I am monday morning
come too early
waiting, dirtied from
the weekend;

come to wash off your alter ego
and decisions,
split like the bill
and all those little hairs
that tickle your face
when the wind whispers secrets
too quiet to decipher.

I am an indecisive shiver
of awakening
and the cool tile bathroom
that calls you from sleep
after the second snooze expired.

I am the hot cracking leather
beneath sweating thighs
a thirty minute traffic jam
after a dull day,
radio buzzing and daydreamy.

I am the tension before rest and release,
cool sheets
and sweet sleep.

C.e.M. Aug.24, revised Aug. 29 2015

Finding inner strength is hard
That is to say,
when my eyes are tired
and I'm perpetually bored with everything
that might be the possibility
of some sort of
unforseen progression,

I lose any words
to hold in the moment
with something you might conceed
to understand.

Sand me down with your selfish demands
and gritty hands
after two days past
when you should've cleaned up a bit.

Maybe in late summer
the rag **** will swirl about
and I'll say I have
an allergy headache
and maybe that's why
I'm congested
and mildly depressed
and sure, maybe
that's it
or maybe
it's because of all the cigarettes.

Don't hate me if I don't answer
I've just found something new
to captivate my attention
for the moments when we part.

The tension of what's expected
hangs thick in incense smoke
and anticipation.

I'm migrating into something misplaced
and full of consternation.

C.e.M. August 16, 2015

Blitzed and blinded
by barely escaping lies
that make you feel apart
of things
but have left
you behind.

Why have you shied away
once again?
you've lost any
real intent.

Bottom of the pit
with blood crusted lips
and a head
full of ****.

You're still a kid.
you're still a kid.

C.e.M. April 25, 2015

picking at the skin
left to wither around a
somewhat fresh
wound,
avoiding eye contact
and your next move.

you don't have the energy
to choose
when moving forward
means you lose.

stay in place
stay obtuse
shell out another
over used excuse.
dropping clues
to your old ruse
for a new muse.

C.e.M. April 25, 2015

dozing or writing poetry
always seems so much better than
the alternative
going out-
stale *******
package left open world
spoiled.
Don't cry over spilt milk
don't cry over the bed you made
or this tower you built.
you were in on it.
every over bred chicken
ground and breaded
we rename our stupidity all cutesy.
So if that's the only way I can appeal
to you
the only way you can hear
so you might heal,
then take a chicken nugget of wisdom
and go check out the kitchen.
What are they cooking up?
the putrid toxins of dissention
racism named "culture"
police brutality spelled "justice"
hidden
organized
normalized.
News sources with the
long-standing trust
of the public
but they're slowly becoming
a part of the budget.

Cheap food and the six o'clock news
commercial break for cigarettes and *****
we're spoon fed
and we choose it.
Plastic bred
poison fed
under the guise of choice
and an easier life.
Hard nights
bar fights
at least the taco bell
is open past midnight.

While your brain is soup
eat a little more sludge
and when you're uncomfortable and confused
well,..
I told you to run.

C.e.M. 8.14.15

When the month has fizzled out
and the moon
has given you two tries
and you're still stuck on goodbyes

do you even remember your last words?
or were they just for the sake of reply.
I'm wondering why you've even wasted your time.
C.e.M. 7.11.15

The groceries and the rent
I 've already spent
what was meant to be my savings

trying to save me
from rockabye baby
to the grave because lately

I feel a little less stately
and a little more disheveled.

I might ask you to embellish,
forgive me
maybe I'm just nosey

or prone to misunderstand closeness
to a speculative humanity.
Can we truly interact spiritually?

Or is it less empirical than it seems
and we're just vibrating in our own
                                               paradigm
             template
                                 dreams
we weave our own gods eye
to see things.
Everything.

Human beings or
human doings?
Lately I've been toggling through

between the two
in indecisiveness.

"Ah, give it a rest"
Chides one side of my mind

In return comes the gruff reply
"It is what it is, isn't it
           and it's what I do best".

C.e.M 8.14.15
edited 1-24-2016

He's got hair that smells like coffee grounds
And his mouth hangs open when he sleeps.
He says last night
There were a few too many rounds-
He's trying harder not to drink.
He's trying for me.

