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

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

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.

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

Love is only as beautiful as it is depraved
Shadows are only as dark
as the light that casts them.
Life is only as happy and sad
as you need it to be.

And they say it'll all get better
(eventually!)
That all these things will vanish
with time.
I am far too young to know of pain,
far too proud to ask for help
far too tired to leave my bed
far too ****** to care.

No one warned me that life was this long
or that every second of sadness
is a lifetime
compared to those fleeting months of happiness
that disappear like thunder in the storm.

No one likes poetry about being sad
written by pretentious college students
read by strangers on the internet.

But I've once been told to write what's in my heart
and writing about sadness
is better than writing about nothing.

These thoughts grind my teeth through sleep.
These dreams make waking up a gift and a chore.
Morning injects me into reality
Like a vaccine: a deadened virus that will keep you safe.
I cannot stomach this infertility,
Not yet.

I am not what I am
The eyes of those who pretend to see:
As benevolent as a mouth full of razors.
The mouths that I always want to kiss.
The lips that I always seem to pursue.
The cuts that I always pretend to cherish.
The ancient lust shakes my blood.

And I am forced to embrace nostalgia
as She and She and He and Then penetrate my mind: a time long past.
What is memory but a slideshow of regrets?
Every word becomes a mistake.
All triumphs a fleeting matter worthy of none.
Eviscerate my joy and live in its corpse.

It is April and we are frozen:
Stuck in a world we never knew
In a love we thought we felt
A life we never lived.

Entering this house is the last twist of the knife.
You're breaking my soul upon your eyes:
No birds sing.
Life isn't very long.
Even roses wilt.
It's rude to stare.

High on sidewalks and streetlights,
The sun has set: will it rise again?
What is to become of this,
My darkness?

There is no clock tower here, and
My full moon is setting too fast.
Day will come, day will come.
Feeling too much or nothing at all.
My heart races and I've no clue why.

And I will come home, to a sepulcher
Void of all light and screeching like the Storm.
I lift the knife to my side,
I look at you, and I sigh....
These thoughts grind my teeth through sleep.

This is an ode to Adderall,

that wonderful mixture of

dextroamphetamine sulfate

dextroamphetamine saccharate

amphetamine

aspartate monohydrate

and amphetamine sulfate capsules

that all combine together

to form a prescribable pill

questionably similar to the Schedule II controlled substance street drug

commonly refered to as "Speed."


This is an ode to the children

who are bundles of energy caged in a classroom

incapable of concentrating

on the miniscule tasks given to them

by pedagogical authorities that

promise societal success and economic happiness

to those who complete their work on time

without a fuss or a doubt as to why they're

filling in bubbles on paper in the first place.

The confused children who watch

as others with calmer brains

fixate eyes on textbooks

rather than out the window.


This is an ode to Society

deeming these individuals as broken

choosing to wound then medicate

rather than proliferate.

That took their inquisitiveness

and locked it in a book with the label "DISORDER"

stating that you will never be anything

unless you think and feel the same way we do.

And much like a mad doctor

lobotomizing those whom he thinks insane

they synthesized a pill

to dampen a torrential brilliance

allowing them to place their sedated children

back in the box where they belonged.


This is an ode to the college students

chained by academic standards

expected to excel towards great things

if only they reach that ethereal diploma.

The students who crave the artificial focus

the increased capacity for concentration

with the broadened spectrum of perception

the sense of purpose in the tedium

the ungodly ability to think clearly

and perform the meaningless tasks they expect of us.

The students who go through illegal means

to purchase said drug

to swallow or snort

and dive back into the mountain of responsibility

with a new found sense of productivity and motivation.

An ode to the students

unable to find purpose in studenthood

the ones who find more virtue in watching the sunset

burn clouds into firework oblivion

before then blessing us with uncritical night.

An ode to the students

who discover more education

in climbing to the top of a mountain

and yelling a nonsense decree of passion

just to watch the echo

bounce from shore to shore

in cathartic reverberation.

The ones

for which our pill

is the only possible manner

of assigning purpose to purposeless assignments.

These are the ones

who must binge

cram for days before

the big exams

going whole nights without sleep

or food.

The ones slowly cracking under the increasing pressure of academia

spending more time questioning why they must complete their homework

instead of actually completing it.


This is an ode to my brothers and sisters

who stand in horror at the mold we must fit into

crafted by an unknown unshakable entity.

The ones who lost the appeal of cookie-cutter success

in exchange for a small understanding

of the way things really work.

The cogs that twisted off the machine

and now sit lotus-posed in the corner.

