So tightly knit
So closely wound
Til falls a slit
Straight to the ground

I won't be 'round for a while
So temporarily lend me your smile

So cognizant, so aware
So indifferent, so beware

Of what I can do when I'm alone
With you and my spirituality
Of my abuse to you shown
And the distortion of reality

I picture us falling down a bottomless pit
And we're nearing a section with a divergence in it

We can hold each other as close as we want in the minutes we have left
But that does not change the reality that the divider will show up

And split us in two

Let us imitate intimacy
While we're still in each other's vicinity
And though I've inconsistently felt your proximity,
I know that, for now, you're here with me

A day before she goes, it feels like it could snow
It's so cold out

A day before she goes, I find myself below
Just crying out

Our hearts, heavy, worn, ignorant of what to do
They cling to each other and wish that the two
Could once again become one
And that this all would be done

I'll wait for you right here
So when you come near
I'll be ready to hear what you have to say

Okay, I'm ready now
Go 'head, do your bow
Get on with what you have to say

I'm listening intently
Just speak earnestly
So I can finally hear what you have to say

Well, go on, speak up, friend!
Are you afraid of becoming a trend?
Do you not want me to hear what you have to say?

Well, that's not fair to me
Do you not live to serve me?
Just speak, now, I’m dying to hear what you have to say

What is this? Are you crying?
Will you just sit there, denying
That your duty is to tell me what you have to say?

Well, it is your job to do just that
Stop being so modest and flat
Speak up! I can't hear what you have to say!

You're good and true
I know this about you
I just want to know what you have to say

It sounds like I'm bargaining
When I should just be demanding
You to (sometime soon) tell me what you have to say

I've sat down without your insight
Trying to think of a song I could write
But I couldn't hear what you had to say

Where were you in those times?
Why'd I make those ****** rhymes?
You know why? 'Cause I couldn't hear what you had to say

Creativity, stop being shy, and come
Give me something with which I can run
Just give me anything! I'm starved for what you have to say

Don't you recognize your lack of choice?
I speak for you, you have no voice
But I need to hear you first, to hear what you have to say

Go ahead, I’m waiting
Stop your ceaseless debating

He turned to me and said, "It just creeps up on you, the way it creeps up on you."
12 hours into your day, you feel inadequate and less than death
And I understood this, so I nodded my head in his direction

"I built up my entire identity"
On many singular things

And it's just so hard right now
"To identify who I am"

Under all this skin "and bone
And a too-caffeinated" heart

Pumping blood so loudly
I'm unable to hear myself

             "think"

And the gray "floods over me"
And I forget what it is to have color

What these cones in my eyes
Were really meant to perceive

And as if there is something able to be discerned by human minds
I turned to him and said, "I know so little about this world
And how it works, but I do know the meant to be"

And "you are not" that grayness
Penetrating your skin, bleeding through your clothes

"And" those eyes that used to shine hazel
Because it's "not what" you're meant to be

It's not who you are "forever"
It is an inescapable "right now"

And those words are too silly and cliché
For me to employ in a real way

So I use them ironically
Knowing that a cliché is a cliché

Because it was able to communicate
At its core some sort of truth

So people repeated it, as if
Repeating by itself creates truth

And at that moment we both realized that each other's eyes
Were brown and blinking in tandem and I could see it  
In both of our eyes a burning question

"Why do we let people affect us this way?"

As if we have a choice

Do you remember when this town belonged to you?
I do

But things aren't what they were

And what's the point of droning about this point?

What have you got to mourn?

The idea in your head
Of the people you left
When you went two hours away
And where they had to stay

You just don't know what to do with yourself
And your feelings,
But that's not new

Rest easy
Be still
And know
Things are gonna be okay

Even if the job *****
Even if the average age of the town you live in is 67
Even if it takes a while to get back into the flow
Even if the flow isn't what you want in life

It's where you are
And it's your job to affirm that position

Because it's all poetry
And it all belongs

This weather is here for no longer than a second
So if you're not enjoying every last moment of it
Your heart is of stone

The coldness is nothing to you because it is everything you've ever known
The best place to hide something is every occupiable space in the universe
That's why we can't see God
It's because we see God everywhere and mistake it for something else
That's the theory at least...

