sometimes
i feel angry
simply plainly
contempt for
assumptive people
greed
jealousy
a lack of empathy
i, too,
struggle
but this is
fist against the pillow
swallowing brick-shaped tears
eyes burning
i forgot to
blink
contorted face
a lemon of
a realization
i am trapped
wholly really
unless i choose
to remove myself
from
the equation
i can't
i can't do that
i have so many
more lives to lead
words to cherish
esteems to encompass
and so
i cry
because remaining
willfully ensnared
aches
nonstop

i jump from the buildings in my mind for you
plummeting downward, grazing the air flow
with my knees breathing in to levitate
i swallow delicate poisons, the glistening remnants
of a realized reality coating my teeth
for you i am combing my memories and trying
to be better – the two-way street kind – and
i think i like myself better when i’m with you
and then some, candy kisses in my bedside drawer for later
i crawl through small round windows of faith and forgetting
subtly reaching for the microphone
knowing i’m going to shout about how i love you more
than melting into the dim orb glow of christmas lights
strung above my head / as i floated to sleep
in my grandma’s warm-breeze soaked florida house
my brain waves heave with moment-based flickers
but this all goes without saying.

teetering on the edge
of empathy and indifference
i attempt to cradle
my concept of humankind, giving it
sips of water and bites of fruit -- i
want to believe
we are all
more capable than we seem;
our output needs to surpass our ambition
to "do good", for practice
will surely steer
a gilded
and inevitable (im)perfection.

i got high and masturbated until my hands were sore
a midnight breeze wafting through my room, the smell
of incense awash
i thought of you, of course i did, your fingertips
resting gently on my shoulders
kissing my cheek over and over as i turned to an ocean --
it was something in your eyes,
the way i could stare into the pupils until
i thought i could see through to the bits of you
behind your skull; i floated
inward, tugged and pulled, back to the place i was born,
to the place inside my conscience where
everything i've ever known resides.