turmoil past
a broken camera slung from my shoulder
and a confused terrier cradled in my arm
might have been an imperfect place for our first kiss.
But we are imperfect people.
So maybe it was perfectly imperfect
for us.

Maybe we are imperfectly perfect
for each other.

When I was in kindergarten we had a party and
I ate too much candy.
My stomach ached and
I didn’t know why.
It ruined the party for me.
I remember crouching in the corner confused,
Closing my eyes, imagining that I could
Peer deep inside of myself.
It was then that I came to the childish conclusion that there was a ghost inside of me.
That’s what was causing the pain.
I focused my mind on wishing the ghost away.
I might have even prayed.
Until eventually the pain subsided and the ghost went away

I grew older, eventually, and realized that none of that was real.

Then I grew older still, slowly, and realized that it was all true after all.
That the ghost inside of me was real.
That it never left.

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.

I finally nicked an artery.
Blood pulsing out with every heartbeat.

Going deeper
gets easier
everytime
and now
I can't go
much deeper
without dying.

And I don't want to stop.
I don't think I can.
I wasn't supposed to live this long anyways.
Such a shame.

This isn't a poem.
I just have nowhere else to put this.

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.

you will learn to shift your weight around
You will learn to lean against things
To always clutch handrails

You will learn to rate things from one to ten ten being the worst you’ve ever felt

You will learn loss
You will lose functionality
You will lose what you used to love doing
You will learn not to partake in barbecue games, bowling nights
You will learn to politely decline invitations
You will lose friends
Hobbies
Muscle memory

You will learn to accept it
You will learn that it is unacceptable

You will lose sympathy for others
You will lose track of things
You will learn that there is always something more to lose
You will learn to hold just a few things sacred
to cling only to that which you cannot lose
You will learn that those things too can be lost

You will learn to hate god

You will learn how unobservant most people are
You will learn not to disclose
You will learn what not to say to avoid their suggestions and advice

You will learn to be alone

You will learn the difference between NSAIDs and acetaminophen
between hydro and oxy
the difference between SSI and SSDI
between deductibles and out of pocket maximums
You will learn to cry in hospital parking garages
You will learn the limits of modern medicine for the working and middle classes
You will learn to lower your expectations
You will learn the definition of the word palliative

You will learn to live with it
You will learn to smile for pictures
You will learn to claim a seat early
You will learn to summarize
You will learn good days and bad days
You will learn sorry I know this is last minute but I have to cancel

You will learn to love deeply
You will learn to apologize profusely

You will learn how successful other people will become

You will learn what it means to be a body

You will learn so much
You will learn so so much

You do to me what winter does to garden geraniums.
Frost does not exist on purpose.
It does not intend to puncture cell walls.
It just does. It just is.
As do I. As are you.

You do to me what oxycontin does to the heart.
Oh, my zenith of euphoria, the unbearable absence of your pleasure
haunts me until nothing remains to be haunted.
You caress me raw with your fingertips.
Your warmth burns hot as ice on my soul.

You do to me what chefs do to onions.
What farmland does to streams.
What sunshine does to skin.
What wealth does to man.
What maggots do to rotting wounds.

You do to me what pictures do to moments.
You do to me what rats in glue traps do to themselves.

...

I understand myself quite well.
It's everybody else that baffles
me.

Asterisks
because the search engines
and social media software algorithms
block out anything containing the ******* keyword
because god forbid we have some safe place
to talk about it
share our scars
joke around
wallow
ask for advice about how to
best debride
necrotic tissue
without furthering the infection
without being preached to
or told that
it gets better.

Because we can't go to doctors
and we can't go to friends
or family
or anyone.

And because people who have never done it before
or maybe once or twice in high school
with those banal ******* symbolic wrist tattoos
ask us just the stupidest questions
and tell us that we shouldn't display
our scars out in public
because they might trigger some hypothetical person.

My addiction is not a keyword.
My body is not a trigger warning.

****.
****.
****.
*******.

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 hope that the world treats you
with
the very same
childlike cruelty
that you
treat the world
with.

Take away me
to the Sargasso Sea
Sail away us
From the nostalgia of our ended love.

Free us both from the night that
maybe someday
turned into
never again.

And perhaps all those traits of myself that I always thought were ugly were really just the physical manifestations of my pain.

---

The

Self harm scars rob you of the luxury of being dishonest to yourself.

---

I had such a loving vision of you in my mind. Why did you have to go and ruin that? You. You with your childlike cruelty.

---

I feel no connection to that of my generation.
And I take no joy in being an outsider...

---

I can't do this alone
And I don't want to be alive.

---

L

Whatever curiosity I had for the world has been replaced by either total detachment or quiet despair.

Nor have my best efforts helped,
Perhaps I never wanted them to.

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

Hang that **** on your hat
Say it’s ******* important.

Set yourself up for success
Fake it til you make it
Make sure you’re on speaker phone
Say you’re a revolutionary and believe it
Who
The ****
Gives a ****
You stupid ******* artist yuppie ****

That man
Bipolar type 1

with all those countless
razor blade scars
turned out to be not very well
emotionally adjusted?
Kind of a self-involved *******?

Who could have ******* guessed!?
Meanwhile,
how’s your psychology PhD going?

You do to me what winter does to garden geraniums.
Frost does not exist on purpose.
It does not intend to puncture cell walls.
It just is. As do I. As do you.

You do to me what oxycontin does to the heart.
Oh, my zenith of euphoria, the unbearable absence of your pleasure
haunts me until nothing remains to be haunted.
You caress me raw with your fingertips.
Your warmth burns hot as ice on my soul.

You do to me what chefs do to onions.
What farmland does to streams.
What sunshine does to skin.
What wealth does to man.
What maggots do to rotting wounds.

