I lit a fire tonight
upon my grandfather's old typewriter.

I kindled it with all of his old pencils,
his favorite ballpoint pen,
his yellow-paged novels,
his newspaper cutouts of his past successes.

Hell, I even threw in the bookshelf.

And, just like that,
it was mortal history.
I did it for the **** of it.

I mean, if it was REALLY important,
it would be sprawled all over webpages.
Sprawled all over online searches and
digital databases.

Trust me, grandpa,
the future looks much better in High Definition.

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.

A 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
A mixtape
Valentines Day

A tuxedo
A seafoam green dress
Prom night

A starlit road
A taste of your lips
Spring

A weeping embrace
A slamming door
Summer

An empty bedroom
A bottle of gin
Autumn

A silent girl
A disturbed boy
Winter

"I don't love you like I did yesterday"

I.
He writes a letter
and sends it to her:
"My vacation's ending;
I'm out of my mind.
Tears follow after
days when I still felt
alive.
I never conquered Hate;
Love has been waiting,
just wanting some kind of sign
to trust,
(I never thought)
to hope,
(I'd die)
to care.
(alone.)
Please tell my mom this is not her fault."

II.
She writes a letter
to the one that she cares for:
"Tomorrow holds
a reason to live
and a reason to grow.
Days when I can still
feel the good things we know.
I can't wait to see you again."

III.**
He takes a taxi,
a young man drives.
Hope fills his eyes
at the end of the ride.
She arrives
safely with suitcase in tow.
He says,
"I didn't think enough."
She says,
"I should have not been gone for so long."
He is back safe in her arms,
without much regard
to the moon or the stars.
He keeps his head up and sails
through her pretty eyes.

She says,
"I'm yours and you're mine
and that's it, forever."

passes
in a flash of famous last words.
An extravagant way of
going out in style
that is only witnessed
by those stargazers,
spread out amongst
layers of blankets,
that are lucky enough
to be watching
without
blinking.

there is joy in this:
that you woke up this morning;
there's breath in your lungs.

I.

A twitch,
a slight itch on my arm.
Colors blur-
a child's scribbles
outside of the lines.

A burning heat in my pocket-
a needle to inject
that chemical freedom.

Sweaty palms
and a serpent whispering
into my ear.

Throw it away.
Light it up, friend,
Four days
it’s been far too long.
sober.

Escape!  Just let go.


II.

Wonderful, wonderful, I am nature!
I am designated to be brave!
To grow tall!
And you will never comprehend me.

I am a cure for history!
I’m an inspiration!
A beautiful scene!
All dreams and no panic.
I’m all rock and roll and cool waves.

I am a revolution!
¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!
I am a trend you were so afraid to bring back.
Everyone was wrong!

I will not be changed,
and I will go out with a bang…

III.

A bed,
shivering and white.
Lights.
Bright, sterile lights
flickering softly like trapped fireflies in a mason jar.

The faith chirp
of machines.
A flatline drones, dark and red.
I’m bound by tubes and cuffs and –

Oh God.

How many kids have died in this hospital bed?

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.

I see a girl
jumping from the Big Dipper
onto the object to which
the action of the sea is directed.

She takes flight,
with the boldness of a Willow Ptarmigan,
and soars high above
Palmer and Seward and the bowl of Anchorage.

She lands atop the snowy slopes
of Denali and carves her way down
into the withered trees of Ghost Forest.

She swims among the Aleutian Islands,
floats on the waves of the Turnagain Arm,
and basks in the waters of the Gastineau Channel.

I see a girl
whose eyes sparkle brighter
than Klondike gold,
and whose voice whispers more beautifully
than the wind that blows
through the great land of Alyeska.

Cue the banjo solos
and the violin swells.
Sleeping children in
withering weeping willow
high chairs
covered in creamed carrots.
Young cherry blossom lovers
shout curses,
shatter floodgates,
let tears flow;
petals are brushed away
by the wind.
Widows and over-easy eggs,
crossword puzzles and
sad irony on fifteen across -
"Murdered, 'Ides of March.'"
The weight of their fatigue
growing dark and heavy
under their eyes.

