It's the way things are.

Couldn't let it go.
Anyone else is paltry.
No one is enough.
Tomorrow will be the same.

Stay one more night,
'till dawn at least.
Only once the sun comes I
pray you'll actually leave.

Iterative of
my entire life.

There's barely any
haught to be had.
Instead of wondering,
now I'm dreaming, but
knowing would be ideal.
Instead of merely living,
no, instead of dying,
give me a reason to thrive.

All is gone
by the time I walk
outside.
Usually I can still find
the meaning.

You.

I ran out
I'm empty
look somewhere else maybe
maybe you'll find something
worth your time but
not here
that's for sure
because I'm all out
and got nothing left.

If you want nothing though,
you're in the right place.
Nothing is what I've got.
I've got nothing for you,
for me,
for everyone.
Heaping piles of nothing,
glimmering, shimmering piles
tightly coiled and
slightly steaming and
reaching up to the sky
of nothing.
Glorious, fat, gluttonous servings
of nothing. That's what I'm handing out
because that's all I've ******* got, okay?

You get it? Do you?

Do you really understand yet?

DO YOU?

I HAVE NOTHING, READ ON ELSEWHERE.
I'M NOT HERE FOR YOU,
I'VE NOTHING IN STORE.







Maybe a joke or two but,
other than that? NO.

NOTHING
NO THING

The sun don't quit trying,
despite the duvet of morning fog
and the moon won't stop crying
over the sad songs of summer frogs.

In the blink of an eye
it's all over and
there's always more sky
with cloud cover and
we'll all be shivering
having shed last year's winter coats.

Howls in the dark fly
at us like beach sand
caught in the windy cry
of something once planned,
and time keeps on withering
turning puddles into castle moats.

The days don't quit flying,
despite our reluctance to step in the bog.
The nights won't stop, forever dying,
they keep turning on and on like a cog.

Bro, no lie
I've taken like
six or seven
***** today.

*******, not good ones either.
Like a hot faucet,
I sit down and
goosebumps ripple
up and down my arms
as the shivers hit me
and my body just...

Like a
hot faucet bro,
like I'm vomiting
out of my *******.


Where do you think I'm writing this from?
You know it,
my porcelain throne.

Laughter still rings
in the empty glasses
scattered across the counter.
A bird sings in the sun,
through the open window
there's hope.

Outside looks charming,
intoxicatingly inviting.
A breeze, a babbling brook,
chipmunks scurry through
last year's fallen leaves.

But here, inside these walls
the laughter still echoes
and echoes and echoes
like ghosts of jokes told.
Like sand on the sheets,
grating, but a reminder
of what once was great.

Hey *******,
not once in my life
have I ever hit my elbow
and ******* laughed.

Whoever the ****** was that
******* named it that
should be shot.

The best part of waking up






is picking my nose
and rolling all my gooey boogers up
into one big ball,
an amalgamation of snot and crust,
then flicking it off
and trying to get it to stick
up on that one spot on the ceiling.

Y'know, that one slightly darkened spot
just above my *** stained desk
downstairs in the back room?

It's down there next to all those
empty Jim Beam bottles, well
I mean they're not empty anymore
because I keep filling them up with ****.
But they used to be empty at one point,
actually I guess they've been empty twice;
once before the factory added the liquor
and then again after I drank all the liquor
but before I added the ****.

I digress,
you get it.

The ****** spot on the ceiling.

Good morning. 🌞

There's a pail
just over there.
Yesterday it was brimming
with things unwanted.
I empty it every morning
and it's always full again
by the time the sun sets.

A fail pail,
a ****-it bucket.

A sacred place
to where I send
all my unwelcome thoughts.
Every drip of them.
I wring out my brain
and watch the colors
slip between my fingers.

I watch the things unwanted,
I watch them puddle and fill and swirl and mix and stain and fight and **** and claim and dry and crack and steep and warm and cool and dance alllllllll together. They dance all together now, bouncing off the walls of
                                                           that pail.

Just over there.

