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

Tell me stories of the man
Who loved the moon so much
He bared his soul to her every night

The sun has just risen
He awakens another day

Stop selling me insurance
that I cannot pay

His posture stiffens,
getting ready for daily commute

Another round he goes
of that nightmarish brute

that he has to see
Everyday at his job

The cycle keeps going on
Until the day his heart stops

But before that, nothing obstructs the decree
He keeps to the routine line

Before the law, no individual rises
Work is the only sign

Get out of the system, before
its too late;

When the darkness consumes you
that will be your last fate.

Love.

Sometimes it lights up your whole world.
Other times it shatters your entire universe.

“Will you crush my spirit someday?”
It was almost a joke
When the fear was shared.

Now
Lying in bed
Day shifting to night
Unable to rise
Defeated

The truth
I let you become
The hand
That felled me