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

if you put me in a cage
would I be a rat or a petition?

would you sign it or
watch until the screams you
can’t listen to
my cries for help
me save me and
give me the key
to life is fighting
through the
bars and pubs
are nothing but a vice
grip tied tight to the
bricks that can’t wipe
the cement from it’s eyes
tell the stories that eat
at chipped away skin
covered in spiders
digging to the core
of the earth is wrapped in
expectations and relation
ships sailing with no sail
manless and handless
mannequins reaching out for
help confined by my vein
minds and empty hearts
are suppose to carry love,
at least that’s the perception
that I cant pull to conception
built on deception with exception of  
reception’s inception,
a look inside my mind
your own ******* business.

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

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

but, I wake up to reality
sea sick            
                                                MJB

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

                     -

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

i’m followed by a shadow
figure within the dark
of who i use to be
and am today,
reflecting in mirrors
are strangers with
crooked teeth,
late at night he
whispers memories
of a twisted body
beneath frayed rope
or sometimes
holds pictures of
walls painted with
repulsive remedies
delivered
by a bullet,
he showers skull
fragments of
D and T
i always try and shake
them off of me
i can’t, it’s tearing holes
in my skin
i try to pick
them off, i ******* can’t,
he never lets me forget,
i’m trying to sleep,
he finds loopholes
in releases and
picks at calloused
hands watching
the dead skin rain
and dampen
rotting fresh,
he’s in my dreams,
he sends faceless
apparitions
applauding something
i’ve done
or haven’t done
i don’t know
he shakes babies
and laughs
waking me in
cold sweats
he tells me to forget how
to breath,
your lungs are useless
your lungs are useless
your lungs are useless

good morning

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still live with my parents
and at 2am I walk around
the house with ***
stained boxers and drink
caffeinated drinks,
when I drink, I drink,
when I run out of money
I drink my parents *****,
I smoke and my dad
******* hates it,
I can barely afford it,
I work 3 times a week if I’m lucky,
and buy clothes I dont need,
and food I shouldn’t eat,
I ***** about religion
on social networking
sites, and I dropped out
of going to university,
I want to be a writer,
I still live at home with
my parents,
are the two synonymous?
my sister is 17,
18 in December,
and she’s going to school
for the love of GOD
stick with it
dont be like your brother,
I know I have a kind heart
and cry when my tire eats roadkill
but compassion doesn’t pay the bills,
I can sit here and personify my life
as dragging a worn sock full of pebbles
down the street and giving a sock to myself
as a gift for someone who wanted pebbles

but I’m not,
factuality’s sanded down
into some form of actualities  
that resemble anthology,
I am by no means dumb,
my comprehensive abilities
are above average, I know I could
have gone through school
with ease, for christ’s sake
I was taking english literature,
I sure use a lot of religious expletives
for a sickened nihilist,
regardless of the fact,
my boxers are dry now.

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

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

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.

I told her she reminds me
of a bird chirping at 1am
and she never asked why,
strange yet beautiful,
inconsistant and seldom,
appreciative upon scarcity,
a hedonist of silence
has never found serenity
in the blurred lines of infinity,
but the confidence of
clamour will fade
with every night a chirp
goes unheard,
the consistency
of inconstancy is the hand
that feeds and the
bite that bleeds.              MJB

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

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

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

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

everyone owns
that t-shirt with
a worn hole
that they
neglect to throw out,
you are that t-shirt,
and though
torn and threadbare
a distant dead stare
will bury deeper
and purpose will grow

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

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

                                               and avoid

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Thus far I’ve lived a
pretty care-free life,
disregarding consequences
like a bee sting,
I want you to watch
my footsteps,
look at the direction
they went, don’t see if your
foot fits, it’s not a hard
path to mould,
I see potential,
you make 20/20
unequivocal,
transpicuous youth
floats over my skin
like it was yesterday,
your eyes tell stories of
pain, it scares me to
even see a diminutive
of myself in you,
you absorb like
cigarette smoke hugging
couch cushions,
and exhale burdens
to your skin,
you define rarity
your clarity will come soon,
don’t give up,
your road is endless,
dont veer,
in your horizon
the sun never sets unless
you pull it down
and you’ve been in
the dark for so long,
you live and love with
the lights off,
you can’t see the tread
that I’ve learned to
dread with your head in
the sand, open your
blinds and let the sun
trickle in and heal your scars,
it’s waiting for you,
the mirror you look in
is distorted on your
own grounds,
I look in the same
mirror every time
I open up photo albums
looking at your ice cream
stained blouses smiling
with mom,
you might not know
but I look at those
pictures more than
you think,
your millstone eyes
showed as life
grew gray hair,
your despair isn’t
tattooed, but my past is,
look at my footfall
and read my eyes,
my cumbersome  
direction is a
tough pill to swallow
and where I am
theres no water
to wash it down.

