Every day I remind myself that I'm allowed to exist.

Stand tall.
             Slack jaw.
Never bow.
     The droning static;
Crackle. Moan.
                       Dawning breath
mattress pangs.
Bite the knot
      That fills the throat.
Woven light spills through
Silent faucets; loud water.
              But whistle
Whistle through the fissure
        Jam hands into brother's pockets
Packed and unresolved...
     Electric blanket statements;
Corded, wired, arms straight out
                                Defrost;
             Gray-water rumination.
Telephone cord promises.
False;
Dualities.
      Drop it all. Weep nothing.
Dripping insecurity.
Taut covers and bleached towels
Dishwater clouds. Rock words.
Fervent emanation.
         Delimiting;
Heterogeneous essences.
On the threshold.
      It's all in a name.
Designated.

Assimilate
Infiltrate
           Wash in, wash out. Loud, rocking, rattling the house to the core.
The foundation vibrates.
Wasting time.
Time;
      Time;
           Time;
               Time;
                     Time;
                           Time.
Lowest pair.
          Don't move.
Stop trying to get it right.
                        A light pink dress.
                  New moon
Wash the stones.


A funeral.
       Assume the role.  At Dad's request.
Black shirt, black pants, black shoes, sunset tie.
      Mohawk;
Blatantly disparate.

Get lost. She drives. Wander. Weaving past boarded up houses beyond the city's edge.
                      Anticipate;
       Mountain top dissonance.
               The son of wands.

Early morning oxytocin.
ice cream
in bed after ***
She says.
     Small hands.
         Only now.
            Don't rush.

Ephemeral. A divide in the
in-betweenness.
           A yellow couch.
    The multiverse;
        Another day.
Dark rolling rain.
Be fluid. Ebb and flow.
         If time stopped how would you know?

          ...
Never believe in absolutes.
          
        Waves of nausea collide with an empty stomach
                  Food is lifeless and banal
Hunger creeps in early
        long before daybreak.
            It passes in sleep.

   Spiraling ivy, paint flaked white porch. Wicker.
      Warm glass of milk
It's 8:00pm
thunderstorms.

Fall to sleep on the mattress that belonged to the first.


     Falter. Pinks, yellows and pale oranges,
                          streaks of lilac wisp into a spectrum of greens, yellows and blues.
    Extending from two.
      Atmospheric aura steam…frequency waves, flooding mediated spaces. A dream.
      
Back.

Follow the lights out of the city
North.
      Rubber on pavement
A low hum
       Back to the dog who loves you.  

Find the parts that feel like home
       Familiar roads in wavering memories
  
….
Walk away
           Leave in the dead of the
Night
        Mares
Empty groundings.
    Distorted connections. Star-crossed wires.

No chances.
          Run the course,
coursing through the day and night
after a few weeks or months

    All strangers lamenting.

Peel back
       Eyelids tightened

Affectionately embody
essences of your own sorrows.
  
       Reaching out, reaching in,
pulling out, putting in
      
Girly arms
man hands.
Small hands.
Small Mann hands.

At what speed would you have to travel to follow the sunset around the earth?
Watching an atmospheric color blaze wrapping its warm blanket arms around the globe infinitely
A spectrum of all the days endings
Pending
Spending
How long would you, could you follow it?
A day
A few days
A few weeks
A decade?
In the empty silent moments
Would you think of who to spend it with
That epic looping vibration of color
Dead-ending.
What would you give up to follow the sunset around the earth?
Who would you follow?

She puts the filter between her pointer and thumb and presses until it pops.
Draws in the smoke
Dark eyeliner and mascara bleed
The windshield is glazed from two packs a day
Menthols always sound fresh
It's deceptive
Iced caramel macchiato with a shot of espresso
Wake up wrap.
One cigarette there and two back.

I was always good at other people's routines.

Vulnerable, projecting our fears into the empty space between us. We stand. Assessing. Who will give, who will trust. The mug in my hand, a relic from a past heartbreak. Ginger tea, a more recently acquired obsession. Your blue eyes are crisp and sharp, I try not to make eye contact for too long, I fear you might turn and run. A delicate weaving of movement, careful conversation. We don’t know each other yet, we are still calculating, measuring each other's safeness. We are baby birds. Falling from a nest... waiting for our legs to break.

