I'm cool.
You're cool.
We're cool
It's cool.

We're cool.
It's cool.
I'm cool.
You're cool.

"Hey dude,
you alright in there?"

"Yea man,
it's cool."

I like the way you think -
sinking your own ship just to take a drink.
Soiling yourself in order to keep everyone else from scraping you clean.
I find it pretty keen -
drowning in a sea of air and floating on the steam . . .

It's disturbingly nice.

By that I mean,
if our links got intertwined we'd find ourselves in quite a knot;
Running through red lights just to make the others stop.
Brushing up on legal terms to confuse all of those cops.
Boarding over doorbells just to force our guests to knock.

I find your broken logic beautiful.
I think you're perfectly top-notch.

If I still had your number,
I'd text you.
I'm not really drunk enough for it though,
but I don't know.
I'd like to tell you a few things.
Maybe that I'm sorry.
Or maybe I'd just send you a quote from Robert Tew.

This one:
"Sometimes you have to love people from a distance and give them the space and time to get their minds right before you let them back into your life."

But I don't, so I won't.
Just so you know,
I'm not okay with how often you find your way inside my head,
so I'll just write another soon-to-be-deleted poem instead.

Art is like the ultimate hand shake.
They say you can tell a lot about a person from their grip,
but so much more is said by what they create.

I like telling you things that I won't remember saying.

Criss-cross of arteries unclaimed in Lost and Found.
Accidental knots bound together by frayed ends.
Applesauce and pork chops may be ******* up logic,
but I'm so glad we are friends.

A cactus ***** can be the catalyst of an unspoken understanding.
We bleed our bloods into each other until the gaps are just the abstract outlines of us.
Failed to falter on this landing -
Let's hold hands and jump these last few steps.

Where every other shallow swimmer surfaced half-bloated by their purpose,
we've maintained our depth.
Half-swimming, half-drowning;
all while halving the latest trends.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it already;
I'm so glad that we're friends.

Exhausted by the constant exasperation of our own attempts to exaggerate self-condemnation.
It's so nice to find a place to rest.
BFF, BFFLE, BIEH.
Hey,
how're you doing there bestie?

I get it.
You get it.
We get it.
It's gotten.
All our fondest memories are the ones all but forgotten.

Hearts on ice.
Hearts in grass.
Hearts as apple-shaped shards of glass.

We stand here together on the sharpest edge.
I ******* love you guys.
I'm so glad we're friends.

Empty Girl.
Dead-eyed queen.
Cut her personality out of a magazine.
("How to Play Coy to Get the Boy"
- turn to page 3.)

Garish girl, way overdone.
Blank face heavily caked in makeup.
Paint on another fake expression.
Please,
don't make me laugh.

Thickheaded girl devoid of thought.
Owning nothing that can't be bought.
More like everyone else,
than anyone else.

I want a refund.

This is the torch that burned your parents.
"Hand it here," said the children.

Every poem I ever wrote is nothing but a sticky note,
with keywords written to remind me of all but forgotten memories.

Dance like no one can see you.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Dance naked in front of hundreds;
Arms flying -
Feet stompin'.

Moon through the trees,
smiling at me.
And echoes of words full of abstract meaning.
It's a series of seriously silly things.

I must have blown up at least thirteen balloons tonight.

Rubber meets fire.
This line ends with an unfulfilled . . .

A patchwork quilt.
A square of some color.
One semblance of meaning;
What we meant to each other.

A rainbow coat.
One chromatic series.
A shade of you.
A tint of me.

We could be lovers,
or we could stay strangers,
but we can never be friends.

I couldn't be me without you.

"Are you happy?"

Adulting?
Insulting!
I'm still just a kid.
Peter Pan ain't got **** on me,
(but he wishes he did!)

It's a syndrome of sorts,
born deep in the bones:
Children at heart with bodies full grown.

Sticky sweet,
and all but complete.
I'll meet you out there,
and that's a promise.

The next time we meet,
we'll be struck by half-forgotten dreams of things that might not have happened.

Don't you forget about me,
and I'll remember you.

False memories we'll believe to be true.

When I see you,
a quiet cheer rises up inside of me,
but then is quickly silenced.

Sometimes I forget to remember that I hate you now.

Sometimes I fantasize about reconciling.

Sometimes I miss your smile.

Don't warp it into something that never was.
Just a game we played inside our heads with our hearts.

Failed predictions of a future that could never be.

You'll only ever be you.

I'll only ever be me.

I don't want to be just another notification.
Just another bland "like" on your poem,
followed up by yet  another generic comment.