If God were finite we'd see Him
We'd see him exist in some places but not others because finititude is not infinite

If this good weather lasted longer than a conglomerate of moments it would mean less
If normality was good weather, good weather would just be normal
The spice of life is variety
We are made aware of presence when
We are made aware that the presence isn't there
I am constantly acclimated to blandness, no matter the substance I taste, if I eat everything all the time
Food will become a simple thing like air
Simply complex
But it'd be around me all the time
Slowly becoming undetectable
If God hugged everyone at every moment the embrace would be intangible even though it may be the only really real thing in this universe
If God gave all He ever had to us at every monent, we'd lose what it means to feel the feelings his gifts give us
And I would feel like I do now
Tired and cold
In this good weather for a change
My heart trembles like my fingers
Cold and nimble
Breathing God in
And breathing God out
Completely unaware of His presence in life's functions
In its bores
In its troughs
In its peaks and in its joys
He is in all

It's a place where I lose myself
A palace, a chateau even
It's where my eyes ache
And I become a heathen

It's a leech, it suctions
To my leg in my left pocket
I defeat its functions
When I cease and lock it

It's a place where migraines spawn
Where I am a wandering fawn
Alone and heartbroken
Waiting for a word to be spoken

But there isn't a single one
Nothing uttered from my tongue
Just a device that becomes
My leader and my god

Its function is to reduce
Me and to produce
A captive bone bag

Not a coward
But a cup overflowing
With the damning dark

Not a coward
But a human capable
Of emotion's full spectrum

Not a coward
But a father unable
To see through the deafening dark

Not a coward
But a man plagued
By plundering depression

Not a coward
But someone like me
Wading through a cell

Not a coward
But a person trying to breathe
Yet inhaling only that which drowns

His muses became his captors
His brain became his prison
His family became his mourners

But he was not a coward
He just wasn't a survivor

Thin, white, and a golden rose watch
Diagonally across, I sit and watch
The perhaps brilliant musings of a blonde determined to be studious
And ask only the best questions, of what do I do with this
Beautiful pony tail wrapped piece of gold
Who is no more an object than she is decrepit old
And if at one time she'd look and see this poem I write in her presence
Would she deny it like daggers or receive it like presents?

I do not know, and isn't that the whole point?
To not know, to keep the mystery in joint,
The one I have as close to me as my knuckles
And an Erosical conjecture that buckles
And heaves as if to tell me that it's not right
To sit and watch the watch to my right

Yet this conjecture is as valid as it is fruitless
Just an inflection as invalid as she is cuteless
But the cuteness still doesn't inspire me
To inhale holiness and ask the dreaded why are we
Sitting so terribly far apart, my Heart,
When we could be together a beautiful piece of art?

Look to the person on your left
And to the person on your right
And pull out your phone, and look at yourself through the reflection of your screen

Each one of you has been affected by toxic masculinity

If you looked and saw a woman,
You saw a victim, someone
Who's been tied down and told what to do
To stand in the kitchen and do the dishes
While the man stays in the other room with the TV
And has an affair with the sofa

I hear the two of them are happily married now,
In fact, the couch and the man are inseparable

The man becomes the couch, and the couch becomes the man
defiling that once holy entrance to that place you used to be able to call a home

When you were younger, you couldn't have known what the world would tell you you are
But now that you've grown up, you felt the pains and gained the scars
Now you know where the world wants you, and what role you play
On this stage, where the director's decrepit creaking hands come and defile you,
You holy sacred place.

He sits there and pays no attention to the hardwork going on adjacent to him
His thoughts are confined to whatever pretty colors and captivating sounds float across that screen
His eye lids shut only to keep from having a drought because he does not contemplate
He just sits there and waits for you to be done making his dinner for him

And what if he's working in the other room, and you can't see it, is there some sort of redemption for this man?
I cannot say, but he cannot expect to stand to the side of his life, pretending he has no emotions, teaching his sons that this is acceptable behavior,

Stop sinking into oblivion!

