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.

I can’t tell if
it’s my mind or my
cigarette stained
t-shirts, both can
make a woman run,
the trail dust stirring
is starting to make my
skin burn, I’m starting
to learn that maybe
love isn’t for everyone,
it has an acquired taste,
sometimes it takes
a plague to kindle
a sense of realization
but I’ve solely realized
that one can only die
so many times before
love settles with the dust,
I thought only my lungs were
black but I guess when
you’re that close to the heart
the pain is bound to rub off,
my chest is wet eraser
scribbling over a dry pencil-written past,
falling in love seems to be a falsity,
everything ends,
lit like a small city
but you can see the smog
from a mile away,
stop coming to visit
you’re not welcome

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.

The fuse towards self destruction has finally been lit
it’s a slow burn to the moment to where i finally quit,
i’ve had everything I’ve ever wanted, yet not needed
I’ve sat listening to these demons whispering
as i pleaded for them to stop,
I’ve made a name for myself within this city
one that drips across my sanity and carves
paths for demons to tip toe to the back of my mind
and surface whenever i seem to find
a situation of serenity, or an instance robbing identity,
numbness has conquered inclination with help
from lacking reciprocation,
a scarred back easing into a bed
with dangling threads from a home knitted
form of stability, a bed that straps any form
of mobility, leaving a struggling being
beneath the shackles that confine
a mind that finds time to rewind to when
sleep was sheep counted and not a moment
where peace was surmounted by nihility,
where the only versatility comes within
which ways are easier to **** me.
each day awoken leaves the demons’
mutters unspoken
aesthetics show nothing but a painted
demeanour that dredges only when
the edges of the bed tremor as the
pillows inhale every scream and plea,

mornings are mournings for
how much I died the day before
and how each night brings
awakening as nothing to ever adore,
paralyzed limbs, everyday, find way
to slide off the mattress,
stand up feeling backless,
stare to my hands and see
shakes as the burden of
consciousness snakes its
way through aspirations
like rolling fog that weakens
foundations for social relations,

step out the door to broken
pavement, and whistling trees
that shower leaves to the dampened
green, bringing the melody of
tires to wet gravel
crushing the goal to unravel
this falsified disposition
writing todays edition of
“why the **** didn’t I stay in bed”

the sun goes down with the *****
so smooth to my throat keeping this body
staying afloat for one more night,
bottle after bottle, drink again and
feel this swaying ocean of liquor
rip an anesthetic of amnesia
knowing i can never please her,

the time has finally come where
i dip my hands into the keyboard
and plea for a release as my
eyes hide under a blanket
of stained glass masking
a pained past;
toxins flow slowly to my brain
through the uneasy flow of
each vain, poising every figment
of liver, as I ***** up every promise
I failed to deliver

a soft voice that can
sanitize a mind, and
that mirrors skin like linen,
hair flowing faster than
blood to her heart,
looking in her eyes
proves that cerulean skies
can walk on earth,
anxiety blurs the lines
of a perfectionist,
leaving reservations
in the minds of anyone
lucky enough to
grace tangibility and
her footsteps cohere,
with lips rarely touched
a godless man can feel them
in his fingertips when praying
to a god he doesn’t believe in.
      
                                       MJB

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.

every 1:27am
I come to my garage
and I sit with wine
and converse with
an out-of-place nightstand,
june bugs aimlessly run into
stacked boxes and
heartbroken drywall wink
at my knuckles,
only tangibility could express the
scattered personality of this garage
but somehow I feel at home,
unplugged freezers,
shop brooms drenched in sawdust,
broken hockey sticks,
half stained 2x4’s
clout my memories with
wanting to be young again,
shooting pucks with dad,
having laughs roll
off my tongue again,
sweeping grass off
the driveway, and watching
my sister fail at riding a bike,
now she’s going to university
and I’m sweeping up
cigarette butts in this garage,
I still see the skateboard
I broke my wrist on and I
have to work in the morning,
at 1:53 I’m rolling up news papers
and hitting curve balled
june bugs and I have
to cut this short cause
my girlfriend called and she needs
a ride home from the bar //


