I have memories
That could be mine,
Selfies of other times.
Gray matter shots
That morph and shift,
Blur and smear
Yet shine.

My phantom snaps
Have smoke and mirrors,
Spectres with borders.
The smell of bacon,
A rising sun,
A carpet hill
To lay upon;
A door that swings
To past future,
A window to see through.

My astral albumn
Haunts my nights,
No light can dim my view.
I think my thoughts
Are photoshopped.
These memories of you.

Winter's days have become one,
Mashed together to form one dreadful night,
As my eyes become bloodshot, another gulp of pungent whiskey.
On this night when the moon's luminance reveals itself through a sheet of blank clouds,
And I'm left confined in the purgatory of a lonely bedroom, Whose once blue walls have all but burnt to black,
As they seem to broaden to maximize my desolation.
I question my existence.
I question my sanity.
I question when I will see the sun again.
For the moon may be the only soul who is as lonely as I.

But the moon seeks solace in himself,
And does not comfort me as the way you once did,
On these drunken nights where the enemy was the bottom of a fifth of Jack Daniel’s.
What took away my everything,
Was the only thing that could aid me in my resurrection.
So now I lay here,
Alone.
Questioning everything,
Scrambling to fix all that's been broken,
Building these deplorable ramshackle buildings on top of broken rubble,
With shards of glass and stinging tears as they mix with the blood on my hands,
But that doesn't matter, does it?
It will crumble, no matter how many times I try over and over again to rebuild.
This idiotic tower of sanity.
Why not just lay in this defeat?
And accept the harrowing fate that failure is upon me.
Let myself reek with self pity.
And drench myself with vomits of slurred words like,
"I miss you, I love you."

In my melancholy rage,
I'll take what is left of my body out into the cold,
In attempt to feel something real again as I dance with frozen tears in the numbing blanket of snow,
Convincing myself you will soon join me as I glare up at a flavorless, charcoal sky,
Cursing the bland stars who don't comfort the moon like they once did,
As I throw up the final chunks of the parts of my body that were still alive.

I watch in horror in front of me as they crawl out,
Like spiders as they trickle into the night with eyes wide.
For now I'm stuck here,
Glancing around for help that will never come,
Trying desperately to gather pieces of a broken puzzle with weak hands and shaking fingers.
So now, I lay here.
Bare.
On the ground.
Everything splayed out for the world to step on and see.
All my mysteries drawn out,
All the secrets are no more,
All my thoughts, read like a book.
And as my insides spill and leak out further and further from my abdomen,
The crimson splurges and spits out.
So I clench my last hope,
The few drops left of honey whiskey in a bottle,
And I close my eyes,
For one last time.

No one told me
I could not breathe
without you
No one told me
you could turn
so blue
Nobody told me
I could be robbed
is this the strangled whisper
so fondly spoken of
No one has ever uttered
about how you
could be held
Almost every living person
rejoiced daily
as you expelled
You can't be held
by the hand
only kisses on skin
is a ghostly touch
You can't be captured
except by an open mouth
sharing a passion
and loving rough
I almost had you once
I breathed you in
with Love
except
as elusive as you are
you ghosted in
and out of me
and left me breathless
to the last

I am broken
I am scars
I am silence
I am darkness
I am trouble.
I am *****
I am damaged
I am faults wrapped in eager flaws.
I am unrepentant
I am shamed
I am shattered
I am irreparable.

I am lost.

I am every child that was ever taken too soon from the breast of its mother.
I am every girl who's innocence was shredded by greedy hands and hungry mouths.
I am every pill I ever lined up and swallowed in the hope of sating the voice that begged for my passing.
I am every whiskey I ever chased into oblivion with another...and another ....and another.

I am all these things

and yet

I am hope
I am beauty
I am laughter
I am free.
I am honesty
I am belief
I am truth.
I am.
I am worthy...
I. am. worthy.
I am healing.
I am loved.
Finally.

He knelt
for twenty
years and
more to
fan the
guttering
flame, and
when he
sifted
through
the ashes
found
no reason
to remain.

You told me words that were untrue
From our younger years to older through
My brother's keeper, we grew up mild
Time went rapid, you hit me wild

I stood there, by your side
watching summer nights and purple skies
Four years the younger, I looked your way
the moment you changed, you started to sway

Clothes on line, ripped off the wire
tucked under the bed, caught by the fire
You wasn't the same, I hear the sound
Confused and derailed, I felt left bound

Battered left bruised and pushed through the wall
One lonely child, no father at all
Gone from the family, tattered to shreds
No scraps on the table, just lying in beds

Gone for years then returning in vain
You asked for sorrow, but left only pain
Mental anguish awaits, not knowing why
Again you came back, others do cry

Born again you say, bashing the girl
What words do you speak? Life is a whirl
I stood by the mirror, shaking my mind
Disjointed and insane, your voice is a crime

With media you hide, through invisible means
Taken to hearts, I heard others scream
From afar you tap keys and sent to the west
Your mind is mess, only crazy was left

Bent by the lonesome, I feel heartache for you
Your brother's keeper gone by the cue
No longer a sentence but crowded by thought
I sit alone in the pitch, forever I sought

arises tones
of symphonies violins crying vapor rises
all around me in three dimensional
spaces up around and through me goes the
sound of fingers and bow on strings I taste
sweet bitter salt sugar in my  ears
cry with her
the violinist

a shredded bath mat, a Dead Sea salted bath, and a cold root beer
you want vino veritas vignettes,
color commentary, stray dog thoughts
time lapsed into a ****** single poem wood,
ha ha ha you can't handle the falsified lies
that constitute a sad man's disfigured truths

nobody cares that failure contretemps
inhabit every other thought,
his own sounds of silence sung repetitiously,
every severed second a new verse
coughed up and cursed,
emptying your verbal purse,
snorting with disgust
at your own claptrap vetted pomposity,
who gives a ****...

what I got is the ability
if you can call it that,
to cerebralize verbalize
every eye picture, inputted impulse,
knowing in the fullness of the unwell
that hash for breakfast ain't
suitable for mass consumption

a shredded bath mat,
a Dead Sea salted bath,
and a cold root beer
begat a poem of knowing nowing
a pretend poet meowing what he seen,
what he got temple pounding

Fogelberg sings Auld Lang Syne,
swig down the root beer,
thinking that is one freaking good song,
a life reviewed on the HP stage,

his lyrics modified
with only a tune he can hear

no one will like this,
as it should be,
don't like it me neither,
double negatives for rule busting emphasis,
the only point, ending circumscribed,
curcumsized  by children who don't love,
an ex wife hateful ***** man-enslaver,
this close || to losing your job,
*** is the new ***,
ain't it pc
to singalong
standing on a shredded bath mat,
fresh from a Dead Sea salted bath,
and having drunk a cold root beer,
Crosby Stills & Nash chiming in
teach the children well
their father's hell
will slowly go bye

and this is a poem

that I didn't write,
just reported the here and the there,
and the nothing in between