We all ignite,
the only difference
is the fuel.

The moon winked at me
when I glanced the windy midnight sky.
Its eyelid a lone cloud,
trundling heavy and tired.
Trees' leaves danced all around
with the sound of a hushed little sigh.
Oh sleeping evening,
oh great seeping eye.
Kindly quiet your come hithers
and just leave me to die.
The cold gives way to warmth,
the warmth blankets my mind.
Give up your heart,
for then comes the freedom to fly.

Sights set on the tallest of timbers,
feathered wings outstretched at my sides.
Trying to escape the remembers
though no matter how hard I try,
glimpses of the past still flash
like reflections of moonlight in my eye.
Faster now, I reach for the stars
as I pump air and fly
all the way up
to the top of the sky.
Heart racing, breathless to boot,
I fold up my feathers and find
that I'll never be able to reach it.
Reasons I'll never be able to find.
Soundless, I'll fall to the Earth
and gravity will feel just fine.

Though,
I wanted to skim on the waters,
I wanted to sing of those times
That I watched the sun turn to embers
and the moon wink in the midnight sky.

My friends all talk to each other,
sometimes they address me.
Only every now and then though,
and usually to try and sell something.
My friends are voices, voices in the car.
Voices in my apartment,
voices coming from afar.
My friends are always there,
always willing to talk.
My friends don't really know me,
but I know all of them.
I know them well,
they share everything.
My friends are the voices,
I listen to them so that
I don't have to listen
to myself.

Finally.
Ahh, this again,
it's what I've been craving.
This sense
of brutal satisfaction,
of severe attraction,
laced with indulgence.
I'll watch it turn blue.
I'll drown it in purples,
I'll throttle it with a deluge
of various temperatures.

And when.
When you're dry
and spent.
I'll cover you
with hard love.
Like nothing.
Like long yearned for
dribbles of feral
ecstasy.

Bear down on what it means
to be in-between
the dawn and the evening
of my life.

Feels like grit in my teeth.
Sand in my sheets.
Burning coals under my feet.
The glint of a knife.

Tangled up in.

The corners of your soul
are growing cobwebs
and I'm caught.
Lightless, sightless.

Tangled up in your sacred flame.
Fingers stretching towards the sun.
Blind eyes searching for warmth.

Free me from these cold shadows
sprouting in the corners of your soul.

These hidden battles,
quiet fights.

Turn it inside out
and
flood with light.

I think writing is stupid

She sees the moon
while we toss the bags,
while we sit and chat.

She sees the moon
with her head tilted up
to take a swig of beer.

She sees the moon
while I stutter
in the sunlight.

She sees the moon,
and I'm driving
just a little too fast.

She sees the moon
from the open door
of my grandfather's garage.

She sees the moon,
and the moon
sees her.

I only see the moon
glimmering,
reflected in her eyes.

I wonder if she
sees the moon too,
reflected in mine.

lolol shouldve ******* slept all day lol
*** was i thinking waking up and ****
lol

Deciding what it is that I want
is more difficult
than just wasting my life
being indecisive.

Waking up thirty years old.

Dying free
of family.

Annoyed and whiny little fools.
All led astray with their keen writing tools.
Moan and ***** enough and you'll see
that my poetry isn't for you, it's for me.

So *******, **** your talent and charm.
Go write your feelings out and drown
amidst this ocean of mediocrity.

******* all.
Worthless people.
Spew your trite.
I'll spew mine.
Let's ignore each other
for the rest of time.

Can't help but wonder why.
The sun floats across
the clear morning sky
like a piece of dust trapped
in the fluid of my eye,
and I just can't help
but wonder why.
The same old song
is stuck in the back of my mind
so I hum while I work
in rhythm and time,
but I just can't help but
wonder why.
I watch myself whisper
little white lies
to keep you safe
and to keep truth disguised,
and I just can't help
but wonder why.

"I don't recall that"
I say to her.

She may have mentioned it, sure,
But I can't really even remember what I had for breakfast, let alone something said two years ago...



"You don't listen,"
she tells me.
"You just let the words fall through you."

I smile, I agree.
I'm struggling with figuring out
what kind of reaction I should be having.
Should I be argumentative,
or empathetic?
What does she want me to say?
What does she want to hear?
I say nothing, just stand there and watch.

"It's like you're not even a real person,"
she mutters softly as she turns to walk away.
"I have no idea who you are, after all these years."

Before her hand touches the **** on my front door
she pauses, turns and looks me solemnly
in the eyes, her focus darting back and forth
between each of my irises.
I just look back at her, rather unflinchingly.

"You're a stranger Justin Wampler."

With that, she turns and leaves.

I crack a beer and ponder a bit.
Mostly not really thinking anything, just...
trying to look cool.
I peek over at the mirror on the wall
and think to myself ****,
contemplative's a good look for me.

Oh well.

Death,
like a mother's love,
is forever.

There is nothing I've found
that quite rivals the sound
of a loaded gun.

Love is a dulled knife,
but throughout my life
it's the only tool I've known.

Bled all these words free.
The pen bled out for me,
now an inkless, plastic bone.

With these three simple things
im beginning to bring
meaning into my soul.

Buy as much paint as you want.
Everyone will don a coat of rust.
It ends up stylish, dark,
red and robust.
But,
buy as much paint as you want.

dead things
beautiful, horrid, dead things.

It's not the sun,
only the light.

It's not the moon,
only the night.

yeah man right
totally sure dude
yeah i mean, ****
right? like yeah man
**** well, i guess so
sure, who wouldnt

Personally,
I'd rather my shirts
All have a hole
At the nape of the neck
Over having to
Deal with the feeling
Of a tag.

