the morning I left my toothbrush
on the windowsill,
the Cleveland sky smelled of laundry.

later still,
after the snow had started
in southern Ohio,

my coworker returned
to verify the body of her father.

a clear, azul dusk fell
cloudless, peaceful and still

through the turmoil in the atmosphere,
the tension of lost things
could no longer fit on a windowsill.

march 13, 2017
c.e.m.

Uncomfortable white man
Looks at his watch.
Uncomfortable white man
Wants to scream at the kid
Up somewhere around row 6 or 7
To simmer down,
Stop crying.
We all feel like you.
Uncomfortable white man
Signals the attendant.
Uncomfortable white man
Is thirsty..wishes he bought a drink.
Uncomfortable white man
Doesn't want to pay six dollars for a *****.
Uncomfortable white man could afford it.
Uncomfortable white man
Glancing at his watch again
Not allowing it the time
To click to the next analogue minute.
Uncomfortable white man shifts,
Uncomfortably.
Uncomfortable white man
Crossed his arms,
Grasping his wrists.
Uncomfortable white man
Isn't accustomed
To being
Uncomfortable.

Carried home from a family occasion
and placed in the icebox,
slowly slid to the back of the fridge
as leftover moments fight for space
near the front.

Styrofoam predictions
of life after  childish ambitions
are accidentally neglected
and left to spoil,
unattended and tempted
with wayward growth.

You may find them again,
rummaging through,
making space,
or maybe just looking for something
you thought you lost.

Long since forgotten,
 the ideas molded
over the ages of a chilly
adolescence,
and what might have been promising
is now indistinguishable and unusable.

A small, unaffected edge may remind you
Of its purpose in a past life
and you’ll sigh
as you change the trash liner
to accommodate another failure.

You sometimes wonder
What you may have missed
piling so many options
only to be forgotten until they’re rotten.

It doesn’t help any
to be the one who has to retrieve it.
see what it is,
know what it was...
a subtle, sneaking certainty
of what it could’ve become.

more and more often, it’s too early
to stomach the sun
and you find the day
has begun without you,
as if it doubts your commitment
to present tense.

Still, you continue along hanging
from a precarious
cable car of ambivalence,
waving at each opportunity missed
as it passes you by,

your eyes
idly on the sky.

"Next time, next time"
You mutter

"Next time I'll give it a try."

C.e.M.
2.17.15
Edited 4.18.17

I've got a hand-held mirror
and an old can of spaghetti-o's
in the back pocket
of the passenger side seat.

I'd call off instead of quitting.
I'd pack my clothes
and my books
first.

I'd miss my quirky
little knick knacks.
I'd bring all my blankets
and a lot of beef jerky.

I'd learn to grow
my own tea.

I'd write letters.
I wouldn't send them.

I'd think of returning
often.

I never would.

the chime of a phone call awoke me.
the message was simple.
"don't come today".

The murky sun
peered curiously
past sheered grey

phasing in and out
like a kitchen light on a dimmer
or an oscillating fan.

I rarely taste this version
of morning breath much
anymore.

I left my home
in the hands
of estranged friends

only to find it again
nearly two years later,
a weekend in Cleveland.


I made it to the door
with the last sleepy tendrils of sun
flaking from drooping eyes.

Communion is served
at 5:30 sharp by hands
adorned with hard work.

The elements are passed,
fire and glass,
'round a table with seats for 6.

It is then I realized...
in the half-light
it was decided.

I never left the pew.
My religion is still community.

Rusted ringlets hang
Precariously pouring out
Of a metallic scrunchy.
I can’t keep myself
From glancing intermittently
At the slight glisten
Of a cocktail
On her cupid’s bow,

Then, a few inches below,
Her taut neck,
A small piece of cloth grasping
Its sculpted edges
Begging the question
How it would feel
To cup her face
With fingers embellished
By cheap and chipping paint?

Would she settle there,
A placid pool of profundity?
Or would she seep between
The cracks of my fingers
Unable to be contained
By such a simple stranger?

She adorned the corner
Of the couch
With such grace.
It was breathtaking,
As she spoke in rhythms
Lining the crests of her intonation,
Hazel flashes kept tempo,
A conversation shifting in tandem.
Poetry in motion.