Wrestle for a moment
Hold your breath
Visit the new place
Okay
Yeah
We have to go back sometimes
Goo Goo Dolls hum verses
Slide
We look dead
Dead in the eyes,
long and strange
eye contact that perpetuates the quiver
I know life is in the pupils but the blacks seem grey and the lull of the lips is subtle
She hesitates
You can look at someone with such specificity that words are fragile and empty
Lean in
See the pain in the curve
A wanting
A numb quiet pulse
A rush of scent
It's burning
You're burning
She's a fire in your throat
A thirst
A few good days
A few
Is it real?
Is this real.
Warmth in the embrace
A breath on the neck
Plight of the song bird in the early morning light through a screen door
A storm memory
Rain on impulse
And she speaks
Smiles even
But trust is
fleeting, falling, failing, falsifying
Quiver
Rib cage shutters
Shut the door
Her voice is soft and delicate
Filled with syllables of fear
I am not a solution
Or the freedom
I am the heart
Complicated
And strange
Wild and filled with the wonder of heartache and pain
We wrestle
You wrestle
Gold
Hold
Hold your breath

Boredom
Spoonfuls
Spoon fools.
Night lights and empty sights
Street smells of green rains
Waning
Wallowing in apathy
Long stretches of long faces
Dark bars and long halls
Long hauls.
Casual interest.
Mismatched people all looking past each other.
I see it in the eyes
In the short movements
Light gestures
Softly saying I need something, anything
I guess you'll do. It's close enough.
In the mornings the edges don't quite line up.
A wandering mind is a mind seeking
Searching
Desperate
Disparate
Looking seeing
Disconnected connection
Bored choices.
A feigned interest.
Falling back in discontent
Good enough. But never enough.
Aimless
Depths of fears
Unresolved tears
Listless pursuits.
Wait.
Searching for
meaning, intention, inspiration, fulfillment, satisfaction, purpose
A moment of bliss --
A lasting impact.
Impacting
Impacted
Craters in the jaw.
Extra
Teeth spilling out
Vexed
On a moonlit road
Standing, head tilted back
Searching.

I want less hollow nights
And a loneliness that dissipates
I want the moon to shine from my chest
A glow that pulses with the rhythm of my heartbeat and accentuates the craters from every asteroid that'***** the surface.
I want stars in my eyes when I look at you.
I want love in my moon heart when I hug you ... hold you.  
I want time to be blissful and inaccurate. A mess of seconds, minutes and hours sped up and slowed down no longer indicating or defining any one experience.
And in the mess, I want to ponder that loss of structure with you.  
I want to feel whole and complete
In my brain and body
I want hope and unconditional respect for my genderless siblings and their conflicts.
I want patience for my own weaknesses
And forgiveness for my failures.
I want the strength to wake up
The courage to feed myself
And the confidence to keep moving
Living.
Reliving, reflecting
Prospecting, believing
Time ticks forward and backward, up and down.
I want calmness and leniency for my emotional process
Gentle touch from my friends and lovers
I want healing and self-love.
I want to sleep next to you
To learn to trust
To feel
To connect frayed threads from split ends of past wounds
Reconnecting emotions that only spark and never light
A gas stove that poisons the air awaiting ignition.
I've spent my spoons on people who have only learned to take.
I want to never forget how to give
Even to those who don't deserve it.
I want to forgive those who have hurt me and rejected me.
And I want to forgive myself for those I have hurt and rejected.
I want to find closure for pain that numbly aches in my cratered moon heart.
I want to make plans for the future
With hope in my mouth
As words tumble out
I want to see the sun rise and set in all its cliched glory.
I want to feel satisfied by simplicity
And welcome difficulty with determination emanating from my pores.
I want to be humbled by all the things I will never know and accepting of never knowing.
I want to sit with my sadness and console it with thoughtful kindness. I want to find the energy to walk through the fires of depression with strength and understanding.
I want to believe in my worth and that I am worthy.
I am worthy.
I want to surround myself with those who make me feel wanted and cared for.
Loved and understood.
I want to help others feel their worth and have patience with their process of understanding their own worth.
I want to be present for those I love.
And make sacrifices to maintain my own self-care.
I want to look at my craters
Truly see them
Even the deepest darkest ones
Accepting and acknowledging their presence and recognizing the change they have created in me, positively or negatively.
I want to breathe life into the air
And stay alive for another thirty years and another thirty after that.
I want to see the value in my life.
I want to live openly and thoughtfully.
Holding myself as well as others
Softly guiding ones who are lost through their sorrows
And accepting that some do not desire guidance nor are they in place to accept it.
I want to permeate positivity.
And not underestimate negativity.
I want to accept the light of the sun
Shining bright on my full moon heart
Bearing witness to all that there is and appreciating the wonder and beauty of the universe in all its vastness.

