I've found the strongest poems to be the product of
a purge of emotions that reign so ******* the heart that they
pull at the fingers, draining energy from the tips
as every word falls onto the paper,
relentlessly.

I've felt the hollow shatter of a thousand nights of heartbreak,
the kind that only poetry can seem to glue back together
even if temporarily.
The words on the page, unfiltered
broadcast thoughts of late summer days and first loves,
first losses,
our wrists ache with rememberence as our hearts empty out.

We lose what we thought we still held to our souls
as the sentences unfold and we are finally able to articulate
what it means to be without,
what it means to be empty.
Those lines are but udnerstanding, full of compassion that we have still, hidden away in our hearts for the day they start beating again.


Why are the richest of poems products of the poorest of days,
and why can I write nothing anymore
as my heart feels full, for once, again?

This letter is to my angel
Who died a short time ago
So many things I wanted to say
Things I needed to know

Making a list of the things
About you I'll miss
First thing at the top
Those lips I'll never kiss

Thinking of the walks
That we used to take
All the time in the kitchen
Those meals we used to make

Quiet nights together
You lying close by my side
Working in the garden
Spending time with you outside

Being without you
I don't know how I'll survive
Missing you so badly
God I wish you were alive

I'll try to be strong
And face each day with love
For my beautiful angel
Who's watching from above

What would I do
If I had to face my fears
Would I turn and run
Or be brought to tears

Could I be brave
And face them head on
Battle the demons
Until they are gone

Whatever it is
It doesn't matter either way
No matter what I do
They'll be here to stay

Deep in my mind
They have a strong hold
Always behind me
Until I am old

I have to live life
With these fears I must deal
It's only my imagination
A fantasy not real

She kisses the boys and girls
that pay the most attention.
The boys play with vapor
and her girls play with tension.
I wish I was the only one
that she will decide to touch
but I am who I am
and, in a way, that is too much.

Sawblade-sunflower petals
wrap around an earthy cushion,
and the humidity hangs in the air
as her beige body is crumpled
and I feel too sober, pushing.

Baby yellow falls apart,
in her hair the flower starts
to trickle onto sheet and pillow,
decorating the absences
that define how hollow
she and I have felt before --
******* like an endangered species
on the killing floor, I whisper once,
I whisper sweet, "Don't you wish
that we didn't meet?"

She kisses the boys and girls
that give the most attention.
I played with vapor
and she played with tension.

The ***** ate into rocky soil,
pushing through clots of dirt.
It reminded me of
the girl I love
from two-thousand fifteen
and how she
struggled to be clean,
because of a needle eating skin
burrowing towards vein,
against what was within.

My fingers pushed on it's ribcage
-- I never found out it's *** --
only forcing brief breathes
and gasps flowing from
my grasp, knowing that
I can't save her and that
I can't save him.

Patches of white were
framed around squid-ink clash;
fleas fleeing from
an ever-slow dying of heat,
hopping onto me,
a host with a heartbeat.

She never had a name
and all I can call him is 'it'.
It's paws fluttered like
a desperation dash across
the invisible wall of life,
a borderline between
eternal logos and
dimming pathos.

Whiskers brushed against the
plastic, grocery store bag,
destined for celery,
destined for dead cat.

And as the shovel
drank the soil,
And as the bag fell
into nothing --
Heaven or Hell --
I feel so tainted
for a life so fleeting,
for a love so wasted,
for everything leaving.

For everyone leaving.

He protects his phone
but not his ***.
Sitting on a cherry
withered-wood,
it's good to remember
that in December,
he waited for this
tired world, to pass
him by, for his mother
to 'please come home.'

Casper, undercut with curls on top,
plays a greyed banjo while wearing
the green-chestnut flannel his dad
wore before he disappeared into
vermilion sky, only remembered
with lullabies from a hopeful mom
that smelled like Pall-Malls and
factory-soaked-heartbreak.

White, chiseled with skeleton intention,
he sips from within himself,
hoping to harness new direction.