Suddenly... Your idea of someone is shifted...irreparably, so it seems. At first. At the least. Maybe over time you'll forget, somewhat. That is to say, whatever disappearing moment may transition into a partial, fickle memory.
You will recall it, inconveniently, possibly with slight inconsistency, and they will claim, should you choose to mention it, some sort of factual discrepancy.
It may well hover, all the way to the end of your personal eternity, and it may go unnoticed, covered by each new epiphany, layering in thin, single coats to be reminiscently noticed as a shadow.
No matter how deep into someone's secrets you may go,
There is always more to know.
        
          There is always more to know.

2.23.2017

How many more beers until the moon looks full again
How many before I've made some friends
Combined, is it enough to make me whole, then?
I’ll keep drinking until I reach a dead end.

How many sips does to take to reach the truth
How many to bridge the distance between me and you.
If I sip long and hard, will it be easier to let loose?
I’ll keep sipping til it’s warm and I'm old news.

How many steps before I find the path I should be on?
How many before I know it’s the right one?
If I keep on stepping, will I find myself on the proper side of the sun?
I suppose I’ll keep stepping along.

How many sleepless hours until I've cracked the code?
How many split the difference between insane, and genius mode.
If I fake it til I make it,  when I've made it, how will I know?
I’ll only be up a few more minutes or so.




C.e.M.

My tongue flicks
Absent mindedly
Discovering and rediscovering
The new sensation
Of a missing tooth
Or a kernel of food
wedged in my gums
Or a ****** cheek
Bit ferociously while chewing.

In my same manor
My thoughts stroke
the idea of you,
Feeling for any new details
i may have missed
My first time
across your surface.

a mark, wrinkling
beneath your eye
a small  tattoo
above your elbow
a delicate crease
where your head
meets your neck.

Subtleties of self
are everything to me.
you hold your cigarette
between hits,
bent backwards between
thumb and *******
as if subconsciously,
you know
you’re damning yourself.

You hold your elbows
When you cross your arms
As though you are afraid,
Should you relax your grip
The contents of your chest
Will spill out before you
Like a toppled canister
Of produce remnants,
Juicy, sloppy, and sopping

But you speak quietly,
like a discarded bag
of shredded documents.
Rustling with partial importance
I try to piece together
your comments
almost as though your words
hang beneath the weight
of your breath
as an afterthought
of your exhalation.

I watch you
watch me,
calmly calculating
baiting conversations
with tactful insinuation
and later,

in deep rumination
they replay.
I select the moments
That fit the narrative
I've created,
rummaging through
until what I want
you to mean
is all I hear you say.

“I won't drink the tap water, its poison here”
and when she declared that,
I couldn't decipher if she meant here
as in Northside, or here as in America.

We ate sushi at 2am in the city
I was trying not to show my drunkenness
but I was stumbling into an accent
my grandparents carried with them

tucked in the backs of their mouths,
now peering out of mine.
testing the hydrogen
in the beer
in the back of my throat.

I need sleep,
I'm hungover
This poem can wait.

My mind seems to move itself,
spinning somewhat
while I remain stationed
to soft and tattered cushions

At times, not sure who's moving
Mind or body
like parking next to someone
who's leaving the lot

for a moment
you're caught in the standstill
Where nothing really stands,
Still.

I need sleep
My head feels fuzzy
This poems not great.

Its much later now,
the world seems
more capacious somehow
When my eyes are fully open.

The last of my confounding
half light musings
dissipate like tendrils,
mist in the rising sun  

and I, I am left behind
in the residue,
The hardened truth
that cannot move.

“This water is poison”
Her words echo through my day
and I wonder if this poison
will ever evaporate from our veins.

C.e.M. 12.15.2016

fingers to lips, I press tightly
Eyes close restfully
Inhaling deeply
familiar routine
missing something.

What I breathe
is not dirtied with soot
only frigid air
turned hot steam
near the back of my throat.

I miss the sensation,
Though not the flavor
And this partial craving
Is far easier to stave away
Far easier to keep nostalgia at bay.

1.15.2017

I was going to write
of infatuation.
instead,
I wrote of death.
I seem to be hovering
forever in between,
a partial combination
a fickle being.

I was going to write
how his eyes glint
when I catch them
unexpectedly peering at me.
Now, I can only imagine
the endlessness of eternity
leering at me evilly
Taunting  my carelessness.

