it’s beautiful
and tragic
destruction inside creation
the start of something wonderful
it is what i am supposed to become
its less uncomfortable than you believe

bathed in hatred
unscathed by your love
i am scratching scabs just like pavement
content to stay inside my asylum

blackout drunk and wrecked
a heartbeat felt in texas
a text, a match, a fire
a speck of ash that met an ember
and burned the whole casket

i’ve once again sipped beyond my limit
the mornings scorned and the scars adorned
skin feels dipped in flicked cigarettes
i penned a letter, licked to stick
addressed to me, every word as slick
“please, forget that i exist.”

i want a love that likes laying in my bed
wasting time but never losing tread
i want a love that can play me in pool
lose a game and then play it cool
(but in a cute way)

i want a love that will love me
when i’m too drunk and hug me
let me know that everything will be okay
let me know there’s another day
when this one’s done
and the rising sun
isn’t something to run
from but something to see beauty in

i want a love i can reciprocate
i want to be ready while i wait
for you to get ready for our date.
i want to love the way you hate
the toppings on our pizza
or how the Uber was late

i want a love the loves me
that feels the things above me
realizes I’m more than
my mental fallacies
and looks past all i am
to see what i can be

i sat upstairs in a lava lamp
hoping to feel the ground under my feet
fluid flooring is all my soles meet
and i do not think i feel anything

i’ve become the gray i hated
from the day i saw it paved
i’m making room for the demons
satiated in their eyes by this hatred

despondent and vacant
a spacious brain is a playground
for vagrants and the displaced fragments
of society, i feel them eyeing me.

make me whole again
make me full of love
i am solely responsible for
my own happiness
i know this now and
i will not let me down

his name was something
i can’t recall
but we spent a whole night
playing pool, 9 ball

overhead lights hazed blue
chalk on my cue
made a shot or two
watch his turn from a stool

next game, someone called
maybe we'll play a split
it doesn’t matter who won
we were infinite

the impairment without the drunk
unconscious and subconscious all at once
a fleeting in-between of clarity
and feeling floated in a fog
in this space i meet the things left incomplete
and all their less familiar friends
like marbles underneath my feet

frozen to the marrow
an icy, hollow core
to juxtapose the vessel
through the cosmos we sore
closing in on an answer
orion serves his sword
to slit the adam's apple
before the stars can tell us more

i am wrong
more often than not
tying cherry stems
as the seeds slide
back in my throat

tingling toes tell the tales of my woes
so self aware with my laser set to stun
i’ve always known, it’s just the way it goes
under the gun and staring into the sun
i thought i won but i’m the first one drunk
on spider webs weaved and spun
my mind as stagnate as the wind around the sun
my thoughts have begun to run on my *****
hunched over failure or lack there of
with nothing left inside my lungs

layers of lapping ocean
papier-mache mask elapsing
insecurities, the ****** scenes
the dark and dirt and gritty ****

it’s the discomfort
in the comfort drenched in sweat
i find so relaxing

it’s only when a stranger starts picking
pulling bark and sap starts running
desperately retreating to the warm comfort
of the mud around those buried roots

it’s only when you let down defenses
the brick let’s way to picket fences
and discomfort displaces the sun
of a summer day

am i a clam laboring away at a precious pearl,
or just a broken boy turning my back on the world?

the least appropriate
cornucopia of emotion
smothered in gestures
less love than lust
and gusts of envious
rust shaken off these robot bones
i guess it’s not for everyone

split lip
chapped like cracked pavement
seeped blood over statements
like a pact. in fact, the same cave
in which we saved the game
a new chapter
the last page stained

i’ve been daydreaming of you
a dark cup of feeling enthused
your soft lips on mine making me
awake at night when i should be
sleeping, maybe it’s meant for us
maybe i just don’t get it
maybe i’m still alone

She’ll never know
The soreness on knuckles
The bite marks on fingers
Anger dispersed upon two by fours
Through veins she’s never felt the pulse of

But she is so beautiful
The stabbing of deeper grey shades
The moon she’s so proud of
The girl I’m so proud of

She’s never been more gorgeous
To me, than seven months
And scribbling on canvas

I beat the **** out of door frames
I bit the hell out of my own hands
I loved the soul out of a woman
And wasn’t even the man I wanted

“i never meant to hurt you”
her words like a lit cigarette on my wrist
smiling into this crochet mask i knit

“it’s been far too long
since your knuckles bled”
she said with her actions instead

i’m walking a pitbull
upstream against my feelings
it’s easier, neon contrast to my dull
sense of being human
i
am
better
off alone

ice against a lad’s legs
last mistake a crass shake
knees buckle and you’re *** quakes

we are static from a speaker
on the radio in the dashboard
my trough met your crest
and we both lay, flatlined on the shore

i will ice these bones
while you feel at home

**** these hands
that demand a hand to hold and
this heart that folds for nothing more
than something slightly more than cold

i hear the whispers of you in everything.
every grey cloud bullying the sun and every stray sound echoing its hum.
lying bare beneath the trees of sleep and waking to an itch without relief.
i believed knowledge equaled belief
but faith was a dry and dying seed.
how can you water what you cannot see?

i felt the earth shake beneath me
a mass immobilization of emotions
masquerade music plucking at the strings
of my stone harp heart
i feel awake and liberated
you will never again play me
the way you did before

fluorescent orange
sunset soaring
sore and a syringe
stripping bone so cringe
get a grip, kid
puzzle pieces
biting creases
in my lips
until they bleed
you said you love me
so it's cool goodnight

as i define the muscle
and chisel the truths from stone
the sediment leaves chalk words
on my heart that imply my ill intent
gritting my teeth i repent
that true beauty lies within
because if i can’t change what i hate
then how can i deserve to live?

broken knuckles
holes in walls
blistered palms
battered soul
no answers for a man in pain
no silver lining to clouds of hate
everybody i love hates me too, dude

there was a very, wise owl
and one day he spoke to me
he told me that approximately
350,000 people die daily
and today, you were not one of them
so shut the **** up

even darkness is asleep beyond my window
everyone but me, **** of the joke
i felt warmth once
and maybe this will feel like that
every word in every poem
inside my mind is growing, swollen
my knuckles glowing white in anticipation
of the credits rolling

would it be sincere
this endearing
persevering
list of words
when no ones hearing

catching breath
just beneath the crest
of a sweater vest
better words i’ve said
are always left unsaid

they will only bring you pain
they will only leave me sane
they are always left to rest
unsaid and feelings still remain

talking to a wall
because the windows would be appalled

suffocating
love’s faded
waited days and days
placated misplaced rage
displaced into this place
ran out of disk space
to save the memories

like pencil lead on scratch paper
scratched that but a tad later i
stenciled dad or divine savior
pancreatic cancer for hard labor
****** barracks room and beatsaber
keep safe in states
united to sleep with cheap skates
carolina reaper states the heat flavor
all my dreams on a piece of paper
scratch paper..

foundation giving away
i am surrounded by dirt
falling helplessly grasping
reaching out for roots
and getting nothing in return
but worms and soot.
sometimes the ground we stand on
would rather swallow every foot

my only solid words
sketched off stencils
when my speech is slurred
whiskey wicked wisdom
stupidly obscured
my favored company’s absurd
lips like lemonade and pure

liquid gold
licking the skyline
picture perfect
your eyeliner
sticks to your bottom eyelid tonight