3:17

I respect therapists
like I respect anthropologists,
they dig and encounter an ampersand,
they can always inform beforehand
and foreshadow results,
but they found my bones
below 6 feet
and can’t form an answer,
they knew where to search
they found the ticking finger
pointing at lazy fissures,
and buried blisters
but dripping shovels
keep raising a faded flag
that says
“they’re nothing here keep moving”

anxiety is wet sand seeping
through a growing hole
in a sieve of positivity,
lasting like migrating birds
arriving to find snowfall,
a **** victim of hands bound
by unmet expectations
and spines realigning
to throats and throats
plugged with damp cement
and every time I speak
it dries a little bit more,
the english language is
written by children
and broken branches
carving into the back
of my throat with
no way out,
I’ve never viewed my
ribcage as prison bars
until now,
I’ve never been
locked out by my own walls
until now
and this sickness is breeding
vines all over any guard
I try to knock down, it’s not
contagious but it will wrap around
your heart like a drunk tattoo.

fixation forces your
nails to carve my back into
an abstract painting of
the way your breath
holds my face in it’s grasp,
the way your
legs tighten up as they
clash to mine.
your eyes tell stories
of how your
hair wrapped to my
fingertips pulls your head
back with eyes
blank, storylines
consisting of
the surfaced portions
screaming a crimson
cry to the hands that
caress your throat,
bearing the heat
of the constant
conflict between
your skin and mine.
whispered screams of
wanted foreshadowing
allows for bodies to
convulse at signs of
complete puncture,
vocal chords tear at
points of ******,
a sudden ******
shudder bringing vibrations
to the very being pushing
your walls
to a sexually climaxed halt.
teeth tear a chest to a skins
stretching point,
the blood
dripping down
forefront is
the morning dew
falling off an abandoned
bed frame,
tangible exhales
hit the walls,
the walls that house
the sweaty palms of
your hands as the consistent
tremors vibrate
the bed posts, expelling
tedious creeks.
waves of warmth
clash to the walls as
my fingernails
find a homaged
home amidst the
warmth of your arms
followed by nothing more
than a shared laugh and
sudden heavy breathing

I’ve quit smoking 6 times,
quit drinking 4,
the intervals are
sparse and unworthy,
I wear jeans with
dainty holes
from cigarette butts,
my breath wreaks
of a mixture,
and my cologne
surmounts the
insurmountable,
I’ll look skyward on
chilled nights
and try to decipher
between smoke and breath,
I’ll purposefully wear worn socks
to give the sought useless
a purpose,
I’ll run soapy loofas
over scabbed knuckles
for punishment and end up
enjoying the sting,
I’ll tie ties to tight
and my shoes to loose,
I’ll scrutinize grammar,
and misspell because
hypocrisy makes me *****,
I pick at calluses until they bleed
I’ll **** on ****** hangnails
cause I like the coppery taste,
I’ll never litter,
and I fight at bars,
I drink alone now,
but I’ve quit 4 times,
allow me to put into perspective
that quitting anything
has moved from an elective
to becoming eclectic,
and new habits,
for me, don’t replace
old ones but squeeze them in
to a car destined at a dead end,
but what doesn’t **** me now,
makes death so much sweeter
in the finale.

I'm tired of the past,
the decisions I made,
tenfold I've expressed
displeasure of every action,
but every fraction of pleading
is never enough to rid
minds of tattered bedsheets,
or the hues that make up
the painting I've been
trying to erase,
but these colours dont run,
and there's ink coloured umbrage
in these veins and it flows
at piqued destinations,
sitting behind eyes
that see to well,
today, I know will
eventually become the past,
but I've been trying to
drag the pigment
of yesterday into something
tomorrow won't look back on,
and tow a sodden eraser
over wet ink,
I can promise that
I've changed and
no where in the book
written by regret
does it say
that anyone will believe me,
and I'm beginning
to accept that,
everyday I have to stare
at intangible scars left
by blades tipped
with foretimes
and the ringing of
these wind chimes are becoming
white and I'm getting tired,
it's putting me to sleep
and I've given up on
counting sheep because
the breeze of attempting to
forget my past is soothing enough,
these colours dont run,
and I wonder if tomorrow
I'll wake up in colorant sheets.