I was going to reminisce
small jokes that soothe anxiousness.
Now, consumed
by the inevitable
sweeping me away into nothingness.

I was going to question
“does he dream of me as I do?”
Now I wonder
what my dreams will dissolve into.
Fleeting moments pass rapidly
Gaseous, unaccounted for and ghastly.

2/2/2017

...
                                                             ­          I search for reasons not to trust
like the maniac, the ******
picking at his skin,
convinced there is something living inside of him
crawling from vessel to vessel,
shattering synapses,
reforming patterns.

                                                      ­      All my personal relationships have failed
they say I expect too much
or I don't stay in touch.
.. . whatever it is,
I'm too much. and not enough.

9.13.2016

"Would you like your groceries
bagged in paper or plastic?
will you be paying with paper,
Or plastic?"

Rock paper scissors
has been replaced
With something
more rudimentary
But essentially,
Neither have intentionality.

No matter how far you try to move
away from synthetic
you're still drinking out of plastic
eating out of plastic
driving, walking, buying, *******
out mounds of it.
You put your plastic in plastic,
leave it outside
until a man swings by
throws it into a pit
with all the other wasted ****
to exist
for all eternity.

Would you rather melt or burn?
Bankruptcy is a hard lesson to learn
But the ashes of this economy have been
Touted as prosperity
Instead of resigned to an urn
To relearn the transparency
of democracy
As it should be.

I'll trade my plastic smile
For a fistful of paper
I'll exchange it for something physical,
Something bigger
Something somehow better,
Sans the improvement.
The reanimation of the market
Capitalism! Ah,
The dream land.
“Build your monopoly
Crush your enemy”

Oops I mean your neighbor
They're all the same
in this day and age.
Community has been sold
for pennies on the dollar.
Now we’re fighting tooth and nail
To be the one
wearing the shock collar

Bzzzt!
I have the most likes on my photo
Bzzzzt
This minor annoyance
has become my addiction.
I’m shopping and sharing
And living within this tiny television.

This is post apocalyptic
You just can't see it
Because you're living in it.
Things are better, yes
But 6.7% of Americans are diagnosably,
incurably depressed.
37% are oppressed
44%  are over stressed and
81% are in debt.

Let me just say this now
From my white-privilege-podium
That keeps all adverse effects
Of free speech
From touching me

****
YOUR
AMERICA.

**** this corporate greed
that grinds itself down
and repackages itself into
“The American Dream”.

and **** us, right?
For thinking anything here was free.

There was a time my words
were poison and sap
all in the same breath.
I was vile
but I was gorgeous,
The only vice I had left
was to claw out the insides
Of lesser men
With a rapturous tongue
And a sharp steel pen.

Today is the day
I buy that bus ticket
for somewhere
on the other side
of the methodical mundanity
I've dubbed "daily routine".

I become
the salvation army
second-hand sweater
to the space in between me,
and wherever I end up.
Worn,
warm
and welcoming
to anyone who hungers
for comfort.

In a dream,
a wispy woman
wafts down to me
and whispers quietly,
"window, or mirror?"
repeatedly until it echoed
as a haunting melody
of indecipherable melancholy.

I awoke as the sun suggested.
Awaiting the play of penitence
to present itself
as the heat of a distant star
masqueraded behind skies
gessoed grey.

The ethereal muse still perched
behind conscious mind,
eyes searching for a tangible answer
to reply, but found nothing,
save my reflection in the half light
and small slivers of outside
through Venetian blinds.
Dec. 16, 2016

Street lights shift in tandem,
Flickering rhythmically
Sputtering small halos of safety

Bleached, cracking pavement
devoid of fellow travelers,
and subsequent passengers

I devour dotted lines,
The speed of light
no longer constant.

I allow heavy lids to fall
without much hesitation.
Feel the road sway beneath

I above, disconnected,
yet grounded still. Oil atop water;
Disharmonious cohabitants

Consistency is lost. I pretend
time moves as I please
With or without me

I begin to count


One
Testing preservation,
Instinctual construction of survival.

Two
How long can I trust
touch to keep the course

Three
Can distance be anticipated
without visual stimuli?