He's cigarettes in bed
After almost ***
I'm just not ready yet.
He doesn't get it.
I don't get it much either.

I'm taking a breather
When I come back
Will he still be a believer?

C.e.M. 8.12.15

The floor cared not about the transient presence of my bare, calloused feet upon it, and it returned no hushed squeaks or slaps to the questioning foot-falls of my tired, heavy steps. In fact, the only indicator I had moved about at all were the spattered sand drifts that flaked off my soles slowly with the grinding of my heels in each trip.
A soft, self satisfied whisper came from the edges of my cotton skirt as it dipped down to drink momentarily, the cool insulation of the tile floors grazing its parched lips.
I hadn't had a cigarette in months. hadn't even crossed my mind, truly. Something in the sticky summer air called me to revisit old tendencies, and it was admittedly maddening trying to resist.  I had already done the hard part. That was, going about acquiring the ****** things. I was out of a car due to some irresponsibility and malfeasance on my own part, and the engine blowing on my former transport. Besides, I had no real notion where the nearest filing station was, seeing as this wasn't my city. For a moment, I let the unforeseeable notion sweep me away with it, and tried persuading it to disappear.
It was merely out of chance that on the way home from the beach earlier this evening, our car would be in need of filling up. As he fiddled with the various buttons and nozzles on the marquee, I slipped discretely inside and purchased a  pack of my old favorites. I contemplated lighting one up immediately but suddenly, I felt ashamed for my relent in defense against temptation, and instead tucked them away, un-tampered.
The sun and all of its steaminess had sunken back into the earth, and a cool sea breeze swelled about me and rushed in through the passenger side window to ruffle my hair. I had spent twenty minutes into primping it just right, but it was the end of the night and had decided to give up caring as I edged my head closer to that blustering wind.
Back home again, my fingers found the crisp plastic-lined corners of cardboard stuck in the left side of my clutch and, once again I toyed with the idea of giving in. No use, I had nothing to spark with.  I let the package fall back into its place in exasperation.
I suppose it's better this way.

C.e.M. June 22

Oil in the ocean
she is the insinuation
of a poison
both intoxicating
and breath taking
though, without mistake
she is devilishly volatile.
speech becomes slurred and spaced
and her intentions become displaced
as she falls from grace
night after night
this is her fight-
she never stops to question
she might be on the wrong side.

C.e.M. June 14

subtle yellow bruises
obtuse and inconducive
to the injury that
left you spoon-fed
by society.


C.e.M. June 4

When you're skating by on unpaid debts
having grown to the point of
potential arrests...

Can I get a witness
to get me out of this?

or maybe just someone
to do the dishes
while I'm away.
I've used up my energy
and all
one million wishes.
I spent them all on things
I'll soon need to fix

until soon rots into now
and I'm still in the house
maybe tomorrow I'll have
the energy to get out and about.

Quiet as a mouse
If I eventually arrive
tatty and scrambling
wrinkled blouse and a half-assed lie
that wasn't worth trying to say

one way or another
I need you to show me the way
but you've already turned to leave
while I'm
still trying to find me feet.
It's too late again.

C.e.M.
Write date, June 2, Edit Date, Aug 11

Why her eyes look just like mint ice cream,
half melted in the heat of an overly engaging conversation
during the middle months out on the back steps.

Why my belly is never full
when my thoughts won't settle
and I'm up too late on an uncomfortably stuffed stomach.

If this was the way it was meant to be
then well
I just can't see myself being too intrigued.

How do I tell the difference between stagnancy and contentedness?
I fear I'll stop from comfort
before I'm finished.
Or perhaps overshoot the whole target.
Who's to say which.

