I can't change.
I can only rearrange
These wayward thoughts
In my brain
To seem
A little less insane.

Playing mind games
In my brain waves,
I'm a slave
To the way I misbehave.

I forgave,
But those memories stay
To haunt me and taunt me
Both night and day.
I think I'm stuck this way.

Bottled rage
Gravity's cage
My daily stage.


I won't engage.

**** this plague
Let it fade.

I drift away.

C.eM. 5.11.14

There's something inexplicable
about the way
they make you feel




nothing.

Happiness is fleeting
but
you are your own mistake
you keep repeating.

one of these nights
might turn out right
if you keep your mouth shut
like the door you're always
finding yourself behind
with your back against the wood,
muscles tensing
as you knew they would.


Nose bleeding-
when is the last time you ate?
It took you an hour to get ready but
no one can see all your hard work
in the shade.

"baby, you look great"
is all you wanted to grace you ears
but you've got too much on your plate
and there are only couples here.

They will pay you no mind
and you will begin to feel
you might have been left behind.

you pretend you aren't hungry
because it seems more grungy.
cigarettes will stain your teeth
and smoke will spin circles at your feet
as you sway alone;

always hanging in the wings
you're looking for another drink
another triple shot
and you sink deeper into
the half-assed hope
that this will be a night
you forgot.

Just more meaningless crumbs
of these evening hours
accumulating into an unusable mass
of dried out nights

exaggerate another fight
you had with your mind-
what will you do when they call you out
for being lower than the grout
in the bathroom
baby face like you just came out of the womb
your knife is duller than
your conversation topic
you're a fake-
From a mile away can you be spotted.

Drained of inspiration
plagued by perpetual consternation
what will you sample next
on your way to a falsified elation.

Spending weeks away dragon chasing-
How long will you be on mental vacation?
They're growing impatient.

C.e.M. 12.21.2014

Finding myself tired and uninspired
at least the bed left me today.
I did my laundry
what more do you want from me
I can't think of much else
in this haze.

Sometimes,
the passions stop.
I no longer see the sputtering
of yellow lines down
a highway

as something I could recreate
into a beautiful composition.

The sky is only grey
and no longer the keeper of
nostalgic malaise.

My feet only move me
when bothered for the trouble
and howl and moan
every mile of road
they encounter.

I don't have a real position on
the matter
when my thoughts scatter
and I'm left with hollow eyes
and a succulent consciousness
gone dry.
I don't have a snarky reply

just another useless day
I unwillingly offer up
to the unforgiving clock
and a loss of sentiment.

C.e.m.
3.10.15

Tame the river,
build a dam.
Plow your fields,
control the land.
Build your homes
and towns and roads;
Tell the river
where to flow.

Man is stronger.
Man is smarter.
You know this to be true.
So the challenge the Earth
with all your forces;
Show her what Man can do.

Boundaries don't mean anything;
Not up against Man's machines.
Mountains crumble,
deserts bend
to Man's will,
means to an end.

Shatter the forests.
Suppress the tides.
Tear the soil.
Rip the skies.
Concrete kingdoms--
build a perch
from which you'll watch
as you destroy the Earth.

You show the Earth
what Man can do.
You make her better
but jokes on you.
For Earth is the substance
from which you're made.
If you poison the world
you won't be unscathed.

The Earth is old and wise
and patient.
The Earth will persist
even if you don't make it.

I hereby resign myself
To lie in a bed,
Overheated and always tired,
Next to a body that I never touch
And never
Touches me.

I will drive the miles
And spend the money
On a friendship I can't afford
And be ignored
When it's convenient
Like the all the rest
of casual acquaintances.

I will pick up every odd shift
For a few more dollars
That surely
won't be in my pocket
For very long.

I will sing the same sad songs
On the occasion
I might at last
Have made it to the shower
Because although I still have water
I might've lost power
And still done nothing
To fix it.

I'll be the texts
At 5am
When the rest of the world
Is sleeping in bed
Likely dreaming and spooning
With breaths regulated
By their cyclical,
routine naïveté.

I'll be the cold body next to
No one
When the morning comes
In the next state over
In the back seat of my car
Wishing I had enough gas
To take me further.

I resign myself
To second place,
The hell for the always over looked.
I'll read another book
And wonder how easy
Fictitious lives must be
Only spanning two hundred pages
Of tastefully flawed existence
With a diligent persistence
To come out better in the end.

I'll stand lonesome as a highway ****
Blown in on the back
Of some filthy bird
Who dropped me off
And never noticed my missing,
Never knew I was with him.
I will never flower.
I only wither.

Cem

I keep remembering flashes of your smile,
all sweltering summer and
sun soaked in ***.

In the night we writhed against hours
that came calling as we tried
desperately to sleep and
the heat of your palms
struck as hammers against
the ashy coal
of my peeling pain.

Even after hours of charring
in the blaze of our undisputed confusion
you still felt icy
and I couldn't agree
to the unspoken regulations
and expectations.

I left you
with a laundry list of reasons
I could not love you
left forever unspoken.

Now twenty-three hours lie between us
and I wish I'd had the guts
to discuss my contempt
for situations I allowed
to escape my control

but consolation will never come,
and I'll always be in the hole.