Four
I feel the whir of the engine,
obediently churning

Five
hear the wind whipping
defying my wish for silence
slipping through the back window

Six
This is bliss.
I swim envisioned oblivion

Seven
I should open my eyes

Eight
Reality in motion -
time makes me queasy.

Nine
Sight returns.

I stop counting.
Safe, trundling on
I slide silently down 48.

December 12, 2016

Whispering eternally into the void
Hoping internally
It can turn the black
churning bile of thoughts
into incandescent showers,
specific epiphany.

Lately, I've been laden
with the epitome of anomaly.
Loner labotomy,
living in self devised autonomy
A private economy of thoughts,
exchanging deranged for sane

Only to flip back again
Turn around, full swing
Indignant incantations ring,
Echoing down the corridors


This skeletal paradigm
Of rusted pipes
I've unwittingly installed
above once placid pools,
A wellspring for many muses.


Caught in a rift of dimension
Words begin to leak
Without direct intention
And with little attention for the details
My thoughts quickly become words
That derail more than just a conversation.
My hesitation to engage
Is a fair wage for holding my silence
Tightly,
But the precarious musings of my mind
Must tumble out to spite me.


I tried cutting out my tongue to save face
But a poet who can't speak is a disgrace.

1.8.2017
C.e.M.

Bodies replicating displacement,
twisted growths
Streaming up walls
that separate and segregate
The once spacious and spontaneous.

Brimming past allotted space,
Gridlocked in a postmodern wasteland
Deprived of wonder,
no ability to wander.

Stretching,
aching to escape the odds,
The masses stacked against each other,
wrapped in suffocating saran.

Plastic and detached
We clamor for peace
As they bury the hatchet
Separating bone and flesh
De-spining our fragile backs
In an effort to preserve class.

They tie us up on strings
For an elaborate show,
Distractions make us feel we’re in control.
Puppets and human beings
Become indistinguishable.

A pre-allocated placement
only masked by possession.
This land of the free is weighted
towards the monetary security
of them,
Never us.

So will we,
modern day slaves
of the service industry
placidly toil to please their every need?

No, indeed
The chosen few will turn back,
Ready to be trampled
by the stampede of society.

Itching within,
beneath skin and muscles
through blood vessels and malleable marrow,
All vibrating in frustration
and we will exclaim
with little more owned than our given names,

We are no longer
willing to play survivor,
fighting against our neighbor
To climb this invisible ladder.

We’re digging through the *******,
elbow deep
and dredging up with two clenched fists
The forgotten sediment of rebellion.

My synapses are misfiring-
this weight more than gravity.
Depravity’s disastrous grasp,
the exit is not escape.

 Feel the world spinning,
churning on without.
remants, stationed
stagnant and static.

Buzzing in discomfort,
blistering heat
of combustible refuse
left only excuses.

Catatonic catastrophe,
blasphemous bile spews,
purposeless penitent sentiments,
drowning logic in mental mishap.

An exploding star,
Separating fuselage,
limbs detach from frame
Splintering out into space.

Strawberry sun
hot on swaying hips

a shimmer of skin,
sultry beacon of temptation.

Days smear in sweat
and grass stains.

Twilight carries dusty toes
a few steps further.

Legs dangling, lonely
top of rusted tower,

Moon whispering
“come and kiss me”.

Languid laughter lilts
lining ancient constellations

Space(s) [is] filled
By our separation.

Cicadas croon,
Biding elusive slumber,

dawn’s yellow tendrils grasp eyelashes,
rays morph into rivers of light.

Time, the illusion of a tether;
A notion of perpetual motion

Adrift an absent-minded sea,
Hazy, evasive sleep

Our ropes will fray
in wisps and waves of heat.

C.e.M.
31082016

intrepid tingling rapture

gravity masters buoyancy

Reassigning bits of me
to true consciousness-
A dream within a dream
A twisting landscape
Of implicated creations that morph
With the induction of elation and
The interpretation of intrepid behavior.

I see skin sparking,
Natural electricity, lightning
Blue cable veins bleed
There is no oxygen here
No need to seal the wound
No space to dissipate into.

The ceiling pushes up from under us
The floor spins in cultivated madness
The sky swallows me whole
And i sink into the sea,
Swollen with seductive intention
Clinging to fragments of reality-
They have no home in this realm.

