That bitter brass crash
punctuating every beat
is jarringly unsettling,
just a toy monkey indeed.

Tell me what it really means.
Tell me what it stands for,
why was such a thing created?
Wound up tightly, set it free.

The zombies will all chase it,
relentless and ever mindlessly.
Just a toy monkey?
More like a bomb, indeed.

I'm out of ideas.

It's too late to stop now,
and far too early to start over.

It's alright
It's okay
There'll be
Another day
And someone
Will wake you
By grabbing
And shaking you.
You'll stretch
With a yawn
And see that
It's nearly dawn
With the sun
Peeking it's head up
Over top of
The horizon.

Even the sunrise.

A party's
not a party
if it happens every night.

Catching a buzz
a bit too much,
it ends up catching you.

Cotton candy skies
every morning,
even the sunrise turns against you.

Days come
and come
and come.

Relentless battering of time
Against my skin,
beating us all
to death.

Even the sunrise gets old.

Even the sunrise.

Shine in my eyes,
how that ***** sun does rise.
Light bathing the skies,
color comes in a disguise.
Ain't painted,
no surprise,
how that ***** sun does rise.
Shine upon my brown eyes,
let me make a choice with pride.
With consideration I decide
I ain't a saint,
no surprise.
How that ***** sun does rise.

Veiled silhouettes
Of horsemen galloping all out,
Cast in black against the twilight sky.
The beating sound of crashing hooves,
Like a heartbeat, like the ticking clock of doom,
Pound louder and mercilessly into reality.
Torches ablaze with hate come careening through,
Shattering the uneven glass windows,
Buildings go up in a funeral pyre.
Coughing, screams of dispair, a cacophony
Of misery, an apocalyptic wind chime blowing
In the smoke laden wind.
Blood flows and the red,
The red screams my name
As it runs through the hardpan,
Spelling out my destiny
In little crimson rivulets.

I can taste it now,
A desert in my mouth,
As I walk west
In solitude.

Don't have dreams, aspirations.
Dreams are just another banal experience,
only not yet realized.

Better yet, have dreams but leave them be.
Let them be dreams,
let them stay a golden land of idealism
to which you mentally flee when
caught in the midst of your current
mundanity.

Don't chase them,
don't turn your dreams
into your routines.

Place them upon a shelf
and marvel at them with
an enormous and writhing sense of
what if.

Enjoy that feeling,
revel in the wander-thought
for that is the truest form
in which dreams exist.

Dappled, isn't it?
Slotted bits of sun rays.
A radiant dalmatians coat
sprawled upon messy bedclothes.

***** sheets.

Always *****, no matter.
Yes, they've been changed.
Thousands of times, they've been changed.

That sparse sunlight
shines.
It highlights the
grime
and the sweat.







I awaken to a stiff neck,
and stretch out the cracks
and the pops
from my spine.
My bones sigh as I flick a switch.

The shower runs,
coffee is brewing in the kitchen.

I hum.

I'll be humming
for eternity,
walking through grass
and clods of mud.
My worn boots go on,
begging for a cobbler.

I'll see the sky,
the sun shares it with the daytime moon.
I'll whisper to myself:
It'll be time for bed soon.

A couple hours.

A few beers,
or whiskeys.

Waiting for that ever dependable
dappled sunlight.
It always comes.

Until it doesn't.

So many women at the bar tonight
30-somethings giving me hungry eyes
40-somethings pleading for my attention
and a 23 year old with sky eyes ignoring me
I see her through the mirrors on the back of the bar
and she glances at my reflection ever so briefly
so I buy her a drink hoping she'll feel like
she owes me something or another
and she comes over and tells me
about her relationship with
her father and her mother

Then I drive home and hit a speed bump
that I've never noticed before

Moist and slick.

A snag
A home for a rat
Or a squirrel
A nest of wasps
A termite colony
Snakeskin litters the ground
Mushrooms bloom
The soil itself swells
In gratitude

Life begets life
Death is inviting
And leaves more room
For the living
Life begets life
Rot is food
Hollow with skittering,
Echoes of chewing
Death begets life
Circles and circles
And circles again

I wonder, the last time I saw you,
did I tell you I loved you then?
Because I don't think I ever realized
that I'd never see you again.

I wanna write a poem
about the silence of falling snow.

...Voila!