I want to stand out in my attempt to show you how much the words you wrote meant to me.
I want you to understand how close you've come to understanding something deeper -
Something inside of me.

But maybe that's just the thing:
We're all trying so desperately to be understood.
A handful of anonymous clicks hardly does us any good.

Just another means to a fix -
Another indulgence of an insatiable addict.

I'd quit if I could.

I've got a thing for steady beats and repetitious lyrics.
It's a sure-fire recipe to make it stick inside my head.
Strictly preferable to whatever insipid thing this person might have just said.

"I'm sorry,
I was thinking of something else.
Would you mind saying that again?"

I was at this party one time,
where an ex-girlfriend of mine
gave me **** over the type of beer I was sipping on.

"Ohmigod,
I can't believe you're drinking a blonde!"

In that moment,
I remembered why we'd broken up;
Her pretentiousness was way over the top.

Hit with bits and pieces of some semblance of a positive feeling.
Balloons filled with passion that pop when they hit a popcorn ceiling.

The atomic number of helium isn't even divisible by three.
Not in any rational sense,
but I'm no mathematician.

Trapped in the essence of an uplifting feeling.
A rubber outer limit that's been oxygen stealing.
Poke one hole and it quickly goes limp.

Kick start a new theory contingent on the displacement of one's lips.
Perhaps I could retest this hypothesis -
Reiterate the circumstances that brought this particular person to partake in it,
but I'm no scientist.

Just a wordsmith caught up on the jargon of his condescending contemporaries,
while weighing the vagaries of his own shifting feelings.
Little more than a vagabond tripping on the limits of his own vocabulary.

Attempting to describe something simple outside of the common vernacular;
Superceding shallow words to invoke the more spectacular . . .

When two cents become worth more than a dime,
is it a crime to only shell out a nickel?
We're still making some kind of profit.

(Finally dude!)
All that dismal stuff was negatively affecting your attitude.

To whom can I attribute it to?

(I've been working on my thankful speech.)

"First, but hardly least,
I'd like to thank my mother for having me.

Secondly, I'd like to give a shout out to all the celestial bodies;
Thank you for aligning in such a great way today!

Thirdly, gravity.
It's been there from the beginning,
and it does well to keep me grounded.
I'd be dumbfounded without it!
It totally keeps me centered.

And now, I'd like to issue a disclaimer;
To the beasts with gnashing teeth that occasionally latch onto my back.
Thanks to the bravery of every lion tamer,
I'll never again feel the fear of their false facts!"

Don't pretend like it's all gonna end,
when it's right about to start.

And don't give in
to the "less than them,"
when they don't know the first thing about a heart.

There's a part of me that has a hard time believing that the things I've done actually ever happened.

But every now and then,
my past actions come crumbling down on my head like a ton of bricks.

I don't have anyone to blame but myself for these seemingly unwarranted guilt trips.

Self-induced punishment.

Don't be surprised when I end up hating myself for it.

I want to write such terrible ******* things tonight.
About my mother.
About art.
About life.

But I won't.

The prince and the pauper.
The princess and peasant.
Perpetuating old cliches,
because aren't the differences pleasant?

Romance needs some room to play.
Fill in those gaps of mystery
with grandoise schemes and complex games.

Everyone's a winner.

The beauty and the beast.
The ******* and the tease.
The sheltered ones who live in dreams,
and the streetwise kids who do as they please.

Everyone loves a mystery,
but old cliches only capture so much.
Why do we need a conflict of different world views
to pluck the strings of our hearts?

Stand up.
Back off.
Just leave me alone.
These vines have grown over everything,
and it's hard to find a home.

Break through.
Nevermind.
I'll keep this carpet clean.
It's seen things you'll never know.
Only vacuums know what I mean.

Hear me out.
Ignore me.
**** up everything.
Spit it out in failed attempts to capture the moment.

No, not like that.
I mean, literally.
I'm about to leave,
and I could use the company.

It's alright.
No big deal.
I don't even, I mean,
I didn't even . . .
Nah, really, it's cool.
Everything's okay.

Nevermind dinner.
Hungry sinner.

Burning excess calories off through dance -
ones forgotten to ingest in the first place.

Nutrition ain't no competition.
Playing a game I've got no chance of winning.
Biting off more than I can digest.
I surrender.

No contest.

I'm gonna get out.
Just as soon as I figure this out.
Right after I finish drowning my doubts.
"Hey gang, look at me;
I'm a caricature of myself!"

