fires that flicker and dance to your beat
cast moving shadows of stumbling feet
in the dim contrast you've created
many children revel naked

uttering guttural
grunts and sighs

little palms reach
toward the skies

They say we are what we eat
and I've been feeding off your pity
for the past forty-eight weeks,
so I'm feeling sorry for me
being stuck so far from the city
of spring, and its cold streets.

Nothing dries out a ***** faster
than having three monitors
and a light up keyboard.

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.

Two shots to a beer,
and three beers later
I'm ready to hear
your every word.

Two days is a long time to have you back in my
digital life, and I don't know if unblocking you
is even worth it.

Because I'll be too scared to look at who
you've become, but I know you'll see my
existence in it's entirety.

I'm afraid of you, love.
I'm afraid of your love.
I'm afraid of love.
I'm afraid.

And you, the most
adored ***** who
away I threw
beacuse
I can't love anymore
maybe there's freedom
in other's arms when
i'll be here aging

One ******* day at a ******* time
you keep seeing places that you haven't
been, and find these boys who help you
in lost and found bins
Dying for your touch,
****, even a ******* grin!
and the light shines right through your
******* *** appeal
into the long forgotten shadow
of when you were real
to me.

Flower, Flower.
Your petals so pink, your stem so green.
It reminds me of simpler times, running through the grass as a child.
I love you.

yeah, yeah
no, no
yeah, YEAH, yeah
noooo, no

yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, no, yeah, yeah
no, no, no

Gentlemen.
Ladies.
May I implore you;
where is it?

Where is it.

Where is the meaning
that was promised?

Where is our Great War?

Are we not deserved of
an all-encompassing evil?
Have we not earned the right
to glory, to kinship?

This paltry existence
is riddled with mediocre evils,
made up plights,
self imposed moral ambiguities.
I want more. I want to face more.
I want to watch something bleed.
My mouth waters.

Put me in coach,
put us all in.
We're ready.
The bench has been warmed
for my entire life.
An entire generation,
lost to modern ease
and simplistic complexities,
all just yearning for Hell.
Craving the hundred-yard gaze
granted only to the survivors.
**** your PTSD and fill us with shell shock.
Give us nightmares, memories.
Give us stories that we dare not tell.
Give us our great war.
Give us an ultimate evil to face.

Give us something to ****.
Put me in front of an insurmountable enemy.
Put me beside the righteous, the keen,
put aside the drones and ICBMs
and let us lead a modern blitzkrieg.
I want to be riled by my general
into a primal scream.
I want to watch my brothers die,
I want to weep for something.
Something bigger than me.
I want to be found in pieces
strewn across blood soaked earth.
I want a government *****
knocking on my mother's door
to give her my dog tags.
She would mourn, and grieve,
but she would be ******* proud of me.

Give me that release,
grant us all the relief
from this endless monotony.

I'm wearing a gun
And a **** ring,
I don't know which one
Feels better.

Do
Don't
Do
I can't
Do
Nah
Do
It
Do it

Done.

Leaning on a telephone pole
in front of an innocuous home
was a box spring labeled Free.

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.

Wheels of time
spin on
and I'm
nauseous.

It's easy to explain, really.
If never a father I become,
then never shall I be a failure at it.

*****.
Half-man, boy-child.
Weak.
Immature.
Unfinished.

All of the above,
sure... but,
not a failed father.

Again wheels start to creak,
and I'm already knee-deep
in empty cans of WD40.

Constantly accommodating conditionality
has steadily become entirely intolerable,
thus this premonition of exquisite repose
grants my psyche an opportunity to rejoice.

I sometimes need a bite.
I sometimes bite back,
but rarely.

Speckled crescents cover my arms,
they even creep up my shoulders
and my neck.

I'm black and blue
for you,
as I have been
for time unkept.
Time and time again.

Pour me.
Poor me.

My mother wept.

I can think of twelve hundred good reasons

to drink tonight.



In the back of my mind

they all feel like

shallow little lies.

My mom thought that I was on drugs.
(Which admittedly, I guess that I was.)
Though not what she thought,
just some ***** and some ***,
but she still looked for tracks when we hugged.

She had melted mud
on her pretty palms.
With a tentative touch,
we held hands.
It subtlety squished
between gritty grips,
dripping down
to the foyer floor.
I saw it suddenly stain.

The ringing rain.

Wild winds
creaked, crashed,
and bent boughs.
The storm sighed
a bitter breath,
the mud made
a blood bond,
and I softly spoke:

"Don't drop
my hollow hand,
make mud
our only
counted care."

She said,
with a tiny twist
of her happy head:

"Why are you talking like that?"

We've been burdened with a debt
an emotional loan
and people seem to forget
it's cheaper to pay alone.

Can't you all just
give me your money
and leave?

I can't hold all of this,
would you lend me a hand?
Come down for me
like I know you can
and stay awhile longer
This time around.

Maybe the days just
aren't long enough
and the miles between
are too far for us.
Come down from there,
and bring a piece of
the clouds with you.

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?

