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

...and so time
continues to gobble itself up;
the only dog
to ever catch it's own tail.

I'm wishing to stop
and willing to last.

All the while,
a hypocrite shrouded
by my own inability
to escape self doubt.

I cling to the moment
before decision, audaciously
battling consternation
I bid time to speed past.

caught in
petulant impatience, I question...

shall I forfeit
myself to hell?
or shall I wedge myself
in the gap

of  days past,
and days
I cannot cease
from escaping my grasp.


I linger a moment longer
on a thought I often ponder...

What's the point
in living fast?
I'd rather lay in the grass
and finish last.


C.e.M. 12.23.14

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

I hear my last words
lose themselves
hanging from the precipice
of a precise demise.

Looking for nectar,
I pick at thorns and scabs
you name your regrettable yesterdays
though I won’t find any syrup
In your horseradish skull.

Tuesday’s malaise will spread
across the week turning sour and heavy.
Summer to fall I thought I had it solved.
Fall to winter,
I know nothing at all.



12.13.14. Cem copyrighted
edited 6.15.16

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

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

Complex or not
I always come out on top.

The love you hold in
So moldy from years of sitting
Unattended
Stuck in a cabinet of
Miscellaneous memories
Has been dug out by me.

Now kindergarten has regurgitated
Feelings of jealousy you grip
Tightly
In secrecy.

What is the game
In befriending me?

It's not going to be
The way you dream it to be.

Because now?
He sleeps with me.

Unsatisfied
And subject to relapses
Of pride.

C.e.M.

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

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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

“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

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 called you at 2am
because i missed the way
your voice crackled
in the static
even at an unreachable distance.
I lay here,
eyes shut.
imagining countless scenarios
of how I might see you again.
however,
you look so much better in my mind.
and online.


c.m.
8-19-14

"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 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

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

Satan was swinging over me
the seduction of solitude
ever encroaching into my slippery thoughts.

I'm in a race to retrace back to what I forgot
but in a effort diluted by my distraction
I will surely rot
before I arrive to the place
where I might get off.

I missed the last stop with eyes
heavy with wine and sleep
and the poisonous concoctions
I so eagerly drink

Just a momentary quenching;
simply sated for the moment.

Chapped lips and a rattly voice
this is the brink of atonement.

There is a man on a stage
three feet from a crowd who gazes on
clearly enraged
though nonetheless engaged.

He is rabid with malice
and a darkness in his heart
tainted blood in his chalice

this coal will never spark.

c.e.m. 11.24.2014

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

Twist me into
A sick, sad fool;  
I would,
I would for you.

C.eM. 12.13.14

Maybe
If I buy new sheets
I'll have an easier time forgetting you
And your shifting eyes
All morning sun and maroon.

I had better get a new color too

Just not blue...
That was the one before you
With the thin hair and half lies
And winter city lights.

And before that I like to remember nothing besides the yellow daisies on a peachy sunrise of my youth,
But the silky stitches will forever hold
Their petals;  
White centered with a splintering,
Tainted innocence;
A pasty white puddle of
Bodies too young-
Caught in the riptide of our
Childhood storms
And a desire for adulthood
Or something seemingly more....
Stable.

Details will only cause us to once again derail
so I must insist you don't question this.

I've been going out of my way so long
Trying to wrap up my Saran facade.
Now every interaction
Feels wrong
And rubs me raw.
My plastic skin is wearing thin
And I might melt against the heat
Of the confrontational defeat
That I suppose ...

We all just get used to.

I keep tripping over perceptions
Strewn across a convex looking-glass
Of stereotypes and slurs that shaped my past;
And I suppose
Made a lasting impression
Rooted deep enough
to now be the
Instigator of my regression
And unrelated, runaway thoughts

That seem to always get deeper

On accident.


Everything will become a hazy memory
And glob into two word phrases
Of the forced politeness
That accompanies the acknowledgement
Of a past regret-
Still freshly gawky
As a transitional stranger;


I am inquiring
In an attempt to find an explanation  for this untold something
That remains unseen
Until we're too disheveled
To distinguish it from a
A misplaced dream or idea.


Relativity counteracts the sheen
And perspective is everything,
But I feel myself slipping away
Into a despondent complacency.

I left all my linens in places
I no longer cared to be.

Yeah,
Maybe new sheets are what I need.

C.e.M 12.23.14

We left on the excuse of
Wanting to listen
To
"Just one song".

But when we arrived at the place
That kept us from the outside
We decided to go ahead and drive

And I've never had a smile so big
I was actually scared
My face might rip

And I could die
Or we could drive off a cliff
Or smoke a laced spliff
It makes no difference to me

As long as you're around
Even if that means muddling through
The week
In our seperate towns
Until one of us can come down
For the weekend.  

