People started dying on me,
it happens to everyone.
It'll happen to you, too.

What's worse is that
I'm starting to forget.
Take more photographs.

Loss affects everyone differently,
but personally it provided a service.
It granted me clarity.

I don't get ****** up,
at least, not like I used to.
I'm grateful for that.

But there's something hidden
inside that naive mindset.
Getting hammered every night,
relishing in apathy and
romanticizing self destruction
granted a different kind of creativity.
I kinda miss that aspect of it.
I don't write poems anymore
about cigarettes
or about *****.
I've lost that indignant,
brazen, sense of self-pity.

Sometimes I think
that getting ****** up
made me a better writer.

But it seems to me that
the trade off is worth it.

I just want to be grateful.
Who cares about being Bukowski
when I've still got some people
that love me.

all the things that I've red at night
in the luminous orange of sodium light
just make me feel like a yellow-belly
for being so ******* green with envy
of all the words that blue my mind
written with those lovely indigo eyes
that burn with a fierce violet flame...

...Somewhat like the sun peeking out of the rain.

She stretches.
On a lazy morning.
Under my covers,
In my bed.

Weight.
The emotional scales
Become a teeter totter,
And I can't find a balance.
I could never find my balance.

I'm over-dramatic.
I know it's all in my head,
But...

Thrown away,
Dug up.
I'm divided.

And, ****!
Ain't the good, just..
..so, ******* good.

Ain't it just..
..some kinda warmth..?
..some kinda... God?
Her, here again?

Ain't it just clutching me?
The dripping wet maw of lust,
The dire, clenching grip of lost love,
The light, whispered touch of fair skin?

Ain't it just ripping me to shreds?
The dichotomy of who I am,
Verses who it is that I want to be?

All I know is, she got legs for miles.
And man...
Don't you just know that
I'm gonna savor
Draping those legs upon myself.

I'm gonna wear her like a knit scarf.

I'm gonna savor her flavor.
I'm gonna savor her smell.

I'm gonna look at her
The way a ******
Looks at a loaded needle.

I'm all tied off,
I can feel my heartbeat in my ears.

Blessed fragility.
My grandfather lost his religion,
somewhere along the way.

Not long after Mom passed
he gave up Sunday mass
for long and unrequited naps.

I wonder what dreams are seeded
by the ever present soundtrack
of Hogan's heroes.

Turning into ashes,
burying themselves,
people been really
making that decision
more and more
these days.

Guess it don't make
a great argument
for the state of things.

People'd rather live in hell
than deal with living here
for one more day.

Maybe they're renovating down there.
Maybe it's nicer these days.
I'm sure I'll see it too one day,
one way or another,
but till then I'm just praying
we all stop preying
on ourselves.

Even though she cannot see
the flow of invisible history
it wraps her soul in the tide
of the flood waters of time
and she is drug helplessly
along into fate repeating.

The kind of tired
that sleep don't fix.
Start off on my back,
force my eyes closed,
listen to my heart race,
stare at the ceiling.
Flip onto my side
and slip my arm
under my pillow,
and just listen to the wind blow
the chimes outside of my window.
Maybe lay on my stomach
and hug the pillow tight,
this feels pretty comfortable,
this position might be just right.
That's when the smoke detector
begins to chirp in the night.
I'm running out of time,
God please send me to sleep
because work is gonna ****
if I don't get this relief.
Please give me sleep.
Please.

Visions of guilt
and disappointed faces
are floating behind
my eyelids.
Memories
of embarrassment,
and past bad decisions,
line dance through
my skull.
I'm feigning sleep
while
I'm wide awake
in my soul.

Sometimes there's nothing more beautiful
than a rotting carcass of a squirrel on the road.
Petrified, hollow-eyed, stiff as a board.
Sometimes you need to see something dead
in order to really appreciate life.

Y'know it don't have to be a squirrel.
A rabbit or even a cat works fine too.
Let me tell you, if life grows mundane
all you gotta do is find something dead.
But if that doesn't quite do the trick
try being the one who kills it instead.
Life is littered with hidden speed bumps,
it can be good to find them, my friend.
Life begets life, or so it is said.
But a tiny taste of death will remind you
to beget while the getting's good.

Hold her hair back,
keep her shirt tight,
help me pick the lock
on her door tonight.

I love you Bobby Pin.

Toxic inside
whiff of rotten eggs
sulfur and brimstone
running down my legs.

Thought it was gas
that I needed to pass
but I lost the gamble
throw my pants in the trash.

I got something
She wants.

She got herself,
And a new mouth to feed.

Worry away,
thinking all day.

Circles come,

Circles come.

Sometimes circles stay.

Time, clocks
Circles make us up
Wheels, cogs
Back where I started from

It's not a car wreck I fear,
not an illness or disease.
I don't fear cardiac arrest,
or slipping and hitting my head.
I'm not worried about getting killed,
death will come
when it deems me worthy of harvest.