At the helm of curiosity
Drifting through vagrancy
away from complacency.
spindling through fever dreams-
placid plastic landscapes.
I know not what I create,
Yet again and again
I meet my fate
within the metamorphosis
of melting clay and
The soft whir of the interstate
that stirs beneath me.

I know the soft rustling
of a rusting heart within me
Shifts the focus from fantasy
But nomadic irrelevance
has always been a decadency
Lest I leave too soon
and forget its places within me.




C.e.M. 8-9-16

I was once convinced
Everything would
work itself out.

Every problem had a solution
Every fixation, an axis
Every point? purposeful.

Certainly time was an equation.
Solving the question of final age
was merely the addition of years
and the subtraction of moments
our vices swallowed.

Everything was orderly.
Numbers in a row.
Empty boxes, waiting to be checked.

DNA strands coiled ceremoniously
into my exact composure
worried about me so I wouldn't have to.

Days flaking off like dandruff,
unsightly flecks of fragility,
floating toward irreversible fate.


I would live until I wouldn’t.

I would teeter
        ...skid
                   ....careen
through hours, anxiously awaiting
never taking a breath to rest and reflect.


Death was algebra.
I was subtracted from morality,
added it back as fatality.

Evening out- solving for X,
My many quaking days
having lost their grip.
            ~
Life is not math.
Life is trash recycled into sporadic moments that won't last.

Simplicity was never synonymous
To consciousness.
Sentient beings will always suffer.

Words will never suffice
When the feelings are out of place.
Attempts at descriptive narrative
only feel like a forced hand,
a poor play.

My slippery fingers are arthritic,
clutching at the vapors
of moments before mistakes.

I've never kept anything I loved.
I have ****** out of hate
more than I have out of lust.

I was always what I wanted to be
never was what I needed to be
And when desire ran dry
I always settled in the dust of desolate decisions.

The bell curve never helped with my grades
And this learning curve can’t help me find my place.


C.e.M. Aug. 11, 2016

Rot where you lay, see if I stay to watch
Let your telomeres unwind into a heap of chicken wire
Let your wrinkles carve your unspoken secrets
In all seven layers of your stinking skin,
My love for you has ended.

C.e.M.
April

Your sleeplessness will follow you into your next failure,
cuddled and coddled in cotton carelessness.
And I will love you like you will love that quilt, for years to come.

and I will leave you
like the last patched fabric
that found another to cuddle under the warmth of her love
but I will love you enough
to pull away from strain of coming undone.


C.e.M.
April

We used to kiss...
Frequently, fervently
I feared at times it was too much

and now after a few months
that feeling in my gut
was enough to predict
our coming undone.

small kindling fires
burnt through all the
small green sappy things
of little meaning and no importance
that were once enough
to calm the tides of loneliness within us

days go by,
we don't touch.

week after week,
I've had enough

of not having enough.

C.e.M.
April 3, 2016

unintentionally, I've made habit of waiting
until the highway clears out,
leaving nothing but sandy semis
and gritty grizzled men smoking and steering
Staring dead-eyed through sleepless deadlines
to make my way home alone.

Watching infinite dashes pass through my peripheral, separating me from
passenger-less lanes,
perpetually pondering present pessimism
as pale streaks slur by
enough to white out every word
I spoke and you never heard.

C.e.M
April 15, edit April 19 2016

I've come to realize when I say I'm people watching it really means I'm trying to find
My place in line,
Trying to figure out which standards I fit
And what I can commit to
In order to drift with little to no conflict
All the way to the end of it.

This version of my excursion
At times feels counterfeit,
A minute off
I take a day to split the difference
count it up and call it consistency
between the days I existed
and the days I persisted through towards more.


C.e.M.
April 15, 2016

Error:404

Thump thump
Black velvet Velcro clumps across the lot
Was there anything I forgot?
Cart collector calls out a claim of the weather
And I replied with a cry of fear wondering if
The earth could still hear my sigh
Or if the climate has changed past
The refresh button
And we'd be stuck in a rut
A rotten glutton ******* our giver dry.

You're not hiding anything tangible
Just secrets, building,
Mortar for this wall behind your mandible.
You view your vocal chords
As a noose
Stretched too loose,
And you swing free
At the base of minor key
Haunting melody that repeats
While jarring words behind your jaw
You will never speak
Pile higher
Higher higher
Until we drift asleep.
Cem dec.18,2015

There is no beautiful epiphany
just an epitaph of a symphony
that's tastefully distracts
from the lack of substance to
our actions.

