There isn't much
for me to write about anymore.
I've worn out the angst-filled hate letters
and the longing love letters, and
quite frankly,
I thought they were **** good.

I've been awake for awhile,
pushing forward this idea in my head
like a surgeon guiding his patient to the knife.
It's at the front of my head,
ready to shatter the glass of my forehead.
Or, better yet, gently move down,
and slide between my teeth
like my chilly breath on this cold day.

There is always time to take into account.
It's needy and it's hungry for wasted minutes.
It claws at the door until I turn the ****,
and, like a wave, collapses me.
And this idea, so overwhelming and heavy,
will tell me to stay on the ground,
let more time past by,
and soon I will fall asleep on this cold day.

This idea isn't a fair gambler.
There's no areas shaded gray,
trust me. I tried to find them.
Once you're in, you ain't goin' back,
like a criminal taking his steps toward Old Sparky.
This idea might render me like that criminal, actually,
and maybe you'll realize how this will haunt you.
Write your requiem on this cold day.

I stood at the water's edge
in a movie-esque scene where
it was me and me alone
staring at myself in the water's reflection.

My echo lead me here.
You said I made a sound you would never forget,
but that's something no one should carry but myself.

So my echo lead me across the fields, and
over the hills and,
down the valleys until
I was stopped by the shore and
I realized there was no way to
take
my words
back.

They're always going to echo in your head.
But believe me, I tried to catch them.

I took a walk down to that elementary school again.
The first time was vibrant and honest.
This time I realized the first time was just a waste of breath.

The streetlight burnt out underneath the bench we sat upon.

You're a thousand miles away,
and the distance is quite pleasant.
But now you're a red devil or a white ghost
haunting the halls of my house,
or the streets that we drove down together.

My God, I have so much to say to you,
but words are like cigarettes to me now -
I'm running out and ****, I want one right now.

Maybe two.

One to forget you and one to forget that elementary school.

Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?

Your son sat on your lap
while you waited for the bus
to pick you two up.

Do you remember?

It was a cold December afternoon,
but the moon was already out.
It was rising as the sun was setting,
do you remember?
Both giants were reflecting off of the bus stop glass.

You had your son in one arm
and your bag on the other.
Your bag dropped, remember?
I picked it up for you, remember?

The bag spilled onto the sidewalk.
Your journal and wallet and camera, all of it.
I picked up the contents,
gave it to you when you stepped on the bus,
and you smiled.

Do you remember?

I said you had a radiant smile,
then the doors closed.

Dear, do you remember?
...dear, don't close your eyes now.
Please remember, dear...

do...yo u . .   . re me mber   m    e   ?

He orders a plate of his favorite cigarettes
(Lucky Strike) (filterless) (nostalgia)
and a cup of coffee
at his favorite diner across town
that surprisingly hasn't burnt down yet.

He sits at a window booth and
he observes
a couple making lust in the street(Lucky Strike).
He observes
an infant child begging his mother to stay(filterless).
He observes
hummingbirds pecking at the corpse of a dog(nostalgia).

His hat is emblazoned
with valor and bloodshed and death.
His legs are turning into dust
out in the midst of a battlefield
where other soldier's limbs are turning into dust.

Yeah, he fought for t(his) (nostalgia).

Seven demons out at sea,
the ones I casted out of me.
The tide washes them away
and I pray that they find decay.

Lust was swallowed by the sea-
a failed act of *******.
Greed fell pray to crystal blue
hoping the ocean would make do.

Gluttony, and empty man,
tried his hand at Leviathan.
Envy felt its resentment
and dissolved for mere contentment.

Sloth sluggishly found his rest
in the ocean's sufficient breast.
Wrath destroyed his dreadful cage
and his happiness spilled his rage.

Pride found me in deep pleasure:
My satisfaction - his leisure.
He drove me to the great wave
where six deadly sins were enslaved.

I tried to write today, but my head is filled with so much anger and my heart is so confused as to why I’m so angry that I crashed and burned and tried to pick myself up and put myself together but I realized that this brain is so malignant and so highly medicated that the only thing I could do was walk around all day as a cracked and punctured and bruised shell of a man that incessantly screamed until his lungs collapsed and his vocal chords burned down and his blood was dripping from between his teeth and he couldn’t believe that he believed he could actually write something today.

My joints ache and my back is broken.
My lips are parched and my throat is decaying come on and hydrate my being.
Because I know one thing is for sure -
Heaven and Hell both long for my soul,
and this dense and gyrating battle
exhausts me immensely.

