awakened by the
offsprings cry,
baby powdered
morning dew
showers the room,
coffee stained smiles
shine about
cheerio blanketed
kitchens,
so worrisome
for office tardiness,
the carseat won't lock
into place,
tire marks on
fresh paved driveways,
to daycare tears dry not
she's on time,
fatigued she plants
her seed to the office seat
to grow even less
awaiting to see the smile
of her child and say
her prayers before
falling asleep

                     -

awaked by the
offsprings cry,
gun powered
morning dew
showeres the village,
rotted teeth smile
amongst the
body-blanketed township,
so worrisome of finding
a slain mother
sister
brother
just like father,
the gun won't lock
into place,
they never will,
tattered couches
paved with the
***** of
slaughtered buildings,
mother's dead
tears dry not,
fatigued,
hands of
grungy drainpipes
plant beside,
holding stagnant
a somber sibling,
tremors ripple
crimson tides,
planted to
grow even less
awaiting to see
the smile of
his mother
his father
his sister
and say his prayers
with brother
before laying down

it’s quiet and i hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder
i hear nothing but the paper
burn as my inhale imitates the gust of
wind that guides the cold to shutter skin —
street lights sit above the lit, white-flowered flakes
as they dance to the ground as a group
that whisper soliloquies to the crimson
lobes that hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder,
a hazy fog covers the air before my face
as it sways from nostril to upper lip —
a sight down to an illuminating ash,
blinking to meet a lid to whited lash —
as the paper burns
the smokey sky is content
with silence and nothing more
than a look to the fields                             MJB

I like 90’s grunge that
makes me want to **** myself
and not wash my hair
and drink beer,
don’t see 90’s bands
in concert,
they’re old now
and it ***** you
with the bitterness
of life,
get drunk
kiss the floor
for supporting you
and lay in comfort

I wish it was easier for
people to forget, if things left their
mind as easy as they let
them in, tough skin
wouldn’t wear thin
as easy as it is right now,
my past is full of imperfections
and bad decisions, leaving unstitched
incisions beneath the brink of sanity,
but who’s isn’t? every time falsities
start, my mind races
with my heart to contemplations on
when to finish, they tattoo the past
of others on their insecurities,
fuelling the fire that burns a hole
into respect and reputation,
creating a vicious cycle
of revenge and envy,
each gossip verbally vomited
into naive ears pulls the marionette
strings of perception into the road normally
taken, two roads may have diverged
at a yellow wood, but when the ignorance
burns yellow to ash,  the road less taken
seems blocked, so the next time you hear
something about another, don’t be too quick
spread the word, the game of
telephone can get a little distorted when
the next phone call
you get is that they
were found hanging from
a rope.
                                MJB

you wrote acrostic
poems in grade school
and thought it was pointless,
finding more than
one meaning in a
seamless word
whispers to you
and tells you that
it's not your fault
you were cheated on,
or why your
parents divorced,
sometimes instead
of 20/20,
a kaleidoscope
is the best way to
view yesterday's
circumstances.

she's in the
those pine
floorboards
that cry to you
when your
feet whisper
to the door,
she's in the
backdoor
hinges that
weep when you
clinch your jaw
hoping she stays
asleep

she knows
but she loves you
and she's tired
of being stepped
on and shut out

and soon you'll
find yourself
dragging
cinderblocks on
pine needles
leaving through
the front door.       MJB

When I was 17 I watched a man **** himself,
I remember the morning like it was yesterday,
the air bit at my heels
and it was too cold to be at the skatepark,
there was a lounge area of
weathered tables and pine trees
about 50 yards north,
I still remember the look in his eyes
confusion filled mine,
he was old, around 70
and I kept skating around,
he just sat there with
saltwater in his veins,
holding a long barrelled
30-30 it looked like,
I kept skating and fixating
my eyes on what he was holding,
it manipulated my vision,
reached out to hopeful ignorance
and yanked it through my throat,
we never made eye contact,
his eyes were buried down
a steel thief,
I kept rolling back and forth,
and I never knew thunder had
the ability rip the bearings
from the wheels,
the crack turned the bark
on the tree behind him
to a yelp,
and I’ve never saw blood fly
until that point,
I still remember how fast
it turned from a picnic table
to a crime scene,
how aimlessly the yellow tape
flew in the wind, as if nothing
ever happened,
time forged a signature
on a death note to man
who never felt the chill
bite at his heels that day,
that barrel screaming for forgiveness
knocked at a door with perspective
standing at the peephole,
I saw myself in his shoes
when I saw the life leave his body,
I went back that day
and saw the city worker
spraying the pavement,
running an eraser over
the pen-painted picture
in my mind,
the chill shattered my
porcelain heels that
day and shooed me
away from the
griptape forever.