C.e.M.
original write, June 1 with New edits Aug 11

Go about your mac-book-business
and pick up the kids
when you're finished.
If you say you're just
working to live,
why do you do more
working
than living?
I know,
I know.
This is just
"the way it is".
stay skinny,
stay sought after;
stay a catch
on past forever.
C.e.M. 8.11.14

Tombstones marked with years gone by. A personal, though nearly inconsequential timeline that has filed by and left a full life and a hollow body in its wake. The give and take, the motions that propel us into the future one moment at a time until quite suddenly and certainly too soon the track runs out and we all crash into the black. We will be commemorated in the most carefully worded manner so as not to insult our memory, making our lives much more tidy in death than they could ever been seen while we were still about walking. The others left will cry for us and mourn our impressionable personalities and the impending lack thereof. But to passersby, in life we were just a few gestures and a face. In death, we are a Slab of rock and two dates. The question is what shall be done with what very well could be hoarded into an ever-widening stockpile of unused moments, never considering the irretrievable vault into which we place them until it finally swings shut and closes us in  along with them. That is, until we reach this unmovable and unchanging space, disintegrating and replaced by new voices, new notions, and new life. Will you fight? Or will you lie down out of practice and in wait for the steadily encroaching date we all must face.
C.e.M August 10, 2015

I had forgotten what it was like to feel wholly wanted. Not just for my influence or my thoughts,
Not for my body parts
Or the way I so easily stopped and started
Things when being close got
Too uncomfortable.
I'm sorry now if I mumble
It's just getting a little harder to be bold,  
To tell you the things I hold
So tightly
And you take lightly,
Listening and nodding there
On the other side of the spotlight
Because tonight? You sit in judgements seat
And I am the one clamoring towards
The microphone to admit
Public defeat because I'm beat and I'm tired
But ******* it I'm still trying

C.e.m. 7.19.15

You say you need a doctor
We'll send a helicopter
Because my love is dry
And I won't even try to save you this time

What's your alibi
Tell me,
will you smile the whole time?
watch me choke down your lies
Cem 7.15

Do you remember what it felt like?
that first time you felt something.
what was it like?
before grass was just the potential for stains
and a hiding place for bugs
that bite and itch
long after the day is over.
do you remember?
the way the air felt rushing through your window
the first time you noticed the seasons
and chose your favorite.
I can’t recall the angst of choosing an outfit
or the nuisance of tangled hair and chewing gum.
all i remember is the afters-
after i fell I had scabs for two weeks
after he left,
I wasn’t sure where I fit in.
After I switched schools,
After I learned how to do my makeup
After the sessions just…
stopped.
after they told me I had flat feet
after I wasn’t good enough to dance
wasn’t fast enough to dive
wasn’t keen enough to pitch.
after my lines weren’t crisp enough
my circles weren’t round enough
my words weren’t big enough.
wasn’t cheery enough
loud enough
sweet enough
wasn't
pretty
enough.
I don’t remember how it felt when I looked at him the first time
or how it felt learning his name
his hobbies
and his favorite sports team.
I hardly remember what it was that made me so happy
I just remember
holding his hand too much
and the sweat that always seeped between our adolescent awkwardness.
I remember what it felt like when he took too much though
when he was suffering and
so was I
but helping him was all I knew as a distraction.
I remember the strange faces and the late nights
and the police wondering what a
fourteen year old girl
is doing across the bridge at 2am.
I remember the drop from my window to the frosty ground
i remember the bite when my ankles hit
I remember the pang when I slipped.
What about sorrow?
do you remember what your heartfelt like
when it was still light?
when all those childish metaphors fit just right
and there was no need for anything other than trite rhymes.
what was it like when we trusted everyone?
when plastic bags
were just for snacks
and it was never a question where your drink came from.
When did my beanie baby turn into a switch blade?
I’m carrying around mace
like a safety blanket.
when was our innocence taken?
when did we get so hostile?
so sore?
so depressed?
How long is the list of things we just
“live with”?
Because it started with your ankles and then it was your shins
now your entire lower body is
caving in
that’s not even mentioning
what’s beginning in your head.
you used to think everything worked out-
at least eventually.
But everything is getting worse
your parents
your brother
your country…
it’s a divorce from practicality
that has spawned this disturbing reality.
I would change my mentality
but it’s been created to keep me safe.
at least that’s what they say
and I repeat to myself.
because now I remember,
i remember the things that keep me away
from the bus stop
from the gas station
from 202
from downtown.
I remember what happened
up the hill
on 35
out past the churches and the sea of dried corn.
I remember the sound
of the cicaidas
and your breath
and the sirens
I remember you telling me I was a hot mess
and I told you 
i needed to rest
when I was really depressed and you
never really questioned my sanity
the way you should have.
I wonder when I’ll decide
that I’m not getting by and I'm
fooling myself with the lie I've
sold to ease the burden on my weary soul.
I don’t have a home and
yes,
I’m alone.
But I live with it
I live with myself
I live with the scabs and the scars and the bites and the scratches
with the blurred vision and tired tendons
I live with it because
what else
is there to do?
I can’t get through to you
and neither of us
want me to.
copyright:CeM 10-2-14