Your eyes are different,
I’ve written about eyes
in the past,
I’ve been metaphorical but
not genuine,
I miss your eyes,
even when they’re staring at me,
they have this ambiguity,
they’re grey clouds,
sometimes they rain,
and they hide the sun,
I’ve never seen anything like it,
I know you’re broken,
theres secrets hiding
behind your teeth,
I know your eyes tell stories
I’ve tried to read,
but you keep forcing me
to bookmark,
every time,
from what i can remember,
when we kiss,
it’s like losing my virginity
for the last time,
everything is primitive;
a tangible omega, always,
I’d like to feel I’ve
been in love before,
but your eyes are different,
they write scriptures on napkins,
they burn so easily

I’m still in awe at* the fact
that I can stand straight,
I can’t tell if I’m mindless
or spineless, whenever I’m
asked to leave, I leave
I never slam the door,
when I’m asked to come back
I drop what I’m doing and knock,
the door isn’t always answered
and that’s what picks away
at my backbone,
I stay planted
on the same doormat I’ve
tainted with leaving footprints,
steadfast shinsplints are nails on
chalkboards,
I keep running,
but you know I’ll be back,
keep that doormat clean.

it’s hard to bring back
to life someone who’s
already a shadow suspended
by dust in sunlight.
a partially eaten heart
trailed by ******
bread crumbs with no
start in sight.
replications of
past complications
forge a plagiarized
grin notarized by a shaky
pen on abstract paper.
bringing back to life
sand-burnt knuckles
reflecting tremors
through coils in the bottle
seems anything but feasible,
recovery and relapse are
few and far between
with a fine line that
splits at the seam
without warning,
the ice meeting
the bottom of the glass
again is a slow
graze of fingernails
across chalkboards,
help seems out of reach
when the leather begins to
leech to your skin
with each question repeated
over and
over and ******* over,
perceptions of positivity
can only withhold the
constant of being
a placeholder in
the tangent of
consistencies,
but light has the ability to break
through windowsills
and curtains,
yes I speak from experience
because it’s the only thing
that wakes me up in the morning,
but as I become use to
walking dead
I found my light that
wakes me up
in the afternoon
and puts me to sleep
at night

sure,
i need to
stop drinking
and stop
smoking but
when bad habits
become consistencies
that let you
survive the nights,
the ability to
shake the
rusty smell off
the fibres on your
back become
a bookmark
that prevents you
from turning the page
in a fear driven
halt of wondering
what happens next,
the stench that
trails through  
teeth to nose
is a tail to
a comet that won’t
burn out,
the embers of each
cigarette that kiss my lip
burn out like previous
feelings towards past lovers,
I was in a state
of loving memory of
having love and memories
until a therapeutic graze
of absolution picked me up
and brushed the bruises off
the bottom of my feet
given by
stomping the ominous
solitary of rock bottom
so many ******* times,
I still drink
and I still smoke
but when a
tedious whisper
tells you to stop
hurting and stop
hating when hurt
and hate is all you’ve
felt for fortnights
exceeded
you can’t just pick
the scars off of your
skin and liver
and walk past mirrors
without urges of
cardinal knuckles
and tremors coexisting,
i wish to stop
like you tell me to,
i wish washing my clothes
would dredge the stench
of yesterday clean,
but maybe the toxicity
of the past is stained on
my skin and
not my clothes.

my second personality,
he loves you
and i hate myself but
he loves you,
he told me the other day
where to find you and
I didn’t want to look
my eyes were burning,
but his throat was too,

I feel bad for him sometimes,
he doesn’t think very clearly
but he knows how to write,
very well actually,
we have similarities,
we’re liars,
our brains are the same,
kind of,
we wear the same clothes
for the most part,
he takes them off
easier though,
he likes to yell
and get angry
at nothing,
he hits things
and i wake up with the scars,
he’s selfish, he doesn’t
believe in karma,
he has no conscience,
he sits outside
and watches his breath solidify
and doesn’t feel the weather,
he likes to bury memories
and then sleeps with shovels,
i shower every day,
he doesn’t,
i can feel him coming,
i have to go,
i’m getting scared.