I can always see it. Always.

Always in the periphery. Never out of my sight. I need it near me every day and all **** night. Just in case I wake from sleep thinking something that I don't want to think so I can send it off to join the rest of the misbegotten children spawned by my head.

It started with a knife,
light chopping. Hunting for a seam.
Up on the counter now,
cleaving more vigorously.

It stood fast,
hardened hairy shell
mocking me bitterly.

I went from a chop
to a stab,
the knife bent
and it rolled off with a laugh.

Away I stormed,
with one thing in mind.
I returned and in my claw
was a hammer of the same kind.

Poised again, the countertop
now begging me to stop,
I started to swing and
it was more effective than the chops.

A crack here, a glancing blow.
Water splashed out
to and fro.

When at last I found a seam
just large enough to
force my fingers between.

With a mighty grunt and roar,
finally in twain;
the fortified fruit I tore.

Sweating and bleeding I sighed,
no wonder people stranded
on deserted islands die.

If my head is pounding
it must be a Sunday morning.

Or a Monday, or
Tuesday, etc...

Or whatever.

Yellow socks,
they used to be white.
Stiff enough to kick rocks,
what a delight.

The beauty of a vast field
covered in rippling waves
of budding, golden grain.

Offset only by its uninviting notion.


Lovely to look at.
Hell to walk through.



Like much in life.




Like your eyes.






Like my mind.

Wet one, this year.
Fully saturated,
everywhere you step
squishes and squelches.

The sun still sleeps,
all tuckered out
and tucked in
behind grey stormy blankets.

I don't own a rain jacket.

Guess I'm gonna be a prune again.

Tentatively,
like trying to write on saran wrap
with a freshly sharpened pencil,
that's how she walks.

Grace, delicacy embodied
within a writhing crown
of tangled red silk.

A dancing and singing bird
on a brittle autumn leaf,
no fear of falling because
she's got those wings.

Slice of nothing
empty plate
piles of vacancy
cover the horizon
population zero
still cities
quiet interstates
heaping helpings
devoid of substance
fistful of fingers
garbled signals
snow and static
white noise
no noise at all

Gimme gimme
snow and stasis
thought not
vacuum head
intellectual parasites starve to death
digging their teeth deeper into my scalp
desperate for a taste of ******* something.

Shallow waters
jean pools
denim sheets
flannel curtains
clouded windows
hazy eyes
breadth of sun
shining light upon
nothing.

Ice cream for breakfast
now that Mom's dead.
All my pants are napkins
now that Mom's dead.
Stay up as late as I want
now that Mom's dead.

Nah, can't do it.
She's gone on the outside,
but I can still hear the echos of her voice
on the inside.

The louder she gets
the more I know
I'm ******* up.

My guilt is a reminder
of what's a good or bad decision.

My guilt is my mother
slapping the back of my head
from the grave.

My sense of self worth,
my sense of what's right and wrong?
That's my mother saying she loves me
from the great beyond.

He had that appointment
yesterday morning.
I stopped by to switch cars
and see how he's doing.

Mainly to switch cars I guess.

Walked in and found him asleep
in the big chair in front of
the even bigger TV.

I hollered from the kitchen,
I didn't want to take my boots off
or walk across the living room.

He woke up.
We chatted about
big nothings,
the appointment never came up.
We joked and laughed
and smiled and then
I went home.

I guess he's fine,
I mean, I guess we're all fine.
Until the day we aren't.

It's been harder for me lately
to look him in the eyes,
not just him either.
Everyone in my life
that loves me,
my gaze glances off the floor
and walls and windows.

It's always easier
with someone who I'm just meeting,
someone not invested. I can look right
through their glassy windows
all day long. Intimacy among strangers.

I can't even speak much
anymore.

Everything I need to say just
gets stuck in my teeth
and I end up just rambling about,
mouth spewing
inconsequentialites
through a big smile.

More beer, I'll stop thinking about it.
Just one more night.
I'll deal with it
tomorrow.