The metallic shine
Of the chopping waves reflected in my looking glass eyes
That had lost their shine
With the explosion of the sun
Many moons ago
Now I seek the woman the old crow has visited in  the corners
Of her smile and she gazes off for quite a long while, returning with some unseen bizarre entity of a thought you sensed she had forgotten or perhaps hidden from herself.
Now the rhythmic pedaling meant nothing just churning slowly churning
Briney water of the moment still left
untold water
rushes by in folds of fools gold as the elephant mountain geishas marched by in wind blow whispers of their former selves and both compell me to give them my undivided attention
but I'm still trying to
find my direction here
on land.

I suppose
This is what ****** addicts
And psychotics feel like.
White walls
And overflowing ash trays, long
Drags and sloppy kisses
Open shirts and
Undone belts;
Their eighteenth year spinning
Records of commentary
Nostalgia before you got sick from
The speed
Uninteresting to everyone else
Inescapable to you.
Slaughtered morals
***** socks on the sidewalk
If something honest
Inside me could talk I'd say
I never want to feel another questioning palm again against my prickled skin.
Ten days until escape?
Or is it back to the cage?
Who's to say.

C.e.M. 6. 9. 15

"The fireflies are out tonight" he remarked, plodding barefoot behind her. Dusk fell over the stoic faces of skyscrapers that lined the three blocks ahead of them. "First I've seen this season", she replied in a near whisper, moon-eyed and gazing at something over the space where the park was.

//stop//

Her ears emerged from beneath the water she'd grown accustomed to the temperature with her laps up and down, trying to wash away the earlier happenstances of the day. It was warm beneath the surface, but the breeze made her feel brittle.

//Stop//

"...or was it more of a situation entirely different?" the boy questioned. She stared blankly at his awaiting gaze. How long had she been under? she had no idea. She'd gotten lost in thought and, as usual forgotten to count her laps. It just figured. It was like her to drift off like that. She shrugged to herself and closed her eyes as she leaned back into the water, once again drowning out the dull sounds of obscure questions that dripped out of his mouth. She closed her eyes as she swung her legs up to the wall and exhaled as she pushed back and drifted once again to the other side of the pool.

//stop//

She was dripping wet and a man was escorting her to a new room. It smelled of grease and cigarettes. The lighting was bad.

//stop//

All dry now, except her hair. She was warmer though. She exited her current surroundings through the only door. There, to the left of the desk on the floor. She quickly skipped over and slipped them on.

//stop//

Her hair was almost completely dry and she couldn't stand still. He was cleaning in his boxers by the kitchen sink. She'd pulled up the rug in front of the makeshift TV computer screen and she danced in front of the window, happy he couldn't see.

//stop//

it's late. much later. she wanted to go upstairs but she was having a hard time trying to care. Maybe the girl she used to know would help her out with a little artificial sweetener to fight off the sleep. She could at least see.

STOP.


C.e.m. 6.11.15

I keep thinking
                                 I'm hungry
                                 I'm closer to the curb
                                                      I'm late.

I keep thinking
                                 It should've cost less
                                 This was a waste of gas
                                         I'm gonna head out.

I keep hearing
                          my alarm;
                          Your early morning voice
                        The frosted wind quake above.

I keep thinking
                          I'd have more to say
                          I'd have more change
                        The meters were off by now.

I keep dreaming
                            I'm wandering
                            You appear occasionally
                           I have the antidote to misery.

I keep trying
                      To be
                             poetic
                                Enthusiastic
             ­                             Inspired.

