Left Chicago in 2011.

Said goodbye to my
Old Friends.

Said hello
To friends
That had
Always been.

Took the summer
Or the summer
Took me.

I worked for a job.
The job worked
Me.

Made nachos
With gluten-free chips
For customers
In Beamers
That had no time
For dreamers.

That job worked me.

The sun was hot
That summer.
Hot like
A forgotten skillet
On the stove - smoking and in disarray.

And I saw a friend,
An old one
From way back when the
When was simply the present.

Their hair was different,
A salty grey.
Their smile
Reminded me
Of a lost piece of a puzzle
That the two of us never got around
To finishing.

We exchanged formalities.

What you doing?
Who you been doing it with?
Where you going?

Things of that nature.

In this exchange,
The crisps of their retinas
Seemed to curl inward
Like the burning
Edges of a slip of paper
Set aflame.

I wanted
To ask
If there was
Something wrong.

You know when
You can
Just feel it?

But I chose not to,
Too anxious to push
The
Dreary
Frankness of my
Hesitant question.

A tendency
I have and
Something
I have been advised
Not
To do.

We have our problems
As the clouds have their puff
And the sewers have their
Ooze,
Their *****,
Their tossed' memories.

So, I
Said goodbye
To that friend
Dressed in the robes of nostalgia
And fading time.

And
I worried about them
Like I never
Had before
As I got onto my bike
To go home.

For some reason,
Preserving
An entity of the holy past,
A power former godly,
And then meeting them in the present,
Wipes all that away.

How quick
Like a snap
Time can shift
Perception.

How quick

Time can and will and should
Change us
To face this day.

Money
Sets us free
To another
Cage of labyrinths,
Hung with rusted chandeliers

And

Verbose
Routines of revelry
With inmates that look just
Like us, sound just like us, and when
They don't, we work harder, stab deeper, hurt

More

To get
To the next tier;
To the next go.

Money,
Money
Is and always will be
A mechanism
Of control
And of procrastination
Of the internal work
Capitalism
And
Consumerism

Doesn't want you to pay attention to.
Doesn't want you to hear about.
Doesn't want you to know.

To know is to know the know.

Yet, here I am
Wrapped in a blanket
Fearful of the
Power getting cut off
As three roars of heat purr
12 years before the end of the world

Writing to write
But also knowing to write
Is to seek that monetary

Fix

To perhaps one day write
With money's knock -

Money's interruption.

I see the dead glaze over my friends eyes
I taste the ash in their voice
As they speak of the future, as if that will be them
I hear their words
And I cry between their sips of beer or cocktail or soda
Silent desperate wisps
Of the reality of work
That is being done for that possible spot

Beneath the sun.

Where is our Sun?
Who is our God?
What security does life give
When all of man mans illusions
Are revealed as temporary alleviations
To trauma only they, I, we
Can face and solve?

My spirit is ours
And ours is I

And yet here I sit,
Underneath a warm blanket,
Gifted to me by a friend,
Alone,

At a loss to express this
To any physical action

But on the page.

I don't mind this life,
But imagine
The advancement
If I were actually allowed to live it fully.

If
I weren't bogged down with:
Health insurance,
Rent payments,
Grocery bills,
Late night escapades,
Social frolicking,
Experience at large and
At small...

Imagine the things I could do.

Imagine the things I would see
With my third eye,
My left elbow,
My Jane's apple,
My fortitude of fortification,
If I were allowed to roam free
Within
My own mind.

I distract myself
To avoid
Becoming myself.

A victim of the thing I loathe
Folly
To the vice
I detest

A maggot
In a hive
Of maggots

Writhing and squirming
To an end
They were silently ordered to

Never chosen
Selected
Or by their own fruition

To become.

How do we break free
Of the shackles
We were born in?

How do we escape
The labyrinth
Of societies honey and
Technologies advancements, so
To dupe us
Into thinking I have reached I
Or we
Have reached

We

I do not know
I do not know

I do not know
If this message

Can no longer

Compute.

I am a procrastinator

A spawn
Of I want
And I need

Generation.

Give me when I want.

Take when I need.

Imagine patience.

Imagine craft.

Imagine appreciation
For such things.

To create within
Such confines
Only creates further division
Of intellect and tiers
Of society.

Another division.
Another sect.
Another spectrum.
Another class.
Another percentage.
Another moment when we "thought"
We got so close to unity

But
This
This
And this

Just didn't quite get us there.

What a shame

Of the

Inevitable.

Make my way
Around the corner
Of the half-street

Making sure
I check my corners
Spotting eyes
Patting my shoes
Where the concrete
Lays heavier

Than usual

I think this is the place
I think this is where I'm at
But,

I'm so angry, tired, forlorn, melancholic.

In classrooms
Encircled
We debate and deconstruct
The evolution
Of our pasts

If we should
If we can
If we are ready

If we
Ever will be.

There's this beer here.
It gets me drunk
Most days and
I see it and imagine its origins;
The source

Of its trauma.

How desperate man is
To attach the spontaneous ways of nature
To religious prophecy -

A construct of man to begin with.

Just say it:

You want control.

I'll say it with you:

You want control.

Though, it is ironic
For the need to control
Stems from the impulse to project
The internal anxiety
Of they not trusting or believing

They can control themselves.

I am at a loss of my own life
Our own lives.

A collective of the gathered.

And what do germs, viruses, cures, plagues, and vaccines do
When they gather?
For what are we but good, bad, neutral, and complicit?

We timidly await to war so to soon fester.

I see the size of us
In comparison to the monster
From which

We have grown.

I can barely see us.

I can barely see us

At all.

And then,
The distractions.

The videos of guidance,
Of violence, gore,
Mistakes, tutorials;

Trailers to new movies.
Maybe old ones.

Maybe *******,
If no one is home.

Maybe a cup of coffee,
An hour of video games -
Usually two.

Maybe then an email,
A new resume,
Another email.

A phone call.

Oh', it's so late, I tell myself.
I should make dinner. I should give myself a break.

I should do this,
This very thing,
Instead of what

Needs to be done.

Until I stretch,

4

For nothing
And
No one

I am nothing
But I swear
The

Putrid whisper tanked

Shaking existence

Laughs at
All that was ever
All that was
And all

That would ever be.