She ran red lipstick over
her fingertips before she
ripped out my heart
to give it colour,
she put it back, mind you,
I can't say she broke it,
I can't even say she ripped it out,
it was involuntary,
I gave it to her,
and the thought of
rejection made me
take it back,
an unfinished
cigarette put back in the pack
when lit later, nothing tastes the same,
bitter almost,
she set fire to it
and ran from the smoke,
she came back once it all settled,
and all that's left is ash,
I'm always caught saying
"Sorry this my last one"
but I'd let her smoke me empty,
my heart is still red and the lipstick
has worn,
and that's what made me realize
she's the one

I finally realized that
when I grip a rose
the thorns are in my hands,
and the pedals don't wither on their own,
I promise breathing soil and
give pale pavement,
few grow through the cracks
but don’t survive too long,
some call it urbanizing,
but I prefer perpetual,
they feel heartbeats in the soil
and I’ve buried myself
in continuities,
and a stagnant earth
gives birth to a dormant death,
some call it wilting,
but I prefer realization,
no one compliments
the garbage in a
wind coughed garden
but everyone steps over
a cement rose,
I’m still here
so the dirt is still beating
and I promise to keep
the trash off the sidewalk

I’d love to find myself a suit,
drive 12 minutes and
sit on a barstool that won’t
stop screaming,
be able to smoke
inside again,
**** in *******
stained toilets,
push on locked
stalls and trip over
high heels that reach
out from under like
ashes ready to be flicked,
have makeshift conversations
with a 62 year old
old bartender who throws
an ashtray and a glass
of jack on the bar
at 9:12pm every day and
spurns at irregulars,
harlequin nods
at pseudos and
tire at denials,
pay a $13 cab-fare
and let him keep a 20
for listening to me *****
about how I should be able to
smoke inside the cab,
find myself questioning
every single piece I’ve ever
written while spinning
beneath my sheets,
wake to work
and work to 5,
I dont yearn for much
just a kiss for when
I leave and one when I come
home, if she's still up.

well, i’m sitting here drunk again, alone
i remember when i was younger
i spewed evident disgust for those
who resorted to the bottle
as a release from their problems,
yet now I’m at the marrow of
the little boy’s vision,
another sip tightens the grip
of the bottle
or the glass
depending on whether or not
i want whiskey or beer
it’s usually both
I had such high hopes for my future
now my hopes are devoted
to wondering if i have enough
money for the next bottle
or case
             it’s usually both

         (II)

i don’t even have
any social networking
site to sift through,
the internet is down
maybe thats a good thing,
but lack of mental occupation
clutches my impotence towards
thinking good thoughts
or not even thinking at all

theres music playing and a drink beside me
i don’t even need to write that theres
a drink beside me anymore, its usually a
given now

i’ve finally altered the
definition of “achieved”
from optimistic to pessimistic
in the sense that i have
attained the task
of proving every simplistic
childhood aspiration wrong,

a 10 year old boy, looking at himself
now would only surface denial or disgust

                it’s usually both.

It’s a normal night
a little bit of ***** and
the sky has something
in it’s teeth,
I can’t pick at it
all i can do is look
as it smiles down at me,
the chill peeking into my skin
as everything around me
seems so content,
raspy footsteps around
a frozen yard trickle
down my earlobes,
moonlit cigarette smoke
dancing like scissors
across my upper lip,
the sound of nothing
but tearing paper
kindling before my eyes,
distant cars
singing roadside echo’s
charing my ears
like burning flower pedals,
and all that crosses my mind
is the how unfathomable
the beauty of nighttime is,
I find myself daydreaming
when the sun sets
and sleep walking
when it rolls over,
the emptiness of
eventide is a glass
half empty being
topped off half full,
repressing every
ominous feeling of
daytime, but the
one thing that
will subside not
is the ubiquitous
thought of you.

your name
tattooed on
the inside of
my chest and
every time my
heart beats
it reminds me
of you

I’ve been scolded at before
while smoking in front of public places,
but today she
stared at me with a
cold look and bitterness,
were you sent
to school smelling like
the couch cushions and bedsheets
and your mothers hair?
was it the ash trays beside dinner plates
and squinted grins through dancing fog
watching television with your ears?
no silence came only burning lungs
and showers, breathing with your eyes?
I’m sorry, I tried blowing smoke
the other way.