My eyes are sore.
With one blink, the dawn returns to dusk
and the owls start to call out to each other
No sound of the morning songbird
or the church bells signaling the Seraphs to flight.
I am always in the night,
and always in transit with the nocturnal

Let us hold each other to sleep.
No liquor will drown the moon away.
Sense my brokenness and fill this empty vessel.

We are shipwrecks needing rescue.

I’ve burnt through so many cigarettes that
my mother would be ashamed of me.
And I could blame my father
for leaving his 100’s by his wallet and keys,
giving me the nicotine for free.

What will it cost him, though?

My lungs were becoming his lungs.
It’s frightening how a vice
turns into an addiction
that turns into an idol
that turns into malignancy.

I watched him hold a lighter.
I watched him hold the cancer between his fingers.

I’m watching him turn into the ash
that fills the ash tray sitting in our backyard.

It’s funny how weak one sees another
when one has overcome a dependency.

Put down the matches,
and give your lungs a break.

To the choirmaster:
Are your voices rising
as well as you conducted them too?

Are you doing good to Zion?
Are you building up your walls and are you delighting in right sacrifices?
Are you offering burnt offerings? Whole burnt offerings?

Are you offering bulls to the altar.

Are you going to just stand there and pretend nothing is wrong behind that mask of yours?

I know I am.
Come join the party!
We're starting to get a crowd growing, and another layer of make-up is going on the faces of
the broken and the bruised.

Yah, your face too!
C'mon, all of us are doing it!
Let peer pressure puncture your
legs and jump off this bridge with us.
We will rock this room for hours
until we hit rock bottom
and bottom out and
crash and burn and
burn alive.

I know my transgressions,
I know what I'm doing!
I know what the hell I'm doing to myself!
I don't need you to tell me when to
stop smoking
stop drinking
stop cursing
stop lusting.

Stop murdering your brother, Cain,
and let Abel be.

I can't stop.

All of these demons know my name.
They rot and they ruin this fragile frame
and blame me
and me alone
for this travesty that was caused.

Now, I've tried to die already.
Three times! Let's make it four.
I am just a ***** of a living being
that doesn't deserve this
breath
after breath
after breath.

This voice is yelling "YOU CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE".
This voice is yelling "CRUCIFY HIM!"
This voice is whispering "Take and eat. These are the pills that were given to you to stabilize your mind. This I give you so that you can sleep and never wake up. Take and eat, son".

Don't you dare call me son.

These demons may know my name,
but my Father knew it before I was conceived.

I am my Father’s, and my Father’s alone

Father, please, listen to me! This is your son!
Please don't say you've forgotten my face
because Father, I constantly forget Your name.

Father, I'm shattered and sorry.
Have mercy.
Have mercy on my bloodguiltiness

Father, this world is scary.

Dad, don't let go of this small hand of mine.
Cast me not away from Your presence.

I just want to come home, Dad.
Against You and YOU ALONE HAVE I SINNED.

Every day it's been this way,
but you know that already.
Please erase me and leave me tabula rasa.
Hide your face from my sin.

Create in me a pure heart.
Restore to me Your joy.

Open my lips, Dad, and my mouth will declare your praise.

Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune this broken heart to sing Your praise.

The faded white book
stands so tall above us as we rest beneath it
that it’s shadow spreads across the ground
while it hides the sun.

We sit crisscrossapplesauce
on the grass
while the Autumn insects
crawl and climb among the blades.
Yeats’ and Dickinson’s words float gently
into the tree branches above.

Poetry is something I will never understand
and something that is just as scary
as the razorblades
and the pills and drugs
that fade in my past.

But poetry is also something
that I find my joy in.

I’ll be more than happy to confide in it.

Zeus is ****** tonight.

Maybe he was having conflict with Hera. Maybe Apollo or Athena or Artemis accidentally attempted to rain art or astuteness or animals down upon Earth, respectively.

Maybe he drank too much wine.

Whatever the reason is, it's quite a light show.

There are no stars, only the
chemiluminescence
on my shirt and my shorts
that were poured upon me by
intoxicated partiers who thought it would be entertaining
to shower the combination of peroxide and phenyl oxalate ester
upon the party guests.

A map of the universe
is splattered across my hands.

It's as if Zeus
threw away the sky,
in an inebriated gesture,
and it landed around me.

Cronus should have swallowed the father of gods and of men whole.

After-rain sidewalks
soaked our weary feet
and the glistening of the Fall storm
fell softly from your eyelashes.

Your eyes were changing colors
from green to hazel.
Your floral dress complimented them well.