Jam packed with opinions
and devoid of meaning
I consider giving in
to believing
high personal treason-

A step towards discrimination
and hatred towards those of
other affiliation.
once my mind may have been swayed
but twice brought my second chance

To change and today swings in
and I stand solid in scientific fact,
no room for a trinity
or Didactic pact
and I consider it the right path

But logic leaves no space for love
and the grey space expands
above us between
what we think we need to hear
and what will truly awaken us

and I am disgusted
With my lack of purpose.

C.e.M. 12.18.15

Out of                            touch
Out       of love
      
                   maybe simply
into complacency,

I watch your gaze
-
-
-
falling
past recognition

and I know
It was never your intention

but it's becoming hard
not to mention

If I speak up,
will you listen?

or will you               only hear
the last breaths

of my words
******* up oxygen

like the sound of some
half-hearted     kissing

and I'll wonder                      how
it took                                             so long

to notice
the obviousness

of                            
                                              (something)
missing.

                        I've never been
good at submission.

Cem 12.26.15

Emancipated spirit
Losing pace
This loose flesh hangs
A reminder of
Indiscriminate taste
A tangible limit
To my wastefulness
And haste
And without grace
I tumble from sacred space
Into tainted complacency
And an un- retractable
Fruitless chase.

Like a Phoenix
I will die and replace
That which I lost in poor taste
Laced with predictable catastrophe
Encased in the blasphemy of self
The wealth of life
Now dealt it's wrath
Struck with the intention
Of being felt
Quaking about in my
Synapses
And nerve endings
Time bending becomes threatening,
The clock is an ungracious lender
And the interest of the wasted
moments pending
all too soon be expended
At the turn
Of the seasons
Lost in the maze
Field found its end.
My breath hesitates...



I will do what it takes.
I will not embrace this fate.

C.e.M. 12.22.15

It's a "getting tattoos for the feeling
Instead of deeper meaning"
kind of reasoning
Digger for personal treason
For an egregious timespan
That left you less leisurely
Shaking hands
With your palms tattooed
Too deep to let the ink wear thin
Skin calloused and questioning
The original intent.
You resent
Your inability to repent
And question
How truly resilient
You were.

C.e.M. 12.7.15

It’s not true; not all the way, but they say “it’s all about your choices.”
It makes no sense to me. I’ve never been much for inexplicable and
       inexhaustible benevolence.
I find I spend copious time figuring my meaning, in situations I over
       analyze into mathematical equations...am I conscious,
                or just a calculator?
Or...have I been (and hopefully still am) living, breathing, feeling…?
      flesh.
I question...is this stealing life?
This is evading death.

Arguably, our beginning is our end, no? Upon inception of life, have
      we not inherited death?
Yet again ponder...is there fate? Do they matter? (that is, my choices.)
I was once told, “if you can dream it, you can do it”. Shall I still build
      the perfect life?
I’m beginning to be overtaken with impatience that surpasses my
      innate benevolence.
I cannot say which is weaker, my spirit, or my flesh.
Once I’ve punched in my last numerical decision, how long will my
     finger hover above ‘enter’-
how long until the outcome appears on my mortality calculator?

I often lose myself in the turmoil of emotion. Not cool and collected
        like the others. It’s been decided, no I’m no calculator.
She seems to always descend at an uncanny time. An uncouth cold-
          caller, that Mistress Death.
“I feel young”, I croon. Unanswered by my withering flesh.
I consider my carelessness, wishing I had been the master of more of
     my choices.
Sometimes, it’s one-in-the-same, self-defense and benevolence.
I’m just trying to find some connection, but still I question, “is that all
        that makes this life?”

