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.

How does it feel to fly?

Tomorrow's tomorrow,
Another day.

Willows are weeping,
Fronds all asway.

Roots un-uprooted,
Burrowed and buried.

Tomorrow's tomorrow
Can never stay.

Forgetting forgotten
Pathological ways.

Tomorrow's tomorrow,
Is Another day.

A gnarled guardrail
is what remains.

One day they'll fix it,
I'll never think of you again.

Life proceeds.
It speeds
along these
worn streets.

I eye
the guardrails
with fervor, fervently.
I sometimes
yearn
to gnarl one up.

Eyes on the lines, now.
They'll lead me
home.

Come
Sit
Squirm around a bit
Come
Sit
Press against my spit
Come

Exquisite
Ecstasy
Riding on my lips

Slowly flip
I want to watch you
Come
Sit

We need to go
a little faster,
a little faster.

Downshift and mat it,
**** the redline.

Bleed black,
sweat oil.

Hold on,
hold on to me.
There'll be turns
and twists.

Hearts will sync
with the revs.

Learning how to type is hard in your 30s.
****,
I guess learning anything
is hard in your 30s.

Up too late
tonight I've stayed.

Blessed be tomorrow,
Sanctimony of weary.

Can't wait for
Sleep then
work, then
sleep.

Isn't it always a sonuvabitch,
When someone takes the wind out of your sails?

My uncle hung himself in twenty-sixteen.
At that time I had been thinking about suicide
For maybe three or four years,
And when I had heard that he went and actually did it
I remember feeling so irritated.
I remember thinking that he stole my thunder,
He went and crowned himself the selfish King
And I was left being the Prince of ******* nothing.

Suicide had been my fall back for awhile,
It offered me a certainty that I couldn't find
In my day to day life.
It offered me a sense of control.
When I couldn't sleep at night
I could just remind myself that
No matter how bad things seemed,
Or how massively I ****** up my life,
That I always had a way out.
I always had that escape hatch.
It was calming imagining the cold circle of a barrel
Pressed into the roof of my mouth,
It soothed my existential dread and
It gave me a swaggering confidence
That I wore like a cloak of indifference.
Nothing mattered,
I didn't give a **** about anything.

When Mike hung himself I spent the following weeks
Living with my Aunt, and my two cousins.
A new widow, and her children.
I lived there and helped her make funeral plans,
I helped in any way that I could,
And I watched the aftermath unfold
Like an emotional tidal wave.

I used to think about commiting suicide
To help me fall asleep.
Now I just think about my family,
How much I love them and
How much they love me.
I sleep like a baby.

The dawn of digital doorbells came,
but I just keep knocking away
because if you're not even home then
what's the ******* point anyway?

I don't want to be seen
through your ******* phone screen.
I want a greeting, a smile,
I want personality.

Now these glass eyes
peer all over me,
like drones in the skies
over foreign countries.
Reminding me
I'm a stranger.

I'm not meeting that gaze.
They can watch my back
as I turn and walk
away.

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.

Your lack of communication is infinitely frustrating,
so when you ask me why I haven't called you yet
it's because I knew you wouldn't answer.

You don't want to actually talk about anything,
you just want some kind of validation of your actions.
Well now you've got it, you made the right call.

When I first found that note, my initial reaction was
a great sense of irritation and anger.
When I could think clearly again I found that my true
feeling was one of immense relief.
Relief that it's over and that I no longer have to be so
God ****** annoyed anymore.
Relief because it's over, and I didn't even have to be
the one to end it. You're really too kind.

The note was perfect, it allowed us to just walk away
without the strain of seeing each other one last time.
I walked away, and I was not angry and I was not sad.
I crumpled up the note, chucked it over my shoulder
and it landed perfectly in the garbage can behind me.
I felt free.

But when you go and message me
nearly three weeks later
asking why I haven't called you,
the relief fades back into anger.
It fades back into irritation,
annoyance, and frustration.
I don't mind feeling those feelings,
but what I do mind is that you're
too fragile of a being
to be able to communicate
while I am in that state.


So either stand up and talk to me,
or walk away and let me feel relief.
Let me be free.

I don't know what to say,
or what you want me to say.
I don't want to just say
what you want me to say.
I just want to float.

Salty ripples
lapping at my sides,
squinting at
the summer sunshine.

When I close my eyes,
I'm
there.

Stop peeling up my lids,
don't make me look
at this... this,
this bottomless pit
sunken into my skin.

I don't know what to say,
I just don't want to,
okay?

Ah, but it seems my preferential tendencies
are rendered sundered and inadequate
by your overwhelmingly imposing emotions, and it's like they never ******* mattered
one ******* bit to begin with,
did they?