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.

She stepped in,
As she was stepping out.
Not that it's her fault,
That's not what it's about.

Seems seldom indeed,
That I've felt so in need
Of this kind of company.
Where does this leave me?
Somewhere distant,
Some how resistant?
There's change in the air.
These winds tousle my hair
And carry a faint scent
Of bitter self resentment,
But that's no reason
To waste my favorite season.

So let's go for a walk
Through the woods,
And we can just talk
If that sounds good.

The smell of burning tires
and ammonia
lingers.

Slipping into
Something more comfortable;
This sordid state of mind,
Feels almost
Familiar.

I've been here before,
Angry and petty,
Wading through red water,
Knee deep in my contempt.

Sometimes the little things
Can have the biggest impact.

Meanwhile the grand scheme
Goes on, obscured by routine.

Blind to the signs,
Willfully or maybe
Just through a
Simple lack
Of self
Examination.

Is there a benefit
To being ignorant,
To feign stupidity?

Laziness,
Motivation and the lack thereof.

I am saturated with sudden
Icy clarity,
As the autumn sun
Tickles my memory
And paints my heart
With nostalgia.

To live in ignorance,
To merely waft through existence...

Or to change?

Time is short.
I know I've been here
A thousand times before.

I like raisins.

Come at me bro.

She saw me on the porch, too afraid to come inside,
and didn't want me standing in the sleet and rain.

Even though I wasn't there.

She thought of me which is nice
because soon she won't know
who I am anymore.

It's, smiling.
It's so gingerly soft,
it's singing along to a favorite song.
It's the enjoyment of buying a new toy.
It's the guilt of spending money.
It's the joy of sunshine on my face.
It's melanoma.
It's a Sunday morning drive.
It's running out of gas on the interstate.
It's an epsom salt bath.
It's a bug on the bathroom wall.
It's a bug on the bathroom wall.
It's my skin beginning to crawl.
It's my skin beginning to crawl.
It's a hidden breaking point,
it's waiting to feel a mental snap.
It's taking a deep breath of the spring time air.
It's a gnat flying into your nostril.
It's the sound of chirping birds in the morning.
It's the woodpecker drilling into my brain.
It's
It's it's it's it's it a I ts it's I ts si sit ti sti ist st it it's
It's me.

Brown everything, fair skin and a smile.
I already see her walking down the aisle.
Clumsy and innocent as a child,
I think I might actually stay for awhile
and try to spark a light inside her.
I could go on like this for miles,
as long as I'm right here beside her.

Beautiful brown.
Altruistic smile.

******* posers.
I'm the real deal,
*******.
Watch me
Dance
My stupid *******
Monkey dance,
And listen
To me sing
My dime a dozen
**** heap song.

Real is as real
As you want it to be,
But if you ask me,
*******,
You're all faking it
Just as much
As I am.

So get crispy,
And leave me
The ****
Alone.

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.

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.

I was so ***** the other day;
I cleaned my **** off with a vacuum cleaner.

I love me
for what I am.

I hate me
for what I'm not.

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.

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.

She took me home

to her single working mother,

and I could feel

the distaste radiate from her mother's eyes.

And I loved it, the hate she poured on me.

Because I knew that

the more her mother disliked me,

the daughter would love me back

fiercer than ever before.

Up too late
tonight I've stayed.

Blessed be tomorrow,
Sanctimony of weary.

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

How do you tell her
that you're going to break her heart?
How do you say
that she's just an escape?
Just a drug used to forget,
just a fleeting regret.
How do you tell her
she's better off without you?

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.

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

An ode to doubt instilled,
though so unworthy of my words,
still finds ways to derive life
and persist in this ****** world.
From the insides of my mind,
driving themselves out of my fingers
in bitter fits of agony and pride,
these dark thoughts still linger.

I beg of these thoughts to cease,
to ******* leave me be me
for once in my ******* life
without having to worry,
yet it does no good.

They just look down upon me
on my gravel-ridden knees
and are deaf to my pleas
for relent, for mercy,
as they batter my heart and mind
with meaningless uncertainties.

The steel belt of my trust
has been laden with rust,
and these days it breaks
with the gentlest touch.

Well, ****, so what?
Who doesn't doubt us?

...Maybe I need these feelings
in order to finally believe in

myself.

I hate myself.