A sadness overcome by
A simple thought of a bright light.
The slight imagination of an illuminated orb
How much i’ve missed a smile.

A remembrance of what used to be clenches my muscles
until my heart commands my body to stop what I’m doing and breathe.
Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be dangerous.
Being alone with my thoughts on a good day can sometimes be worse than my thoughts when I’m sad.

Tears of joy turn to glass bullets as both are a beautiful thing but still painful,
the glass bullets shatter into my brain and cause my to spiral downwards,
into a locked vault of memories of gut laughter and family game night.
the light to the game closet has long since burnt out,
hasn’t been touched in years.

I remember a time when family game night was a chore for us,
now I would do anything to have that again.
the four of us laughing our ***** off until bedtime,
mom saying “Jon, let them stay up a little longer.”
It kills me now that we don’t have that.

I miss the times where we would pile in the car and go to my sister’s piano recitals.
I hated them when I was younger, I thought they were boring.
listening to a few kids pluck away on a grand piano for hours on end just wasn’t exciting.
But if you listen carefully,
you hear that now,
I am plucking away at a piano. Motivation from something that I dreaded.
I loved listening to her play,
my sister.
Absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant and bring like the light in the game closet but like I said all lights burn out and stop working but all you do is wish that you can flip the switch and the room illuminates with the sound of a perfectly performed tune.

After every time she finished a piece, I swear my dad would say,
“you know, you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.”
After a while, it got old. But ever since I haven’t heard it.
His mouth stay closed like the game closet door and his tongue stay dormant like the burnt out light in the closet

Is it true that the mercury in the light bulbs can burn skin?
Burnt out and never to work again but mercury can still burn through your palm and seep into your veins and make your blood cells dormant and burnt out.
Or possibly just your mind.

Pianos to burnt out light bulbs and tears to glass bullets,
an alliance is formed.
A piano extinguishes tears, but glass bullets shatter the bulb.

When I was a little kid,
I was afraid of Santa.
Of course I believed in him, what kid wouldn’t.
I guess I just thought it was creepy that some old man would break into my house
and leave me gifts underneath a tree.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the gifts.
I just always thought it was weird that Santa had the same handwriting as my mom...
Or we had the same wrapping paper as Santa...

Now that I am older,
I realize that Christmas isn’t always a good time.
Sure,
We get the chocolate and the food,
We get to see and talk to family we haven’t seen in ages,

But we’ve lost loved ones,
Families have been split,
Christmas just doesn’t have that same magic anymore,
or the feeling in your stomach when you wake up on christmas morning.
Pointing out gifts under the tree like constellations in the sky
The mystery in whats inside the paper baffles our small minds,
until the gift is in my hands,
The magic just isn’t there.

Frankly,
I would do anything to have that feeling I had on Christmas morning when I was younger.
Not a worry in the world.
All of the toys were awesome,
and I didn’t really have to get gifts for anyone else,
Of course I miss Christmas the way it used to be,
Except getting up at like 5am, I’m pretty sick of that.

Christmas with only two guys in the house is pretty interesting now.
Our nights are usually spent eating chicken wings and listening to loud Rock ‘n Roll,
But with how things are now without the magic,
I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I am sick of writing sad poems.
I want to write a happy poem.
My only problem is,
I don’t know how to.

I mean,
if I were funny it would be one thing,
but my humor consists of bad puns knock knock jokes.
Knock knocking on the inside of my brain wanting to push a smile onto your faces but the only look I get back is confusion because I can never seem to get my tongue to work in times of...
In times when a belly laugh would come from their abdomen and satisfy my hunger for becoming a comical genius.

Heres a joke for you.

Knock Knock.

“Who’s there?”

Orange

“Orange who?”

Knock knock.

“Who’s there?”

Orange

“Orange who?”



Orange you glad I didn’t finish my joke?
I keep my tongue dormant so the punchline doesn’t come out wrong,
to save myself from the embarrassment of being an idiot.
I’ll laugh it off,
but n my head I hear myself say.
“Max, what the hell was that?”
Listen, brain, I know I’m not funny,

I get my humor from either my dad or the internet,
and even then,
Tuna fish and pianos,
Oranges, apples, any kind of fruit really,
couldn’t even save me.

Three men walk into a bar.
I don’t know how they didn’t see it but that isn’t my problem,
my problem is that I am not funny, or a cool pal to hang out with.
In all honesty,
I’m pretty much a stick in the mud that wears hoodie sweatshirts every day.

So the next time I come knock knocking,
I advise you to shut the door.

The year is 2095.
Religion is black and gold.
Reciting prayers are now the only way you can sleep, and all the conversations you had with others that never involved moving your mouth,
and I believe people smoke cigarettes because there is a salvation in being able to stop parts of you from growing that do not know how to do anything else. It occurred to me that we make everything before we even see it, and that is how extensive beauty spreads, it exists without acknowledgement, yet it is always there.

I woke up without my senses, not knowing the flavor of the string which holds these
linnens afloat on the laundry
of life's backyard, but I know it was where it was supposed to be, as most things are.
I do not believe in phantoms but I believe that when asking questions, there is always a response.
The world answers you back every time, and although
I have yet to understand the dust found between its proverbs that
I assume was beaten out of old rugs and woven from cobwebs.
What else is there?
I am constantly torn between being lost and being alive and looking for the difference.
Constantly torn between loving where you live, and trying to become
I found so many ways to be, that I never spent the time looking for ways to understand.

When we were born, we were asleep.
We may have been ******, and wet, and afraid, but we were asleep.
So we were miracles.
We walked without sight and we learned how to touch each other.
Slowly, like olive oil pouring from an open wound.

And we opened our eyes.
We looked for something to pray to, we looked for something to turn carpetburn and ****** knees into
blessings, unaware that heaven is not so quick,
and demons are not so hesitant.
We built Summer with a love that could not last.
We grew shade, not emerging from us,
but shade from glass and brick and
the shade that was beside us did not seem so great.
And we gave names to bark, and water, and gravel, and seed, and grass, and it was good.
And a few years later we held out our hand and we touched flame, and we touched mineral, and we touched machine, and bullets, and even stars, until we became everything that we only knew from our skin and our vision and we became less than what we were supposed to be.
We rode the sun to our palaces.
We loved everything as if it was dark,
We loved everything the way you would love something that didn't want a reminder.
And we saw this as good.
And we wept for the things that are simple.
And we wept for the things that were not so simple until
our eyes became coasts and we did not stop weeping.
And then we learned to jump.