I'll keep that in mind
for next time.
I'll know just
what
to say.

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.

Long live the life of unread books,
the life of collections and trinkets.
Perpendicular to how it should've been.
Parallel with everyone's honest expectations.

Forever glean nothing, but appear learned.
Forever clean, something is clearly earned
by this claim so staked in naked dirt,
dirt comprised of crumbled aspirations
and so many pettily wasted tomorrows.

So,
so many.

This is misery
wrapped up in a tasty, flakey
egg roll pastry.

Bite right into me,
see what comes flowing
through your teeth.

This is misery,
we are history,
and we're never coming home.

This is misery it's
not a mystery
how we ended up alone.

It's distracting me
how the distance between
just never seems to shrink
at all.

This is misery,
somber symphony
of a thousand creaking bones.

We're still history,
a book brimming with grief
for what could've been
but now no one will ever know.
What happened to me?
Did I always bounce between
the present and futures unknown?

This is misery,
don't call out for me,
I'm never coming home.

I'll rake my fingers through the loose dirt,
the gravel and the disintegrating asphalt.

I'll sift it
in search
of what's
been lost.

Dropped, slipped through
my buttery mitts.

Squeeze the stones.

I can hear my heartbeat in my teeth.
I can feel the sunshine on the nape of my neck.
I can taste the dust of desperation,
it dries my tongue to a raspy strip of jerky.
I can smell you here. Coating my lungs
like a plague.

Exhale.

It's hard to give a ****
About work, or
About money,
When the only thing
I'm saving for
Is **** like video games
And car parts.

Just a whiff of oil,
and listen to the snik
of the lock catching.

It flips smooth,
it feels weighty and
satisfying in my hand.

The problem in
playing with a knife
is that you start looking
for things to cut.

My desk has notches
all along the edge.

My steering wheel is missing chunks,
my emergency brake has puncture wounds.

Little shavings of material
all over my pants.

Hands covered in
pock marks and scar tissue.

Now I wonder what it'd feel like
to cut a piece off of you.

Met this broad on tinder,
she told me that she was hesitant about dating
due to the fact that she just got out of
an abusive relationship.

Sounds like just my type of gal,
I wonder how her relationship with her father is.
I'm salivating now.

I sympathized with her, and said that I too
had just gotten out of an abusive relationship.
I recounted the story about how, after two years
of daily emotional and physical abuse,
my ex had at last found the courage and support
that she needed to finally leave my ***. That ****.

Ain't nothing quite like
Looking into a pristine blanket of snow
To really highlight
All the **** floating around in my eyes.

I'm not necessarily impressive.
I drive a truck for a living
And although it pays my bills,
I don't have much room here to move up.
But I made my own bed,
I half-assed my way through life
And this is just a result of those decisions.
Nothing more,
Nothing less.
I used to be okay with being unimpressive,
I used to think that it was something that I wanted.
Finding beauty in apathy,
Writing off effort as a waste of time.

I was naive.

Youthfulness blinded me to
What it actually means to be successful.
I strived for the bare minimum,
Idealizing wanting to be alone.
Taking refuse in lonesomeness.
I thought it was cool to not give a ****,
About anything, about myself.
When I admired that idea of being alone,
Of being a ****,
I had no qualms about not making money
Or having any meaningful skill sets.
No qualms about abandoning college,
Turning my nose up at every opportunity
That happened to come my way.

Now I see that it was never about buying a house,
It was about having a home.
Now I see it wasn't about bettering myself,
It was about being able to help the people I love.
To help the people who love me.

If there's anything I could take away
From making some terrible decisions,
It's that sometimes they come disguised
As the seemingly smartest moves
That I ever could take.

I'll touch your blue jeans
without consent.

I'll slide my hand up
the back of your leg and
really dig my nails in.

I'll use both hands
to pull you apart,
to draw you closer and
up against my heart.
Up against my chin.

Shirtless,
skin to skin.

You'll be starved for breath,
I'll be just starting to begin.

Our pace
will race
and together
we'll sin.

Heartbroken I'll ponder
our little origin.

A fashion show,
a shared love of expression.

Come and
come again.

You can sprint at the sun
for as long as you want,
but you'll never outrun
your shadows.

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.

Voice in my head got too persuasive.

"There's a doorknob
on the floor, Bob."

A man named Fred
once said.

"That's not the floor,
you total bore,
can't you get that
through your head?"

Bob turned to Fred and sighed
as he bitterly replied

"We're standing on the wall is all,
don't make me tell you that again."

Fred's brows furrowed
in desperate concentration.

"But the stairs go out the window
and lead up to the basement!
Your blueprints don't make sense
in this configuration.."