Will I ever find definition and solid intention strong enough to be
     named the same as all the other countless, hazy perceptions we
                call life?
I find myself to be robotic in response and anxious in nature. Perhaps I
      AM an inhumane Calculator.
I consider myself a fine hostess, even admittedly, to thoughts that strip
        down my benevolence.
“Death to those demons!” is my rising cry, “death!”
Death to unfavorable and unforgivable decisions, may they be buried  
        in my future choices.
May I think logically, and not be seduced into lethargy by the sinister
        siren calls of mortal flesh.
I cannot quench my questions, they crawl in droves beneath my flesh.
What am I do to? What shall I make of my life?
How little do I truly control with personal decisions, how much will I
        suffer from others choices?
Is it more dangerous to be over zealous or indeed catastrophic to
      function merely as a calculator?
How does one prepare for the permanence of death?
Have we soured into surface common courtesy in the guise of true
      benevolence?

I contemplate this often. What it would take to retain a group consciousness in distress…
     true benevolence.
Perhaps if we did not so often succumb to the momentary gratification  
        of pleasing our flesh
we would feel more peaceful, knowing we gave our best, to enter the
      vault of death
grateful and complete, finishing the entirety of our life
with no devious schemes for feigned success or entitlement; no
       manipulated calculations.
we’ve all heard it before, “It’s all about your choices”

But the choices of the best differ from the choices of the rest and
        it all depends on who’s willing to fight
their own flesh for a chance at life before imminent death.
       There’s no calculation for conglomerate benevolence.
Human flaw will always persist.

C.e.M. Written 0ct.5 Edited Oct 6

I'll smoke cigarette, I've thought countless times what it does to me.
I'll down another glass of wine. It's good for the heart, so they say.
I'll laze around 'till three pm. My excuse isn't worth hearing.
I'll dream of  ways I could never be. Should I be less daring?


c.e.m September 13, 2015

secondary vices
were always compromises
to the original morality
you sought.

somewhere in the pages
and peer pressure
and stage pressure
and slave wages
you forgot

you wanted memories
to mean something
and dreams to be
achieved.
But now life long
is long gone
and you lose your steam.

though I can no longer
imagine it
the way I fathom
insatiable hunger
will linger
a little longer.

perhaps someday
I'll be stronger
and I'll be able sonder
more than pessimistic ponderings.

Today I'll go under
and asunder my imagination
from fruitless creation that leaves
me listless and disagreeable.

If the future was foreseeable
perhaps I might be more careful
however knowing the complete anthology
of my defeat would never push me forward.
Is it fortunate I'm blind?
either way I'm falling behind.

C.e.M. September 13. 2015

sometimes
I just feel stuck.
I couldn't tell you how,
or by what.
There is simply this
perplexing mass of
displacement
weighing on my mind
in aggravation.

It feels eerily like stagnation
and impatience
but I have no current task
I am evading.

I am just....
waiting.

it is excruciating.

C.e.M. September 12, 2015

water poured, hot
bag steeping
quiet feeling of displacement
seep in with soft speed
tea leaves dispersing.

lemon squeezed
take it easy.
stir, stir, clink.
consider the options
for the second half.

map out plans
though title waves
and an old title track
on napkin or flyer back

jukebox static
brow semi circle refills
cream curdles from
remnants and resales.

stale smoke
quiet choke.
cup empty, the words gone
and payment is entailed.

grab your small cash
set the sails
past parking lots and guard rails.

Original Write: August 19, 2015 Edit September 13, 2015
C.e.M.

detached. seeing, not feeling
the chair the ceiling, the floor
spinning and who am I kidding-
it's long past when I should've
had my last laugh, when I
passed midnight and the
highlight of the day was
the meager wage of pity
I accrued from a
generation subdued by a
preposterous possibility over-
exaggerated in expectation and
reaching for the highest
creatable version of elation
without laying the proper
foundation built by
layers of training and daily
straining that compound
into callouses and graying roots
until we are austere
and astute or at least
that's the excuse we will use
for the continual quietness we
exhibit, inhibiting
relationships to flourish
discouraging speech
self medicating with synthetics
that inhibit hunger
fidgety and without epiphany-
cemented to the same place
later than you should have stayed.

We want what we want,
never mean to misbehave.

