I’m gonna be gone for four weeks. Well not exactly four but that doesn’t really matter. Four weeks to make new friends. Four weeks to try new things. Four weeks in somewhere new doing something new. Four weeks I don’t get to use you. No Sticky Bumps. No *** Wax. No new stickers. No waking up early just because I want to go out with you. I think I’ll name you Aaron. Not perfect but you’re pretty close. Close enough to love. Every nose dive. Every bail. I’ll come back. But it’ll be four weeks. I might miss you the most. Probably not but I might. Four weeks. Then I get to go back out in the surf. Three hundred dollars. On a surf board that I didn’t know how to use. Four weeks before I get to make that count.

Blood is like gasoline
In more ways than one.
Both keep us going
One for us and one for transport.
But there’s another.
Have you ever walked in
And gotten the smell of gas?
There’s two ways it happens.
Too much and it smells bad.
Wrong even.
But just enough
And it smells amazing.
It’s the same with blood.
Too much
And it’s all you can taste.
Flooding, obstructing
Overwhelming.
But just enough
And it tastes delicious.
But only when it’s just enough.

I don’t know anyone
Who doesn’t have one.
A lot of people
Have too many.
But behind each one
Is a story.
If you have a scar,
I’d love to hear that story.

I don’t know if that’s right.
Harsh; insensitive; hardened.
But that isn’t the whole story.

I wonder if hollow is better.
Not really.
Because I’m not really empty.
There’s still a constant pain.

Hurt doesn’t work either.
There’s nothing wrong with me.
At least that people can see.
And I’m not hurt.
I’m just hurting.

But I don’t think it’s depression.
Depression is sadness.
Not hardening and hurting.
It might be empty.

So what am I?
Does such a word exist?

Maybe it’s lost.

A while back
I posted a dream.
A car accident.
Today
I almost surprised myself.
I didn’t get in one.

The whole **** world
Decided to be against me.
Just me.
Just for a couple hours.
You know what?
That *****.
Especially when you struggle
When the world isn’t against you.

But I’m not dead.
Yet.
I don’t know
If that’s good or bad.

But I know I’m worse.

Maybe I’m a decent person.
Maybe I have a good chance.
Maybe I can be something.

I never really tried to be.
Decency was expected
But I never did more than necessary.
So why now?
What changed?

Why do I care?
I think I can do this.
What if I can’t?
What if I’m not what she thinks?
I make everything up as I go.
When does that stop working?

Maybe I can do it.
Maybe it won’t stop working.

But I can’t count on it.
So what do I do?
I don’t know.
I think I need help.

Maybe I don’t.
Maybe I’ll figure it out.

I need to stop.
Stop thinking.
Stop worrying.
Stop being paranoid.
Stop working myself up.
Stop myself.

I can’t do everything.
Something has to fall through.
I just hope
It isn’t me.

But I can’t stop.
Because to stop
I have to stop being me.
And I only know one way to do that.
Stop my heart.

I reached out.
I took a massive leap.
It might have paid off.
I’m not sure yet.
I asked a girl
Who I met a year ago
For less than an hour
If she remembered me.
And she did.
Me.
The ghost.
The psychopath of an absence.
Somehow, memorable.

I’m the guy
Who actively avoids people.
I’ll talk to them
But always at arms length
Or farther.
I’m the forgettable guy
Who sits back
And stays so quiet that I’m forgotten.
And that’s it.
And yet somehow, memorable.

I forget people
And they forget me.
I stay in the shadows.
I hate the spotlight.
I’ll even skip my bow.
But she remembered.
I don’t know how or why.
But there it was. Me -
Somehow, memorable.

Each and every single day
A thousand broken hearts are made.

The little girl lives down the street,
Who used to run and play all day,
Now sits alone and drops her eyes
These weeks of late with mother gone.

The little boy who isn’t sure
But asked a boy if they could date.
And now instead of saying no
The other boys tell him he’s ****.

The mother holding infant child,
Her milk gone sour before the meal
Because she lost her other child
And cries through both her eyes and teats.

The father sitting home alone
Who blames himself for everything.
Not just his wife, who’ll soon be ex,
But children both who left for mom.

A thousand broken hearts each day
A thousand different faults that break.
Along the faultlines, far away,
And even in the in between,
A thousand broken hearts are made.
A thousand lives forever changed.