You know I didn't have a choice
to peek between my fingers
while you quietly hid behind the trees.
The trees that moved in rhythm with each other,
welcoming us to simply follow the

1 and
2 and
3 -

We loved in arboreal.
Our rings were numbered high above
any evergreen that scraped the infinities.

If only death could wait for us.

I was born amongst
neon lights and
bristling palm trees
on the scorching, receding beach line.

I am my mother's only one.

Several years spent
in garages rented out
by owners who felt sympathy
for my mother and father.

Many miles roaming,
sleeping in the backseat of cars
against my father's body -
all 125 pounds of him.

I am my father's newfound drug.

My mother and father
would take me back
to the receding beach line
while my mother weeps softly
and my dad smokes his last cigarette.

I am a life worth reverence.

I remember it well.
That naive kind of love
shared through anonymity
when, in fact, I knew it was you all along.

Things haven't changed very much from then,
have they?
We still write
but with a more
colorful
vocabulary.

And with this
I vicariously replace my virtues
with violent vibes and
vaudeville-esque veneers.

I try to become more mature than I was back then
with these words
that fill these notebooks
that ooze
adventure and joy and sorrow and hatred and lust and violence and praise and thanksgiving and trust and disbelief and doubt and
hope
and pain.

My truthbox is full of letters to myself.
Letters that wouldn't fit in an envelope
to send to you.

So I let you read them on that schoolyard bench
under the lamppost.

Did you pay attention to detail?

A poem inspired
by the awe and majesty of the pouring rain
falling upon the cathedrals and the vagrants
that say their Hail Mary's and Our Father's
on the front steps.

A poem inspired
by the love of a woman who
accepts the faults
and ignores the mistakes and regrets
that haunt many dreams.

A poem inspired
by the friends and the acquaintances
who hold up the hands of the weak
and give them a new sense of hope
and a new sense of buoyancy.

A poem inspired
by the soft melodies
floating softly over the plucking of strings
and the pounding of keys
ricocheting off the walls.

A poem inspired
by the enlightenment of the mind
that only comes once in a while,
but when it does come,
time stops and everything is perfect.

The dissonance feels indiscernible now.
My favorite bench became home
for both of us.

You didn't scorn,
rather embraced me from the beginning.
And the sky opened;
the stars glowed only for you.

Watch them glow,
watch them sparkle for you.
(I bet you didn't know this was for you)

Only poetry was being written.
A screenplay coming to life.

Avant la prochaine fois, manquer,
avant la prochaine.

They came in
from a cloud of smoke
with those blue cans in their hands
(who pays attention to the brand anymore?)

Their eyes glowed
like they just saw a
acid
kaleidoscope
and everything else
vanished. Their goes their
fifteen? sixteen? years of life.

The shy kid down the street
became his own idol.
The small girl from church
walked on the smoldering ashes she created.

These kids don't even know
the meaning of grief.
But these elementaries are
spoon-feeding
it to each other like they know
what the hell they're talking about.

I am a savage;
a knuckledraggervandal.

For me, there is
no comprehensible language
or agenda.

I, confined to a cage
filled with senseless clues
pointing toward oblivion,
have not encountered the pleasure
of being free in a frame.

Train 1
What happens when
you throw hard candies
at the passengers of a double-decker bus?

What happens when
you yell "*****!" at the ladies
on a yacht circling the downtown canals?

What happens when
the sky-deck of the tallest building in the U.S.
puts pavement over its windows?

What happens when that seagull
perched upon the chained buoys
turns into a swan?

Train 2**
What happens when
my father gives his last cigarette
to a homeless man begging for change?

What happens when
the lovers on the loop line
never disconnect lips?

What happens when
the buildings collapse into
the great plains again?

What happens when
the cameras of tourists
lose their capabilities to capture this moment?

Slum ditch ****
and a double-decker train
heading straight for the heart;
bypassing all other organs.

I sit next to
dresses and scarves
and MomandSon kisses
and journals in the hands
of Chicago lovers
documenting every moment.

He lays in his bed
under a thin layer of dust
and ash from his cigarette after cigarette.

The sheets tremble above his breath.
His chest cracks and crumbles.
His heart's an inferno.

He ricochets between
anger and self-pity
and denial.

Two days ago
she left without a word;
slipped from underneath
the covers and buried herself in
bottles of *****
before crossing the street
to the vineyard.

She weaved together
the branches
and kicked the stool from underneath
her bare feet.

as he watched from the window.

He knows she will come back.
She will untie herself from those
grapes of wrath
and rest her head
against the pillow next to his own.

I splashed in the puddles
for the first time in my life
and tried to be careless.

Like the child I used to be.