Not sure if overreacting is a
sign of weakness or passion,
I lash out over little things
and shorten breaths over things
that live for little in my mind,
the violent expirations of chest
and mind saw the door frame
a little bigger every time,
regret comes after,
I’d call it short term memory loss,
with every responsibility I’ve taken,
steps back; I’ve taken two
the ratio is uncanny,
I’m starting to believe that
instead of the urge to change
I have the desire to
desire change,
the steps that follow
are getting deeper
and situations are
becoming shallow
yet my reactions
stay the same,
I’ve wished
and promised reversal,
the pills and reclined leather
really does nothing,
I’ll swim in my vices and
the unfortunate thing
is that I know how to swim.

It’s odd sitting here with the
consistency of the toxicity
flowing through my veins,
the consecutive order is
fuelling the regularity to my brain,
every negative thought weaved
through sobriety surfaced through
every lie t

subsiding repetition
seemed inconceivable
and to reside at the
brink of light was all but
but achievable,
and to rebuild you must first
fall apart but to find peace
with mind you must
first with heart                    MJB

we drank and
she said i
smelled
like cigarettes
I never rubbed
her feet
but i knew
they were cold,
she was high
in heels
she left
and i
felt the
breeze
paint the
walls when
the door
slammed
i watched
her walk
to the street
her hair
was like
stripped ribbon
it was late
and i was tired
and i woke
to a nasty
message
on the machine
but made
breakfast like
any other day

I've tabbed
Hello Poetry
and PornHub,
and I'm here
writing this,
I need a bit
of foreplay

I’m sorry for wearing your
shoulders down,
for wearing a rusted crown this entire time,
for disguising this threadbare throne,
I promise I’ll make every
burden of yours my own,
I’ve said you’ve ran from me
and I’ve held it against you,
there's no haste,
I understand
I've seen it second to you
and thirdhand,
and instead of servitude
I see aptitude,
you will escape,
sometime's instead of
pulling through the vice grips
you have to spin the other way,
I understand

theres nothing vein
in putting your pain before,
you’ve stopped running
yet when trouble tramples
as hard as it has,
the footprints are in cement,

it's easy turning a blind eye
to a mirror when the reflection
is a projection seen before,
I'll stay tight in vice
and keep my laces loose.

don’t let your
lipstick wear,
if it feels the urge to,
put some more on,
if you can’t find the
stick in your purse,
just try and get through
the night, the morning
will be kind,
i promise it’s not
a waste of time,
don’t let your
shirt drip,
don’t let your
buttons wave
beneath your waist,
choose a pair that
fits tighter around
the hips,
tomorrow will be kind,
use your eyes to talk
use your eyes to deny,
use your words with me,
tell me where your
lipstick is hiding.

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

I’m not a liar
but I lie to myself,
I’m not a sociopath but
I dream of killing people,
and I know that
I’m a person at heart,
I sleep on pillows made
of memories and
listen to my own screams
and take them in as whispers,
I sleep on mattresses of
dad’s smiles and yesterday,
self identified as ignorant
and educated in night,
the sun went down
on me once and
I never came.

I miss the confusion
of who had
cigarette breath
when we kissed,
or who’s pack was who’s,
but what I miss the most
is the thought of
killing myself with
the one I love.
                                 MJB

life is more than
eating, drinking,
*******, thinking
about regret, and neglect,
finding new ways to
keep the sadness
you curse every night
in your writing
to stick around,
holding addictions
to things you know
you shouldn’t,
watching ****
and thinking that
your *** life is less
than ropes and
fishnets,
eating food and
smoking things
you know
you shouldn’t,
saying things to loved
ones you know you
wouldn’t if you were sober,
and dwelling
and never forgetting
and never forgiving
life is realization, resilience,
and repeating mistakes,
hating yourself and loving
yourself and enduring pain
embracing serenity and reading
in-between the lines,
being able to clean
***** mirrors,
seeing reflections
in coffee, and being able
to finish it,
having ephemeral
epiphanies and going back
on your word to quit
smoking, quit drinking
and eating terrible,
being able to laugh
and cry and punch drywall
in the same day ,
life is realism,
not some realm
of imaginable
perfection, you’re going
to fill a glass with constant
**** ups, just keep finishing it
and filling it with a
manifestation of manipulation
that you have no problem
seeing past,

be an oxymoron

adolescent women
below adulthood,
high in heels,
and validating
worth by regret
and planting
seeds in beds
of alcohol,
pulling over
sheets of hair
in dorm room cemeteries,
seeking acceptance
in snowless Januaries,
because the
beginning is
supposed to be
this cold