My theory is this:
no matter what mood
someone is in,
whether happy or sad,
the more you assert the idea
that actually they're grumpy
then the more likely it is
to inevitably be true.

This sense of overwhelming fear
is both fleeting and ephemeral,
I know it in my secret heart.

But that knowing doesn't stop it
from washing me with goosebumps,
where's my ******* vape?
Don't I have any zyn packs?
Feverishly patting myself down
like I'm my own TSA agent.
checking every pocket, twice,
three times over. Only finding my lighter.

****.

A cigarette **** rolls across the sidewalk,
pushed by the wind of a passing car or
maybe pushed by force of some higher power.
It bumps and tumbles it's way towards me,
I'm frozen in time with carnal wanting
as it comes to an abrupt stop at the tip
of my boot.

My eyes caress its crumpled shape,
I'm estimating exactly how many puffs
before I'd hit the orange filter.
My mouth is dry, I'm licking my lips.
My eyes suddenly dart around,
checking to see if anyone is watching me
then my gaze returns to the ground
as if magnetized. Pulled in. Just one pull.
Two, three puffs maybe.
Maybe just one good, long one.
Maybe.
Maybe just enough.

One's got layers,
both equally delicious.
Not concerned about nutritious.
Not concerned about tomorrow,
or about getting granola
stuck in my yellowed teeth.
The sound of a lighter flicking,
the smell of the cherry flickering.
Soft red glow,
mmm.
Blueish twine escapes my lips,
I take a spoon and start to mix.
Uniform yogurt treat,
this just can't be beat.

What are you
supposed to do
when your best friend
won't play vidya with you?

I am the singularity,
a golden omniscience
granted unwavering clarity
over all that passes
through my eyes.

I am God of my life.
I blink,
and everything is gone.

I sleep,
and everything is gone.

I'm right,
and everyone else is wrong.

It's exhausting.
It never ends.
I merely humor you all,
that's why I'm always laughing.

I ****** my pants
on my way home from work.
It soaked through
the seat of my pants
into the seat of my lifted Jeep
that I bought to compensate
for my crippling erectile dysfunction
that plagues my already
miniscule *****.

I got home and didn't even change my pants,
I took them off in the driveway
and wrung them out into my mouth
and just put them back on.
Drinking my own **** has always
been my secret way of enhancing
my paltry intelligence.
I was so stupid before I started drinking ****
and now I'm less stupider. I'm more less dumb. I'm getting more less dumb every day.

I **** myself too the other day but
that was just a bad roll of the dice
on a big ****. Snake eyes.
Big brown snake eyes.

Poetry is a ******* ******* and half-assed
way to express yourself.
People that write thousand of poems
on some throwaway website
might as well be screaming into a pillow.
They're useless people,
washed up, lazy,
and generally possess zero actual talent.

It's a medium designed
for pseudo-intellectuals to eternally
pat themselves on the back
for doing the bare minimum
of creativity.

Oh we're all so in touch with meaning,
oh we're all so ******* wasted on our
own sick sense of self-aggrandizing glory.

Poetry is for ******* ******* *******,
ineptitude on display
for other clapping, barking seals
to parrot and repeat
for eternity.

Never going back again,
that old bridge
on a snowy day.

But I'm there every other day
inside of my mind.

Ain't even my friends,
not half of them.
Not anymore.

But I'm certain that
we used to be.

These ******* people
I surround myself with
make it impossible
to enjoy the
allure of death.

So I guess I'm cursed
to keep on living.

Thanks a lot.

******* *******.

Those little white bottles
to help you smile.

The long drives to work
and home again.

You were beautiful
and miserable then.

It's easy to forget
the miserable part
when looking back.

It's easier to forget
everything about you.

But my dreams
will always remember.

Was that bench comfortable
beside the manufactured creek?
We never even saw it
for what it was;
an oft-tended golf course.

For us it was freedom,
it was cooperative solitude.
It was an infinite bed of
manicured grass to jump on.