All things come to an end.
Childhood,
and the rain,
and now, it feels like
the past four years
have passed away like this storm.

It didn't have to die.
Now it feels like I'm the next one
who has to.

Quietus.

Or another synonym for death.

I still need you.
Like the child that clung to
the carelessness that died so long ago.

Landing on both feet
is never as easy as I thought it would be
when I saw you jump
gracefully
from the top of the crabapple tree.

I've always hit a branch along the way down.

You'd pick me up,
dust me off,
and say to me -

Breathe the smell of the crabapple blooms!
It's the smell of freedom! Of release!
Inhale,
and you'll sense it in the air
and land perfectly on your feet.

She collects daisies that blossom in her backyard and keeps all of the sand dollars she finds on the shore when she listens to the waves at night while she thinks of YOU.

She collects them for YOU.

she started purchasing Grateful Dead and The Flaming Lips records because that's what YOU listen to when you need to escape.

She wants to escape with YOU.

She bout the slugs and the magazine and that GOD-**** cold piece of metal with the glossy trigger because YOU are holding the same vanishing act in YOUR hand.

She wants to vanish with YOU.

I'm in the hands of
faithful optimism
or
youthful foolishness.

I guess it's up to you to choose
the former or the latter.

I'm bound to find the answer,
but love is a rhetorical question
with no elicit answer.

The two sip wine
from small styrofoam cups
they've stolen from the general store.

The wine? Stolen from the church.

(Take and drink)

The cardboard sign rests on
the knees of the
man. A scarred face of a
woman rests on his shoulder.

The sign reads:
Will you have the backbone to seek the love we have lost? Will someone give us anything to feel?

Every day there's the dull roar
of shattering backbones.

(This cup of blood)

I don't associate well with anti-Christs,
false prophets,
and freelance pharisees.

I don't concur with tax collectors
and their dreaded ideas
to wrench the world of its money.

A friend once told me
I am ******* heartless.

She's never met these people before.

The silhouettes of two deer,
beautifully and gracefully elegant,
stood side-by-side in the midnight fields.

They called to one another
in a harmony that lifted
toward the Eternities,
splitting the clouds to reveal
the splendor of the night sky.

The grass swayed
in the gentle breeze.
This simple instance
of life
said more than words
could possibly detail.

And the extraordinary facet
of life
is that we are all
interlaced
by the simple harmonies
of two deer calling
to one another.

A cool summer breeze
sent your hair past
your eyes.
You opened your arms,
looked toward the heavens,
and the sunlight
illuminated everything
that I fell in love with.

Then you grabbed my hand
and we ran toward the waters.
You kicked off your sandals
and rolled up your jeans.

I followed your lead,
and it was the best
decision I've made.

He walks into Patty's Pub
on the corner of 27th and Vine
with a guitar in his hand
and a bag on his back.

The bartender marks an M
on his left hand.
He is only 18; he is a minor.
But he pulls a water bottle,
filled with *****,
out of his bag and takes a drink.

Inhale, exhale.

He listens to the other performers
sing songs about
love and loss and regret.

None of the stories compare to his.

He finishes the bottle
and plugs his guitar into the amp onstage.

He sings
"I will never see her face again. I will only see her ****** veins. She said it was all my fault. My fault her life came to a halt and she couldn't catch her breath".

Inhale, exhale.

"The blade in her hand slit her wrist, and she twisted and persisted and I couldn't stop it".

Inhale, exhale.

"I couldn't stop it..."

He splinters his guitar
against the stage floor.

He falls on his knees.
He couldn't stop it.

She sang a cappella
so loud that the love
and her personal
Via Dolorosa
in her words
and in her melody
floated tangibly out of her lips
as if it were the
walking-wounded soldier's
letter to her
that she received many years ago.

"I miss you, darling.
I'm coming home soon,

I promise"

I sent you an invitation
to the last meal I'll have
in days.

I signed the letter
with my own hand,
just to let you know
it was actually me.

But you've given up on me,
haven't you?
(I've already had my fair share
of abandonment).
You probably lit the invitation,
along with your precious cigarette,
on fire.

Did it cry for mercy,
that letter of mine?

Or did it curse you,
like so many of my invitations
have done before?

My guess is the latter.
"******* YOU", it yelled,
"ROT IN HELL LIKE THE **** YOU ARE".

All of the words
I never had the
courage to say.

I sent you an invitation
to the last meal I'll have
in days.

I'll dine alone,
and I'll send a letter again,
just to let you know
it's actually me.

One day I'll probably stop writing.
The world would run out of things
to write about.
My mind would run out of things
to write about.