September 11, 2015 C.e.M

The battering ram of the underclass cruelty had left pocket marks in his dark skin as the quarrelling customers threw down cash just to ****** it back up as though they were bartering against each other for due time and money owed. He did nothing, save sit there and blink. I thought to myself it almost looked as though he was counting each second in the brief flutter of his eyelids. Open and closed they went, up and down, on and on. The two men were still bickering, each insisting the other owed more than he. My orange juice had begun to sweat in my hand, and I was anxious to eat my late night snack. I considered quietly persuading the two boisterous fellows to conclude their business and exit, but I feared what form their anger might take when reassigned to my annoying interjection. Saying nothing, I waited, testing my own patience and hoping fiercely they could move along. Some fifteen minutes later when all insults and insinuations were spilled out into the open air like oil into the ocean, the duo finally exited and I made my purchases, thankful to be rid of their company, and as I left I saw him sitting, stoic, still blinking rhythmically, not a word nor breath escaping his lips.

I will protect you with my life
That is to say
I will wrap myself around you
And not let anything
Get to you
I will deflect the shrapnel
of subconscious doubt and
Envelop you from the inside out.
I will coat you
in layers of sweet caresses  
Scratch your back,
Tell you you're impressive.  
I will swat away that which
might deter you
From getting where
You're supposed to.
Even if I'm not close to you
I'll do the most for you.

C.e.M. 9.9.15

The windows are down and the rattling sound of my eardrums at high speeds are drowning out themselves.
It's threatening to rain again.
Ever since the onset of the strawberry moon,
a half mile of persnickety storm clouds seem to be tracking my every move
As I soured inside my stale bedroom.
Gloom and doom seemed to be my only mood,
tattered souls of old ideas blocked from new perspective
the only left to lend a hand.
compassion and wisdom are in high demand
but this current distopia is anything but the
promised land.

Often, when devoid of all the normal worrisome pondering, I evolve to questioning if I will always wander,
wondering who's company I will hold or will hold me next.
I have found it to be that both myself and others have regressed from the best
and with ample stress
we're just searching for the next place to rest.

I dream of heading out west, but I don't see myself being
any less depressed.
Everything is a mess,
I'm attempting to tell myself my chest won't always feel so heavy
if I keep my steps and breathing steady.

When it's time to go, I'm most certainly never ready.
"I'm hiding inside more and more but at least I tried"
is becoming the titletrack to my life.
All I can do anymore is gripe-
It's no wonder I'm alone night after night
unless I employ the poor company
that is sure to haunt me
longer than long enough.

Momma said "I live life hard",
that is to say I've been roughed up enough to make me tough,
but the soft insides of my toes still rub
and I'd say I'm due for a hug.

I can't stay much longer
but I'll take a sip or two of something stronger
and remind myself to
"hold on".



C.e.M. 7.22.15

It's either too slippery
or too slurred
vision always obscured
when speech can't reach
the right intonation.

It's a gradual gravitation
away from the status quo
that turns stale again
the further you go.
I've never been one to take things slow

no,
never been patient
just defending against
the negativity and
a bitter sensation of defeat.
ah, just a statistic
for my generation.

what a marvelous time to be alive
and wasting away while
you crave something more
than the plague
of lazy days
that keep you flat on your back
in malaise
and die at fourty-five
from being fat
and smoking one pack-a-day
too many.

The truth is heavy
and I guarantee
once we look back on sedintary lives
we'll realize
it is our own
lackluster shells
we despise.

C.e.M. July 15, 2015

My head is fuzzy-
I can't pull myself out from underneath
the intoxicatingly tiring weight
of my multiple comforters and blankets.
I think of the inside of a koala's ear.
How fuzzy that must be.
That is what I am, yes.
I am nonsense, innocent pink and gaping.
No complex encroaching my perception,
no predelection for the preceeding day.
No bias nor misdirection yet, i am
unwavering as a week of rain
that leaks into two;
heavy grey clouds that won't budge
for longer than a half-hour.
I am a spelling bee and the certainty
before the fall- the letters came out wrong.
I am a churning gut, egging me
towards the "right call"
with the strumming of my moral fibers
or something of that nature.
I am the creeping heat of a humid day
no present danger
just sense of exhaustion;
feeling drained.
I am the pain on the page
and the **** poor decisions
that lead to a scalding shower
trying to smoke out those spur-of-the-moment sins.
I'm alone in your parent's walk-in closet
sobbing behind your father's golf polo's
while you make desserts
for a party full of strangers.
I always hated how you tried
to impress the neighbors.
I am the next day hurt
from a wrestling match that popped up in the
back yard over some hurt feelings
and a misinterpreted meaning.
I am all you know
but won't believe in.

C.e.M. Aug.18,2015