And when the woman speaks up and expresses these buried emotions, hurt ones, she is antagonized, like
Isn't this just another ***** with her crazy feelings?
Like shouldn't she be watching so that the chicken doesn't burn on the stove?
Like what happens if I let my guard down and let her in
And acknowledge that she is a human being?

The man says he can't do that
He can't lose his power in the situation
So he tells her those feelings she has are invalid
He makes her feel like the antagonist of the story of this man's life
And the only reason she stays with him is because she's developed Stockholm syndrome
And she doesn't want to be alone
And because if she's heterosexual, this version of a human being is the only one that's so readily available to her,
The kind that treats her like garbage, disposable, unable to have her damnable emotions redeemed

But a critique of something doesn't merit doubling down on that ideology you grew up with,
It merits its changing
So,

Men in the room, hear me now

You are victims too!

You are told to keep it in, keep the tears back
To stand up straight, to provide, to not show any weakness,
But you are most strong when you acknowledge those weaknesses openly
And possibly discover that some of them aren't even weaknesses
They're just a part of being human

And this trend is so hard to break, so hard to crack through stone that was laid 22,000 years ago
But here we are
The buck can stop with us

We can stop antagonizing
We can start acknowledging
We can stop treating people as subhuman when they express emotion
We can start skipping in the streets and holding each other's hands

Because there's nothing masculine
About treating other humans like ****

We can eventually reclaim that word, but first it has to be exposed for all the harm it's done

Look to your right
Now look to your left
And look at your phone again

Each of one you can be a part of the solution
Not a part of the propagation of bad myths

I step out my front door
and I meet the flood
He is everywhere and waiting
debating and contemplating
new ways to pressure me

I swim out to my car
and I've made it
the destination, far
and the flood is ready to pounce
"How can we squeeze out his every ounce?"

Relentless, he pushes down on me
Unceasing, he presses my heart
In the closed system
the blood in the ****** feedback loop
pulses and pushes boundaries
trying to escape my restricting veins

The flood breathes out
He centers his weight
on my ventricles, my veins
and I am stunned
unable to move
unable to think

A perfect juxtaposition
of stillness and movement

I try to move but the flood falls harder
I try to breathe but the water fills my lungs

I am beneath everything

The flood's name is expectation
it preys to break my faith and
It wins every time
And every time it wins
I breathe shorter
I breathe faster

My body aches
embodied lackluster

Eating is such a chore
But health dictates that I eat

There is certainly nothing sacred about it
Just mass being converted to energy, right?

That's how it feels too often
It's easy to forget the evolutionary feat

That is you

And what about breathing?
Isn't it routine enough to just forget?

But the unconscious action can be interrupted
With just one phrase:

"You are now manually breathing"

Did you notice that? Once you start,
It's hard to remember how to stop

Yet breath is so essential
Essential enough to forget

As is to eat. And what a chore health is.
But the Good Life dictates it

So I breathe...
So I eat...

He,
The one in front of me,
Speaks in fluent Christianese
And I listen
And fall back into that dialect of antiquity

I,
The atheist in front of him,
Speak in tune
And he nods
And accepts the façade I’ve presented

We,
The former and the current,
Barely communicate
Through a thick layer
Of exclusivity

talk about it, talk about it, talk about it
and when you're done talking about it
talk about it some more

"but what do you do with the ashes
from the myth you burnt down yesteryear?"

irrelevant. its scorch marks will eventually heal
in the meantime,

talk about it, talk about it, talk about it
and when you're done talking about it,
buy her flowers

and convince yourself
that the color of the flowers
will communicate the love you have for her

"but the love doesn't exist, in fact
love is a matter of pair-bonding
and consistent vicinity"

you are so right! but just because you know
how love works biologically
doesn't mean you have to live in solitude

which you have been for so long,
but let up, and refer to my first instructions,

talk about it, talk about it, talk about it
because language creates reality
just as much as it describes it

and when you're done talking about it,
buy her coffee in the starbucks
and talk to her about those real feelings

inside you, and maybe they're inside her too
but you don't, won't know unless you
talk about it, talk about it, talk about it

and once the myth is built, the greek prophecy
will prove true, believe you me:

you will feel again
you will love again
you will die again,
you will live again

and when you doubt again,
talk about it, talk about it, talk about it
with her friends, your friends, and your family

because feelings that are corroborated
are somehow more real than those
that are hidden