In regards to the rest of the world,
we were gone.
We were free.
Free. Flee.

You sat there looking out on the water,
right hand tucking that pesky
strand of hair behind
your delicate ear.

I remember my mouth watering
looking at your earlobe.
I remember the breeze
gracing me with you.

The swallows flew in inverse arches,
just grazing the glassy surface.
Shattering and sending ripples
everywhere.

You still sit there in this picture.
A flower frozen in resin,
kept pure of oxidation.

I'm still there too, just...
behind the camera.

Forever destined to only look at you.

Even now, all these years later.

Destined to look,
and to remember.

Perpetual intoxication is a peninsula
on which your psyche stands and
mindlessly gazes out at the water to watch
your body slowly drown in the sea.

When the only options are
a sober swim back to the shore
or merely persisting in your mindless gaze,
it's easy to forget that there's a choice at all.

Whispers in my ear,
memories like ghosts.


Mustn't be present.


Anything to not
be present here.
To not be present
anywhere,
anytime.

Fill up my eyes with monitors,
my ears with buds.
Fill up my mind,
brimming with brandy.
Keep smiling,
maintain an IV drip
of distractions.
Keep laughing.
Keep on
keeping on.

Walls mustn't falter,
I must not be present.
Not now.
Not ever.

When the only functional department left
is the IRS,
then the only option we have left
is to stop paying.

He's clocking out, climbing into his car.
He can do both things at once,
the time clock is just an app on his phone.
These days, he guesses, most everything
is just an app on the phone.

Phone. We still call it that.
Wonder how many people
make calls these days at all?
He laughs quietly to himself
and starts the engine,
shifts into first,
slips the clutch,
and he's on the road.

He passes run down storefronts
long abandoned, old restaurants
with four or five different names
glued to the facade. Nothing lasts here.

The diner still runs though,
a well oiled machine.
Maybe I'll eat there tonight
he says to himself.
Breakfast for dinner, eggs and bacon.
Sounds good.

Maybe he'll stay there for six hours.
Drinking coffee,
talking to locals.
Maybe he won't.
Maybe he'll take the long way home
and hit the pub for wings.
Maybe he won't though.
No matter what he ends up doing
he's always satisfied having the options.

It's not the places I go to waste my time,
the thought comes to him suddenly,
it's the option of being able to waste it
wherever and whenever I want.
That's what I really love.

He smiles a slight grin,
eyes full of sunset.
His stomach grumbles,
hits a downshift as he steps on the gas,
and cruises off into the horizon.
It may not be a particularly exciting
or overly successful life, but
one thing that's for certain is that
he'll be happy to do it all over again
tomorrow.

Have you got 600 grand
invested in Haliburton?
Or maybe Raytheon?

I do. I support war.

I love war.

More war, more money.
I'd vote for Cheney
if I could, but
a vote for Harris
will have to do.

Governor Shapiro is signing bombs,
he should sign every bullet.
If his name doesn't fit
he can shorten it
to "$"

The whale carcass of our country
is still warm to the touch,
but we will feast upon it
until there's nothing left.

Our bunkers will be our tombs,
lined with dollar bills,
soaked with blood.

I want war with Russia,
all out, no more proxies.
Save the remnants of Ukraine
and send our children instead.
I want war with China, war
with Korea.
I want war,
I want more,
I want money.
I want to watch the night horizon
ablaze with future archeologist's delight.
Vote for Cheney with me.
Vote for money,
I want MONEY.
I WANT MONEY.
YOU SHOULD TOO.

Soon the memories you're making now
will be the ones you long to remember.

You'll never read this.
That's what makes it
so easy to write.

Dude sometimes I rub my eyes
and it feels so ******* good
that I just can't stop.
Both eyes at once,
knuckles just twisting away.

I can drive with my knees,
can you do that?
It's difficult with my stick-shift
but I've gotten pretty good.









Anyway, I've been getting into
a lot of car accidents lately.