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 /

years of negativity
like seeing your
reflection on the other
side of the glass barrier,
I never looked both ways
when crossing the road
because of years
of being blind
to anything that
came close,
waking up
felt like finding
a new strand of
cancer somewhere
every day,
I heard nothing but
voices, I knew I
was hurting myself
but I never stopped to
look both ways,
I realized it wasn’t
just me that I was
impaling with sadness,
sometimes darkness
shines light on life
more than light itself
ever will,
at the bottom of
every bottle my heart
would sit and drown until
I ended up swallowing it
back into my chest,
slowly the whisky
is veering from
being stained red,
every mirror
reflects more than just
a face,
it shows a past
so dark the
background
is the focus,
instead of looking
at the rocks beneath
my feet crumbling
I’ve been taking steps back,
hands like blenders
left on too long
are reaching towards
pulling the plug,
looking both ways
has always been
a problem for me,
but I  finally
caught a glimpse
at what happens
to the left and realized
that change is right.

past relationships
like useless barnboard,
scabs of shaved wood pasted
over each other only to
sit beneath abstracted
paintings of ****-less
cupboards collecting
dented ***** of dripping
varnish cans and
cigarette ashes,
still has a use, though.
I always ***** my hand
on it.

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.

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

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

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

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

paradise may you rest

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

she told me to write about
the happiest I’ve ever felt;
the happiest moment in my entire life,
and there is never such a circumstance
in it’s singularity that can be defined,
but in a string of circumstances
a definite divinity can be seen
through the cracks;
sobriety, the comfort of sobriety
makes me feel not quite as content
as the comfort of intoxication,
but the fact I can find refuge
in both is enough to make me,
the way the legs of my bedside table
are cut uneven and the way it
dances when I write,
the knuckle of my *******
kissing a hot coffee cup
in weariness, it makes me,
clichés and the cologne of
grass after rain
petrichor and nasal stained
memories make me,
smokers coughs and phlegmy
clearings, mental crosswalks
with hands and I still walk
with my mouth,
that makes me,
the sky,
and the ground,
mailboxes with the flag down,
telephone poles with expired
promotion posters,
faux homelessness
in small towns,
leaves changing,
trees dying and
coming back to life,
how the wind feeds
conservation,
weeds growing in pavement,
dandelion stains on new jeans
or new jeans staining dandelions,
snowfall,
struggling to pick eggshells out of
yolk bowls,
*** and cigarettes and they dont
go well together
for me at least,
abandoned barns,
barns in use,
the sound of tires on
gravel driveways,
the strength
or lack there of
to smoke when I’m sick,
it makes me,
the look of others when
I allow my dog to kiss my mouth,
the top fret of a guitar,
it’s low and reminds me of
a child’s cough,
wearing my fathers
stained white tee’s
under 80 dollar plaid sweaters,
it makes me happy,
all of this and more make me happy,
but I still can’t touch mirrors
and listen to the way I breathe before bed,
and thats why I sleep with a fan on.

“why don’t you write a book?”

they’ll expect
a second

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

“you should write a book”

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

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

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

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

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

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


                                  distraught



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

It seems like just yesterday we
were twisting our bodies beneath
the symphony of the moonlight,
singing songs of everlasting
love with no sight of ending.
From the beginning I knew
there would be some halt
of companionship as a result
of a stagnant feeling that I was enough
for how perfect you are.
Theres nothing left of my pride
only the need to subside
from every burden i cause.
Every day I woke up and
rolled over to you
laying there with serenity  
thoughts collapses to emotion
knowing you thought you
were losing me, when
the state of my health
screamed out to me
assuring me I was losing myself.
So an awaited day finally came
where I let you go only to know
that you couldn’t live without me.
Seeing your distress left me
more of a mess than what I was before,
the only hope left within was the feeling
that you’d finally cope with me leaving
and find another soul that wouldn’t
constantly leave a hole
in your heart every time my insecurities
would start.
Mistake after mistake fuelled by
instances I knew i couldn’t take.
As you left after I did,
I knew I couldn’t rid
myself from the way I felt
but the reassurance that
you’d be looked at one day
by eyes that held no despise for
their self.
I now bask in the toxins
in order to mediate my conscience
to be sane,
accompanied by pills the rip the morals
from my brain.
Cigarette's packs are emptying faster than
the bottle, pills to make me happy I swallow
and pills that numb, pull me closer to the edge
as I use my thumb to pop the lid, to push my
consumption of poison to dredge every sense of life
from this already lifeless body.
Step out of your once loved mindset towards
my dredged excuse for a being
and open your expectations to those that
exceed what you once held for me,
there’s a room full of people right for you;
quit pounding on the door,
I’m not on the other side.