A waitress breaks silence,
"More coffee?"

A sleeping child awakes,
crying under the brightness
of the morning sun.

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 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.

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.

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.

I am writing this from the bottom of my heart
where all of the strings have snapped.
Quietly, a cascade of smolder shrouds my face,
finally putting my my mind to rest,
if only for a moment.

If there were any melody,
any melody at all,
that can get me by,
pour me a glass and let me be.

It's cold outside.
I think the tears are freezing to my cheeks.
My nervous hands struggle to write this.
But I need to ask one question:

Why does this life have to be so hard?

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.

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.

In my anxious sleep,
I dreamt of a road
that divided the ocean
into a Northern Kingdom
and a Southern Kingdom.

I started my journey from the shoreline.
As I stepped onto the path
my legs began to move on their own accord,
as if they were magnetically attracted
to their final destination.

I moved without haste,
with a tempo of a maestro
conducting the symphony of a chaotic Armageddon.

The waves crashed against the road,
but my feet were warm and dry.
The sea creatures of the deep emerged from the abyss,
but my body was at peace.

I saw the lighthouse-
the journey's end;
she gleam resplendently
on the opposite shore.

I sprinted toward her
through the soles of my shoes
down to the bares of my feet.

To be in her light again...

Only to be awoken by my anxious consciousness
in the darkness of the early dawn.

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.

Once I saw your face pressed against the picture window,
I sprinted.
The soles of my shoes were deteriorating,
but bare-feet was always the way I imagined this

Our reunion.

Three pints and a pipe.
One brother talking to another.
Honestly, I thought I'd never see you again.

And now
I know that you will never be as far away as I imagined.

He says to her, "goodnight." ("I never meant to hurt you.")
She walks away from him. ("You never hurt me; you shattered me.")
He begs her, "I hope you sleep well." ("I am sorry. Please let me put you back together.")
She continues to walk. ("I am a sinking ship. I am an earthquake. I am a falcon without a falconer.

I am beyond repair.")

He took a snapshot of me in the rain
in front of the vacant house where
ghost lifted the dust and
suspended the rocks like a puppeteer.

He called the shot
A Thousand Different Versions of Your Soul
and he swore, if it takes a community to raise a child,
then a thousand different people ******* me up.

I walked back to my house under an umbrella
with the polaroid of my incertitude tucked close to my heart
I pulled down every Vonnegut book from the shelf,
took the Holy Bible from its case,
called Plath up from her grave,
and asked them what the hell my life meant, anyway.

Vonnegut told me to travel to Titan.
There I will fall in love with the beautiful Sirens
and die with the aliens of Tralfamadore.

The Holy Bible told me to carry His cross
to Golgotha,
so He could die for
the salvation from my sins.

Plath told me to keep on writing.
Then I will live until I'm thirty,
and die in with my head in
my kitchen oven.

All provided valid arguments
on why my heart keeps beating
and why the thousand different versions of my soul
haven't crawled out of my throat yet.

An amber leaf twirls upon its spindle branch
(Please do not hope for anything more,)
But hope is all I have

but was interrupted by the winds.
(for you know nothing about the way things are.)
to carry me through these cold days

And the amber blade breaks away from its home
(Find someone to sweep you off your feet,)
until I find someone to simply fly by my side.

and is carried away with the breeze*
(because that someone cannot simply be me)
Do you think that someone could be you?

The leaves
seemed to wither and die
slowly this year,
as if the foliage red
sliced its veins and slowly
bled out.
Autumn glows yellow
like a book gradually develops
jaundice and eventually
collapses into dust.

The possibilities
of Summer are gone
and Winter inches her
ice-cold eyes
over the horizon,
turning her gaze inward
as the skies turn gray
and melancholy falls
like a torrent of freezing rain.

I ponder these things
while birds begin their
southern retreat
and night-time darkness
arrives swifly,
equipped with
Orion's Belt as
a holster and
the Crescent Moon as
a revolver.

My feet seem to be frozen
to dawn's frost as it
wraps it's frigid fingers
around my ankles -
shackles fitting for a
prisoner trapped in
the Season's purgatory.

