How do you sleep at night?
Are the blankets pulled too tight?
Is the room ever just too bright,
or do you find it fits just right?

And how do you get through the day?
When there’s so much you never say?
When the colours bleed to grey,
or do you like it just that way?

I’ve been playing scrabble with each thought,
cursed to babble ‘cause I was never taught
to speak out loud what plagues my heart
It’s not like I’m proud that it ends before I start.

How do you sleep at night?
Does your mind put up a fight?
Do you loathe every ray of light,
or is it out of mind and out of sight?

And how do you get through the day?
Tornado’s in your wake and at bay.
Casting me to the abyss to stay,
as long as you choose that way.

I’ve been playing scrabble with each thought,
known to dabble in whatever I got.
Doing things so foul I would never do,
to buy a vowel and then another two.

How do you sleep at night?
I put up such a gallant fight.
Bleeding knuckles, holding on with all my might.
You’re asleep and I’m greeting first light.

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

To this body
Death does as it should,
Consigns the shell
To the firewood
And sets the spirit free.

Close to the fire
the heat singes me.

I know it's only the prelude
to the fiery furnace
licking my skin with flaming tongues
reducing me to powdered ashes
disappearing and in no time fading
what was me but in an instant
dusts in urns and upon wall
and years after maybe one's
untimely rains of dusty memories.