Vonnegut has cursed me
I'm caught in a Timequake
Repeating continuously
My last worst mistake.
This is a tendency
I can't seem to shake and
My dependency
Comes and goes in waves
But for now I'd say

I don't need you.

I keep trying
                 to be logical.
I keep thinking
                 I'm doing alright.
I keep dreaming
                It's true
But I keep hearing
                The opposite from you.



C.e.M. April 24, 2014 first draft

We're lying back to back.
Faces in our screens.
We are together...
whatever that means

C.e.M.

Do you think that you'd need
some sort of apology
When you come to me
While I'm still dreaming?
Do you think this could make
an awkward autopsy
Because I'm too dizzy to be
Agreeing?

Caught on the hook
You played it
right by the book.  
You took your time
And little of mine
and now I'm the one
Left leaving.

And screaming
And trying,
But not really believing
In anything
but a bereaved blessing,
All forgotten and festering
Though unnoticed,
Still attesting
To it's wasteland existence.

Porous, dry and without pigment
Like the skin of an overgrown pigglet

Time for slaughter,
Courtesy of the indignant.
In death too *****
To be a meat worth eating,
Your glory days
Of **** wallowing wonder
were fleeting,

And you knew it from day one
But it wasn't till near seventeen
You began to come undone,
Got a little high strung
And grew a knife for a tongue
Plunged straight into the heart
With snide remarks and whispers
Of text messages
Left off the charts
And I'm left in the dark

To inside jokes
Of feigned friendship
I suppose I'm waiting
For what you forgot to mention.

Yes,
You've always had
good intentions
Just
... no direction
And little discretion
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry...
But I must change direction.

Cem 5.4.15

...and at the end
I'm scrambling for just a little more
**** and for words
and your redundant rambling
is broken English
trying to communicate things
I'll never understand.
When I remember my last wish
I check the kief catch
the last shot 'till I'm dry
and with an empty barrel
and hollow sloshing guts,
my porous bones will snap
under the weight
of morality's fate
and my wayward ways.
I'll crash into a parade
of memories
that will spiral around me
as I plummet into the geyser
that last dopamine rush
that will ****** me into
the fifth dimension
the crystalline eclipse
of what is yet unknown
and forever undiscovered.

c.e.m. 4.28

Face to the sky
Even if the sun is in my eyes
and it's blinding me
so that everything I see is
in moonbeam white
and everyone is just as polite
as I want them to be.

In reality
there is darkness
and it seems it's only me,
who will give as much as I take
thinks promises don't break
knows I am headed to the grave
and (tries to)
make something good of it.

Because driving is just like smoking...
If we walk can we stop?
or at least slow down,
and move in blocks
instead of miles
and across the neighborhood
instead of The States.

The soot in my lungs
never felt so great, anyway.
I think my cue was a while ago.
Excuse me,
I'm coming in late
and these excuses stammered
are layered.

I'm too old to believe prayers
are anything but
a little self recognition and release.
So please, leave me be
while I lay on my face
and cry to the sky
for some semblance of relief.

I'm stoic and solidified
my mind, a block of ice
drifting through glacial tides
of callous contempt
exempt from empathy-
I don't want to relate.

Yet even still, I retaliate.
Home-grown surgery
might do a little good for me
a root canal
for that weird little machine
between my eyebrows
I might espouse humanity
back into my vocabulary.

All in all,
the ups and down will fold neatly
into an interesting
half-page obituary,
the sumination of a
less-than-elegant sequence
of events.

I am ever hesitant to repent
lest I resent my own penitence
for lack of pertinence.



C.e.M. 4.21.15
edited 2.9.17

I'm still trying
to kiss girls
In the doorways
                              Of the bathrooms
                                                        Of these same few bars
While their boyfriends
Wait intrepidly outside

Since wanting something
I know I can’t have
Has always been a source
Of undeniable temptation.