My fellow birds with broken wings

still expected to fly.

My fellow carpenters expected to build their estates

yet not given the proper tools to do so.

The ones of cursed cold clarities

perfectly capable of clutching

those fifteen minutes of dynasty

yet refrain from doing so due to

the immaculate futility of it all.


This is an ode to a drug induced rant

that no one will read

the one that I chose to write

instead of doing my **** homework in the library

like a compliant student.


This is an ode to the pressure-oriented procrastinators

that delay and yet again delay

their petty necessary obligations due to purposeless and exhausted motivation.

Swallowing substances to summon some sort of incentive

to fill in the bubbles

and cater to the Society they find so confusing

the ones who only under influence of synthesized chemicals

find reason to squeeze into that culturebox

that cascades down a bumpy man-made conveyor belt

branding a diploma onto your forehead

injecting an occupation into your veins

transforming your pupils to dollar bill signs

demanding you breed children

to do the same as you have

and you'll never be happy unless you do these things

right?


This is an ode to those who reside in the shadows

of our broken social system

and conjure up great conversations

pertaining to everything and nothing

that are as wonderful and necessary

as the prints of your fingers

caressing down a comfortable torso

just before the sun rises

the untouchable indescribable realizations of life and love

that are completely irrelevant in their eyes

but are entirely necessary for our survival.


This is an ode to the overwhelming feeling of love

greatly exacerbated by a pharmaceutical delight

whereupon connections with other humans

become both incredibly appealing and oddly magnetic

for a few electric hours.

The oxygenating satisfaction felt

the instance just after the small talk architecture masks

fall to the floor

and right before we put them back on.


This is an ode to the minutes before the amphetamine crash

where the world still doesn't make sense

but we briefly don't mind

because a few fleeting moments of energy and purpose

in this otherwise detestable confine of reality

are all you can really ask for

as you complete the assignments

then step outside

to smoke yet another cigarette (they're absolutely wonderful on Adderall try it some time it'll **** you slowly but then again what won't?)

only to witness our Sun

breeding fire clouds in the east

illuminating the Western Abyss into purple-gold spectral oblivion

and in consequence therefore

between puffs of a necessary cigarette

you grin to yourself in quiet victory.


This is an ode to misaligned priorities

to those who when walking to everimportant final examinations

think not of the curriculum beaten into their skulls

but take careful measure to step on every crack on the sidewalk

who stare not towards the future

but to the beautiful reflection reflecting back from the broken mirrors

that are the weary days and weary ways

of this curious existence.

To those when stepping into the absurd spotlight of Society

unapologetically proclaim:


"Though I must play your game,

you will never win."

Kurt Vonnegut said
To write poems that no one will ever read
then throw them away
In order To be a better writer

Joke's on him.
No one reads my poems anyways
Nor would I want them
to

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.

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?

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.

Down to the last drop
of the dark-blue incandescent bottle
lies peace-in-the-chaos,
a welcome break from the weary world.

this taste that burns is all i need
as the bottle drips down farther
and farther

lost
      unreal
cannot stand but willing to strike
                        cannot speak but screaming
will not remember
              not remember what is going on
                                                                  what is going on?

until it's empty
and the world is worth destroying.

Hope isn't a smiling face
among a dismal crowd.
Hope isn't the light at the end
of the tunnel.
It is not that thing with feathers
for there is no soul for it to perch on.

No, that is not hope.
Hope is when the crows
grow full from the carrion of
a dead lamb, and rest.
Hope is when an old man
dies in his sleep, and stops feeling
those years and years of pain.

Hope is not in your heart:
hope is the time after the noose tightens
and before you fade away.

Hope doesn't perch.
Hope isn't a smiling face
among a dismal crowd.
Hope isn't the light at the end
of the tunnel.

Hope is when the crows
grow full from the carrion of
a dead lamb and rest.
Hope is when the old man
having forgotten himself years ago
falls asleep one last time.

Hope is everything you've needed
after you didn't need it anymore.
Hope is the time after the noose tightens
and before you fade away.

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.

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

I do not lament the clouds:
days like these don't deserve the sunlight;
skin so raw doesn't deserve to blister and blight.
A day that is built
for us to sit and watch the flowers wilt.

You let the silence speak for you
(as it tends to do.)
Love is a word that is hard to define
try hard enough and maybe you'll see that line
between the synapse and the feeling
between the prayer and the kneeling.
The difference between a spasm and desire,
a flashlight and a fire.
The difference between poetic words and idle chatter.
Yet all in all, none of this matters.

