endings are weird.
you cannot practice an
ending,
and you cannot
anticipate a beginning.

endings are bitter,
because you don't want
to look for that silver
lining everyone is trying
to point you towards.
you want to sit in your
**** and be mad and sad
at bitter endings
and nonessential
beginnings.

why can't good things just stay.

why are endings so
dismal and heartbreaking.

why is it so hard to let go.

why do we lament over conclusions,
more than we rejoice the birth
of new eras,
of fresh starts.

why is it that nothing gold can stay.

you know that kind of
sad where you feel
like you're
sinking,
drowning,
dropping down
to the bottom of
an empty
ocean.

that all encompassing
feeling of hopelessness
that swallows you
and makes you feel hollow
and forgotten and
unloved.

whiskey is my boyfriend.
he's never clingy,
never demanding,
never threatening.
he keeps me warm at night,
and throws my problems
in a little locket i keep around
my neck.
"let the morning deal with those,"
he says,
and i never object.
why would i?
whiskey and i have been
friends for years,
but i never knew how much
i needed him until the courts stepped into
my life and stuck a **** cup under my ******* ******
with a small time bomb that
has lasted a year but
feels like a millenium.
nine more days and i think
i'll tell whiskey we need a break,
just some space.
nine more days until i can
reunite with mary and molly and all
those delicious bitter pills that my nostrils
have missed so much.
i'll always love whiskey,
and i know he'll always love me,
that's why he won't be mad
when we part.
he'll just wait for me,
he always has,
and i imagine he always
will.

i stopped by a party in 1991,
just to see what there was to see.
i told my friends i must
be getting home soon,
because it was late and i was
drunk and i was tired.
"we're just stopping by,"
they told me.
"we'll be here for 5 minutes,"
it was a new years eve party,
the date was January 1st,
1991.
i had too much fun at this party,
everyone did.
all my friends were there,
and some strangers too.
everyone seemed to be
having the time of their lives.
i was enjoying myself so thoroughly
that i lost
track of time.
lost touch with
reality.
when i left the bottles
and pipes and rolled up
dollar bills to find the bathroom,
i asked a passerby what time
it was,
they told me,
it's 2:32 p.m.
August 7th,
2013.

i'm slowly digesting
the reality of you.

i still think of you
when i'm drunk.
i still stare at your number
in my phone,
my heart trying to convince
my brain to dial,
but my brain always winning,
reminding the heart
of how that number has
hurt you and hit
you and made you ashamed
to be who you are.

today i'm not ashamed
and i'm not afraid
and i'm not angry,
not unforgiving
not naive
not sad.
not even a little
bit.
not even at all.

your face floats around my mind,
day in and day out.
like lingering cigarette smoke in a room
with no doors or windows.
i want to ask you how much you're paying
for that space in my head,
but i now you wouldn't understand the joke,
and i'd never hear the punchline.
i'd only feel the the blow of your words as they knock me
flat on my ***,
just like they always do,
just like you always do.
there's something about you i'm so insatiably drawn to,
and maybe it's the fact that i can't have you,
or perhaps it's because i can't remember what i see in you,
and i want to find out what it was.
you smoke pills like it's your job, you drink like a fish,
and you're hardly interested in me.
only when you're totally wasted do you want me;
and not one second sooner.
****, this poem is ****.
It's just word *****.
I don't even know how to say what i feel about you.

how do you explain
that feeling that only
another human being
can give you.

that inconceivable,
intoxicating, volatile
feeling that some people
refer to as love but
that word doesn't accurately
depict just how
that unseen entity can
make you the happiest
and most miserable person
in the world all at one
time.

no word or any number
of words could spell out just
exactly how this feeling works,
but here's something i can tell you,
that loves is like a flame,
and once someone ignites
that feeling,
it spreads like wild fire
and it won't stop until
it consumes its host entirely.

Who are you, again?
I saw you once when I was drunk,
Who are you, again?

I'm drunk again, just
Like I was when we met.
Who are you, again?

I want to meet you when I'm
Sober, but I know that wont happen.
Who are you, again?

I miss you, just like
All the girls miss you.
But it's a little different this time,
Because we both know who we are.

You're a player,
I'm a player,
We're both taken by other
People,
But we will always hold
Each other,
Even when our special halves
Leave,
We'll always be there
For each other.