And a terrible lull will linger
over my head.
Probably apathy.
Probably cyclothymia.

I'll leave myself out of everything.
I will only listen to the sound around me,
not the sound that's coming from me.

I am awake.
I swear I'm awake.

I didn't mean to **** myself.
It was just one of those
spurofthemoments.

I colored outside
of the lines. I
took the falsehood
seriously and believed
I was invincible.

The camera never lies,
and I believed every
photo it said.
What a fallacy, would't
you agree?

If I leave before you,
don't threaten me with
lithium.

Don't follow
me outside
and try to act with sympathy.

Change is a *****,
and I'm married to it
till death do I part,
and leave it a widow.

And when I leave you,
don't threaten me with
lithium.

OH MY GOD I COULDN'T BREATHE.
My throat felt as if it was shriveling,
burning like the sun itself.

It's hard
to wipe away the tears
when your hands are around your neck.

I inhaled and caught my breath
and chuckled a little bit
as my exhaled breath floated across the lights,
casting a beautiful shadow on the ceiling.

Dear Diary, you're completely full of ****. You are that streetwalker who passes by with a faux smile and a greeting that defines Charlatan.

"Hello! How are you?"

Well, Diary, I'm broken and full of rotting organs and a brain just screaming for serotonin and a conscious that wants to shove a knife in your chest and a heart that's too weak to do it.

"I'm doing just fine, thanks."

Charlatan Diary, you're nothing but a shallow waste of ink. Waste of ink waste of ink wasteof ink wa ste o f ink wasteofink.

There is definitely glass in the hammer
and my hands are cut and bleeding.
But we needed to drive down that road,
hide behind the earth,
and commit ******.

John and Paul and George and Ringo
are dead.
And we threw their bodies in the dumpster
and drove away.

If only there was more **** to break.
We need more **** to break.

We were so close to seeing the sunrise!
Well, not really.
It was 3 o' clock
and my eyelids felt like cinder blocks.

But it felt close.

It could have been a picture perfect moment.
Well, not really.
Pictures are never perfect,
and besides,
my thumb would have been in the shot.

A division,
a spot of bother.
Part the waters, Moses.
We will wait here and clench our teeth,
for the dams might break
and destroy this city.

This town is slurring its words all over the pavement.
These columns of stone and fountains of gold
won't last forever.
(Selah)
Don't blink,
because I'm trusting you'll keep watch with me.

Kyrie, eleison.

Visit me when my body is wrinkled and cracked.
When my voice can no longer carry a tune,
my fingers can no longer pluck these strings,
and my mind fumbles with my words.

Would you stand by my bedside
and play this game of nostalgia with me?
We can recall the nights spent
outside of that hall, burning our pipes
and drawing our lives out of the smoke.

Will you realize
that no one belongs here more than you?

I could fly you there.

We could feel light and free together.
I could hold your hand and jump off of this bridge
and glide over the waters with you
and even the rocks and the fish will wish they had wings.

I will break through the air and the clouds and the heavens.
You could come with me
and I will show you the moon
reflecting the warmth of the sun.

We are a forest; we are as dense as trees. But when one of us is cut down and plummets, none of us hear it. It's sad that our branches don't intertwine and our leaves don't share the same green and fall off our twigs when Autumn appears around the corner with its scythe, welcoming the coming of Dead Winter.

We are only a tire swing away from each other.

Our bark isn't climbed by the same children. We don't have the same tattoos, formed by the knives of lovers holding hands, in our wood. It would be better for us to burn down in a quiet Summer Holocaust.

The only way to join each other is to return to the dirt that gave birth to us.

Strike match, light pipe.
He is not confined by his youth.
He feels like all of the ****
that has accumulated
in 16 years
is like the sound of a
piano falling to the floor.

All strings snap.

He sleeps on this floor and smokes on this floor and inhales and exhales on this floor until the pipe is cash and the sun rises again to remind him of all the nights his strings have snapped like an orchestra out of tune.

The current cautiously carries me
between canyons frosted with crystals
incessantly sparkling under the sun.

It's blinding, this ravine.
The owls hovering about me
hoot hoot hoot their pleasant accord.

The stream takes a turn
and becomes pavement.
The canyons become metal poles
and the crystals convert to street lights.

The front tire hits the curb
and the sirens' sound
violently throws me behind a steering wheel.

The owls transform into vultures.

My eyes are fixed
upon the hills.
And the lights that glow
from the downtown neonesque
battle the stars
and win.

The sail the sidewalk streams
I send an S.O.S.
from my (pharmaceutical) bottle
as the gutters and streets swallow
my hollow pleas for deliverance.