you’re the oxygen in my lungs
when they’re screaming for air
yet you’re my physical pain
and my emotional despair

you’re the food to my famine
when my stomach is aching
but you’re the salt to my wound
when my heart is breaking

you’re the pen to my paper
when my voice runs dry
yet you’re the spark of the lighter
when the page burns high

yet when my life is seized,
with hopes before you,
my burden will end
and you can start anew

I was asked
         
                 why don't you
                   write something
                                 positive?
postive,
positive?

maybe it's like
school,
it's hard to weave
interests into subjects
coincident not
of delight

a page is an unworn
white t-shirt
that i seem to stain
unrecognizable
when my pen
wipes it's fingers

and theres nothing
more to clean my
hands with

so i guess
why i don't write
positives a majority
of the time
is because when it rains
the ground doesn't
just decide to stay dry.

I haven’t felt her
in 5 days,
I haven’t felt
how delicate
the rim of her
mouth feels
against mine,
how enticing it
is to get a taste,
I have to taste
all of her,
they way she
flows through me,
she’s mends all thats
broken, then breaks
it when she leaves,
it’s only been 5 days,
I miss the bitter taste,
the way she makes
my tongue curl
up like a slug
swallowing tablespoons,
she pulls me in,
and hangs me with
the rope she yanked,
scraping the bottom
of the barrel,
for even a scent of what
will remind me of her,
every taste
is like losing my
virginity for
the last time,
and she became
so much more
than a past-time,
so much more than
something to
pass time,
it’s been 5 days,
soon to be back
at the crack of the
new year,
she’s a constant
resolution
that I can’t wait
to break,
or is it me she can’t
wait to break,
she leaves a bitter taste
on my mind
and thoughts that flow
through my veins,
she’s someone I can
thank, she’s someone
I try so hard to forget,
she dictates and mediates,
a forged signature
on bills passed to
loved ones
that I’m okay,
but only for the night
she’s anger, she’s happiness
she paint’s crimsons kisses
on my knuckles,
and heals cardinal
crevices in my mind,
it’s only been 5 days,
I’ll see you soon
I’ll taste you soon

There was a time where I believed that friendship didn't flicker like a waterlogged outlet. Where standing up came before standing out. I never understood what growing up was for a long time. I remember when I was 15 and I saw a man at starbucks spill coffee on his white dress shirt and thinking "**** that I'm never growing up" and then when I was 18 I draped a plain white polo over my heart and watched everyone I thought cared about me redefine caffeine from waking me up to putting me to sleep.  I insisted that success and money didn't go hand in hand and positivity is easy when the only thing you're paying for is young cigarettes and blindfold mints. When we grow on the  outside, we shrink on the inside to a certain extent. We watch death like a ****** sequel. We fear the inevitable and watch the hands on the clock until they clap and your lights starts to flicker. We live in a sea of inconsistencies that drown our livelihood and when times become consistent, monotony sits in our throat like drying cement that cracks until we can't even breathe for ourselves anymore. Can anyone define happiness? And can you tell your kids that growing up is a breeze? Cause that gust of wind can blow the half empty cup of coffee on to your clothes and really **** your day.

what does the man behind his desk
at the publishing company deem
worthy of publishing and
how much are his shoes?
I wonder if my words
will entice him enough to begin smoking,
or quit smoking,
or have a drink,
maybe sign a contract
or rather have me one,
will he turn off his Bach  
to understand or
turn up his Bach to understand?
will he analyze my grammar,
or the need of post secondary?
I wonder if he will bring forth
his obsession of
having a finger in his ***
to his wife after reading the erotics,
or will he put a finger in his ***,
will I be read in a
reader’s digest in 25 years
while a man of elder
near ***** his pants,
or will I be dwelled as an elder,
and I bet you they’re over
200 bucks.                                   MJB

it’s 12 degrees outside
excluding the breeze, I hide
behind the rising smoke
of the cigarette just lit,
my fingers are falling off,
nails ripping to the marrow
a ****** stutter impairing speech,
a seizured grab to the fleeced pocket
leaves only the other hand to freeze,
such a sacrifice to something
old-me said I didn’t need,
I kick around snow
as my leather boots wear a
coat of white as I shiver
and inspire, throwing a black
coat over my lungs
“hey do you have a lighter?”
“yeah”
the ash sails down
and kisses the filter and a flick
collides the ember to exhale it’s final breath
to the frozen floor,                                                    
I step inside and
suddenly, I’m cold again.
                                                                               MJB

candle essences portraying the room
as a waxed out sort of gloom -
flickering inconstancies shadowing the
wall with silhouettes as inconstant seas
swaying the milky wall with an undertow
that invites the paint in my mind
to drip leaving a revelation to rewind
to every broken dream, every time you
reached out and felt fingertips slip
with a handle so tight yet no reflecting grip -
thoughts to paper leave the
keyboard clicks echoing a room
compressing notions in a waxed out
sort of gloom.