Oh the naivete in my own eyes
Bursting with purpose
It's tangible, palpable
Like the jelly in a too-full sandwich

I am more me than yesterday
And the day before

I have lost parts
And rebuilt with the remainder
I have developed
And found fluid foundation

I was once both the crushing hand
And the cocoon within it
Now I am the blossomed
And the released

I've let go
And I have found myself

I'm a big Spanish mistake
And sometimes I'm just a mistake
Sometimes I am so burdened with the imposition of others upon me
Sometimes I simply cannot see
Past all of my shortcomings

They break down a flimsy wall, built up by the absence of harm
And then when harm happens,
The walls come tumbling down, and you are left seeing a version of me
That I don't want anyone to see

Much less the entire world
Much less the eyes I look into at my job
Much less the students I try to help as if I'm not an idiot

I am my mistakes
We are inseparable
And once I lose them, and I learn how not to make them,
I can help others who used to make those mistakes
And use that grace I so sorely needed when I made them
Because you can't leave the world with the mess that you found it in
You have to make it better

You can't expect everyone to be a teacher
You can't expect everyone to be a good teacher
Even though everyone should have grace

Just keep telling yourself it'll eventually get better
And it will
Either by happenstance or supplication, it'll just happen.

It's easy to forget how far I've come
Sitting here in a place I've driven to,
In a car I've purchased,
With a license I've earned
With a job I've kept for 7 years,
Writing on a computer I've bought with my own money,
Writing in a language that I didn't learn when I was a child

I'm not just my mistakes,
I am my successes
And I'm how they are handled
And I'm How I handle them
And I am how I handle my failures as well. (as well as my successes)
And yet

I'm neither
I'm somehow expected to be this third, emergent thing:
Human

And perhaps that is what it is to be human

To be encompassed by one's failures,
So helplessly encompassed by them
So terribly encompassed by them,
As well as our successes

I am a collection of the two
Yet neither

To conflate
being in love
With
being happy

The latter so
Often eludes me
But I fall in love
Almost every week

Which is greater?
The love
Or
The joy?

Contentness?
Or
Companionship?

Normally
The two muses
Make residence
At the same time

And they leave me
In the same way

I'm either happy
And in love
Or depressed
And lonely

So, yes, it's easy
To conflate the two, yet
I fall in love with you
All the more

Little masons building, little masons killing
Little masons yielding, little masons wielding
Their swords, tools, and daggers to construct
A wall between trees, as one deconstructs

Little masons like little demons, propelling
Little masons like little ******, love-quelling
An oceanic romance between weathered trees
Leaving broken branches, making debris

Little masons performing their duties
Little masons collecting their rubies
For the hard-work they did today
Leaving two tongue-tied trees slain

Little masons dividing throbbing hearts
Little masons throwing away broken parts
Little masons complete with rapture
Little masons impede love's capture

Little masons like homogenous poles
Little masons making holes in two wholes

Consider the possibility
That your 4.0 GPA
Is the result of your failing mental health
And inability to accept yourself

Consider, for once,
That you are valuable innately
Regardless of approval

I see your deepest fears
And they're not you
And they don't define you

You are not the terrible feeling
Or the words you tell yourself
When you read that ****** grade

You're also not those butterflies
When they look you in the eyes
And tell you you're valuable

You just are

By yourself


Stop selling
Yourself
To the words
Others say

And when you feel that way
That's not where you have to stay

Listen to that 7th track on that old album
Even if its theology is ****** and shameful
You know what it meant to you when you were young

And when you feel that way
Stand in front of a mirror and say

"I am worth more
than others' estimation of me"

Because that is the real root of the root
That is the true bud of the bud

That you are valuable regardless
Of whether you have a witness

And even if you were the tree falling
Free falling in a wood
Your lumber still makes homes
You leaves still make paper
Your heart still has value
Because