Who are you, again?

i can no longer wait.

i have stood in the cold
for a year,
waiting for your promises
to show up.
I thought they would come
******* in beautiful ribbons
and bows, but they
never showed.
"They'll be here," you promised.
"Any day now.."
but we're out of time,
my dear.
I can no longer wait
for the love you promised to give me.
Not for love that speaks,
but never acts.
Not for love that stirs and yawns,
but never stands and soars.
I can no longer wait.
Not for someone who hands me
an empty promise everyday
as he walks through the door,
promising the love will
surely be there tomorrow.

when i saw you,
lying there,
in that black box,
where you would sleep forever,
i though you were asleep,
but i knew better.

people came,
people cried,
people smiled,
but only for a while.

and when everyone left,
even me,
i still felt like i never really
said good bye.

mom says i'll join you
soon,
if i don't change my ways,
i say i'm too smart to lie
in some big box forever.

although sometimes i long
to lie in some big box forever,
maybe the trees and flowers would
have time for me,
if i could sleep forever.

it's such
a terrific secret,
come a little closer
and i might just
out line it for you

we were sitting in our place, in the place that we silently claimed as ours. the joint is dim, and we always order the same thing. we go here when one of us is going on a trip, or if it's the weekend and we want to go somewhere familiar but never boring. we go here when we're sad or happy. to celebrate or to console each other. we've been going here for as long as we've know each other, but tonight is different. i'm not very hungry and neither are you. small rain cloud hangs over our booth. the music is playing louder than usual and it's some stupid love song that makes me choked up, but i swallow it. and then when we're leaving, we both sigh, not knowing when we'll return here, to our favorite spot, because i'm going to california and you're going to college in northern minnesota, and by the time i return, you will be in college. and i'll be in this town we grew up in, missing you. and i suppose it's fair. because i left you and went to rehab for three cold long months and you had to wait here, in this ******* town. and now i have to wait, in this town i refer to as home, but it won't feel the least bit like home when you're gone.

and then i ******* cried.

she pulled my arm across
the center console,
examining it.
trying to find an entrance
to that beautiful unseen interstate
of veins that ran through my body.

about five seconds after the last
drop hit my veins,
my head was spinning.
my whole body in ecstasy.

"this is what we came for,"
I said.
"this is what we pay for."

i think of you at night.
when the world gets quiet,
my thoughts get loud.

you occupy my mind.
i drown in memories of you
every ******* night.

the way you smell,
the way you taste,
the way you feel.

you're what i think about when i'm trying to sleep,
why i can't sleep,
why i never
sleep.

i came home,
drunk,
per usual.

what else is there
to do,
in this forsaken world.

i tried to wake you,
but your body refused to be
disturbed.
i understood.

so now i'm awake,
drunk,
lonely,
and sad,
trying to figure out,
why i'm blessed with you,
when i don't even deserve you.

you keep repeating that
simple but ominous phrase.
           get out
                get out
                     get out.

           get out of this town,
           out of this state,
           out of this life.
she wishes i could transfer
planets,
universes, if at all possible.

           drop everything and
           go before you can't leave.
she meant before i was too
strung out to function,
but would never say it.

she offered me a ticket out,
one that never expires,
to go to any college in any
state to get any degree and
i wouldn't have to pay a cent.

but i have to quit drugs.

who the **** am i anymore?

i heard once,
that when you give
your heart away to
someone, but
they don't want it,
you can never get
it back.

do you ever look around
and realize it's all over.
it's all gone.
there's nothing here
anymore.

nothing in this town
is keeping me here
because you're gone and
it's so cold here and
nothing sparkles
like it did when you
were with me.

you've gone away
without me.
i never asked you to
stay, and you never asked
me to wait, so i'm
going to leave too.

i can't stay here.
i've seen what happens
to people when they do.

i hate how you
do this
i hate how i
allow your constant
walking in and out
of my life
and whenever you get
around to
apologizing to me for
breaking my heart again,
which you will
undoubtly do,
i just forgive you
like i can't imagine
ever not accepting an
apology i no longer need
to hear but you still
say it so you can feel better
but it doesn't make me
feel better
because you talk
better but you
don't act better

sometimes i swear i don't even
******* exist.
to anyone.

my life is one big joke,
and sometimes i think i'm
the only one
laughing.

people frown at my life,
say they fell bad,
say they wish they could
help,
but i don't know why.

humans take life so seriously,
but i don't know why.
i think this life is all one big dream,
one big lie,
one big movie,
and all the people i know
are the actors.

none of this is real
to me.
my life is one big joke,
i laugh so hard i almost choke,
when i think of my life.