God, I hate 3am!

You make me late for work and grind my mind into bite sized peanut butter cups.

My thoughts are not a drill,
but they ***** me like Debbie did Dallas.

                     *really? You're doing ****
                  references now? *

*******!
YES, I said **** in a poem!

                  *who are you talking to? *

YOUR MOTHER!!!

always voices at 3am!

Voices like shadows barely perceived on the edge of your ear.

                       *you can't hear shadows *

No one ******* ASKED YOU!


Sleep is a midnight UFO hovering behind an old farmhouse.

You may have seen something... once, but you can't prove it really exists.

Not at 3am when shadows walk like peeping Toms passed your window.

Not at 3am when your eyes are shot and your skull tingles like peppermint body wash on a squeaky clean *******.

What the **** am I saying?

I don't even know anymore.



©Nathan A. Brock 2022

How do you hide from the mirror so well?

Your tears are so faint I almost missed them;
I almost missed you!

That fluorescent smile, so wide and so "true".

As though your lips were not curled
around rough cinder chips…

Hide the cuts on your lips
so masterfully, too.

A smile and a laugh.. you dance like a leaf
blown by hot fume and ash…

Your tattered edge hidden from view.

No, I'm not like you.

I dance more like pebbles rolled by the tide..
all scattered, and cracked…

My smile is chipped and askew...

And my laugh is absurd! Halting and gruff..
not lovely like you.

Not chorus triumphant with heaven's imbue.

You're harp strings and viols in rhapsody blue!

And would you believe, I once had the mind
to smite myself coldly and leave me behind
to emulate all that is you?

To laugh and to sing - to dance like a flame - to speak the way only you do?

Yes, I wanted so much to persue!

But, your lips drip with nightshade in honey-sweet dew, so viciously rich!

My ache is entwined in their hue.

No, I could not be quite like you!

You were the only one I hated more than myself, yet...

Somehow, that was the best idea of love that I had.

© Nathan A. Brock 2022

I Know how the moon feels.


Used to reflect the haughty brilliance

of a star too arrogant to close

his eye to the night sky.


Does the sun not see the frozen

tears that stain her face?


I often wish to be cold and empty, too.

To pass- silent and unnoticed through

my own dark expanse.


To keep my thoughts,

my secrets,

my tears behind the black.


Yes! I know how the moon feels.

You will always be the broken

structure where I hide

in my hypocrisy.


Yes, I shall build my crypt

with your stone, and I

will be the mortar;


Stacking you high into the

shadows overhead;


holding you fast where I

deem is your home;


My mortar will hold you!


Indeed, it shall outlast your

stone;


Holding it's vague shape

in chalky, skeletal ruin while

men gaze, not knowing what

that shape could mean.


© Nathan A. Brock

My rage is a dandelion seed head scattering
to the wind; I can't catch
every piece.

Though, sometimes, one may float
into my palm, and I examine it to find
that the spiky yet soft hairs of the fury white drifter make no sense to me.


© Nathan A. Brock

My desk is a boring place.

I sit for hours scrolling through
long lists of emails, service requests;
barely enough coffee inmy cup
to erase the blur from my screen.

Ahh, my desk is a
boring place.

There’s a cat on my calendar that
stares at me in aperpetual state of
nervous anticipation,
as if awaiting my next movement
that it might spring out of view
and hide beyond the edge of it’s page.

But it doesn't- it sits and
gawks unmoving.

Outlook pings...

Yet another printer is down.
The same printer from last week.

What an absolute headache
printers are. But, at least it
relieves me of my desk.

My desk is a
boring place

When I return I may write a
line or two, but don't expect
too much.

Not from this poem.

This poem is a
boring poem.

© Nathan A. Brock