You
Are
Valuable

I am not the creator of my morality
I am its slave

Walls building buildings block my intention
From blossoming into action

Handed down from others, placed there by others
The walls almost crush me while they fall

And it is as if I had no choice in the matter
As if inside me there is a moral code
Copied and pasted from my father

From the Bible, from the Founding Fathers
From the Constitution, from a Glenn Beck book

As a wall breaks and crumbles, so does a piece
Of my identity

See, what are we if not our identities?
That blonde heartbreak of a person was always right about that
She was just wrong about the validity of the morals

If morality is subjective, there is nearly no hope for existence
And if morality is not crafted intentionally, therein lies more nihilism

If I am a construction wholly of other people's opinions
Who am I really?

I am not the creator of my morality.
Parts of my identity have been taken out
Replaced by other walls
Other edifices that I think are stronger

But I had no choice in the matter.
Neither my deconstruction nor my upbringing
Were voluntary actions
Yet they matter the most in determining my actions

Therefore,

I am not the creator of my morality
I am its obedient slave

There's a monster inhabiting my home
Where he came from, I don't know
Just a few weeks ago
He appeared

I heard him grumbling in the basement
While I lie awake in my bed
Above him, listening for him to stop

I wonder if he'll go as mysteriously as he came
I wonder if he's lived with me all along.
I almost want to go back to the days of old
When I didn't know
A monster slept down wind of me

I'm afraid of that crooked building
Dear Circumstance, don't make me go back there
It's hard enough existing away from that house

The monster is desperate for his opinion
To be right
He will either swallow that home whole
Or humble himself

I pray humility breaks apart his feelings of territory
Ownership of land and body

Lest that creature dissipates,
I am afraid of my home

You're petite while you get your chores done
You've got a palindrome for a name and a smile that knocks me out
You're the subject of my quick fantasies
Where do you go, muse behind the counter?
When you're not making coffee for customers
Do you harbor refugees and protect them?
Do you vote for fascists in Novembers?
Does your heart break like mine does for American colonies?
Do you ever dream of the people behind other coffee counters?
This account of the muse behind the counter is best left untouched
Untainted
While you're those thousands of centimeters away from me, that's where you'll stay, in dreamland.
I notice your beauty involuntarily
It clamors at me
You spread one message about yourself throughout the world

"I am beautiful"

"I am human"

I hope you believe it too

I have no other option but to agree with your smile
Which demands my surrender and I succumb

Muse behind the counter, do you love yourself?
Do you admire the beauty which is so evident to me right now?
Do you hold up high hopes of the future,
And pray for justice to come?

But the truth is, I do not see you in my fantasies
I see reflections of my desires
I see expressions of expectations
And they happen as involuntarily as my admiration of your beautiful bun
How it reaches taller than you ever could!
How you don't know I'm writing about you right now, as you put another pastry in the oven.

you talk through your laughter;
you barely complete your sentences
it's raucous, rich, and resounding,
uncontainable, unstoppable, unforgettable
it goes bursting out without a warning

and sometimes tears are there, too:
the kind that makes me laugh, too,
and when i do, it's due to the joy
of being there to see you laugh:
a sight, a sound, a grounding
that makes being here worth it

and your laugh comes from your belly
and your heart is there, too
and i like to think your heart is what makes
your laugh so sonorous

and when i'm downstairs and you're up
and i can hear your laughter from the other side of the house
i can't not smile, too, and come join you
because there's this gold treasure bursting out
and i'm too selfish to let it pass without witnessing it

there is too much good there
it floods through every room
and whether i want it or not
whether i'm in a good mood or not
whether i'm playing "what's the point" or not
it wets my feet
and i'm a boy in a waterpark, skipping through the splash pads

you do that for me
your smile, your laugh, your joy
it's infectious
they're my favorite part of living with you

Let me hold you and use you as a tool
With you by my side, I'll take you through school
But that's the least of your functions
Prepositions and conjunctions

You're an adapter that's making me change
The soul that was direct can now engage
As streams of alternating current
Making the seldom the recurrent