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.

: I'd rather be in the middle of
nowhere
with you

than be on the edge of
everything
with anyone else.

Light barely drips
through the cracks in the blinds
and the dust floats
back and forth
like snow falling
onto unchristened ground.

I want to yell.
To reach my hands toward
heaven
and scream.

Because we were running.

We rushed our hands
through the grain
and splashed
in the puddles of Spring.
We were light,
glowing and weightless,
as we drifted through freeways
and back-roads.
I followed that river
that flows in you
like a melodic composition.

Now, my hands
reach upward at things not seen.
My feet are motionless,
while your river's current
carries you forward.

The dust settles without a sound.

It's birthday season
and the leaves are falling.

So it's kind of ironic.

Birth and death
in perfect harmony with one another.

Blossom all you'd like,
your leaves will turn
yellows and reds,

maybe sooner than you'd think.

All of the free spirits
are flying so high.
Happier than a child
on Christmas morning.

However,

the truth of the matter is
it'll all end

maybe sooner than you'd think

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.

For a
moment

I thought I (love)d you.

It's a tough word, it really is,
when you're sobbing behind a bottle,
bleeding red wine from the corners of your mouth.
It would be simpler to express this sober,
but you know as well as anyone
no one's ever sober anymore.

The inebriates are saying "happy ******* Valentine's Day"
to everyone who decided to break the glass the past year.
The antidepressants are speeding up my heart beat,
praying that this time it'll be my name you're crying about.

Even if it's for the wrong reason.

The marketplace (the one I admire
from the opposite side of earth)
is adorned with
best prices,
city memorabilia,
and vendors willing
to drop their prices for
the Western Civilization.

This is the gaudy side of town.

But just on the other side
of the crowded booths
is a bay that opens
to the sea adorned with
sunny afternoons,
crashing waves,
and books in hand and toes in the sand.

Your peaceful solace outshines
my tranquil plains adorned with
fallen leaves,
barren trees,
and the whispers of poetry that
is in the wind and
in the blue and orange sunsets.

Yet we are in solace together.

"I'm taking care of myself, and I miss you too"

The clouds reach their hands down
and cover the mountain peaks.
They call the Moon to reflect the Sun's light;
the fog glows a golden orange across the slopes.

In a dreamstate,
we are driving through Castle Rock,
the star brightly shining atop the granite anomaly.
He lights his pipe,
his hands swipe the match against the book like a maestro conducting a symphony,
and exhales the aroma of Philosopher's Blend into the thin Colorado air.

Many miles now separate
us, from the Rockies of Colorado
to the badlands of new Mexico;
but his smoke rings still
linger in the air, among the clouds,
that shroud the mountaintops.

on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego
movershakers and dopplegangers
dash across dimly lit streets
all covered in thick layers of shadow
eyes flicker in alleyways
move like lightning bolts
always making contact with you(r body)
eyes that move to the seat
next to you
and think only about
*** and *** and ***
on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego
where everything looks
better way better
when your mind looks
for a way to escape
prison break its way
out of your skull
beat you ******
and light you on fire
on a 12am bus
downtown San Diego.

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.

We hit the prairie
with the windows rolled down.
As the sun started to set,
you took off your shoes-
your barefeet on the dash.
You lit a cigarette
and the glow as you inhaled
revealed marks of a very great adventure.

We let our hair grow long together
because it looked cool
when the wind
ruffled it a bit.

"I wish we could drive forever", you said.

I agreed:
We could have chased the sun for the rest of our numbered days,
because we knew it would be the only thing
we could hold on to.

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.

I saw the glimmer in your eyes
and the drops fall down your face.
"It's not like I've never seen you cry"
She knows something I don't,
and she'll admit something I won't.
She's alive, alright, but where did she go wrong?

Where did she go?

I can barely close my eyes.
I can barely taste your lips.
"It's not like you have to feel this way"
Now, my heart must skip a beat,
and my mind must go wandering
because if I'm not meant to feel this way,

I should let it go.

Won't you tell me what is wrong?
And tell me, what is right?
"You were right, I did not want to hurt you"
Just put your mask back on
and fall back into the waltz.
You're alive, but when were you so right?