a man in a trench coat
walked though construction
after dark,
dead branches grew
from the holes in the
end of his sleeves,
the night painted
over retinas
but his skin still seemed pale,
dyed dark hair
shined without hygiene,
and his boots
kicked the road torn,
I though of columbine
when I saw his trench coat,
I saw guns and children hiding
I heard shotgun shells
breathing smoke
onto the pylons,
I saw brand new
blood pained lane lines
in the middle of the road,
I couldn’t make out his face
but I looked at a smiling maniacal,
and I was just driving by
and it seemed cold,
I had the window down for a smoke and
I smelled tired exhaust
from sleeping machines,
and it was then that I realized
he was most likely walking home
from work or going to get milk
from the convenient store,
perception will always drape over us
in a cloak no one else can see,
it will never disappear and
to the trench coat man I apologize.

I thought, "holy **** man, look at yourself". The only change I ever witnessed for 3 years was the scrapings left ringing out on the bar rail. Always reaching out to a pocket for god and finding nothing. "I guess you can't refund the drinks, right?" She didn't laugh. I watched my circle get smaller, tired of the antics and my drinking became the **** of a joke. I watched my circle get smaller, my vision blurred like the future lining with a black viginette and with every drink I watched the bartender familiarize. Another? tap tap an empty bottle uses its manners and mine, with a painted smile. Until close she would become my therapist, and the salary was almost the same for the two after I left. After close the cooks offered sympathetic invites and lackluster conversations at the ******* next door. They laughed and drank and like ***** hawks watched their prey scale a poll like the fire they were fighting was inside. I saw no spark, no love given, no love received. I found it hard to love, when hating myself was the only thing I loved to feel. The grease stained fries were tickling the back of my throat on the last night I went. I found myself puking next to a coke head doing key bumps and I asked through hiccups "does the smell back here not bother you?" he said "what smell?". I wiped my mouth and stumbled home somehow. I kicked broken pieces of pavement and scoffed at the curb-sides hugging garbage. I realized through the streetlights that my shadow wasn't the only darkness following me at night. Out of cigarettes and out of my mind I resented this city for having so many bridges. The screaming trucks below gave some sort of comfort with my feet tangling with the breeze. The stretching hands from out-of-place highway trees grabbed at me and I felt the world rotating. The night that changed me, a three am crosswalk flashed its hand at me, but I kept walking.

It’s a race to the bottom of the bottle
between sanity and sober realization
to every impaired negation and how to
alleviate and mediate the dependancy I
place on finding new routes to the
end of the flask. —
The hands of the bottle hold
dreaded burdens above my head,
bringing life to each morrowed breath,
and write hyms towards yearning
a long awaited wish for death,
sobriety weaves this addiction
of solitude through each thought of
halted life, and pushes it’s back
as it’s heels leave crevices to follow,
a view of darkness to come,
with turning back placing another knot
down a throat with attempt to swallow.
as each run of whiskey drips down the
walls of my throat the sinking ship within
my veins finds strength to stay afloat.
a Wiser whisper tickles at the anticipations
towards taking another sip,
the Hennessy tendencies stutter
a ****** equilibrium captivating
and inching my sanity towards
a shot of sequel librium. —
As ***** spews and consumes
the inhabited ground, a paroxysm
of unconsciousness feels
mentally sound,
blacked out with the following
morning full of acts to repent,
the monetary blackness
proves to be nothing but content,
recollection of priors
seem to fade with the desire of
sobriety and eliminating any hope
towards thoughtless propriety. —
Momentary happiness through
intoxication provides no mediation
between a sober fight for death
and a drunken one, the wish for
lifelessness is just subdued by
stumbling to bed and the inability
to steadily hold a gun to my head.

