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?”

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”

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The aftermath of a finished
cigarette lingers in the air
and I pick at it like a
cobweb in the wind,
floating aimlessly
unable to grasp,
and I’ve never felt so weightless
                                                            MJB

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

I’m an ******* when I drink
and the manager of the only
bar in town found that out,
I never was keen of
social drinking anyways,
everyone thinks that
drinking alone is a problem,
I think alone,
and a thought process
like mine is a lot deadlier
than liquor when left in isolation,
prioritize your worries, friends.

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.

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.

Not sure if people keep
losing interest
or just lie to begin with,
it's hard hiding pain
with noisome eyes,
people will begin
to ask questions,
and I will begin
to answer,
after years of hiding
I find it harder and harder
to tint the truth,
wait..
theres a piece of me
that is starting to realize
that it's me,
maybe interest isn't being lost,
when I let you into my mind
it's as if you coexist with my
mental state and
with correspondence
comes the thought of
reciprocative standpoints,
my hands are calloused
from pushing;
making pulling
insurmountable,
It's my mind
painting caution lines,
all I'm asking for
is a rooftop view,
staring down
with a bird's eye
view on you and I,
I'm not ashamed
of pushing, cause it's led
me to today, but I'm afraid
of continuing, cause I don't
want tomorrow
to be like yesterday,
I'm content,
and my hands
are in my pockets.

I'm a mosquito trapped
in a clapping hand,
I know that I can be bothersome
but I'm just trying to survive.      
                                                          MJB

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

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

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

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

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”

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 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

the past isn’t something
to forget about,
she has blonde hair
she complains about it,
always putting it up or down,
she’s indecisive ,
her ex called her
things were
going great,
bringing up the past
like it was yesterday
or a month ago,
they kept to each other
but the tension screamed
and snapped progression,
we weren’t an accident
and this relationship flipped
faster than the gravel gave out
last October,
things moved fast
like last October,
we laid in inhaling
bedsheets,
I never realized
how much perfume
she put on until she left
me and the duvet finally
exhaled,
every time we ******
seemed like
we’ve been doing
it for much longer,
comfortability came with
the amount of time
the cigarettes couldn’t
stop talking and talking
until 8am,
my speech held
tandems with
trust the moment we
saw eye to eye,
retrospected reflections
given with every new kiss
dripped away from her lips
striking a match with new feelings
burning the useless old,
perpetuated post-mortem
glances to discussions of
mind depth lead to understanding,
giving swine wings
and through everything
we’ve gone through
in short time
she still has a
hard time figuring
to wear her hair
up or down.

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.

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

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.

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

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

inhabited within a society
by a government who lies to me,
to us, on the grounds of money;
earning and spending more than saved
to enrapture the self and capture the enslaved,
working class citizens
who worry more about paying rent
than being mentally content,
Monday to Friday, nine to five
a chance to earn, yet not to thrive
the worry placed on the gratified at ease,
posing no harm, smoking their own trees,
years in the cage for a simple possession of
a couple bags, subject to unlawful repression
yet barred for being a simplified state,
there’s lesser charges for amplified ****,
a higher power twisting by the fist,
grabbing a free nation and twisting by the wrist
there needs to be a change
within a democratic range
that allows us to be the free country
we announce in our anthem
but the government keeps gnawing
and biting the hand feeds them,
we’ll be ruled, and controlled
until a social monarchist
binds together to bindingly subsist
we the people need to speak up
and repress this social **** up;
the need to always rush,
the need to brush
aside repressions until
obsessions of contraries
conflict with progression,
living each day dead
with no room to grow and
yet the only gift we ever bestow
is sleeping and drifting away
in the unconscious
only to awake again,
a conjure suicide with
your company pen.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.