Is it ever any wonder that I should wind up back here?
The bittersweet nostalgia and the taste of old tears are just a reminder of what I've lost over the years.

I could argue that it's a good thing.

The best intangible stuff best left behind.
But I'm reminded of what I forgot.

But then I remember why I forgot it.

Aw crap, I mean fins.
No wait, fence.
Fences!
Do you wanna be fronds?
You know, you and me.
Just a couple palm fronds,
floating down the pond.

Wait, that's not right.
Ponds don't have currents.
No, see the problem is I don't currently have any frans.
I don't even know a Fran!
Do you?
Not even a Francis?
Ha, we have so much in common.
Let's be Frances!

Please no more cheddar,
I feel bloated and old.

Scarfing down mozzarella with a sick stomach groan.

You're trapped in the restaurant
missing your home,
while I eat grilled cheese and soup all alone.

Broken shards of pottery falling down a chasm.

Forgive my lack of segue,
I think I'm having a brain spasm.

Ceramic rain on a day like this,
and now I'm missing my umbrella.

The funky fact remains that I'm still one fragile kind of fella.

Choose your target,
and choose it well,
for everything you say about them
is a reflection of yourself.

Staying up all night looking up lyrics to songs I'd heard and liked.

Stealing beers from my parents and drinking them as fast as I could while sitting in the bed of my dad's white pick-up truck. (With my nose running and thinking it was so gross but doing it anyway for the fuzzy fluid feeling it gave me.)

Walking around the neighborhood at night with headphones on, listening to songs whose lyrics I had recently learned. (Sometimes singing along depending on how well I remembered the lyrics/how many beers I'd drank.)

Giving a knowing wink to the houses whose windows glowed blue from television screens. (A habit I started after having read a certain Ray Bradbury short story that I'd liked.)

Making weird images in MS Paint (always with the slanted-line brush tool) after coming back home from a late-night, music-infused stroll.

"Hooray for loners," said he,
Slamming his fists on the bar.

"Three cheers for loners," he said,
Feeling surrounded by kindred spirits who refused to join in.

"Here's to the loners," he repeated to the ceiling, while falling off the stool.

"For all loners die alone," he croaked from the floor, as he was dragged away.

"Hey, thanks for the cat by the way. Thing doesn't want to leave now."

"The poor thing,"

"My nieces even named it."

"I'm not trying to take care of this cat right now."

"Ha, you're kidding. Well now you're stuck with it then."

"The girls gave her a bath, but she still smells."

"Man, just bring it here and let it go. There's all kinds of strays here."

"She ate a little, but she sneezes alot and won't stop shaking."

"Most of them end up finding their way to Galva."

"There's a shelter in Storm Lake, but they're closed til Monday."

"It's like a chemical smell."

"****, I don't know. I went in to grab a beer and when I came out he had this cat in his jacket."

"I'm not sure if she'll make it til Monday."

"Hey I'm stuck at work til like 3. Can you go by my place and check on the cat when you get a chance?"

"They've got so many strays that they put out bowls of anti-freeze to deal with them."

"Hey, are you awake?"
"Yeap, just haven't gotten out of bed yet. What's up kid?"
"Your cat. We gave her a bath."
"Aw, that was a nice thing to do Lib. She needed one. Thank you."
"Also, we gave her a name."
"Oh yea? What is it then?"
"Disney."
". . . you're kidding."

"Yea I was researching it earlier. It's a pretty common thing really. An awful way to go."

"I thought about just driving somewhere out of town and letting it go there."

"Well, would you bury it?"

"You know, pulling 'a Dad,' but I just couldn't do it."

"The poor thing."

"What? No way. I'd probably just, I don't know, put it in the trash or something."

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't. At least she's comfortable and not just out there in the cold, dying."

"I guess I'm not cold-hearted enough, or whatever."

"They know she's sick but I think only Libby really understands how bad it is."

"It's a good thing that you're not. Believe me, it's a good thing."

The great thing about a slow-cooker is that you can make one meal on Sunday and have dinner covered for the rest of the week.

The downside of a slow-cooker is that you'll be eating the same thing for dinner all week.

Said the young guy on my right.
"Why?" asked the bartender.
"Because people are more likely to come out if you yell 'fire.' It's been proven."

Her brow furrowed in doubt.

"Well that makes sense," I said, trying to help.
"**** makes people uncomfortable, but everyone wants to see a fire."

I can bend this phrase three ways til next Friday but the fact remains that I'll never escape this cage without finding the bravery to make some serious changes.

A hope-filled faerie springs fully-winged from a flower planted in a bed of misery.
Her movements are mesmerizing but forgettable,
but oh how she sings.

The kind of haunting melody that plagues your dreams for the rest of eternity.

The thing is, I keep seeing ex-lovers and could-have-beens in mine.
They're always condescending towards me.
Telling me how I've wasted my life and/or ignoring me completely.

