Chances seem high that I sink so low tomorrow— where
do I return the belongings of my skin, stitched too tight
with sin? And is there a good intention I can borrow?

To call love a bullseye, but it's just something darting past
me; for a lap dog on the leash of longing can’t run free—it
only circles the grass. As I fuel my odds at a gas station lot;
feathers searching for a birdie; practicing my golf swing,
hoping for a hole in one— or just putting one in a hole.

"Find a stable life," they say, but the horse track is empty,
where hooves never sound, and only echoes of betting slips.
Online, some search for a type, the screen listening to the
type of fingers. But knowing is never seeing, and belief
needs more than a glow of pixels.

"Good grief"— so cried the one who buried their beliefs,
but they still dug the dirt back smooth, as if planting a
seed for tomorrow. Till we're gone, we'll always have
tomorrow.

Right here: surface level regrets— a smile rehearsed hides too many
oceans underneath. To lose the mark of a purpose, drowning in
the weight of it, falling asleep too far from tomorrow, and begging
the clock for hours to borrow.

I was almost crushed, a branch torn from its root— still green,
still alive, but already withering in the dirt. Among circles of people,
most days stack like square bricks; I fly too low, chasing reflections,
the heron staring back from water’s despair.

Fresh lipstick still stings— beauty sharpened into a lethal injection.
Kindness can be your only mistake, forcing a straight smile onto a
crooked day. Faith rubs raw against friction; love can be a salvation,
but fatal is it's attraction.

But to stay still, makes a silhouette pinned to the wall, lonely but
lovely in outline— as the shadows above become surface level
regrets. But tomorrow, I’ll trace the same lines again, hoping each
cycle might end better than the last.

I whisper my struggle against rage, a vulture perched, refusing to
budge, circling the leftovers of life. My tears — a mirror, awkward
disguises, suggesting more than I admit. What is a man in his own
fantasies, if even there he dreams himself as someone less?

Knowing a circle of friends blooms misshapen, my circle is more
like a triangle —each angle pointing out each other, each edge
sharp to sharper your edge. I am obtuse among the acute, aware
of my struggles with precision; people measure me from distance.

Still, their echoes and hues pull words out of me, inspiration sparked
by friction. But I’m just this jar chasing lightning, as if it ever strikes
twice; each dream I hold flickers fragile in my hands; the texture of
a dream is lucid, slipping through like current.

The recipe of life: tears, sweat, regrets, a hint of success for taste.
And the chef? Shadows us like a grand tree on the hillside, quietly
stirring the ***, watching, seasoning my days with the abrupt nature
of time.

If I could move past the point of *******— my bull horns
are beaten down by life’s whip. Feeling ready to blow
my brain, an itchy finger on the trigger, searching for
life's plus centre: a positive man stuck in the middle; senses
sharp, but it sounds insensitive to an eager mind; all
of our dreams have been suffocated by the placenta.

I think I can be honest about the work of others, but
speaking that truth loudly — for some— sounds like
we don’t really love each other. Chained only by deeper
ambition; passion weighs heavy when it isn’t complete.
Here’s a writer’s petition: loving poetry— an appeal to
careless ambitions over being Christian.

Pride mirrors itself— words reflecting the world’s
weakness, ugly earnestness to be outstanding; going
out to make something of yourself as an artist surely
disappoints a family. Gain success through your own
struggle, heavy prayers; "I guess we’ll all be wealthy."

It all depends upon: the task of multitasking most
of your dreams— to exactitude; the power of words,
poetic charge, poetic energy. But know this—the
lightbulb to your dreams is what will turn them on.

All those wanting pieces of your spark—
you’ll lose track of where they all came from.

Before the profit of the prophet,
He tried to fit into a prophecy,
Living like furniture wrapped in plastic,
Always waiting, never too honest.

As a kid, barefoot on the stone,
Toes split rocks he called his own.
Didn’t matter, he never kept score,
Tears skipped like pebbles, lost on the shore.

Teenage nights taught him to choke,
Lungs full of secrets, lungs full of smoke.
Coughs hidden deep in a pedestrian bush,
Dreams of riches, but so broke on a hush.

Exhaust from his mouth, he claimed the street,
Pretending that silence was something complete.
But silence was clothing, handed down rough,
Trauma sewn tightly, never enough.

Now he walks past mannequins, frozen in glass,
Faces like lessons too heavy to pass.
Breathing was something he learned to fake—
Lungs filled with pressure he couldn’t escape.

So he asks in the dark, was he living at all?
Or just holding the smoke longer than them all.

My words morph out of place— would you
still entertain the thought of me in the end?

Every star rules its own space,
but the circumstance of a cosmos knots me up,
its circumference bending beyond my grasp.

A smile cracks the mirror—
I cut myself and I bleed from the shards.
Alone in my room, my sighs are heavy
as a tomb buried under the world.

It’s cold, too cold, and I’ve waited for
the heroic ******, that movie moment
where the hero rises—but I’ve climbed my max.

My throat feels split by an axe.
It’s all out of my hands; I tried to leave
it in God’s hands, but faith feels like
hand-me-downs— worn thin, never quite mine.
I light another cigarette, to drag time along with me.

I am not a sad song, just a tune people sing
along to, a chorus written in tears.
Tear me apart, piece me back like armies
lined up only to be shot down.

And when I fall again, I look up,
choking on the silence, and ask,
"Is this really the life I was promised by God?"
But then again, I did this all to myself!

In the breath of time, I gasped a second of a dream –
to clock it all in a single second; to live off seconds,
to starve on scraps, constantly second-guessing
myself. It feels like going back, stepping into my
past – a time traveller, as much, wandering the
ruins of yesterday.

Give me a second to catch my breath; here in this
second stanza; I wear each stanza like armour–
armour stitched from broken words, to fight for
peace in armour, to piece together what’s left of
honour. Where hell meant to crush my thoughts,
I cover my head with a helmet, shielding my
mind from the fire.

And if they break my bones – I’ll pick a bone with
the breaking, laughing in the face of the fracture,
gnawing on the marrow of pain until it tastes like
defiance. Every scar another tick of the clock; every
second I stand, I steal back from the seconds that
tried to finish me.

Call me a time traveller, for I’ve learned to turn
broken seconds into futures