None of it matters when the moon looms over me
and no one is here to watch me bleed.
You can pluck the plant our sadness grew:
we fell in love, that much is true.
But things run so much deeper than this
and losing my kiss
won't fix any of this.

Since I know these words will be lost in the abyss
not to be read or cared for by your or by them,
I write without fear of infamy, and without any wish
of your hand in my hand ever again.

I am proud to say that you were once my lover:
we need lots of things, but we don't need each other.

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.

...And so the sun sets again,
the thoughts come creeping in.
Stars, stars... how dim they seem
on nights like these.

When the breaths cloud the air
and my feet step bare
on the cold streets.
I've never felt so weak.
Never felt so bleak.

Out of gas with nowhere to go.
Out of hope on a frigid road.

Perhaps there's another world out there,
where the steps don't seem so futile
and the words are less painful.
Perhaps there's another world out there.

And though these thoughts
are as painful
to me
as a thousand snapping bones
shattering on concrete.

Though these thoughts
are as interminable
to me
as the burning stars
which supersede time itself.

Though these thoughts
are as constant
to me
as the setting of the sun
and the rising of the moon.

Though these thoughts are all of these things
to me.
I can't help but stand in wonder
as to how, why,
and for what reason
I am so sad, always.

Perhaps there is another world out there
where life is worth living.
Perhaps there is another world out there.

Perhaps...

It is sad to see
how many people I
can love
without coming any closer
to loving myself.

...

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

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?

you spoke without speaking
i spoke without thinking

and as the final desperate words
killed what could have been kept
we smoked in silence outside
you gave me the last drag
but I declined
you took one more
and we resigned

and the first cold rain of the year
fell just a few hours later

Recovering from exhaustion only available
after nights and nights (and nights) of dreamless sleep
and sleepless dreams and mourning pillows that hold
more tears than we'd like to admit. Recovering from night terrors
only possible after decades of shameless meandering along
a rocky shore of somniferous hyperactivity.
Hide your fires no light will find you here.

Wake up, feel the sweat drip from your brow:
your heart is racing and you've no clue why.

Life is burden when sleep is terror.

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.

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

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

and i never felt much sadder
than the day that we first met
because i knew 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 whimper
oh 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

i should have seen it coming
you warned me you were cold
but the silence doesnt hurt less
just because it was foretold

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 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

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

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.

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 would like to spend
the remainder of my days
floating
alone in outer space

past the edge of the universe
where not even starlight could reach me
and I would float in the blackness
without sight or sound or heat
forever

no gravity to press down on my
shattered body
free from the dull ache
of titanium plates and screws
relief to cartilage ripped to shreds

but most importantly
i would be far too far away
for anyone to ask me
if i was okay
or if i needed help

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.

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

Smoke yourself silly.
Drink yourself drunk.
Cut yourself repeatedly.
Insist that nothing's wrong.
Hope they don't believe you.
They always seem to.
Are you that good of a liar?
Or do they just not want to know?
Would it matter if they did?
It's no matter now:
You've long accepted your own soft, sorrowful implosion.

There are some nights on this earth
when it is easier to ignore the signs
forget the laws and forget the composure.
Some nights ask you to smile
and it would be rude to decline.

It's very easy to forget
how heavy the days are,
sometimes.

We have these nights to remind us that
we try to smile and nothing comes out.
Nights in which it's easier to sit alone
and wait for the world to end
than to try and hold a hand.

Sometimes I wonder
if not all nights
are some-nights.

There are some nights
where joy must be squeezed out
or cracked like an egg --
elsewise it will sit, stagnant:
taunting.

Let the memories flood your mind
and stand in horror at what you find.
On some nights every recollection is
a needle jammed into your cerebral cortex.
Do not fear these nights for they are always.

The world turns and night turns to day
and turns to night and turns to etc.

An old man dies in his sleep,
a flower withdraws into its stalk
the fires subside and guide us
through this oblivion.
She wants him.
He wants to die.
They pass out, one by one.
Words fall to the floor
and sometimes -- if you're lucky--
the humming of insects and streetlights
enfolds every ripple in your brain
and you feel our concrete earth
remind you in a low tone:
'Everything is fine, status quo.
You will live another day.'

There are some nights on this earth
that are almost worth living.

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.

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

.....)
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
(.....

I feel so helpless in the backseat
Speed-complacent
car crash risk
Apparently, obviously,
worth taking.

Orange warm highway street lamps
Somniferous strobelights
melodic-hypnotic
through the blackred veil of my
Stubborn eyelids.

Highway streelights Like when I was twelve
and
Every Tuesday/Thursday
Mom picked me up from school
And drove me straight to
ACTS Acting Academy
In Northwest OKC.