the tangibility of fallibility
is met between the coincidence
and insatiability of adversity,
the blissfulness of satisfaction
is met between the constant refraction
and abstraction of our instability,
distancing perceptions bound by
our misinterpreted misconceptions ,
take the contradictions of our minds
and use them as receipted expectations,
blinded by darkness for illumination
idyllically thriving on the absence of starvation
but the the realism of disdained relation put us
in a position of contempt fixation,
placement of a pedestal beneath my feet
misdirected direction towards a forked defeat,
a way to pain and a way to pleasure,
the destination of each concluded at cloudy weather,
atmospheric conditions leave injunctions towards
the ****** functions to deviate and meditate
the conflicted constant of mind and heart
and diverge from its obliged obligation from the start,
a denouncement expected right from inception
brought afloat a constant instance of introspection,
intrinsic emotions distorted at a love’s devotion
sparks a metaphysical claim towards a complex notion
of companionship and intensified intimacy;
an expectant of reciprocated sympathy
but when in reality, the thought of apathy
lies not within the partner,
but within me

he had low-grade
tattoos on his neck
and his clothes
wore transparency.
beneath his eyes
held a dying sun.
he spoke in thanks
and respect, the cuts
upon his wrists called
reached a finger out
and called my eyes
to say hello,
he spoke in gratitude
for the smoke i gave him.
he smelled like cigarette
stained couch cushions
he spoke a respectable
ebonic intellect.
his fingernails
were unswept
floor trim
and his teeth
were smashed
dinner plates
at his mother house.
departing he said
thank you
and i offered him
a cigarette for the road
and he refused and said
“for talking to me”

pouring another glass  
is peeling a hangnail
down with your teeth,
a monotonous ****
will only draw blood
to surface,
waking up is now
a monotonous signature
on a death certificate,
a tedious magnificent
and I’m still here
and my calligraphy
is becoming magnificent

i was always told
i dig too deep into things,
a mystery it was left
until i finally fell from
the sun of innocence,
i have dug myself a hole
and found home where
no woman can latch to my heart
'cause at the end of the day
we'll both be wandering
looking for such,
i can never hold a tangible
relationship with another,
vices are consistent
and weave their beating
hearts into my skin,
i want to go back,
back to feeling,
no tremors or
tainted lungs and
poisoned liver,
back to when
the meaning of a
a wish was still
seeing candle smoke
dance above a
birthday cakes,
too many times
i try to twist off
the pop-off top
of a beer and
it dawned to me
currently,
i was once told;
"talking to you is like pulling
on a push door"
and until now i realized
the door was locked.

Ignorant; not a care in the world (~)

Holy socks drag on cracked sidewalks
She had a pink shirt,

Or what seemed like it was once pink
She wore a smile & talked to her friend
I never saw him, but I’m sure he’s nice
I swear, her jeans never came with holes,
She’s too young to sport that fashion
Her face was the moon, not the cheesy one,
but pale & distant
Her hair, matted and knotty like dad’s unused
twine ball sitting in his toolbox
Did she have a brother?
Where was he?
I’m sure that unclothed Barbie in her hand needed a Ken

                                                (~)

Recline­d with their hands dangling over ashtrays,
where the only entity in their mind calling for their attention
is a liver-punching depressant.
Where eyes open for another hit,
and close to the cries of their children
Tonka trucks make snow angels in ash covered carpets,
Walls inhale secondhand sadness; stained with the tears of neglect,
Unmade beds and unfolded clothes shower their unpaid apartment,
Eviction notices pinned to the fridge with
crayon drawings of “daddy”,
Her request for another beer echoes the empty room
& it crosses her mind

“where the **** is she?”

the worst thing I’ve ever done
was letting the world
know that I write,
it’s not the 2am phone calls
asking if I’m okay,
it’s not the regret of
of relationships or
the running away,
it’s the look in my mothers
eyes when I write about dying,
it’s the regard to kin
when holding certain
emotions in,
forging positivity
and relaying
the antiquities
of struggle,
the minuscule
moments of will
drill into minds
painting all kinds
of doubtful abstracts,
creating spousal transacts
of how to fix their son,
it’s not the questions
about what I mean when I
say my skin spits goose flesh
or my eyes wrap yesterday
in spruce mesh that
eventually frays,
it’s the days where
I get kindred
phone calls
wondering if I’ll pick up
because of writing
the night before
stating that
I’m skating
on thin ice,
I dont want them to worry
I’ll be fine,
but for now it’s the pen
that has to unwind
the noose from
confining words
I refuse to say.