"Please," I plead them.
"See me for what I am," I bargain.

Sometimes, they look behind them while they're being dragged forward by their offspring and/or great achievements of their lives.

"I do," they say,
thus conveying that they want nothing more to do with it.

In five more minutes the gas station will be open.

I bought a carton of eggs this morning.
Just a dozen.
Along with about $100 of other groceries I needed.
I didn't need the eggs though.
That is to say, that I didn't need to buy them.

(See, my sister has four fully grown chickens
who lay enough eggs to cover her family's needs and then some.
More eggs than she knows what to do with, honestly, and I could've easily gone to her place to get the dozen instead of buying it at the store.)

But I didn't, as a matter of convenience. It was simpler to buy them while I was at the store; to make one trip instead of two.

But then, when I was unloading the cart of groceries into the trunk of my car, that carton of eggs I bought, which (unbeknownst to me) had been placed on top of a 12 pack of toilet paper which toppled over after becoming unbalanced without the support of the other grocery bags that I had already unloaded, came crashing down.

They hit the parking-lot cement with a smack.
"Oh no, not the eggs!"
That's what I'd said.
I seriously said that out loud.

I picked up the bag with the fallen eggs in it. I opened the carton to see if they were alright, though I already knew at least a few had broken.

5, maybe 6. Maybe more. I don't know how many broke exactly, just looking at it made me sick. I walked the dripping bag back up to the entrance (after playing with the idea of going back in and being like: "Hey, my eggs broke in the parking lot because your inept bagger's idea of how to stack groceries was clearly inspired by the game Jenga. I demand a new carton of eggs!") but instead I just tossed them. The whole carton.

I'll just go to my sister's house before breakfast tomorrow.

Play a song you like.
The kind you long to hear while you're out there living your life;
the one that rings in the back of your mind while you jump through the hoops of all the things that you're supposed to do.

Play it just for you,
and play it loud.

Feel its tones vibrate through your bones as you spring from the couch and start moving.

Finger-tips spread out with electricty shooting from one wall to the next.
Bouncing off the ceiling and falling back on top of your head as you somersault into the atmosphere.

Feel yourself disappear into the shadows of every moment you've lost while the time of your life suddenly materializes right before your eyes.

Play your song.
Play it loud.
This is your night.
This is your life.

Feel your soul move from your heart to your hands as your fists clench tight.
Punch the living daylights out of the sun until you're splattered with a glow that only the moon knows how to  appreciate.

She's only ever shone for you.

Here's the thing about getting stung by potent bat-**** bees whose venom is full of both profundity and absurdity;
You'll spend the rest of your life recovering from it,
while simultaneously attempting to decide which is witch.

There is a place where just the shape of the door that let you into it is the stuff of nightmares.

There is a state of mind that can accurately describe the intricacies and outricacies of what it means to be insane, but you'll never remember how to describe it. (For good reason.)

There is a plane where the trees can actually communicate with you,
and by god are they mean.

The little chitters of charged words crying like a chorus line,
whose notes echo off chimes of crystal.

The shakes and jitters of hot nerves dying,
with eyes homing in like a missile.

Tiny critters curled up tight in their respective chrysalides,
awaiting the day they sprout wings.

My current state of mind is electrified,
but oh how the body sings.

He swore to ignore every odd-ball notion that came awkwardly knocking at his door.

Irregular patterns tap-hapata-ladding like some kind of fiend desperate for human interaction.

"It's just a lump of useless tissue with issues I'll never be able to correct." - That's what the cardiologist thought as he had a heart attack.

What do you do when you're proud of yourself for something you're too embarrassed to tell someone else?

Put those feelings on the shelf;
Top dollar purchase for the ones who sell out.

All my friends are down south,
but I'm northward bound because I just had to get out.

Slipping toward the ending of a tale never told.
Beginning in the middle because the intro's been sold now,
with everything falling apart while the false starts suddenly fall into place.

Keeping the old name but creating a new face.

Hit the dusty trail with a broken-down steed.
Feeding off the fumes of hearts in need while delivering gigantic fistfuls of nothing.

My twisted spirit demands recompense.

Everything burns, pierces and tears.
My head's blown to pieces by the force of these cares.

A word not spoken.
A stare gone too long.
A perfect plan ruined.
A beautiful song.

My heart is in shambles.
It's tortured and raw,
and riddled with holes that leak until there's a pool beneath my feet.
And I drown.

What I need is to be free
of all these things that hurt so much.
What I wish for is for nothing
to ever touch me again . . .

Bam Smash Break Crash Wham Whomp Kazoo

Your wish is my command and now well how'd ya do?

Nothing can touch me.
Yes! Finally!

. . .

Nothing can touch me . . .

Oh god, no.

