(I)

the strength is weary
when you see an old photograph
standing next to mom, dad, and sister
with nothing but a smile
and a tommy shirt
they’re both smiling
kneeled down to our level
dad never screamed
she’s just a baby,
no cuts
just a child
cheeks outward nose as soft
as the ice cream that
falls down it
and I
untainted mind
no anger, knuckles unpainted,
dad’s eyes squinted with a smile
he held no disappointment
in any expression

we’re still a family
but with more screaming
and no tommy shirts anymore

(II)

I saw another picture,
in a theme park I rode
down a log ride with my dad
he had a beige wind jacket
and brown shades
I was wearing a red jacket
and a smile
I remember that day actually
the wind felt chilly on my head
I remember cause mom just shaved it,
I cut my bangs off,
another happy day in remembrance,
we ate ice cream and had lunch
at a dairy queen,
we were in new jersey
the picture
again
brings homage to the good times we had
had
he still has those sunglasses actually,
the log ride couldn’t even get him
to take them off,
now the only shades
he wears
is disappointment

I’ve been addicted to many things,
some things better than the others,
and I have yet to categorize her,
when she left me,
I started withdrawing
the moment she stopped calling
my name to hurry up
with the sliced hot dogs,
the moment the complaints
about her tea being to cold
left the mould her voice
built inside my head,
a mould filled with
unfinished memories
cut short by good intentions
and being cracked by
tensions of mental state,
being happy on my own
was the reason and the
latter concluded at treason,
a nicotine addiction
to her; fiction,
i share both
with hope of only
shaking one,
each cigarette
I smoke I know
kills me,
every kiss,
every chai tea
double double bought
is a gunshot not
to my lungs
but only
a feeling
that comes
and never leaves,
but my addiction
everyday seems to
categorize itself
the more my heart
ends up fitting
the mould

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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’ll never let it show,
but this pain still grows
I’ll keep on wearing this mask
at least in place of a rope
until I’ve gained the strength
to stand on broken bones
because I know that someday,
life again will grow

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.

She's claims
she's homeless
and heartless
and lives
under a roof
and her chest
still sings

some of us
think differently

the things that last
never happen overnight
but tonight seems
to last too long,
this feeling hasn’t left
me since you did,
a gut full of
“what if’s”
consume my
mind into
“why the **** didn’t I’s”
maybe there is someone
better off for you ,
someone who
has his **** together,
who’s ambition
isn’t a closet of
empty hangers,
darkness doesn’t
resolve on it’s own,
this stomach ache
of over-smoked
cigarettes and regret
lingers upon hacks
and coughs,
the smoke consumes my
lungs, reaching from the
ground up,
a house beneath ashes
isn’t rebuilt by the owner
alone.

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.

Hurt people and feel bad about it
keep hurting people and keep
feeling bad about it,
get hurt and
don’t be resilient,
wallow

make beer your
only companion,
**** a lot,
play the piano
on your thighs
when you’re stressed,
tap your feet,
it’s going to sound terrible
and that’s okay,
you’ll get used to it,
tremors will send
pain to your veins
like broken tea bags

don’t sleep,
eat terribly,
put turkey on
bread and keep
the skin on,
have a beer with
every meal
have whiskey with
every meal,
it doesn’t matter

hurt and feel bad,
know you’ll keep hurting
and keep *******
keep drinking,
read your mistakes
bookmark them,
you’ll keep coming back,

smoke cigarettes and
don't cry,  
fear death only when
you're dead,
and have a thin wallet,
there’s no such thing
as a rich poet,
cause we’re all
broken in some way.

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.

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

I’m starting to come to terms
with hate and insanity,
I drove to her house at 4am
because she wasn’t answering her texts,
and I called her 30 times cause I thought
she got into a car accident,
I hit a skunk just
after leaving my house at 4am
and I never smelt anything,
I’ve been sitting on her shoulders for
as long as we’ve known each other,
and all I’ve become is heavy dust,
I have good intentions,
but they’re transparent,
my heart is consistent
but translucent,
a transient feeling of
reciprocated compassion
sparks immeasurable
inconsistencies in
sane behaviour,
but I have good intentions,
and every day we sit in a vessel
with no holes and I try to patch
them because I feel like I’m drowning,
and eventually she’ll want to swim,
she turns turns amnesia into a theory,
she’s a mirror and I’m seeing
an evolutionary reverse,
before I see clearly
I'll have to wipe the fingerprints.

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 haven’t been
drinking much lately,
I haven’t wrote
anything in a while,
and I always knew
putting the two
hand in hand was never fine,
a healthy vice is trapped
by an unhealthy outlet,
and the curious kid looking
for a spark
had dried his fork,
I do miss the teeth sinking
into my throat
having the pain
run to my hands,
I miss waking up
with cinderblocks
glued to my scalp,
the nightstand used to eat
up the empty bottles
and the stomach pains are
now keeping me up at night,
I remember whiskey stained
chest hair and biting at hangnails,
****** fingers and the
taste was fuel,
I remember writing
and waking up
and erasing
and waking up,
what is a poet?
I’m going to have
a drink and this was
written sober.