I'm going away.
Riding off into that sunset.
Chasing a new day.
Just as soon as I remember the things I'm supposed to forget -
I'll make my escape.

I'll create a new life,
as soon as I realize
the extent of the weight that's been keeping me down.

"Hey, everybody look;
I'm a ******* hobo clown!"

What happens to deleted poems?
Do they go to the same place as aborted children?
Somewhere between heaven and hell.
A purgatory perpetuated by the misery of doubting one's self.
Maybe they condense into clouds like vapor into rain,
only to eventually fall back down upon our heads again.
In the pained expression you wear on your face,
I can read nearly a thousand words unsaid.

Amazing people
capable of such great understanding,
like the most beautiful sea shells
scattered few and far between
a hundred million grains of sand.

How terrible is this,
and how awful to admit;
that drinking and thinking while smoking
is the only way I find bliss.

The emotional/intellectual gaps between people
are so much farther than miles.

If I fell,
would you catch me?
If I climbed,
would you follow?
If I spat out all my insides,
so that I was empty,
would you attempt to fill that hollow?

I had a dream that you Snapchatted me.
When I woke up the next morning,
I had the hardest time determining whether or not it had actually happened.
What was it that I opened?
Caught between too convincing possibilities.
Still, I miss the dreams where we used to transcend reality.
What ever happened to them?
Did they get buried beneath our physical limitations?
Did we get so caught up in our own problems to the point where fantasy became too outlandish,
even in sleep?

**** that.

I'll dig them back up -
No matter how deep.

Ever-conscious of the cage,
We take comfort in our cells.
Dreaming of escape,
But making no attempt to free ourselves.

"Hey kid, you'll go far
because you're just so friggin' smart,
and nevermind this art ****."

Common sense dictates that you'll have to pay expenses.

I'm being pulled apart by forceful influences.

They say,
"Everybody's dying just to get the disease,"
but their silly guilt trips don't make me want to fall down on my knees
and pray.

Oh they say,

They say quite an awful lot of things,
but none of it means anything to me.

(Let them make all of their money.
Let them say that I look funny.
I won't let them swallow me whole while they rub their hallow tummies.)

Common sense dictates that I'll have to pay expenses,
but I take offense to the thought that I'm being pulled apart by outside influences.

Let them talk . . .

But if I soared into your fence I'd be electrocuted in an instant.
Nevermind the environmentalists several miles off in the distance.
They can't save me.
They've got their own sinister agendas.
In some way we can trace all the blame back to Brenda.
That *****.

Green is the color of envy.
Green is the color of American money.
I need that money in order to survive.
Green rhymes with broccoli, kale, and dandelion.
But only not at all.
Green is just a scientific thing,
like chlorophyll.
Green is just a color.
Green doesn't mean anything;
It's just a misunderstanding between each other.

I was writing something amazing up until my phone died,
and there's something to be said about the techno-ego-logical sort of life.
But I won't say it now because greater men have said it before;
and surely they'd have no respect for just another social-media *****.
Like how blogging has become such a ***** word,
so let's just call it poetry.
Disguise our senseless needs to vent feelings through rhyme and metaphor.
I've become everything I've always hated.
I can date it back to the day I acquired a smart phone.
But I'll lose no sleep over confessing how it makes me feel less alone.

Please don't hurt yourself more than I'm capable of hurting myself.
I couldn't bear it if your pain was unbearable to me.

Let's just both go to sleep.

A dusty trail fades into the dark.
A comet strikes a villain at his core.
A simple-minded walker contemplates the stars.
These trees are all reaching towards God.
How could one want more?

A torn spirit leaves its blood-stained mark,
with an echo that echoes.

The herald of hedonism dove headlong into his own soft spot,
with just enough pressure to puncture it.
Awash in thoughts of lost humbleness;
Swimming in his own *****.

Tore the skin to reveal blood and guts.
Nothing left but guts and blood.

Animated by some force of destruction.

Feel the heart that sinks through floors.
Float the farce -
crawl on all fours.
A spider never lost its step
when caught in its own web.
Weave the trail that eats the mist.
**** it in.
Explode essence.

Before you fade off into sleep,
remember to forget about thinking of me.
I'll be the one making that irritating sound;
the one that echoes throughout all your dreams.

When your slow-motion legs sink into quicksand
as you try your hardest to outrun the bogeyman,
I'll be there on the other side -
offering you my hand.

Don't you dare take it.
The chasing devil and saving angel might be one and the same.
Those who know it all and claim to know nothing are without a doubt the most insane.

Give me a break though.
This can't be Real Life.
It's all fake.

Somebody pinch me.