So many things that I don't want to do
lend me some cash
and maybe a place to crash
because there's so many things
that I don't want to do.

I don't really want to go to work each day
just to sell myself and my time and my name
to gather up money that I just waste anyway
on getting wasted almost every single day.

I don't want to sleep tonight
it's just another poor way
to spend my time
when I could be smoking
or drinking red wine,
I don't want to sleep tonight.
But if I do fall asleep
I don't want to wake up on time.

I don't even want to stand at all
I'll just sit down in the hall
and stare at the walls,
I don't want to move my neck
or cash my ******* paycheck,  
has the **** sun set yet?
It'd be nice in the cool damp nights
if I didn't have to do a thing
I would be quite alright
to lay in the grass and sing.

Were mirrors to melt,
I'd set them ablaze.

I'd laugh
at my molten gaze.
I'd smile
at the puddle.

Twenty thousand years
I'd watch,
as the glass
slowly forgot.

Give me
pride,

I'll love
again.

Spattered and rhythmic
the drops fall on us,
lying on the lawn we
become rust.

With eyes slit against
the falling rain,
lightning is but
a flash of pain.

The thunder clouds
our sense of perception
and dusty wings
hover over our reception.

The precipitation tastes
of remembrance,
and in my solemn
defense,

I love.

Never said
there'd be another
day.

They never said so.
Yet,
here it is.

Time tells
lies,
and truths go unspoken.

Unspoken
yet,
not unknown.

Not unknown.

Last week
was twenty
years ago.

Tomorrow
I'll be dead
of old age.

But today,
there's a chance
to change everything.

To change everything.

We don't waste time
sleeping the night away,
and home has never felt
so **** distant.

Although that may just be
from all the trips we made
up and down the elevator
of that storage place.

I'm not generally an angry person,
in fact I find it to be a particularly
foolish emotion.

Sometimes though...
Sometimes my heart pumps lava.
Sometimes my fingernails leave imprints on my palm.
Sometimes my jaw cramps from clenching my teeth.
Sometimes someone parks their car
at the one and only diesel pump,
leaving me to circle the little fuel islands.
Staring out my windshield with the eyes of a shark.
Why? Why must you park at the only diesel pump?
Where? Where the **** is this guy?
How? How do you just ******* walk away?
When? When are they gonna ******* move?
Who? Who the **** does this kind of thing?

Then they come striding out
from the convenience store,
they catch me staring them down,
then I just smile
And wave.

Anger is foolish.

Yesterday's tomorrow was today, and then
the devil sneezed so I told her: 'god bless,'
and she looked at me like she ain't impressed.

But she bought me a beer and then said:
"tell your guardian angel to wait outside,"
as she started massaging my pride.

She knows that I buried god years ago,
right after I stuffed that angel's mouth full
of my personally-sharpened family jewels.

Horney devil,
swallow your forked tongue
right after you're done
lapping up my ***.

Lovely angel,
sorry for cutting you up
while you sat patiently
waiting in stirrups.

Light and the sun it's from,
both burn my eyes in the morning.

As I wait for the day to pass,
I can't quite seem to grasp
the inevitable truths
of time slipping by.
Leaving me behind.
Leaving us all in dust.

A vast and unending realm
of thoughtless regret.

My face drawn
once again
to the book.

Countless pages of doubt,
scrolling through the past.

Where are they all now?

Where am I?

I'd better contrast
and
I'd better compare.

Ashes are so romantic,
you can keep your rose petals,

wilting, and bruised.

I'll be happy with a few candles,
and a duvet of ashes.

Paint the sky
A different shade of blue,
Rip out a page or two.

Dip into a hidden pond,
Soak in the sound
Of falling leaves.

Float.

A face buried
In warm laundry,
Sigh into the linen.

Bits of dried ocean
Caught in the wind,
Taste the seasoned breeze.

Stretch.

The smell of comfort.
Home is more than an idea,
It's sensory overload.

a walk in the park,
or a waltz in the dark

it don't matter to me
I'm pretty easy

so put on your jacket
or take off your pants,
and lets dance already

I have a taste for expensive liquor.
I have a taste for the cheapest swill.
I have a taste for bright summer days.
I have a taste for blizzards.
I have a taste for heartwarming moments.
I have a taste for gore and mutilation.
I have a taste for symphonies.
I have a taste for grindcore.
I have a taste for yoga.
I have a taste for cramps.
I have a taste for regularity.
I have a taste for sudden catastrophies.
I have a taste for Cuban cigars.
I have a taste for Winston lights.
I have a taste for a shirt and tie.
I have a taste for oil stained jeans.
I have a taste for ripe peaches.
I have a taste for bruised apples.
I have a taste for black & white milkshakes.
I have a taste for bitter milk in my cereal.
I have a taste for idealistic love.
I have a taste for ******* and broken hearts.
I have a taste for family gatherings.
I have a taste for abandonment issues.
I have a taste for great parents.
I have a taste for having a dead mother.
I have a taste for a half brother.
I have a taste for being an only child.
I have a taste for the company of friends.
I have a taste for solitude.

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.