Everything is happening so quickly
so many negatives surpassing the
insignificant glimpse of positives
that never seem to suffice,
there’s always this light at the
end of the tunnel that everyone
speaks of, yet i continue to see darkness;
a journey down this long tunnel brings
no illumination but only a continuance
of nihility, the damp walls
seem to bring the chill humidity
closer and closer with each step,
the droplets echo the narrowing,
flickering lights dissipate at passing,
the gag sparking stench of sewage
and ***** make the voyage to
light even more unbearable than the
previous hesitant inching towards
the so called spoken about bearability of life,
sudden scintillations of light bring sight
of russet, worn doors, consecutively placed,
discoloured of crimson roadkill,
I open the first door and see a woman
tied and bound, gag in throat,
beads of sweat turning the white gag
to watered milk,
the dirt beneath her nails entwines with skin
and blood dredged by her own fingertips,
to front is a tray of what seems like
torture tools
intrigued, I slam the door
                               and avoid a kiss
                                   from Judas

The next door, I open and see a man
sitting facing the corner,
wrapped in a flickering fan,
staring at a wall of carvings of ticks and dashes,
to see arms of cuts and gashes,
with a tray next to him
comprised of razors and knives
he sits picking at skin of bruises and hives,
tempted to grab the tool and corrode self,
with the reflection of whats within, I slam the door

                                               and avoid

Finally the third door
eagerly stares to
me with anticipation boiling veins,
I press my ear to foreshadow,
I hear a cries; a man of hatred
and a woman of pain
I open the door and find a bottle of whiskey
I take a swig and feel as if Judas kissed me,

Within the third door; walls
with peepholes to confirm the calls
on the left I see the sliding knife
over-panting roadmaps of russet to
the neck of the bound woman,  
the screams are deafening,
they present a vibration,
stuttering thoughts, and releasing the fixation,
prompting the admiration
to view the second door,
I see myself, in door 2
tremors and convulsions
seeing blood expel every vein
as the verticals
halt oxygen to the brain

Departure brings me
to the abysmal realm of society  
where the burden of negativity
proves to provide no proof towards what
differs between the endless, narrow
tunnel-visioned cesspool of bone marrow
and psychosis driven visions and the
narrow pathed voyage of life.

her innocence is soluble
when dipped in
expectations,
her mirror;
like the bottom
of dinner plates,
her wrists are
tire marks on
gravel roads,
she sees not
what we see
but in what he
sees is what
she cares
but who is he
now?
a riptide splitting
face paint
saturday nights,
veins of toxins,
staring at roadkill
and streetlights
and garbage
hugging curb-sides
mixed with dust
days followed
with headaches
and remorse
dying not
I can see it in her
eyes
she’s only 16
                           MJB

she never complained
about how long my hair was
or that how it reeked of
cigarettes when she kissed me
good morning,
she never painted
my skin grey
when the sun
shined,
she never told me
that my
breakfasts of
turkey sandwiches
and pepsi weren't healthy,
she told me once that
I should quit smoking
because she did,
I never did,
she says I drink to much,
she told me that
she loved me
when I made her laugh,
her legs were always warm
and I told her she could start a fire
when she doesn't shave,
she laughed,
she told me that
she loved me when
my friend died,
she never told me
why she loved me,
she never gave
me a reason to leave,
I never told myself why
she loved me, I never knew,
so I gave myself a reason

so through tears
she then told me
to go **** myself

She tears through
her insecurities
on fridays and saturdays,
shameless small talk
with bouncers,
and she dresses to ****,
railing lines at pre drink,
and talking up free drinks
with ***** hawks
circulating the scintillations
of spotlights for victims
of a cockcrow regret,
she picks and chooses
and it’s easy for her,
finding a jawline
in a haystack seems
almost inevitable
when she did her make up
in front of a mirror,
not 3 hours prior,
she fills her empty
bed with cheap cologne
and sweat and gel
to only empty again
not 3 hours later.

an intrepid image of consistency to living painlessly
floats aimlessly through an adjacent sea of complacency
that finds way to drift further from shore.
worries of capsizing and baptizing
in this ocean of social chastising
leaves me coming back for more.

descending the sail paints
images of pale
skys clouding progression,
shadowing the sun’s oppression
to shining through the cracks,
dreams reflect the water
of sailing to shore and
never coming back,
the table in cabin
covered with cigarettes butts
and empty bottles,
leaving stains of black
on the whispering floorboards
that sways with the current
that restores more
contentedness to being
lost at sea.