I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of wasting my life.
I'm afraid of living a life laced with routines,
routines that crept in over the years
and make time fly on fast-forward.

I'm afraid of opportunities, missing them,
letting them pass me by
so that I may yet reside
in my comfortable fast-forwarding life.

I'm afraid of the adventures,
the ones I skipped out on.
The ones that happened
while I was sitting here comfortable,
and alone.

I fear the friends,
the ones I never made.
I hear their strange voices
while I whistle along,
working my comfortable job.

I'm frightened, you see?
Not of death, nor misery.
I'm terrified at night,
when I lie down in bed
after another day spent
In this comfortable life.

Gave me quite a shiver
when she said that
sometimes two people
just like to rub
up against one another.

What a simplification
of something
that I've personally held
so sacred in my heart.

Maybe I'm overcomplicating
things.

I just hope she don't find
someone else
worth rubbing up against.

Ah, insecurities?
Or perhaps,
a fundamental difference
in beliefs?

******* is ******* I guess,
she's probably right.
***** is always *****,
no matter what the label.

I'm sure there's been
times when
I've ****** some broad
without consideration
for her feelings.
Right? Sure. Whatevs, yo.

I'm overcomplicating things.

Green, purple, black and blue
I'll press on your bruise
and come into you
as you squirm and twirl
and collide your insides
onto my ridged body
in a ****** worthy
of feature-length films.

Fingers and palms are your whole world
around your throat and crushing into you
between our rhythmic pulsing
and the ebb and flow of your
breath that I have in my control,
we create meaning and feed
on all of this beautiful life.

As I paint you white
and pant and fight
with myself,
I can't help
but love you.

Before dawn breaks
we're both awake
and so quietly
I run my hands
over your back.

Without words
your body turns
and those sleepy eyes
come to meet mine
in a kiss.

Forever I could live
a life like this,
with the windows open
and you right here
in my arms.

I want to be sunburnt.
I like peeling off my dead skin
and ******* in the ocean.

Three whites walk into a bar.

With a gaze like this,
***** is never too far.

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.

That's okay, man.
I understand.

Have a good time.

little yellow flowers in her ears
and they trundled along the gravel path,
when their bellies grumbled
from a day spent lying atop
a small hill near the golf course
radiance from the setting
rays of sunlight shown
a haunting sordid undertone
that a young boy in love
just never would have known.

Continuously loathing the longing I feel
for the people I'm the most afraid of.

She grabbed my wrist and put my fingers
in her mouth to better taste herself.

Wonder where
The clocks lead.
Sunsets? dreams?
Dewy grass underfeet?
Wonder where
The clocks lead.
With fervor, so desperately
Racing home to laundered sheets.
What lies unknowingly beneath?
Pondering what it all could mean.
Wonder where the clocks will lead.
See the dancing silhouettes stretch,
Like inky putty pulled across the street.
The sped up sound of wilting trees,
The hushed whispers of falling leaves.
The hands of time hold us all between
What once was, and what has yet to be.
Wasted, watching these ticking machines,
Wondering where these clocks will lead.

Out of the womb suicidal,
fashioned a noose before I was born
and came out hanging from the umbilical cord.

He sat gripping his beer bottle in one hand
and a pen in the other, tapping it repetitively
on the open notebook before him.

That's when a little red-haired squeeze
came in and sat beside him, grazing his leg
with hers as she ordered her mixer.

She saw the great potential for love in his eyes
and started questioning his mind accordingly.
Seeking his essence, searching his being.

Yet he never shifted his gaze from the lined paper,
and answered all of her inquisitions without hesitation
because he knew what she wanted.

But she shifted closer to him and started to speak under
her breath, asking him if he has a woman waiting for him
at home. Asking more than her words implied.

His knuckles whitened and tightened around the green glass,
and the pen started tapping faster and faster on the unwritten
words upon the empty sheets.

She put her hand on his forearm and the tapping ceased
as blood red mist started fogging his already blurred vision,
seeing crimson, he ripped his eyes from the blank pages.

The bottle shattered and broken glass sank into his palm,
the pen erupted painting his calloused fingers black.
He turned and faced this intruder.

"Please leave me alone now," he spits into her frightened face,
and the crimson fog covers his sight completely, as his thirst is
sparked, ignited, and begins burning furiously.

He slams his eyelids shut and searches for Arlo's words,
searches for Arlo's eyes in his mind.
Searches and searches for her heart.

He massages his temples and counts his breaths.
He fights for his sanity in the face of doubt and intolerance.
He just wants his dear to be here..
He sighs and opens his eyes.

And he's alone again.

I wear my watch;
all of the time.

[Prose]

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.