Bob turned red
with anger and dread,
and full of exasperation
he said

"I swear one day
this house will be
a beautiful work of art,
you'll see!"

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

Or a Monday, or
Tuesday, etc...

Or whatever.

If you ditch your kid,
every day is father's day!

Or maybe none of them are.

Happy father's day Dad,
you schizophrenic loner.
I want to be just like you!
Look at how I've spent the last ten years of my life!
Squandering opportunities,
drinking myself stupid,
and going out of my way
to be alone.

I know you'd be proud, because honestly
I'm just jealous of your freedom.
Do you sleep well?
Are you still
sick?

Mom's dead, by the way.
I guess you kinda are
too.

See what's there to be seen,
green,
lovely greens.

Looking into your twin emeralds
as they shimmer
so brilliantly.


Up here on top.
Come sit with me.

A tattoo of a wrench?
Maybe a door, or a tower?
I'd consider it,
just maybe.

Yet what if those interests leave me?

What if I got a tattoo of a heart,
one that used to belong to me?
Would I be forever condemned
to a bittersweet fate of longing?

Forget all of that,
you look so **** pretty.
The first one tasted like I want another,
so come over here again
and just kiss me.

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.

Sometimes I pop my shoulder out
in defiance of the pain.

Can't wait to set foot
on that electric scooter again.

Foggy this morning.
Driving, listening.
Adjustable seats,
there's a rattle somewhere
in the headliner.

What am I supposed to want out of life?
How does anyone figure out
what they want?
I'm perpetually contented with
my uninspired lifestyle.
Voices say to want more,
voices coax me towards buying property.
Coax me towards having a family.

My therapist says he sees
a tinge of a nomadic lifestyle
in how I've been persisting.
He says there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't know what that means.

I need a bridge to cross,
a staircase to climb.
I need something to ascend,
something to traverse.

I need something else.

Work ran late.

He's been waiting all day
To take me out for steaks.
I fumble my keyring
And pick it up again,
I always get his house key
Mixed up with mine.

Asleep on the couch,
A Hallmark movie
Playing unwatched on the TV.
He must've seen this one already.

"Hey."
I touch his shoulder
And smile at him when he looks up at me.
He smiles back.

I wonder if he still believes
In anything.

"You ready to rock & roll down to the Banquet?"
"Yeah man, I'm starving."

It's hard to know
When to quit.
What to quit.

A friend once told me:
"One vice at a time."

But maybe I put
To much meaning
Into his words.

Because he blew his head off
With his service pistol,
And I'm still here. So...
That's gotta mean something,
Right?

Quitting.
Maybe what I need to quit
Is this mindset of extremes.
There may be more value
In finding the balance between
Keeping on keeping on,
And knowing when
enough is enough.

Balance.
Quitting.
Keeping on.

Not everything has to be
An on-off switch, Justin.
Treat yourself
Like a dimmer,
And find that perfect
Balance of light within.

O, mem'ries.
'Member when?
This again.

Morning's mourning,
when death arrives:
I'll be ready.
I've imagined it already,
a thousand times.

They, they're, still alive
but for what?
Like he's just waiting to die.

My father, grand father,
I'm a busy guy.
Is it selfish?
Am I?

Jenny,
I've heard the voice of God.
He told me
there is beauty yet.

The echoes
of long forgotten names,
turn to white noise
and fill my brain.

When my eyes
find
a hidden little smile,
I want to stay
for a little while.

Jenny,
I'm awfully afraid.

Of what lies in wait
on my path of faith.

Will it
ever be the same?

Or is it true that
everything has changed?

It's fun to fight
Fight with myself
Fight my compulsions and wants

I want to abolish my responsibility
But I'm going to work today
I want to hydrate with brandy or whiskey
But I'm having water instead
I want to get all my nutrition from eating *****
But I'll cook a little meal for myself
I want to get addicted to ******
But I'll just read this book on it

I want to rip a hole in the sky
I want to shoot cans off my desk
I want to light fires
I want to scream at people
I want to shatter my mirrors
I want to rip the curtains down
I want to kick my TV, right off the stand
I want to throw my money down the garbage disposal
I want to laugh at the smouldering ruins
That used to be my life

But I'll just make myself some tea tonight
I'll just smile and look at my thoughts
And examine them from my nice warm car

I'll just laugh and remember to love my life
I'll think of my brother, I'll think of that knife
That I gave him for his birthday last year
And about how grateful he was
As he added it to his fishing gear

I'll think of my friends and I'll think
Of my Mom
And I'll know that everyone
Is struggling along

I'll find solace in knowing that fact
Because I'm not alone
And I'm certain of that.

I love seeing suicide survivors.

Like ****,
you **** at that too, huh?