How simple it was back then,
The only problem or
So it seemed
was
the 49 minute drive to and
Especially from.

...

Yet strangely so peaceful.


I had actual friends in acting class,
I waited all week to see them.

I practiced my monologue fifteen minutes everyday
Just to prove to dad
That I cared enough to justify the time and the money (mostly the money)
That mom had to spend
To drive me  tothe city twice a week
To see my friends
To see my friends from acting class.

How was I supposed to know
That those highway drives homes
9:15pm
Would be the most peaceful memory
I would ever remember to forget?
The last refuge of contentment
I would ever
to feel?

How was I supposed to know
How much worse it'd get?

Yet even then, age twelve,
Even then
all we thought of it was a burden.
Driving there and back
There and back
There and back

...

And of course mom felt that way, too.
Tired from long days of home health.
Most of that job was just driving somewhere
And somewhere else.
Yet eventually
Tacitly
Under the subtle strobeof orange warn highway street lights
She found herself more at home in that car
Than anywhere else in her limited bounds.

Slowly she found herself
speaking candidly
for once
To finally someone who would listen
Even if sadly it had to be
Her twelve year old son
Driving to the city.

Equal parts proud and deeply disturbed
At the realization that I was her best friend
She became mine, too.

Sometimes she spent that whole drive there
Having the same time ten minute conversation
Five times over
To Meema in the nursing home
(How sad vascular dementia must be)

And then there was driving home.

I was tired.
I fell asleep with
my iPod headphones
Blaring awful screamo melodrama.

Driving home she had only her thoughts.
How strange I now imagine she must have felt.
Orange warm streetlamp hypnosis
Freedom.

How many decades had she gone without those thoughts?
How many years had she gone to the grocery store after work?
How long had that credit card debt been compounding?
How long had she been asleep? -- Ambien sleep--years without a dream?

How many loops to that class
That pre-teen California pilot season prep class
Did she have to make
Until she
Finally
Had a thought
of her own?

I feel so helpless in the backseat.
All those lessons I learned
And forgot
And remembered
And tried so hard to forget again
In that Oklahoma City acting class
At twelve years old
Before it all got worse
Before it eventually got comparatively better again

Helpless even more now that I realize
That I've spent the last decade plus
Trying so hard to forget
How peacefully pretragic
Those Tuesday, Thursday twelve year old nights
Actually were.

Orange warm highway street lights
tracing by
Driving home tired.

I was twelve
learning how to be kind of happy

She was 45
Also learning
How to be kind of happy

As the highway street lights traced by
And we were both so desperate to be home
Yet also happy not
To be home yet.

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.

Sauntering the night away
among Suburban streets
with the cars
the light pollution
the concrete
and all those other signs of humanity
that writers before me loathed so much.

True, Thoreau may admire
an alchemical need for walking
every day and every night
in order to stay sane.
Yet he would shun my use of an
mp3 player
as "too technological"
or "too inorganic."

Yet as I make my way
through paved streets
why does the music
fit my steps so well?

And if the Romantics
would hate my headphones,
why does every happy song
remind me, with a smile, of her?

We have endured these cold days
with tired eyes,
the sun rose behind ominious clouds
only to set in slow motion
as an interminable specter.
Just when you prayed for night
you found yourself colder than ever
and alone.

Under inadequate shelter
from your cold thoughts you tried
to forget those things
that made you feel this way
in the first place.

You tried to feel your heart
but it was as cold as stone.
Impossible to forget
all the reasons and the people
and the sadness and the pain
that brought you and I to these dark corners
in the first place.

It was too cold to go outside
and ask the stars.

But now, the sun is out
and my head has cleared.
A cool breeze under a warm sun
was all it took
to blow those terrible thoughts away.

How nice, to wake up with sunlight in my eyes.
To wake up without dreaming of you,
to step outside without resentment,
to feel the grass on my feet
and to know that I am starting to heal.

That was all I needed:
a day in the sun
to relish what I can't comprehend
and shed the sadness
you tried to give me.

Smiles fall to the floor,
crystal countenance
cracks quietly,
tears heard by no one.
drip drop drip

Age serenades the young,
old woman searches the sky
with screaming eyes.
tick tock tick

The sound of love ending
at night.
The sound of bones snapping
under starlight.

If clenching your jaw
is how your body prepares
for getting punched in the face
then what does that say
about my teeth so ground down
they're falling out?

Feeling thankless,
but what can I say?
You've given me a body
that's falling apart
and a mind
that's not doing much better.