out in the mountains,
when my feet are pressed and purpled
from pushing the world to roll her callused breast,
then each breath, deservingly,
funnels the friction into fire.

but here our milk flesh thumbs
flick the ridges of the flint
and through trees we **** a Bic
just to exhale flame again.

oh-two deprived at altitude
or getting high with all the dudes
you’d count them as two trails that lead to the same place

but that’s just what the map says.
neurotransmitter math has
sold, by weight, the dopamine
wrapped like gods great gift
in threads of nervous lace

and you forget that different paths
never summit the same
if steep, or shallow, the peak can be
epiphany pleasure or just good ****

in green pill bottles, they trap the trees
and plastic cages hang on me
when the weight of our minds
bends our necks towards the asbestos sky
where porous plains of ceiling tile
have us counting holes in the light

so you see my disappointment,
when you were too ****** or drunk or cold
and said it would be better
if we just went inside

as we circled up the stairwell
you stepped easily on plaster pieces
of white ceiling that had fallen to concrete

perhaps it is from fear
that some can find a comfort
having heavens built so brittle
that they crumble within reach

at the corner I hit both crosswalk buttons
and wait, eyes closed, to see if I can follow
the walk sign chirps like the blind men

I choose the first street that whistles to me
and walk to the opposite corner
the way the lights rotate, you would walk circles
if you followed the signs
eventually you must choose some arbitrary avenue
and either wait for it to welcome you
or test your luck in traffic

I choose left

then look up, hoping
to invent some new constellation
but the big parking lot halogens
bleed like blue inked milk into the sky
and the stars are specks, painted over

maybe for the better, I know too well
that I would see those galaxies spiraling
and dig dig dig into big big big questions
hitting all the major points
time and space and self and purpose,
purpose

and the mental ******* would be
a million endless tangents like a million little bits of magnesium
flashing in a firework, brighter than those parking lot halogens
but like every independence day
they flash and fizzle and then the sky is just smoky

and I start to feel small
so I walk into Big Lots to calm down

rummaging through the shelves,
not a single pad of paper outside of monthly planners
not a single blank sheet, not a single open page
not a single ******* one

no one wants to buy anything unless they know it has a purpose first

otherwise, it’ll end up in their desk,
blank and staring every time the drawer gets cracked open

and no one will have an answer for it

Confusion
enemy of sanity,
champion of creation.

Broken heart,
mended over time.
Laughter and tears
different sides of the same coin.

Lack of honesty
fear of transparency.
Living a lie,
fearing the truth.

Words run through my mind
like an uncontrollable train.
To say, or not?
To say or not?
Wheels going endlessly round.

Convert the energy
Into something more productive.
Would be sensible, no?

To the hell with sensibility.

Confusion reigns.

you are absolutely necessary and utterly unimportant.
you are not important because
everything is important and important means
you are better than the mud
you are not

i can say this because
i want to be content. and to be so
i think i must owe myself to everything. because every little piece makes the puzzle, every tiny drop of paint changes the color, whether
you or
i can see it. down to the atom, every rock that
i step on, every bird in my ear, every bearable sting of guilt felt from swatting a fly, they have worked in perfect proportion, each paint drops precisely suffused to the present shade of my experience. and if
i am to be at peace, my life should not be measured but
i must be accepting of
everything as it comes.
i find this possible in realizing that the stretch in my smile and the tears on my cheek are all just as needed in shading me. no single experience makes the man.  and to be accepting of the summation
i must accept that every single experience in my collective past was utterly necessary. every single experience, and each minor detail of each experience, and how they  scatter on the surface like little melting beads, and how they eventually sink and mix; all single molecules of paint diffusing in the only proportion to make the present shade of my life, none more important than the other, down to the atom, ultimately equal.
not in quantity, but in quality
everything equal. what it means is that
i love you. but
i love the sweat greased ball bearings of dirt in my boot
i love the percussion of infection drenched nerves in my foot
i love the salt stick of your skin and staunch of your cough as you beat through the barreling wind. and
i love the invisible river of shivering brush waving like cilia down the valley. into the bioluminescence of our L.A. colony.
i love you if you love me and
i love you if
you hate me.  because even your hate will drop like paint into me and change the shade to something
i have not yet seen.
i know we have different eyes but
i think this works for mine.
i will love you in equivalence to every molecule
i breathe.
utterly unimportant and absolutely necessary.

i have a cut on the bottom of my foot
how, i don’t know
when, i don’t know
it merely appeared one morning
i was drowning in cold sweat
i was choking in all that sunshine
and in my transparent
chimeric dream state
birds’ song and memory
became intertwined

i think i lit a fire the night before
i think i found a begging hand
and slammed it in the door
i think i still was guilty
and ridden with malaise
i think i hung my coat in smoke
beside my crafted blaze
to cover up the stench
of my last few days

so i awoke
with this cut, as i said
barely stitched together
by eager hands of fibroblasts
coagulation had amassed
futility in its efforts
for on discovering this cut
and the soreness that enveloped it
i crushed the meat
between my fingers
until the milk of infection
and blood of my veins
flooded in release of pain
broke the binding scabbing chain
and the fleshy chasm still remained

that day i spent repenting
or correcting, i should say
for as the morning trudged along
i found the casualties of my ways:
an opportunity slaughtered
that a coward wouldn’t save
a friend beneath a boulder
in the belly of a cave
and a innocent life
in that drowsy night
found my tires
as its grave

but with all the mistakes i’m sure i’ve made
with all the morals my moves degrade
with all the arrogance i parade
and all the faces of my charade
i know a hole of regret
where my heart should be put

yet i only wish i was not beset
by this cut upon my foot

I am so
completely
*******
irrelevant
and it's
bringing me down

and I know
I know that's
how you feel
because that's what
you tell everyone
when I'm not around.

Another night, another beer for the lonely
Cigarette in my left, Night is chilly
If only, I could take you with me
Candle lit, white roses and a glass of chablis

Another stick of Winston, another puff for the restless
A pack on my pocket, Song would be pointless
If only you could take me out of this mess
All will be good, things will get better, we'll have the best

Another poem, Another worthless message
You in my mind, I'm just another page
If only you and me could be in Cupid's stage
I won't mind, be it in cell or in a cage