but, I wake up to reality
sea sick            
                                                MJB

open wide, take the barrel, caress the lips
let the trigger be something
thats figured afterwards
as one thing held by
the stress of life,

let the burden of breathing
take the wind and dwindle
the passion you have left
to rekindle your passion to live
reloading the rifle
reviving every spiteful
feeling edging you closer to
the side of the high rise
in malevolence disregarding
the benevolence of why
you’re still sitting here
reading this; ignorance to bliss

let the goodwill of life foreshadow
that every stroke brings deep to shallow
letting life take the noose and tighten
until you loosen and righten
every wrong

let life bring your cuts to a heal
so that you know every human can feel
a pain get better and watch the weather
go from dark skies to milky clouds dripping light
and have the poor weep then sing together

so let life strife your feelings of self
so that you hear the whisper from
the storm pass,
and open your eyes,
don’t let the precedent of today
dictate the incident of
a familiar tangent
because with every feeling of pain
is followed by compassion of
the morrow

I remember the feeling
of ****** and sleep
or sobriety and insomnia,
it was one or the other,
a back deck stained
with eggshells and
whiskey candles
strapped to my tongue
and a flame burning
my throat,
eyes like like lungs
inhaling a ****
and tearing with
black spit,
too ******* stupid
and fried to look at
a knife with malice
and then it was
only with butter
to smear on a sandwich
or uneven bread like
**** water in a glass,
in the microwave instead
of a toaster for some reason,
too ******* fried
too ******* dumb,
I felt better and quit,
no cracking eggs on deck tops
now it’s beer can rings on desktops,
like a marriage to dizziness,
I remember the feeling
of ****** and sleep
and paranoia,
depression
and anxiety,
and now a green smoke
is a double sided mirror
into the past of what
I used to feel,
and I’m spreading butter
on my conscience
and wrists
and neck now,
instead of being lifted
I’m planted with dead roots,
no turning back
no speeding up.

I’ve been questioned on
my late night walks,
why do I do it?
the repetitive cracks
sing hedonist soliloquies
at every avoidance,
the streetlights eat away
at forfeiting darkness,
vomiting garbage cans
spew synthetic carrion
and winking storefronts
****** nightfallers,
trash kissing curbs
pushing away affection
cry out for help,
cigarette butts cloud
sandy sidewalks
and hug dragging soles,
passing cars and
mindless youth
spewing timeless
nothings out car windows,
cop cars and crisis topped
middle-agers stumbling their way
to fast food and
regretful forenoons,
I’ve been questioned
on where I’m walking to,
but never what I’m walking from,
no matter where I go,
I find myself
burning my throat
with coffee at 2am

An after midnight wolf
lives as a sheep by day,
amongst opposites
he sees through
sheep’s clothing
and moralizes through
insecurities,
though inaccurate,
accusations man
a marionette,

a wolf in sheep’s clothing
can manipulate but
is easy to forgive,
an after midnight wolf
can ruin his sheepskin,
and have follicles run dry,
alcohol and anger
and selfish malevolence
over compassion, thought and
apathetic benevolence,
the sun can divide strong from weak,
an after midnight wolf lashes
and drinks
and lashes,
regrets and lacks morals
yet lacks intent
only listens to his mind
and not his heart,
he sheers himself
with broken bottles
and it takes a while
to grow back

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

she is an asylum,
her walls drip blackness
writing every word
that neglected
to slip past her
teeth,
she sleeps on
****-stained spring
mattresses as the
clod tiles bite
at her heels,
hair and skin hide
beneath her fingernails
as palms are twinged,
the padded walls
whisper screams
of coercion; wrists
bound by silence and
tightened by insanity.
to bedposts
rusted,
her hands retired on
ridged thighs
hugging her
goosebumps with
convulsions of agitation.
her mind
scratches melodies of an
insomniac,
the flickering lights choke
her vision and blind her speech.
a room of contradictions
irregulating regularities
intoxicating sobriety
hallucinating reality,
the muffled screams
that weave through
the fibres of the
pillow clinched tightly
in her lap harmonize
algorithms that pull
each padded wall
towards her howling
being — centrefold the room,
as the walls hug her body
she awakes and paints
antonyms to
perpetual despondency

I sat watching 3 girls,
couldn’t be any older than 12,
wearing shorts cut by
expectations and
            taking pictures
with coffee cups and
wearing make up
stronger          than
perfume clouds
following like
hitchhikers
and
a slow car.
**** magazines          and enraptured
by the           irrelevant famous,
exposing the youth’s lack
of interest in literature,
callow   and murderous,
glasses filled and cocksure,
the world in front of them
and yet they’re taking
steps backwards

MJB

I read the dancing steam
above my coffee cup,
and I still drank it,
the wax hardened my tongue,
and my glands exploded,

maybe that’s the story you’ll tell
when they ask us how we met.