It’s sometime past midnight
on a wednesday,
stumbling around the
house once again,
where floorboards
cry out and I resent
every thing I said
and held back,
every cigarette
that whispered
until my lungs
turned black,
shards of beer
labels collide
with dust piles,
ashes skidded
aimlessly on
the pine,
hopelessly wandering
looking into
hindsight
was only
a mess to
clean up,
I haven’t eaten today
but the dishes are *****,
it’s 11:30
and I’m glued
to the bedsheets
as the bed weeps
with each toss and turn
comes contemplation
to cross and burn every
memory embedded,
the bedroom smells
like cloudy ashtrays
and things unfinished,
our paths crossed
in october,
and yesterday was
tough on everyone.

The result of my previous work
you’ve read is not something
that has just flowed down a
current of creativity, dont be fooled,
the amount of wasted words wilted,
stuck to wine stained cedar desks and
lost in distraction of cigarette smoke
and the blood of a workdays fist,
the open windows
on a computer of
unfinished work
is only proof that I can see
a reflection in the screen
when it’s turned on too,
the lament of the mouse
and “don’t save” turns the clicking
into grinding teeth,
oh, yes..
sometimes I can write a piece in minutes,
but other times, I’m either rekindling a
relationship of drywall and knuckle,
pouring drinks,
lighting cigarettes,
answering phone
calls, coughing through
fields of wet cement
in my throat,
or staring at the paper as
a mirror in a casket,
when I sit down and write
with cigarettes and drinks
the outside world doesn’t exist
but at the same time
reality has never
existed as much as it has
at that moment.

ask a stranger if they’ve wanted to die,
and if they answer no, they’re lying,
the inevitability of death has many
turning blind eyes to dying
or the thought of such circumstance
is a circus dance on a tightrope
with living in sights ahead
and death below,
it has people trying to balance in place,
rather than walking forward,
and a visually manifested
tunnel vision view on life
is hard to come by
unless you’ve come to terms
that when you die
there’s going to be a bit of happiness,
the tamed lions you know
are bound to turn on you,
and the trapeze is bound to fray
like the limbless man
who will eventually
wobble away,
and the only thing left
is a ring of fire and
the crowd is gone,
and falling off the rope is
almost inevitable.

I've kept pillows in my window
for years and I've never
bought curtains,
the sun always peels open
holes between cushions
and I've never done anything about it,
I've put almost transparent pillows,
thinly stitched, the sun still makes
it through, and I've never bought curtains,
I'll wake up in the morning from
ray nudged eyelids but the
room's still dark and I've never
done anything about it.

She saw through
my        pseudo smiles
and
empty eyes and
        gave me
iris’ of blossom
and perpetuity
if she had       kaleidoscope lenses
she’d still see
me
clearly,
she’ll always
be my median of
perceptive mires
or
thoughtless meadows,
if a diamond in the rough
sleeps on spikemoss,
is it
still worth something?
                                              MJB

I wish you loved me how
you loved him,
you speak with
reverence to memory
and not of present,
emotions run not
through your veins;
with me it seems,
I haven't shed tear
10 years yet
the lack of
sentiment lies
within you,
i feel achieved
when i hear an
“i love you”,
I’m listening through
static; thinking I hear
clearly but being drowned
out by what’s louder,
your touch is deafening
to clarity, and I don’t know
if they felt this way too,
reaching out to transparency
never seemed so tangible,
and being grazed by
fingertips of yesterday never
felt so confusing,
your emotion seems
only soluble through
my tears, and my tears
only seem to fall
with your emotion
I wish you loved me
like you loved him.

broken homes
are broken bones,
no christmas trees
and more ashtrays
than dinner plates,
hand prints
tattooing arms,
hugging stair cases
over beer cases,
no shoe laces
and cut soles,
lingering souls
of would could have
been without neglect,
vines entwine her neck
and the kids tease her
for smelling like cigarettes
and her shirts are stained,
she sleeps on a mattress
only a mattress no frame
of mind will remove
these memories
from the twenty five year old
****** you are now,
her parents OD’d when
she was thirteen,
her child has a beautiful name
and beautiful eyes,
and before mom dies,
I hope she she gets
the right frame to sleep on.