I’m still binge eating
                                           and chain smoking
                                                         ­                 and getting ******
Since gaining weight
And the mounting pressure,
  Of the thickening
soot in my lungs


Seem to be the only things
that feel similar
To the stagnation
that accompanies
                                Filler friends
                                                  and dead end outings
That leave me pouting
Not in the corner
But just off center


C.e.M. 4.10.15
edit 4.18.17

Part one:
I wake up. Everything's still kinda quiet. Except the highway. I've slept next to a high way since as long a I can remember. Has everyone? How far do you have to be to escape the endless trickle of passengers and their escorts tumbling down the great divide of one way or the other, compressing and condensing the magnitude and grandeur of the space between them? I like it that way. Always wondering who's face has crossed across your conscious space, that has drifted to the back of your brain. How alike are they to the innumerable faces you pass in the midst of all manner of journeys. Yours is as irrelevant to them as theirs is to you and yet for a split second, you both simultaneously glance over at the precise moment and you know, there's gotta be something more than this.

I am beginning to wonder
how many more times
I will awake
to another sunrise
to find
that I never quite shut my eyes
yet again-
I was just spinning or
maybe swimming
in these visions of sins
and grins met upon
the second guess that
set in after that double take.
Is this
something we can make
or will it just
make everything
more tedious-
what we are is fleeting
and I’m lost on a bus
and the schedules swing
in pendulums-
when they hit the bottom
they strike as weapon
of wasted time
and I need a ride.
  I might get off track
but at least
I can keep you laughing
with the things I say
behind a timed rhyme style-
I’m done with denial
of my actions of a child.
Excuse me
I just went a little wild
trying to beat the feeling
that I was mild,
just mediocre.
Compensation
for a consolation prize
I’ll play the joker.
I don’t have a spine
but I’m paying for things
that aren't mine
Don’t worry
I’ve just lost my mind
in the shrinking times
that grow more rapidly
with their progression.
The earth stands still
while heads
are standing upside down
in the sands of their dreams
and perspective realities
I’m up in the trees
or maybe
I’m just trying to get closer
to the sky
so I can feel free.
There’s where I need to be-
those dying stars aren’t fleeting.
Not immortal,
no maybe not;
but so ever radiant
in a cataclysmic death.
Finding my way
through broken phrases
and run-ons
I’m tripping towards
my glory days
wondering
if I can actually make it
or if I will be forced
into the illustrations
of exaggerated narrations
of a day last week
or last month,
does it matter if it’s gone?
I’m just like you,
trying to hold on.

I'll stuff myself with sweets
and line my bed with pillows
but even in
the impending summer heat
I'm cold
and you're nowhere near me.
my head,
my bed...empty.  
the way it must be
meant to be.

Stale crackers and
Quivering cigarettes
Held in a hesitant hand
And lonesome lips.
Nothing tastes more of regret
Than the spit on your chin
On your way back
From the bathroom,
Twenty minutes after your knees
Have finished holding down the floor
While the cold wrinkled faces
Of your feet turn up towards
The dull buzzing of the fan.

Your vision is blurred
By the tainted tears
That squeeze out
When the hand over your mouth
Just isn't enough to cover
the cost
Of last nights tab
And the penalty you avoided
By taking a cab back to
Your flat for a short nap
Before your six am shift.

But eleven hours later
And the ding of the elevator outside your door
Jolts you awake-
Seven missed calls mark your mistake
And there's a feeling you can't shake
That this is terribly wrong.

Turn over again
Running miles, still in bed.
You've spent too long
Marinating in your poor decisions
And night after night
You succumb to your vices.
You will make no progress
If you cannot be contrite.
You aren't
Alright.

C.e.M. 3.28.15

I love you.


That's not something
I'm accustomed to.

The summer is beginning to
Seep back into my sallow skin
As the crisp night air
Turns warm and fragrant

And the sky
Dirtied with light
Disapates back into
An eerie though
Strangely comforting displacement.

Always temporary,
Change remains scary.
But the uncharted territory
Can't always be complementary
To the days whims and desires.

Weeks may come and go
And I will remain uninspired,
But soon the summer breeze
Will come whispering again
To remind me

Of the tickle of anticipation
When ideas are all I have
And facts have yet to
Set themselves into any certain order

And I don't feel so old
And your body will block the cold
With sandy smirks
And drunken comfort
As we slosh together uncaringly
For a few nights out of the week

And maybe by and by
You'll mean something to me
Or maybe we'll just go with
"We'll see"

But either way you will come again with the summer
And again I'll see
if I can try to be happy.