Moon writer
Moon rider
Window; windows
26 windows
26 widows
Blind
Bold
Boiled
Wandering in wonder
Wondering in wander
West
East
26 days
Wiser
Wizarding whistles
Melting hums
Sweltering breaths
Blustering bustling
Bridging
Hand in hand
Hand over hand
The 25th letter is 'Y'

Do you ever die in your dreams?
I’ve been ******* up bad
Lately
every move, every word
All running away
Gazelles sprinting
I look like a panther
But I’m a house cat
Lazily wandering
I find myself
spinning wheels
Pin wheels
in dreams
only to find
Faults
Falter.
Do you ever die in dreams?
Repetitively
Choose your own adventure
the end is always the same.

Walk home in the dark jam your hands in the pockets of the coat your brother gave you. Duck your head as the car drives past. Walk faster as the cold freezes your nose hair. Slip your key into the lock. Deeply breathe as she shouts. Pet the dog he loves you. Open the fridge find a beer. Hand her one. Breathe. Sigh. Calmly answer the machine gun questions each one a bullet waiting to penetrate. Drink another beer. Tell her you love her. Breathe. Pet the dog. Make yourself apologize. Pour yourself some cereal. Check the clock 1:42 am. Tell her your tired, there are no right answers. She won't let it go. She needs the control. Breathe, finish your cereal. Tell her you're going to bed. The mattress was your ex's. Wash your face, wash the pain out of your eyes. You asked for this. Hug her when she comes to you. Call the dog to bed. You're tired. There is no winner.

And I am not ungrateful
But what lingers
Quakes
A stutter deep in the core
A shake emanating
Under the sternum
A question quavers
It starts slow and easy
A low hum in the caverns
Maybe just a light echoing drop
It's meandering
But building, forming, structuring
Rumbling
Rearing
Blistering
A culminating crescendo,
Cresting, climaxing.
Bursting from the depths
Punch. Puncture. Punctuate.
Three letters no vowels.
—Why?

There's a black hole in my stomach
Twisting and churning

But never feed it.
It's like feeding demons

emptiness is swallowing
Wallowing
And echoes through vacant organs

Time: 4:58 pm
A few good days
A few

Once I dug your car out of three feet of snow
Three footed
Sure footed

I finally met Joe.
The music we fell in love to.
He was gentle and kind like the notes he twisted and the lyrics he spun.

It's amazing how complicated feeding yourself can be.

Elusive
Weakness or strength
Slipping or sliding

There's a black hole in my stomach.

Tight throated exposure
Up-ended in a freight train
Type cast in the waves of reality
We wonder
Wander

Don't move.
Utter the references we all know
Breath
Breathe
Nose up
And in the snow we all can find the feeling of being alive
Wipe the snot from you lip
Wire your jaw in tune
And spin the top til your brain can. Grasp all that the earth has to offer.
We wonder
We wander
You find me in dark sleepless nights that are seemingly endless.
But breathe.

Swallow.
Throats so tight that you could choke.
Under the light in car
On the dash
The blue
Shines.
Wander
What are you.
Do you even know.
No.

Concave
in the early morning
sun streaking rays
over
empty hearts
empty stomachs
empty bones
and I listen

lawn mower mumbles
motor groans
faint siren yelps

        what is fullness

a dog stretching long
yawn
withering
breaks and aches
brown sheets
black dog
purple walls

years have been spent
learning how to suffer gracefully
with cliched humor
bleeding sarcasm
and a mouth full of synthetic words

and we all suffer
distressed
I see anger bandaging wounds
sadness assessing damages
grief losing hope

        helplessly watching

ignore me
it's easy.

young hearts are reckless
a car crash
broken glass
glittering and stunning
can’t help but
reach out
and touch it
still startled when it cuts
blood bubbles to the surface
like hot springs

please unsubscribe
unfollow
hollow
how low

late nights
patterned sleeplessness
hot air
cold thoughts
sweat glistening

        Sleeplessness

train sounds off
quick secessions
and the breathing is off
Rhythm
I am a word that has no vowels
but a 'Y' is what it needs to be when it needs to be it.

        Stutter.

Fever drives burning rubber and sweating coolant. I never thought this would be me; Living like a willow weeping stalagmite that drips in a cave, gutted of its most precious treasures. Volcanic emissions eat their way up my esophagus, acid refluxing, reflecting the queasiness vigorously sloshing in my abdomen. A motel's vacancy sign glows behind the round masses that sit within the bony sockets of my skull. Void of thought and reason, the cavernous hole that appears to swallow, swallowing my words, swallowing my tongue, swallowing my teeth one by one; Chiclets, sliding down into molten rock. Crumbling pieces of hope plunge, deteriorating, integrating with the earth, six feet down, bodies buried in boxes, confining cells of solitary. Laid out like a game of memory, time passes, and no one remembers who lays where.