And we're too loud
But it's only because we're used
To trying to bridge the distance
With a vocalized insistence

That we'll find a way back
Even if it's back roads and red eyes and runny noses

I know how it goes
And I've chosen to stay
When I would usually take the easy way
I'd be out and gone
But we're leaving together
And with you
I try to do less wrong.

Last night
one more song
Turned into a vulnerable
Sob
And awkward consolation
Turned to snot on my shoulder
And the comfort of
Human warmth.

I would address how we should go forward
But I know it doesn't matter

I'll see you again
And you'll catch my spinning head
And I'll hug you
And hug you
And never get enough

Sweet thing,  
You're the good stuff.


12.20.14 cem

so strange
it should seem
how vividly those lost moments
reappear to me.

they seep into my conscious stream
like the steam
beneath a ***
simmering on the
low heat of three.

I’ve never been much for
the romanticism of lost time
regardless of the frequency
at which it
captures my complacent mind,

but the silent movies
that wind
and unwind
behind closed eyes
are redefining
the circular lies
you seem to find comfort
in hiding behind
in order to maintain sanity
in the circling calamity
of present circumstance
and reoccurring coincidences.

I am victim
to the incident
that serves as
a lingering question mark
of the intent
behind the recently
protruding insolence that has been
festering since I
refused penance
on the slight chance

I’d find a savior in myself.

C.e.M. 8.19.14

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

C.e.M.

Let the wind take me like smoke
And every other over used metaphor
You’re a bore
No I am
I don’t know where I stand
Where we stand
We used to hold hands
Not anymore.
I’m in the bathroom hiding
Biding our time
Lets rewind
You’re always on my mind
Its inevitable that I’ll fall into my old ways
I’ll start littering again
And slithering around with suburban ****.
I haven’t become anything.
I’m just coming undone.
C.m.

8.3.14

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

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've written pages upon pages of
Poetry
About the ways you find
To know me

But these attempts will always
Falter
And eventually fail-
Maybe this wasn't supposed to be.

You ask me what that means
And I don't have an answer.
Maybe you'll find one in the lap
Of last weekend's dancer.


When I no longer have the words to write
I hope you trace my freckles with
Cracking hands-
Sand me down with selfish demands.

There is a lot to discover
But you were never interested in
The Braille of my squirming skin.

When the carnivorous sun
Comes
I will sink to the bottom
Of a sunny sea
Turned desert

You might be the antidote
To a calloused misery

But in reality...
Our interactions were just short
Of dreary.

You were never quite what
I dreamed you up
To be.

Try not to take it too personally,
This rehearsal of simple dexterity
And our perplexing lack
Of similarities.

What are you doing with me?
I don't have a place here-

I will always awake first,

Bleary eyed and swimming against
The tides of a wordless agreement
That I've tried to please

I know when I leave you don't-

No, You won't

Grieve.  

Should I just leave?


C.e.M 12.9.14

Because in the end I'm still standing
in the corner
like I like
or don't like
I have yet to decide but
I'm laughing with myself;

vanity never got me anything.

So I'll wear exactly what I like or
what you want me to like or
whatever I found on the floor
and I'll collect more and more
until I finally realize what I chore it is

Pretending who you're going to be each day.

Dress me in grey
Stick me in a simple box
Set me on fire and
throw me to the rocks in the sky
that always reflected the dreamy mist of another life
into my vacant eyes.

C.e.M. 12.12.14

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.

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.

Caught between the couch cushions
of earth and the abyss
what a sick twisted tryst.

whens the last time you really kissed
you know, pressed lips with a mister or a miss

Caught  in situations that have
persuaded a pulsating
aggravation

caught between the oppressive and the suggestive
childhood fades out in succession
because you are still hooked on
your old house

you are the deja vu
of what I
already do.

Excuse me to say that I am already done
I don't like to run
my knees sting from the pressure
but a lecture  
of run on sentences is longer than
a list on
some prison percentages

Caught between deranged and wanting to change
sputtering out the plague

my eyes are on fire
If I close them nothing will transpire
is that required?


Caught.
On an idea of something you are not
and I forgot.

C.e.M. 11.26.2014

To the crushing of bones
when you implode;
my stubborn skull
was no match for the concrete.

I flew face first-
now I am ground into dirt,
or the dirt is ground into me
wherever I’m bleeding.


I can’t clean these wounds sober.
this girl?
you won't know her.

my jaw is popping-
is there any chance of that stopping soon?
The moon is closing in on the sun,
threatening to collide
and I've grown wearing of hiding in the night.
I'd just like some
medical attention.

My knees,
my knees...
I forgot to mention they're all ******;
I don't have the money to call off
for a few days.

can I sleep on my face?
my pain is evidence of my shame-
these wounds just my physical disgrace.