“why don’t you write a book?”

they’ll expect
a second

if consistency
and money
was consistant
see, I’d write a book

“you should write a book”

poetry is a dying art,
you’ll find a needle
every now and then
but the hay is bound
together with cellphones
and bongs
and unexpected
suicides

no one wants to hear
how sleep deprived you are
because your satin feels
like moth wings
and how your skin
feels like
a burning painting,
why cigarettes kiss
harder and how love
feels like the bottom
of a dinner plate

you’ll find compassion
and understanding
but finding a diamond in
the rough is
only valuable if
you can escape

the spider drops down as I lay in my bed
"just the person I needed to see," I said
"every night the ceiling stares back at my face
so my eyes wander to the edge."

"you're always in the corner consumed by your web,
and the same question always spins in my head:
what's it like living in the darkest corners of the room?"
and he said,
"the darkest corners of life only exist in your mind."

at 16 they taught u
s about shakespea
re, how? but now I
realize there was m
ore learned than bl
ank stares at teache
rs waiting for bells
to slide departures
under the doors of
blank minds. balco
ny preachings in fr
ont of loveless tang
ents foreshadowing
the curvature of the
then mindless. 5 ye
ars gone i still find m
yself wandering aim
lessly to the next cla
ss with the thought o
f the useless priors a
nd the books are get
ting heavier

Dear God, I’m an unbeliever,
if there was a higher power
i don’t think you’d let me leave her,
with the pain and despair I’m finding
you’d think the power you held would
allow you to come out from hiding
being the veil of what you claim to be
and the honesty extends beyond me
I’m not speaking with any selfishness
only with selflessness to guide me
away from your declarations of
mandations that mould foundations
for nations that struggle under your hand,
it’s all part of “God’s plan” only if
the blueprints call to stand and watch
everyone crumble beneath the cries
to higher powers while the darkness pours
and showers, soaking sanity and the ignorance
of humanity.

Dear God, I’m an unbeliever
I’m writing to an entity,
a supposed supreme deity
foreshadowing naive spontaneity
for those who have no one else,
I hate writing with the topic of self,
but the constant lack of health
brings not an illness
but a stillness in progress,
I’ll pick up the gun **** it,
I'll fill my body with pills
and begin to rock it,
and will there be a hand to halt?
nay, only a finger to point fault.
any god, any being wouldn’t let sadness
flow through a spineless body,
whether a monotheistic mantra
moralizes a mental mantle or
a polytheistic point towards a
pleasant prefixed phase of
past problems postpones
present’s purity,
I’m writing to a transparent
inexistent foster parent
letting me cross the road
without looking both ways,
so, dear god, if you see this
let me count my life in years, not days.

My moods change like seasons
and yet the weather stays the same,
it’s the middle of summer
and my boots are covered in snow,
I’ll wear toques at 30 degrees
and the chills dont
come from the breeze
but from kicking snow off
shoes on green grass
and realizing that nothing lasts
it just always melts,
worrying about tomorrow
makes yesterday the future,
so I never live in the past,
wearing a mask
so that the sun doesn’t burn
my skin, it just sits and sets alight
whats always been within,
the grass can grow under winter snow
but from what i know
theres no sun above,
so I ask myself why
I’m wearing this mask,
maybe the weather’s never changing
and I’m just looking in the mirror,
I’m not wearing a mask,
I’m just growing a beard,
the snow never comes
the green just disappears,
and what’s left
beneath my feet is standing
on ceramic egg shells
slicing my toes is starring into hell
and the only way I’ll stay
comforted with the weather
is standing still.

A broken man can break even more,
a piece of shattered glass
can always splinter
into smaller pieces;
they hurt more to step on,
rock bottom is only
a paradox,
I’ve never met an end
of hopelessness,
a blade of grass can only
sway until it’s been cut,
and I’m trimming myself,
I’ve been trimming myself
the entire time,
at once I thought life was being lifted,
nothing that’s held high stays high,
arm’s begin to tire,
I once viewed sunsets
and skylines as timelines
to progress,
I now only reminisce,
the repetition of worn
down faces and barren
chest spaces show me
that every mirror
is double sided,
and the reflection in which
I once confided
now spits in my face,
when I was young
I thought I could withstand
being a broken man,
I could never see the echo of
my eyes in the hourglass and
I was too young to young to understand
that it was a problem, but now
It’s tipped on it’s side and
I’m itching at the sand on my skin.

comfort was a long road that came to a dead
end abruptly. happiness and companionship
left suddenly with the clutch of solace. he
was left standing there in the rain, all senses
disdained. a seeing man now build to ease,
seeing the fellowship of someone that ties
knots in your throat; turns your obscurities
to seize.