We must let it go.

I fell prey to the promise of rest,
and I dreamt that
the birds fell through the sky -
they forgot how to fly.

I'll wake up
and the city skylight
will guide me home.

Where did you go?

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.

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.

The grey cold
lingers in the bitter air
and snow falls like ghosts
declaring here will be a sufficient place to haunt.

I wake up
A time to seek and an time to lose
not to the birds
a time to mourn and a time to dance
or the sun shining through the blinds,
a time to keep silent and a time to speak
but to banshee sobs
a time to weep and a time to laugh
and voices that were once intertwined.
a time to love and a time to hate

I stare
out the window
and onto the unrelenting days
of December Timing-
a time to keep and a time to cast away;
a time to tear and a time to sew.

For everything, there is this season.
For every matter under the sun, there is this time.

I want to stretch my broken wings
a time to die
and fly toward the hidden, hopeful
light of day that is masked behind
the gray cold.

*a time to be born

Imagine your eyes
as bluegreenhazelgrayamber
windows to actuality.

Now imagine your eyes
s lo   w lllllllly

f
      a
              d

                      i
                    
                             n
              
                                    g

to






black.

Does sleep visit you often?
How do you lay upon your bed?
Do you ride the REM drug?
Do you dream?
Do your eyes dry and crumble?
Can you feel anything?
Do you wake up in a cold sweat?
Do you wake up tasting colors?

Do you wake up wising you were someone else?

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 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?

I.

He carried the weight of his World on his back.
Backpacking from the house to the oven
to the house to the oven
to the house to the oven
to the broken house he called his own.
His World was a paranoid wife,
a broken son,
and a heartbroken daughter.
No one ever offered to carry his cross.

II.

She paces back and forth
in the confines of the kitchen
and finally breaks down,
slouching down against the cabinets.
The pills inch their way down her throat,
and her tears wash them down
to the very depths of her soul.

III.

His eyes are bloodshot and glazed
as he holds the blue glass that burns with
the smell of illegal freedom.
He exhales a sigh of smogrelief,
letting the real world disintegrate
and entering the Hallucination world,
where nothing can pierce his skin.

IV.

She stares at the face on the computer screen.
A young boy - blond hair and green eyes.
He stares at another girl in the photo,
her hair blond and her eyes green.
The computer screen starts to crack,
and she realizes that so is this youngheart love.
If only she knew how love really hurt.

I can only imagine
flying kites with you
as the sun sets
and the stars cross.

Let us keep our fondest memories
clutched close to our chests.

For if they are lost,
the wind will sweep them away
or the sea will toss them into its abysmal blue.

Rather, let us tie them to the laces of our shoes -
              and take them always with us.
Tattoo them onto our intellects -
              and reminisce upon them often.
Lock them in our hearts
              Do not let them die until they
              all
              stop
              beating.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings"*

Here stands a city,
stretching as far as
the east is from the west.
Dark and deep is the night
on the streets lined
with desolate lamp posts
which once ago held
light
to those who walked
to a place they called
home.

The moon beams
pierce apathetic clouds
and cast a milky
gleam
onto a decaying brick wall
overspread with faded Krylon.

Situated next to a broken
window
upon the crumbling clay and mortar
is scrawled a message:

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

A shattered visage lies
cold and numb.
A man once dominant and
inspiring
now is decomposing
in the ratways of his once
gleaming
empire.

The spray paint can rolls
from upon his fingertips
and his faint whisper
is as fleeting as a
morning breeze.

"That's not what
I meant at all.  That's
not what I meant
at all. that's not
what i meant at all
thats not
what i meant at
all what i meant
not at all..."

Forward, Captain,
and the sea is yours.

You were once a street-lamp man.
Commander and Chief
of the nocturnal.
Of the neon ghetto.
Of the dime-bags,
the loan-sharks,
and the rotting estates.

Trunk of an off white sedan.
Gagged and tied
like a pig over flame,
melting off the skin.

The cement shoes
are a perfect fit.

Forward, Captain,
and the sea is yours.