3.25.15 C.e.M

You smell like the second night
In a fresh bed of sheets
Soon to be soaked
In a morning sun
That has slipped it's way
In through the window to
Drench you in daylight and responsibility.
You worry what the others will think
But they're downstairs
And a ghost like wind
Will shut your door to hide you from them,
It will caress you and suggest you
Dive back into sleep again
But morning must end  
And you're drawn back
Into the pretend game
That awaits you
On the other side
Of your second day sheets.

C.e.M. 3.21.15

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

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.

I had a talk with the trees today.
I told them what I wanted
And they replied with
"Go on then,
run away.
Being at the top
Doesn't always mean you can see
All that much clearer".

Indeed they were right
It'll never be quite the same
On the way down.


Cem

The residue of indecision
Rumbles by in
Stomach pains
And the repetitively lame
Excuse
As to why
You didn't get
Out of bed today.

What a shame.
What a waste.

C.e.M

I've noticed the way
Your smiles have slowly grown
From the polite crinkles you create
For strangers in unsettling situations
To a happy twinkle
and a flash of your teeth
In the pauses
Of inquiring speech.

I wouldn't mind
If you came to visit
Every day this week.

C.e.M. 2.20.15

It's nights like these
That make me question
If my fallibility has come sooner
Than I had expected
And I will remain forever defective.
A kink in my neck
and hair in my eyes
Predictions of an impending fate
That I might be stuck this way
If I keep making this face.

C.e.M. 2.17.15

Pushed to the back of the fridge
Styrafoams full of predictions
Of life after your childish ambitions
played out.

Carried home from a family occasion
The ideas molded
Over the ages of a chilly
Adolescence.

Now each morning
hits like a punch in the mouth,
The sour taste of last nights
Forgetfulness
Heavy on your breath.


it's always too early
To stomach the sun.
Returning to lost love
With only poison in your gut;
It's getting easier to move on.

Continue along
Hanging from a precarious
Cable car of ambivalence
Wave 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

And after a while
Your coughing becomes
Comfortable,
And consistent,
and the soot in your lungs
Becomes just another layer
to keep you warm.
....
It's just another
Thunder storm
Avalanche.





Call me
When you get the chance.


C.e.M. 2.17.15

I will touch your hair,
matted and wet after a shower,
and tell you sweetly I like it better
when you forget the conditioner.

I will count each drop that falls
from tangled strands
that are strewn across
your pink *******,
and slides down under my fingers
until there are no more,
and I will be forced to speak.

you smile,
and its so much sweeter
without that awful shade of red
I used to fancy you in.

You offer me breakfast in bed
but I want you instead.
we lie face to face,
nothing but sheets in the way
begging the day not to begin
and this dream not to end.

you are sweet as sin
and I'm ready to dig in.

The rain beat down like a ferocious lover
On cracked windows
And creased curtains.
Barren and dry outside
This tumultuous storm
Lay inside my eyes and kept
The raging wildfire abreast
If only momentarily.
Sorrow as my only defense mechanism
Pleading innocence and defeat
I may be laying low
For a week or more
But I will not be beat.
Go ahead
And bring the heat that swells
In the late august
Of good intentions turned sour.
Age out all the promises
That have rot in the back room
Before ever reaching their destination.
We have reached the boiling point,
Now slipping into disintegration.
You were a caricature of yourself
And I, the animator.
Maybe I’ll see you later
When you’ve rearranged your display.
I think we’ve had enough
For today.
c.e.m. 2.9.14

The clouds seem to mock the buildings
On days like today,
Flamboyantly drifting across the space
Their grounded counterparts
Don’t have the heart
Nor the stamina
To conceive;
Knowing they will never part
The ground.

Brick and mortar,
They stand
Stagnant in cement;
They believe they have the upper hand.

When capricious skies
Are prone to fickleness,
The buildings stand
Like they do best.

Staring out their window eyes
Story by story
People-watching people
Oblivious to their silent presence
And their
Delicate, intricate scaffolding
For a more pressing interest
In those cloudy skies
And the imaginable possibilities
spawned
By their passing by.


c.e.m. 1.19.15