                                  distraught



at this very moment the quest for clenches
to console surrounded him with the ignorance
his state of mind was unable to control.
seeking and searching began in the
bedsheets. he found loneliness and
regret; mistake after mistake, temporary impassion
chose what risks to take. drowning in seas of
duvets, suffocation on the stench of
frictioned flesh and smothered in the salinity
pasted on each others skin like the warpaint of
ephemeral happiness, he searched down an
unsearchable road and lost his direction in the
*******; forever ringing his ears with regret. each kiss
down his neck, each bite to his lip, each face-blanketing
exhale, he repents with the ignorance of finding the
will to live and love between the legs of someone who
feels the same way. the crimson crevices carved in his back
drip with remorse and sullen; hoping for once to life the
bedsheets and find an unawakened bundle of coiffure
and serenity and not calamities of regret and ****** suicide

it’s late
or early,
depends how you
look at it,
only my hands and
heart are cold,
smoke filled garage,
rusted tools
hang themselves
in front of me,
paintless brushes,
painted brushes and
baseless screwdrivers
ashy floors and drywall
painted with holes
from fists and hockey
pucks, church pews
of razor-slit,
spray painted
by angsty young
i sit upon,
unfinished projects
are suppose to sit on
the other side of
the workbench.

I wonder what type of whiskey
the man painting road lines
at 3am drinks,
am I stereotyping
or am I foreshadowing
my trip to the liquor store
in 10 years?

MJB

If you enjoy having every fibre of your consciousness picked apart by literary ***** at 2 am on a Wednesday,
Fall in love with a writer.

If you enjoy fighting over incorrect grammar usage,
Fall in love with a writer.

If you want to constantly have your eyes rolled at every time you question a metaphor,
Fall in love with a writer.

If you want to be swept off your feet and then promptly put back down in the same piece of writing,
Fall in love with a writer.

If you want to feel worried when the phone isn't answered,
Fall in love with a writer.

Mood swings and sleepless nights?
Fall in love with a writer.

If tangible expression conveys unequivocal compassion,
Most of the time, don't fall in love with a writer.

If you want misinterpret pieces of writing because of the uncertainty of the writers sanity,
Fall in love with one.

If you find that yesterday you were dating a completely different person, if you find that your skin is often referred to as porcelain cigarette ash, if your eyes are viewed like the the first time you saw two flies *******, if the lump in your throat lives on ballpoints, you've fell in love with a writer.

There's no turning
back at this point,
falling out of love
with a writer is like
saying goodbye to a
phone with no dial tone.

as the reflection of the trees roll off the
shined roof of the hearse I follow to the
cemetery, my mind becomes scattered
with the thoughts of our last moments.

a face so sodden,
her hand to mine, my body seized with
a contemptuous blanket of emotional
disdain. a person I loved, a person I
trusted, snatched out of my life as
fast as she changed it.
her barren body clinging on to life sent
chills up the very arms latching on
to the hospital bed, shaking, with
the thought of denial ruining every
hopeful aspect of my mind.
this
can’t
be
happening.
I stare at her urn, sitting atop her
now entirety; the quiet whispers of
the funeral priest echo about the
walls in my mind, everything is silent,
white noise consumes my thoughts,
I’m shutting down, the ringing in my
ears is slowly overtaking the cries
of the siblings, the mothers, the fathers,
the cousins, and all of the friends who’s lives she’s
truly impacted. my eyelids bare weight,
my sight is becoming dull, and the tears
are building up as the content sobs are
becoming more and more copious with
each sympathetic clutch on my shoulder.
I say my final goodbyes as we make our
way out. I whisper reverence
“I love you”
as a blind man
attempting to feel colours
i touch your urn,
that’s all I can
say for what you’ve done for me and how
you gave perspective to tunnelled vision.
the cars weep in unison departing the cemetery
with the trees spinning the roofs
after 11 shots of whiskey
and with that comes a habituated
sadness.

I slip into bed, knowing that 5 miles away
there will be an empty left bedside next to a
man whose life revolved around her, a lonely
man, a broken man. a pillow she laid her
head on not 24 hours prior, the scent of her
body; still embedded in the sheets he now
uses to wipe aside his tears,
statin sheets
enticing the walls
inward

why you?
why not me?
thoughts of abstract
painted to a pillow
eight hours i’ll lay my head stagnant;
sleep not
to the morrow i awake
and you nevermore

paradise may you rest

i'm drinking
out of
the bottle
on a tuesday
and i have
to ****
but i'm
glued to
this chair
and the keys
are glued
to my fingertips.
the room smells
like cheep wine
and fresh
duvets
i can't seem
to leave
but i always
find a way to