You do to me what pictures do to moments.
You do to me what rats in glue traps do to themselves.

When you texted saying that
you had
started sleeping with your ex again
shrug emoji

I pictured in my mind
a razor blade cocktail sliding
down my throat
capillaries

I had only met you once
You told me things were messy
I knew all of this from the very very start

I kept my countenance
Texted back a few glib things
Already knowing they'd end up that most awful thing
left on read

I resumed my laughter night with close friends
Chatted with the uber driver on my way back to the city
Then got home and
cut myself repeatedly
as i am wont to do.

None of this was really about you.

You were just a concept to me.
I think the doc might have been right
when she told me
*you have BPD

The only thing keeping me alive is the
fact that my life has been utterly unremarkable.

I ain't that much older than you
And you're smarter than me
So
You should understand this
Sudden detachment
And you shouldn't believe me
When I say that
I am sorry
Even though
I truly am.

They say you shouldn't try to save
a drowning person.

they're in such a panic
that they will
without consciously trying
take you down
with them.

I was drowning
when we fell in love.
But then again
so were you.

Alcohol antipathy
OxyContin apathy
Razor blades on bathroom floors
Xanax bars and so much more

Screaming cursing down the hall
Bodies slammed into the walls
******* kid just **** yourself
Never said that go to hell

A broken man with nightmare sleep
Love and trust and shattered dreams
There’s your ******* legacy:
All the ways you ruined me

Everyone's afraid of growing up.
Losing that unique edge.
becoming
One of those adults spouting off the platitudes they used to so self-assuredly mock.
Those healthy boring folk with their
sleep schedules and
multiple bank accounts with
commas and
**** like that.

But as I sit here on the couch that my roommate
brought home
after his parents bought a new one
reflecting on who I should be; who I want to be
and who I really am ;
an adult, apparently....
I'm right at the cusp of thirty, after all.
Yet
my biggest disappointment
is the simple realization that I still have far too much in common
With my eighteen year old self and his
panic attacks and
substance abuse issues and
Three month heartbreak affairs and
Chronic feelings of being misunderstood and
the ****** poems he writes to try and
come to terms with
all of that.

Is it just me
or is it hot in here?
Do your neurons dull down with age
or is my both-ends candle finally burning out?
Is the plastic methane corporate despair why we never do **** for ****
or is that just a convenient excuse for our valleity?

Did you even love me
or just how I made you feel so much less alone?
Did I really love you
or just how you made me feel like life was still worth living for?
And while we're asking questions...
what's the difference?

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 hope you figure
out
What it is
that you're looking for
And

i hope you *******
Find it

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

microphone.

Maybe I cry too much.
Maybe I lie a lot.

Maybe I drink too much.
Maybe I don't eat enough.

Maybe I learned the wrong things.
Maybe I care the wrong way.
Maybe I love the wrong people.

Maybe I broke too many bones.
Maybe I had too many surgeries.
Maybe I should have had pain medicine.
Maybe I grew up with drug addicts.

Maybe I can't think straight.
Maybe I hit my head too hard.
Maybe I should have seen a doctor about it.
Maybe I should should see one now.

Maybe I'm sick.
Maybe I'm depressed.

Maybe I shouldn't own a gun.
Maybe I shouldn't keep it loaded.
Maybe I shouldn't keep it in my nightstand.

Maybe I'm just being dramatic.

Maybe I'm just tired.
Maybe I'm just tired of being so self-aware.

I’m not a monster
just because
I broke your heart.

You broke mine too.

...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 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

We did more singing than talking
More drinking than thinking
More touching than blinking

I don't even know you yet
But I think that you're like me
and I think that I like you

Notions and concepts like
affection
and gut feelings and
mistakes are mostly ethereal, and

I've been trying to dwell less
on epistemology anyway
Trying to overthink less
Trying to ask less unanswerable questions like
is this the beginning of something?
Or merely
is this the beginning of what has already ended?
Or
do I even feel these words in my heart or soul
or
do they simply sound poetic on paper?
Or
am i even capable of feeling anything anymore?
I don't know.

I felt your soft lips with my fingertips
That much is true.
I feel a need to feel them again
That is also true.

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

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.

It is a nice night
people are over
A fire pit was started
I am connected to to the Bluetooth speaker
And all the agreeable party people enjoy my
Home
Cat
Dog terrier mutt

I’m not anxious
I’m having a good time it feels like
This is the kind of stuff I want
more of
in my life.

I wish they all were gone
So I could slash deep into my subcutaneous fat cells
without any risk of someone noticing.
Upside down face emoji **** *******

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

*** shoulder
*** leg
*** wrist
*** head

Torn knees
Broke teeth
Weak hips
Slipped discs

Limp forever
Ankle pain
Cry forever
Melts your brain

Slip and fall
Snap in half
Out of socket
Dirt bike crash

Barely living
Stuck in bed
Unforgiving
Filled with dread

*** shoulder
*** leg
*** life
*** dead

She said
the closest thing to joy that
she’s capable of feeling is
a fleeting acknowledgment that
things could be worse.
But in truth she used different words.

I said
that she of all people
deserved every ounce of joy
this world has to offer.
But in truth I said nothing.

…

At the post office
Waiting in line

A woman walks in
goes to the corner
Sets her trash bag down
and mumbles to herself for a while

As she leaves she opens
The door
And says ‘it’s okay sweetie, come on
come on now baby
let’s go’

And I can’t tell if she’s talking to an
invisible dog
or
an invisible child

I become aware of a profound, atavistic
sadness lingering in the air
that I can somehow sense
but cannot feel.

I drop off my package
And quietly resolve to not spend
too much time
trying to figure out why
all of this is