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

we built a house with our bare hands
and you moved out,
then back in and it’s haunted now,
I know you have a hard time sleeping
but I’ve memorized every floorboard
that creaks and it sings me to sleep
every time you try and leave,
I get confused whether it’s the lullaby
of coming or leaving that knocks me out,
this house began to burn and I sat for months
putting it out while you stood
there with cold feet,
and now you’re warm and I’m
stuck peeling the ash off of my skin,
the grass is still green and the
picket fence is freshly painted
but I used the wrong colour,
the door bell is a muttering of
apologies and the doormat is a mirror,
the bed we slept in
hasn’t been made since you left,
I’m stuck sleeping with ghosts
and brushing my teeth beside
no one to tell me that I haven’t
been brushing for long enough,
I’m showering in hot water in the middle
of summer because the steam
pulls the mirror off the wall,
and all I want is for you to come back,
our house is ***** and the callouses on
my hands are starting to become smooth,
my skin is almost clear again,
please come back.

mossy rocks and harbours /
freshly cut grass and ant hills in the cracks of pavement /
the way my mom dressed in the 90's /
the taste of whiskey and the smell of wet wood /
a couple on a beach and a low tide /
spilling beer on clean satin /
of breakups, suicide, and cheap wine /
running from problems, never escaping and muddy shoes /
chai tea and petrichor /
a room, an open window and oversized white curtains and a breeze /
escaping writers block and tears, smiles, blood, and 100 poems /
drinking alone, a bar and a book, small talk, and silence /
searching and finding, lion's teeth and yellow-stained skin /

a broken vessel
and bailing water is drowning
out the ability to drift back to shore,
it’s always calm before the storm
but when a breeze disappears
the chance of moving anywhere
flies away like the seagulls
laughing in cocksure,
the water seems so thick
like drifting in ink that draws out
abstracts of stagnancies
and ever time I row,
the boat rhymes in harmony
with the singing current
and cisterns will begin to cry,
I can’t travel alone and
I don’t know how to swim
but at least the sand below
will be softer than rock bottom

                                       MJB

Child covered in
animated **** brought
up by the creators tongue,
buried down through growth
by hands that feed,
her self confidence
is a rose under
suffocating weeds,
crawling their way
up her arms,
misfortune is a
pernicious gift;
not being able to
choose family,
she’s owned at
seventeen,
striving for an
evergreen family tree,
but stuck under a willow,
with only a pillow
to gather rain,
her clean water
only comes from the pain
that the wind brings in,
blowing palms painting
imperfect skin,
she’s a tangible truth
but a verbal fiction,
telling stories of what
she wished happened,
but for now
she’s a
product of
forenoon resentment,
with endless time spent
under the willow tree
watching the leaves
trickle their way through
the sands of time,
until she turns eighteen,
counting sheep,
and at only seventeen
she's too sore to sleep

the entrance to my mind
portrays an appealing demeanour,
but with a glance at the contents,
portrays an intervenor
towards the progression
of anything consolingly
appeasing

          or so I think

I keep pushing and
pushing until mist to dry,
a view to my loneliness
through a myopic lens
depicts nothing but self
at the following end,
a nearsighted perspective
allowing self-consciousness
to transcend into an abyssal
crevice leaving nothing but
self-blame scattered about
the exiting footprints

retrospect; permitting
history to foreshadow the
ending of every attempt
to let someone in,
I allow the spark to
grow to a flame,
putting it out in
attempt to prevent
and circumvent the
burning of the
one not to blame

the cancer in my
veins ignite with
every attempt to fight
for instances where i'm
not to blame
for instances where the
outcome is sane,
a love born a king and
deceased a slave,
a love resurrected,
mirroring death the same

the entrance is an inhaled cigarette,
that with intent of positivism,
paints the walls, dripping with benzine
illustrating their egress as
an opposing objective to
the goal in attaining peace
by companionship