The great rolling thunder
inside of your head
left your body like a cut flower,
slowly wilting in bed.
I see the lightning
still burned in your eyes,
I collect your petals
that fall to the side.
And your love shines eternal
bringing our hearts to a boil,
as you return to the earth
and are one with the soil.

Looking for love
is looking for somewhere new
to run away from.

Searching for someone,
to then leave
for something else.

Touch,
momentarily feel
what could be.

What never will.

Sticking a tre-flip off of that three stair behind the bowling alley.

A suicide bomber strapped with C4 running into a crowded building.

Carving up the powder, bombing down the mountain on a freshly waxed snowboard.

Shooting up a movie theater with a 3D printed, fully-automatic 9mm sub machine gun.

Catching a gnarly ten foot wave off the coast of Hawaii and ramping off the lip to catch some air.

Indoctrination of uneducated children and young men to serve as soldiers for an unending holy war.

Landing a backflip on a Haro BMX bike while a crowd of onlookers chants and cheers.

Subversion and subterfuge within a foreign government in order to topple the current president.

Dropping in to a half pipe at the same time as someone else and hitting a high-five in the air.

Starting fires across a city nightscape to purge the neighborhood of vacant buildings and houses.

I just know that you
want me to lie to you
because you and I both
know that seeing the truth
is harder than either
of us are willing to admit to.

Save the planet;
**** yourself.

Sometimes it's good to trudge.
Sure, I mean,
my legs are sore at the end of the day but...
Sometimes it's good to trudge.

Our shadows played
on the bedroom wall,
rhythmically knotting together
as sweat began to fall.

Come came,
puddles on skin.
I exclaimed.

Catching my breath,
her head to my chest,
I sighed and I squeezed
just when she said:
"Don't go falling in love with me."

I didn't say much,
maybe just squeezed a bit more,
and she spoke up again:
"Ah... I can't stop you, of course."

Ringing.
Distant at first,
subtle
like a memory.
Then closer,
escalation
of persistence.
Louder now,
piercing
the veil of focus.
Grown deafening,
drowning out
coherent thought.
Ringing, ringing, ringing.

Tightly coiled,
still slightly steaming
in the chill of the December wind,
what I've made is a symbol
of my life on the road,
smelling like eggs
gone bad.

I can sleep in jeans.
I can sleep
anywhere.
I just close my eyes
and
I'm gone.

I wear jeans to the moon
and to the mall.
I put jeans on my legs
and on my arms.
Jean socks and jean hats,
I'm a blue fellow.

Tonight I filled
I filled up
a bottle of Beam,
A coke
and a 16 ounce glass.

I filled it all up
with ****.

Because yes,

I'm that ******* lazy.

She uses her tongue
to write her name
on my skin,
and I can smell autumn
in the firey tapestry
of her auburn hair.

I can taste the moon on her breath,
and it reminds me of home.

Polaris is reflected on her eyes
like slumbering summer nights
spent inside
with a distant chorus of crickets
coming in through my bedroom window.

She's water in the creek
babbling beside my childhood memories
where I would play the days away.


I'm too old to feel so young.
Don't stop.

The easiest way to quit smoking
is to keep looking forward to
the nicotine headrush you'll get
when you start smoking again.

Every day, every hour and minute
that you manage to hold off
will make that euphoric feeling
hit you that much stronger.

Lips pinched tight around
a cylinder of paper and fiberglass,
the sound of a Bic striking,
dipping the tip into the flame.

An inhale, a deep sigh through smiling teeth.
Slight spinning and just going limp,
letting your head hit the back of the chair.

Eyes closed.

Quitting feels...

...so

****

good.

God I want to *******
quit.

I think about it
all the time.

For what?



...This?
I don't think so.

Either pass this mindset.
or die in the cab of a
...

I pray for the pain of
this mindset passing.

This?




Either combustionless
or insane.

Who's here
when I'm not?

Can they read this
as I write it,
does it carry across?

There's something
here
with me,
something that's
not me.

Together but not whole,
just a bifurcated hull
held together with flex tape.

We don't sink.

I've grown so
envious
of taller men

because I'm sick and tired
of standing on my tiptoes
to **** in the kitchen sink.

*** of needles,
all held together with a rubber band.
Baggies and cotton ***** and
a spoon with a blackened bottom.
A length of rubber tubing.
Shot up and nodded off,
she seemed happy that way.
Even sobbing, she seemed somehow happy.
She didn't want my help
and I didn't have help to give anyway.
She wanted blue lips
and the peace of the infinite.
She'd gone cold
and I never was a fire.

Horse girls.

I think that horse girls
secretly play with,
and caress,
their stallions' *****.

They need that steed seed,
if you catch my drift.

Furthermore I believe
that their shameful fetishization
is intentionally kept hidden behind
a facade of general love and care for animals.

Especially when they say things like
"I care about animals more than people."

Like, *****
no you don't.
You just get wet thinking about big animal ****.
Which is completely fine, just be honest about it.
And, uhh...
Can I watch?

If only I could crack open my skull
and feel the spring sunshine on my exposed brain.
If only.
I wonder how that would feel?
A light breeze, golden rays and warmth.
Dry.

Dry.

Push against uncreation itself.

Do this long enough
and maybe someday, something
might push back against you.

I don't mind
Working in the rain.

It makes coming home
More of a special occasion.

Sometimes I smile
Through a wet beard,
And think about how
Good my bed will feel.