I create my own jealousy,
       and load my own gun,
I make my own bed,
       I never shoot
and
      I never sleep,
I’m a stagnancy
of
imperfections,

the cement is dry now,
I’m sorry,
but you can't leave

I want to meet myself,
as if I’ve never tried to
understand my self,
run into him at a party,
drunk, at 3am hearing what
he's ****** up, and how
misses youth
and hates cancer
and himself,
I want to watch him
writing at coffee shops
and contemplate saying
hello because he looks like
he wants to die,
I want to bump into him
on the subway and apologize,
I want to pick apart his mind,
stand awkwardly beside him
at a crosswalk,
listen to his cross-talk
and how he refuses to capitalize
god’s name when he writes about him,
watch as he writes this piece
and tries to understand why
he wants to understand himself so badly that he wants to  
stand at his own funeral, being his own shoulder,
wishing he could slide out of his own shoes

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

1st to 2nd
      sliding
      the saltshaker
      to mom,
      the clutch
      with short breaths
      as RPM’s
      rise through my
      chest,
breath
2nd to 3rd
      tremors grab
      the wheel
      as the tires
      rapidly success
      left to right,
breath
3rd to 4th
      gravel brushed
      tread serenades,
      foot to floor
      spins the handle
      punching heart
      to surface air,
breath
4th to 5th
      a deafening
      flatline
      dwindles will,
      fog rolls thicker,
      headlights are
      painting my vision
      dimmer with each roll,
      i follow a finger
      pulling me in.
breath
5th to stop**
      face kissed windshield
      wrapped around
      nature, glass
      falling from the
      salt shaker,
      crimson
      roadkill glistening
      in accidental 4-ways.

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.

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

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 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.

i should really
quit smoking you,
i’m ignorant
no more,
ashtray’s
fill faster
than my lungs,
quietly whispering
tip toes provoke
the screams of
hardwood
every night
at around 1 o’clock,
making way
to attempt quiet
openings of
neglecting doors,
sitting amidst the
tranquility as
the ******
fissure eats
the dancing smoke
while she
paints abstracts
on teeth
tongue
lungs
heart
and the
cognitive inability
to separate
index from middle
comes not from
ignorance
but from how
she holds me
tighter than anyone,
touches my lips
more compliantly  
than any woman,
she will never leave me
even as i take her
top off and
share breaths,
her touch is
recognizable
most nocturnally,
i know the damage
she does to me
she’ll cut my life in half,
she’s the only thing
i will let in that will
**** me,
she moulds
leisure and pleasure
as if i wear them on
my back,
her body is
pale as my fingers
drip down
and feel
as i exhume
her insides
intertwining
with mine,
listening to your
cries as i inhale
provokes me to
do so more
and more
and more
until i leave you
for the night,

i should
indeed quit
smoking cigarettes
as well

I have to
hide
my drinking
from her
and I
love that,
thank god
for autocorrect.

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.

she told me that I need
to get some sleep,
she has a child
and works ‘till 12am
most weeknights,
then spends time
with me, until
the bags beneath
her eyes become
enough to
outweigh the need
to be WITH me,
she lays tired
but sleeps awake
until she heres “mommy”
then naps
until 1pm,
and I just get up
hungover,
it may be the
need for common-law
thats making me doubt.

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

It is as it is,
and was ere,
again I’m paired to
restroom pantile,
resilient sickness
can redefine docile
to nothing northerly,
o'er the day is
only forgery
to an nightly
mainstay,
this white flag
has been waving
to porcelain for
oft fortnights
shining footlights
on an innocent reflection,
allay this suffocation,
let me breathe again,
foremost is always
surviving tomorrow,
though I'm a swain to
the ***** of today.

I listened as a mouse struggled
to escape a half empty frozen coffee cup,
it took a while for me to understand
where the rustling was coming from,
I stared down the open lid
and saw glossy eyes
squinting up as me, as if I was the sun,
and my first instinct was to bring him outside,
I poured him on the frozen ground
and noticed as his legs were chilled, dead.
I placed him back in the cup,
put the lid on,
and breathed into the lid
giving him all the warmth
I could give,
his chest moving like
metronome trying to break
though his skin,
I could hear the ticking of his
heartbeat like a broken clock,
there was no chance,
his eyes opened and
stayed shut longer,
his legs stayed dead,
so I put the coffee cup
on the frozen grass,
closed my eyes
and stomped
like it was a cockroach,
I sparked a cigarette.

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

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

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

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

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'm staring through cigarette smoke,
having a drink of *** and pepsi (I ran out of coke)
listening to an 8 minute Periphery song
an in-depth conversation,
the ticking of typing
patio lights
and staring
into nothing
in between stanzas
I'm humming alone,
and tapping my feet,
It's 1:09am
and I work at 6am,
morning fatigue
can get on it's knees.

she told me that I need
to get some sleep,
she has a child
and works ‘till 12am
most weeknights,
then spends time
with me, until
the bags beneath
her eyes become
enough to
outweigh the need
to be WITH me,
she lays tired
but sleeps awake
until she heres “mommy”
then naps
until 1pm,
and I just get up
hungover,
it may be the
need for common-law
thats making me doubt.

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.

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