Here for one word and that word is a miss.
Forgone the phone and the **** and whatnot.
Things in the attic that drip through the floor.
Waking up in quicksand.

A hand reaching out.
A hand that belongs to someone you love.

I can't.

Offered in apology.
In a sincere heartfelt bid for forgiveness.

I can't.

A hand that every part of you wants to grab and hang on to forever.
For life.
For the night.
For just a moment.

A hand reaching out.
A hand you know so well.
A hand that belongs to someone you've loved.

I won't.

That every part of you wants to reach out and grab,
save one.

If you'd tell me what I told you when I was bolder and blacked-out,
I swear I wouldn't repeat it to anybody but my older self.

This is less a cry for help than a shout.

If my second-hand echo somehow travelled from your ears back to my mouth then maybe I could get to the square-root of all my compounded doubts.

It's less of an impossible situation than it is just a simple equation in which the only formula I'm missing is how to solve for ex.

Slowly realizing that life moves too quickly when compared to the rate that we're dying.

Slowly learning that the only lessons worth knowing are the ones that take a lifetime of trying to understand.

Quickly tiring while waiting for some mysterious seed to grow into a full sized fruit-bearing tree.

All this time spent wondering how best to spend my time will surely be the death of me.

Not curious.
Not even a little bit.
I won't spend the rest of the night thinking about it,
or wondering, "what if?"

What if I'd said this instead?
What if I'd acted differently?
What combination of behavoirs would've lead you into bed with me?

These are not the thoughts that will go through my head.

Not even close.

Sing the hit from frozen lips through clenched teeth on a stage made of swollen hips.

Anyone can be a star if they try hard enough.

Swing a hit into the tender ribs of one who sung without conviction.

Not just anyone can make it.

(This is what you get.)

Take it on the chin then grow a pair while squatting in the place you grew up afraid of.

Anyone can get there if they try hard enough.

Cave in on yourself as you realize you've spent your whole life pretending to be someone else.

(Someone you thought you knew.
(Someone you're not.))

Fly a kite painted with the face of the person you've come to be,
then let go of the string.

Gone away to jump through hoops set up by another collective mindsets' ideals.

The thing about a broken chain is in the missing links it attempts to steal.

So here we are all bound together in a gear motor with loose bearings,
and yet somewhere in the heated friction we find a new drive worth endearing.

All my hopes blown away in a cloud of smoke sent up from the bathroom floor.

Heretofore forever to be well and constantly ignored.

If and then there is a justice to the semi-constant roar,
you'll find me waiting with my shades drawn down against everything that causes war.

That's not to say I'll go away on some single-sailed white ship.
My flag is not the kind of flimsy rag to get shattered by the wind,
but if and when I climb back up from these jagged steps that broke my back,
I'll carry you all with me.

That's a promise and a fact.

Here's the thing about balancing between two stings that burn the same:
You can give it up or pass it on or choose not to play the game,
but no matter what the stakes involved only double as they lessen,
yet here you are concerned to hell with the one soul you're addressing.

Climb to fall or roll to save the face you made up in the first place.
The true one only shows itself after the disaster's dust has cleared away.

But who's to say of what is what and where or when it falls apart.

There will always be someone around to mop up your broken heart.

Self-awareness is a curse,
but self-indulgence is surely worse.

This song is so much more than just two and a half minutes of pretty lyrics and heavy bass.

It defines a whole phase of my life.

When beauty could be felt and even the wrong things felt rite.

I can't help but write pretentious poetry about it.

I can't not lose my mind.

I raked, trimmed, and mowed this yard today.

I can dance through it if I want to.

When the stars fall down on top of flipped cars,
there's always some guy thinking it's just some molotov.

That's the thing about gravity;
It's so easy to take for granted.

So this is what it's like to be alone.
It's not so bad, really,
but I can see how it could get old after awhile.

I never really got to know you before building you up into an emotional vortex.

I could argue that you ****** away the best parts of me,
but we'd both know that I was really just looking for an excuse to shed excess weight.

I tried a trick that I half-remembered learning during that short eternity when I lost my mind.

It worked.
We were both surprised.

I love storms,
but not strife.
And, for sure, lightning strikes.

Freak out.
Sprint far from the start.

Realize you're just a caterpillar,
but then turn into a moth.

Attracted to the flame that's always been burning in your heart.

(But this is the part where the wings fall off.)

Walk the earth as a snail,
with your home on your back.
Leave a shining trail wherever you go,
but don't ever look back.

I want something, maybe.
A day or two with someone who gets me.
An escape from the same old day-in,
day-out, common place pattern I've been living in.

An adventure with a kindred spirit whose soul is willing.

Are you down?
'Cause I'm up for it.

To whisk a batter of secrets and spine-tingling stories with or without glory.

We can make it up as we go and/or leave it up to fate to guide us on our way to escape from a place we've been dreading waking up in every single day.