I'll regain coherency
at a quarter till three
with a swollen, puffy face
and vinegar in my veins.

just add it to the list
of blundering strains
maybe some time in the future
I’ll be able to worry about it again.

it never ends.

my new lamp, shattered
my clean sheets
dirtied and tattered.

my left ear is buzzing-
everything has gone fuzzy
and my head is numb and
throbbing.

maybe I’ll sleep well tonight,
and my nightmares will find me
without any fight left
in my dried out bones
and pseudo studio home.

c.m.
draft/original: 8.5.14
posted: 1.7.15
revision/edit: 1.8.15

I am spreading myself out across the splintering voids of the crackling civilization
One borrowed hair tie,
T shirt
Bobby pin
At a time.
I am the little presents and treasures
You keep for no reason
And you are my mix CDs.
You are the summer when i
Was most like the trees- swaying and bending in the vaporizing heat
Of an august afternoon.
I am ashes scattered to the wind
Begging to begin again
With an old friend.

Cem 427a 11015

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

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

The silence is too loud-
the background noise is making my ears ring.

I don’t know how much longer I can tune it out.
I don’t know how much longer
I can control my mouth
from wandering away on your forehead
and your cheeks
and your collar bones.

I’m sorry if I end up picking you dry,
I just have a lust
for love that seems
to be perpetually unsatisfied.

It cannot be denied I am a fiend,
but to tell you what you do not know
would destroy my pride and
most likely cause your retreat.

How do we go about telling them how we met?
Am I just a bet?
Or just the best that you could get.

I can't help but be cynical towards your approach and
you unfortunately
meet the status quo.

The more I get to know you
the more apparent it becomes
I’ll never be able to control you;
nor will I want to.

My freedom is contingent on yours
as well and it may leave us
in a well

but then we will
finally be alone
and forced to talk and
what if you choose to break it off?

Well then off I go like I had planned for you
the whole time,
zip away on a plane like
I am riding white lines through
white winter skies.

When your hands are on the
insides of my thighs
I can only adjust in passive-
aggressive consent
that could easily
be misinterpreted-
either way.

Don’t let my terrible,
smooth,
icy skin
be the only reason you stay.

I am a hypocrite at best-
hand up my dress and
you biting my lips
like you know I like.

Is this what it’s like to be a grown up?
They say always a bridesmaid,
Well for me?

it’s always the couch.
Never graduating to the ascent
required
to tumble onto the pocketed recesses
of the spare mattress.

I often wonder if
I am simply
The World's Best Unpaid Actress.

C.e.M. 11.22.14

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

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

And it will be ok when you walk away because
Maybe that’s me
And our temperamental interaction
Was a simple distraction
And a waste of gas.
This too,
shall pass.

c.e.m.

am I


special?

see, I thought I was.

but then I woke up
after nothing happened
and you were cold
and I was hot
and I didn't want to touch you
and you felt dead.

and then,
when you woke up too
your eyes never found mine

and your arm felt forced
around me
out of some sort of
unspoken understanding
you thought you knew

and your head was
empty

and so was the jar on the floor
and I wanted you and I wanted
more.

we are rotting-
overtaken by the spores of
our split decisions.

Your eyes


just

don't excite anymore.

C.e.M. 11.26.14

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

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.

If I listed out all of the things that have
Tripped me up
And troubled me
Truly my dear
You would never stop pitying me.

Take me backwards around that stop sign I split

My legs churn counter clockwise
To the backyard as kids

But I can't find a moment that will fit
The description
Of the happiness I sought as a prescription
And over took my kind
As an addiction.

I have to find the exact formula
To improvement
Because I can't keep living
In this whirlwind disaster
That has only begun to spin faster.

I have fallen into a
Petrifying and paralyzingly vortex;
The consumation of my years spindling around me.

I am wound in
Sloppy rings,
Sticky with sap and
Last nights spilt wine.

I've grown into where I  will remain now,
Regardless of personal preference.
Mostly I can settle for my comfortable domain
Of limited know-how;
But when my tongue trips
And my knees scrape on
Every protruding corner

I will remember
I am only living,

Hidden behind callouses
Of all those spitfire falacies
I was gullible enough to perceive.  

my bark has turned more
Into a disapproving grumble
When another inevitable wave
Comes to throw me under
In the tides of my troubles.

Perhaps I've grown accustomed
To the briney water rushing towards my ankles
And the gust that carries cold droplets
Across my hot, red face.

Let us jealously applaud
For those who trod on
Our aspirations,
And smile coyly knowing
We didn't let their
Questioning faces
Phase us.  

"****.
I grew up."
I wish I didn't say that so much.

At twelve I was twenty-five and
At twenty-five?
Well,
We'll get to that
if we can.

Regardless
I know that nothing's going to give me back  

Here,

now,  

              My short time.       with
you.

Deep breaths only multiply the weight
Of the question that's lingering in my chest.
I rise,
Against the counteractive distraction
Of avoidance.

I hear the words come out in short blurbs like a stop motion cartoon,

"So...excuse me mister,
there's uh,
something I've got to do."

I'm stumbling up to your room
And betting
On the mood
And the moon.

C.e.M.

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

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

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