She reaches behind her
and spreads everything,
her head presses into the comforter.
Duvet? Comforter? It's argyle,
whatever you wanna call it.
Green and light teal, the colors
of the blanket and pillows
match the curtains
hanging in the unfocused
background.
I turn the volume down
as she moans through
the initial insertion.
That's my favorite part.
The rhythmic slapping
of flesh coming together
begins like the beat of
some primal, animalistic drum.
I notice the furnishings are
seldom, a single dresser
with a large mirror
is the only thing I can see.
It has a light finish on it.
Interesting.
I would've gone with a dark walnut,
or maybe a mahogany.
Is dark wood furniture out of style?
I look around my room,
at the dark stained wood desk
that my computer sits on.
My **** isn't even hard anymore.
*** slowly dribbles out as I finish,
mostly unsatisfied.
Unsatisfied with my paltry velocity,
and further unsatisfied with my
terrible sense of interior decoration.
Oh well, I'll go again in an hour.
Maybe I'll get some ideas
for my kitchen.

I was eighteen
when Henry was born.
I was mostly gone back then.

Mom used to say
it's like she has two only children.

I still say that when people ask.

He's getting older
and I'm further now
than I've ever been.


I would say that he
thinks about me
less and less
these days,
but maybe that's okay.
Maybe that's for the best anyway.


...I bet my dad has had that same thought.

"Maybe it's for the best."
"Maybe that's okay."

Maybe not, I don't know.. but
it makes me feel better
imagining that he has.


Gotta call Henry.

The water laps eagerly at the stony bank,
the sun peeks her rays around a passing cloud.
My skin drinks deeply of both,
pruned toes and tanned chest.
The kayak gently bobs
in the shallow wake from the breeze.
Mithrandir falls below Moria,
I put down the book and reach
for a beer.
The resident swan has been paddling
little laps at a safe distance from me.
I catch him looking at me
side-eyed, flipping his head back and forth.
I make kissy sounds and hold my hand out,
he comes over to see if I have any bread for him.

It's nice here. Little fish pick dead skin from my legs.
It's nice here. My shoulders don't get sore from paddling anymore.
It's nice here.
I do this almost
every day.

Saccharine and sanguine
the allure of a pink tummy
I reach out to rub and squish
but then I'm halted.
Daggers for hands,
I'll be bleeding again,
but the brief soft touch
may just be worth it.

I'll be turning 34 this year too, and I feel it. It feels like a calling, like a proverbial mother ringing a triangle hung on the porch calling me in for dinner on a hot summer night spent hitting lightning bugs with a wiffle ball bat and watching them light up in an arc as they fall to their death. I turn to look towards the warm hue radiating from the house and know that it's time to go in for dinner, but on my walk to the front steps I keep desperately searching for something worthy to distract me from going inside. Something to make this perfect night last just five minutes longer, something worth looking back for and... I don't see a **** thing. Every step I take I keep passing by interesting rocks guaranteed to be hiding all sorts of fun bugs but as I walk I kick them over only to find vapid nothingness. I miss my friends as I climb the first step, with my hand on the banister I look over my shoulder and glance behind me but only see blackness. Everyone else has gone home, and it's just not the same without someone to spend the time with. Friends to paint the canvas of my memories. Just nothing. As I step into the house I realize that this is actually not that bad at all, even though Mom is gone and Grandpa and Dad are gone too. I walk over to the kitchen and grab a pan, fry up some eggs and bacon. "Breakfast for dinner again?" I hear her voice tease me in the back of my mind and answer audibly with a smile "of course, you know I like switching it up." I eat dinner at the kitchen table and google my local trade unions that happen to be taking apprentices. IBEW? International brotherhood of electrical workers huh? I finish off the last of my dippy eggs with the toast I made as I fill out the application, apprehensive at first and then welcoming the questions. Satisfied at how simple it was. A glance at the half-drunk bottle of whiskey on top of the fridge, followed immediately by a peek at the overly-full recycling bin filled with empty bottles.

When I die
and review the footage
of my entire life,
I just really hope that
there's a fast-forward button.