What greater miracle can there be than to just see your face?

I want real love baby,
won't you hit me up?
Let's take straight punches to the head until we finally go to bed with the most amazing dreams running through our minds.

I'm somewhere up and to the left of where you're currently headed towards.

Come find me.

Made a big splash by playing their out-of-tune upright in the spare bedroom,
with the kids all gathered around.

I can't play any songs that you might know,
but I can make this thing sing if I really wanted to.

"You should make soundtracks for movies or something,"
says an impressed parent.

Meanwhile I'm thinking:
*If this was my way of making a living,
it'd ruin all the fun.

The Sad Boy woke up and thought,
"Something feels different . . . "
though he couldn't quite be sure what it was.
Whether a lessening of one thing or an increase of the other,
he simply turned the pillow over then went back to sleep,
wondering.

There are three kinds of writers in this world:
Those who write from a positive place,
those who write from a negative place,
and those who haven't figured it out yet.

The fake said to the phony,
"I'm hip to your jive and the smell of bologna,"

Meanwhile, homegirl still pronounces the L in salmon.

Somedays are deep fried and pan seared to perfection.
This is not one of them.

The bonafide bonerless guy cried aloud that he wished he would die,
so we took him out for ice cream.

Springboarded into the future,
and now I can finally afford a decent piece of furniture.

But the disassembled futon in the unused bedroom looks as if it's been manipulated by some angry spirit whose soul doesn't know any better than to linger.

My oldest friend and first girlfriend gave me a tarot card reading while I stayed at her place when I was midway towards my new life in this strange state.

It was vaguely upsetting.

But I can't remember the trappings of a mind that I've taken every endeavor to leave behind.

The thing about a banana bar is that it's really just banana bread with frosting; banana cake, really, is what it ought to be called.

Banana fish can only be caught on a perfectly banal day, but it's the kind of thing one shouldn't wish for, ever.

Rewound into the past,
and for just one moment I can finally relax.
Stretch out the tightly woven brain matter and let it splat into ink blots that sort of remind me of that one time that we had a great time while expounding on our little personal explorations into emotional forefronts where all judgement was either suspended and/or explained in such a way as to not affect us at all.

Pioneers of living a life without societal fears where we were free to steer the wheel of progress in any direction we saw fit . . .

Aw ****, I have to work tomorrow.

While staring at a moon that looks like it's been scorched.

Maybe the worst thing is not realizing you miss it until it sinks in after you're 15 miles in toward the only place that's open within a 20 mile radius at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Sometimes I wish I still lived in a place where it felt like magic exists in an oppressive way,
but I did 6 outlandish things already this week, and that's not even counting today.

The lights on these tractors late at night are twice as blinding as any car's high beams. I don't know why yet. Maybe to keep the rabbits away from the machinery?

I get an almost perverse satisfaction out of seeing the weeds in my yard slowly wither since I've sprayed them with the toxic concentrate mixture that the guy at the hardware store recommended I hit them with.

The brand new mower is anxiously awaiting its moment of glory.

Sometimes it bothers me that we don't say things to each other like we used to, although it's also kind of a relief.

The thing about the girl in town who I think I might have some chemistry with is, she's a fantastic listener.

Warning signs can't be read from inside the womb.

Long all you want to go back to that warmth and goo,
but your stuck out here for keeps.

Don't worry though;
Life is brutal and cold and ends too soon,
but for now just go back to sleep.

Three is a
magical
number, sure,

But I've my
doubts about
this structure.

Sounds stuttered
and vaguely
Robotic.

Your alternate universe is full of plot* holes,
but at least you're the star.

Though I can find and buy the perfect glass to fit my fingers while I relish in the past regrets that linger in a shape that's vague enough to haunt me for the rest of my days,
I still can't help but wonder if all of it was just a vain attempt at trying to live a life that's been prescribed.
I mean, in the commercially acceptable sense.
I mean, in the romantically cinematic glimpse of what romance is supposed to be.

You know, heavy breathing and sepia tones.

What is it about hearing people having *** in an adjacent room that makes me feel at the same time both incredibly alive and also incredibly alone?

For everyone who's ever lost the all important parts of themselves,
only to find it decades later on some long forgotten shelf collecting dust.

The thing is, it was the best pasta salad I've ever made.

I can't remember a single thing that I said, except for the really generic stuff like: "I'm going to go find Emily,"
And whatever else I may have said in order to break the silence.

I wish I could remember it though.

You were in my dream last night, which I also can't remember.

Much like the In-Real-Life scab on my arm.

But I can recall throwing up in your front lawn. And wanting to leave immediately after, but not going.

Resting my head against yours on some miraculous bench. Trying to shut myself up and just enjoy the shared silence.

When everything goes sideways,
it's the diagonals that make the most sense,
But whether they're rising or falling -
well hey, what's the difference?