If you find yourself
On that great adventure,
But not the one you planned,
I’m talking about the one
Where you felt scared
And confused,
And your mind
Was anything but domesticated.
The adventure where you wandered
So far from the front steps
And you were laying
In a field
Of black dandelions.
Black dandelions
That our foolish mathematics
Couldn’t describe in any equation.
Black dandelions
That you desperately tried to dissect.
And you pulled every pedal off them,
One at a time,
In the hopes
You could hear their song
If they were naked.
It makes no sense now.
But maybe it will later.
You picked every pedal.
What a grandiose accomplishment.
You’ll love the trophy for 3 days.
And then you’ll go back to the office
For the millionth Monday in a row.
We only hurt
Because we have no idea
How hilarious we are.
There was nothing left to do
but walk back up
The front steps
Into a house
Made entirely from glass.
It’s partially cloudy today.
This sun is more stubborn than I am.
I’m truly impressed,
And nothing these days impresses me.
It’s so **** stubborn.
I love that.
I bet a black dandelion could grow
In the living room.
There’s a small but real chance
I could follow suite.

Make no mistake
I’m not writing this for you.
I’d much prefer
If this poem
Never existed to you.
Make no mistake,
I’m just as vain
As every other poet.
Make no mistake,
I choose this
Out of desperation
Because much of life
Is choosing the option
That hurts less
Than the alternative.
I’d feel better if I had no name.
No check list.
No moving finish line.
No intangible ridiculous
Trophy we all
Seem to let dictate our lives.
Make no mistake
I’m not writing this for you.
I simply don’t know
What else to do.

Your favorite song
On repeat
For eternity
Will eventually be
Hell.

I’m writing this poem
Almost in silence.
Silent besides the chaos on Lincoln.
But this is as close to silence
As I have access to.
How desperate this world has been.
How desperate this world has become.
So many humans,
Full blood,
Real human beings,
With infinite complexity,
Holding on by a hang nail.
Holding on to anything that’s left.
What’s left?
The only thing left
is everything worth our breath.
Cry desperation,
Answered by nothing but love and hope.
These broken sidewalks
Can be repaired.
These broken sidewalks,
Are ladders to the stars.

If a firework exploding
In an endless black sky
Can be painfully gorgeous,
Can a glass bottle
Exploding on a broken sidewalk
Be a poem written by the cosmos?
To what extent is a mess,
really just art?
I’m dying every day,
But if I died enough,
And I let all the things
I hold onto with white knuckles
Die along with me,
Could I find myself
Naked like I was
The moment of my birth?
Would I clean up that sidewalk,
Or find a more broken one,
Just to smash another bottle on?
If I am to make art,
I must make a mess.
If I am to live,
I must die over and over again.
And I must find something worth anything,
To get through this evening.

The key characteristic
Of our species
Is that we have the most insatiable appetite,
And we will eat until we die.
We all amount to
More or less the same.
Ask me how much
Of a ****
I give about Alexander the Great.
A human is the punchline
To a joke told billions of times over
By a universe that laughs
Every time we think we aren’t enough.
In a world so grim,
We need a jester,
Now more than ever.
So laugh yourself to the stars.

I found a fly in my shower
This Saturday afternoon.
She was on the floor, crawling slowly.
I tried to catch her,
So that I could set her free out the window.
But she had just enough energy to escape me.
And she flew around the living room.
it was just the two of us.
Buzzing about each other.
Trapped inside this apartment.
I must admit,
I felt less lonely with her buzzing about.
I considered opening the window,
To give her a chance at her freedom.
But I got scared about the idea
Of another fly coming in.
Then there would be three of us
Trapped here.
I’d be less lonely,
At their expense.
Didn’t seem right to me.
so I kept the window shut.
And we’ll both probably die here.
But we have beer and tomorrow,
For better or for worse.
We both need to get out of here.
Now the window
Is wide ******* open.
I’m stuck here with this fly,
Wondering how it got in here.
I live on the 10th floor on Lincoln street.
If that fly could fly all the way up here,
I wonder where I could fly to.
Now the window
Is wide ******* open.