I'm more or so
consumed by pleasure,
call me a hedonist but
my definition may differ
from yours,
contentment is subjective
and the objective
of attaining gratification
has dusted from belying
to sincerity and I've found
happiness in the way the
sun comes up
rather than the way
the moon can go down on you
and have you clenching
nocturnal bedsheets
with a beer and a beer
and a pen
rereading that it seems
my hedonism is
ambiguous and subjective not,
to myself,
I take that back,
I'll be having threesomes with
the sun and the moon now,
give me my fix of both

I’m thankful for our encounter
and smooth seas
dont make good sailors,
you were a near death experience
and nothing more,
you were always a story
that was written in sand on shore
and the tide that washed you away
also dusted off my spine.

I used to go out for cigarettes before bed
with music and connection to the world,
I’ve learned to clam the
addiction to nosiness about
trump and
syria,
petitions about
dying dogs and
sensitivity,
and I just sit out there with a shovel
in my eyes digging the other way and
appreciating the sky and watching the
clothesline sway like elevator wire
and I feel more connected
by reading the stones that
shower a braille on my palms
as I tap the ground in withdrawal

I’ve manifested
an after midnight symphony,
looping mp3’s of my own eulogies
and consecutively callousing
and shaking hands with death,
the feeling brings a paradox of
finding warmth in cold palms
and it cuts between relation and
addiction to a palpable misery,
shot glasses of blood trying to make
home in my throat
drawing *****
and neglecting to force
warmth back inside,
left cold
and red hands ramble
abstract frigidness
on a livid mess mimicking
a sorry excuse for a heartbeat,
and all i’ve been doing is
touching myself
and each fingertip friction
formalizes an addiction to
a wintry contagious

for a man who doesn’t believe in god
I’ve been spoken to by the devil more than once,
he sent bullets of whiskey cutting through my throat,
he made me realize that it’s a problem
and then dug me a mote,
and he knows I can’t swim,
he put pins in my skin
and glued me to a bed,
he put demons in my mind
and put happiness at the
end of a frayed thread,
he stands beside me at funerals,
and behind me in line at
forced confessions
in catholic high schools,
he washed my hands clean
of blood after breaking a heart,
he’s points south of finish lines
at the north of where to start,
he puts me in the shoes
of the man in the mirror,
he makes money in my
wallet disappear,
he tells me to control my anger,
then lays hands on my little sister
and puts blinds over my eyes,
he tells me tomorrow will be different,
and laughs when I call him out on lies,
he takes vacations from my brain
and brings rain
when I’m parched,
then sticks his skin peeled
fingers down my throat
and makes me *****
out on to paper, to regret
what I wrote,
I will never prey
because to my self i won’t lie,
after years of mirrors I realize
that in fact the devil is I

bottle caps bouncing on cement floors
played in a constant loop,
cigarette ash fraying the
consistency of the tapping,
tapping and tapping on a window pane  
with only rain reciprocating,
if only any of this was real,
real,
real life is but only a manifestation
of manipulation of the things,
or by the things that make it easier,
a broken clock synchronized
with progression
of this silent
lunged apparition and
mobility has never been
defined by an antonym
until now,
now,
now formalized mistakes
carve themselves
inside the walls
of a crimson tower and shine out
as the falsities of my “finest hour”,
hour,
our lives are controlled by vices,
vice grips and patterned slices
solidify consistency in off-timed
8th notes that tick
tick,
tick like the broken clock.

Today I walked about 70 metres and
saw two couples fighting in their vehicles,
the first couple stopped at a red light
and I could still hear the bickering,
the child in the backseat was yanking on
the straps of the car seat like
a regretful rollercoaster, and
the only thing I saw in the reflection of
the glass was a teen drinking away
the memories
...or lack there of,
the second couple looked well off
they were driving a jet black Jeep Cherokee
and it looked well maintained, the type
to wash his car in the rain,
and his face was full of blood,
no kids, maybe they were older
and off to college but the steering wheel
took beatings and the gas pedal
cut the floor carpet into regretful pieces,
the cause is unknown, the affect is unknown,
I sat staring into an hourglass wondering how
beautiful their first months or
maybe their first few years were,
did he sit in the bathroom
while she did her make up?
did she put on layers of interest
when he told tales of how
****** his day was?
did he accept the concept that
girls do in fact **** a lot?
did 25 years go by quick?
or 5 for the first?
they were younger,
are they ******* right now?
or is she on the ground
or is he on the couch?
this glass of wine
will continue to tattoo
foreshadowings of minuscule information
on my fingertips, and I’ll sit in wonder
all night if they’re going to make it through this,
cause for now, I have no hope.