the question
the answer
that will never change
regardless of how you feel that day
are you okay?
i have been

i'm drunk with this now
yet not a single drop has
touched my filthy mouth

his hands play host to a long day of work
and this man still hopes to see a strong birds perch
he'll say maybe we'll visit a zoo one day
a baby living with a kazoo to say
words he hasn't learned
to utter yet
the birds i thought i might've met
the day i went
were at the vet

it's 12:22 am but shortly it'll be 12:23
story
of my life
nobody's gonna get it,
I don't give a ****.
that ones for me.

the ticking has grown to be quite a nuisance
begging the muscles in my arm
to introduce the bones in my hand
to the face of the clock

ya know the movies
where they look down a hallway
and it's ceaseless

in this black room
i see a red and two greens
and a yellow under the door
and an orange being nosey through the window

i am getting angry
with each invisible, wasted second
leaving on an indefinite vacation

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

if i was a book
the story would be boring
but you'd love the end

time seems to have become aware
of my awareness
perhaps, it's her insecurities that make
her slow down while i'm watching in awe-inspired wonderment

everything starts to make sense now
as fatigue takes its seat next to delusion
if i can't sleep, no one can
these hallways bang on pots and pans

keep those words inside
for fear that you might ruin
what's already yours

times winding down
sweat eclipses my brow
he shoots
the buzzer sounds
he misses
that's the game, folks

the sequel
is never as good as the original

but i'll still pay eight bucks
and sit in a dark room
that smells like ***
with strangers
eating burnt popcorn

to watch you for ninety two minutes

i'm drunk
you're drunk
we have so much in common

but you won't remember this
and neither will i
back to page one

if i was a betting man,
seventy seven floor tiles.
doesn't sound like a lot
but you fail to consider
the load you're bearing
and at the end of your journey
there's a cat with an appetite for your tongue

not a single frame of your oak eyes today
the only thought i had was of that song
the one at the end of furious seven
how pathetic am i

i sharpened my blade
preparing for this duel
an inevitable loss
but i fought all the same
to keep you from my

*brain

some how i knew
that night would lead to
something amazing
and the amazing was you
after months of silent
adoration i finally told you the truth
overcome with joy
you cried and i was the happiest boy
to know you lied too
how was i supposed to know
you liked me as much as i liked you
you are so ******* cute
so this is an ending of an intro
and the beginning of something new

sometimes the trailer is better than the movie
perhaps we'll recast for the sequel

the same way you don't appreciate sleep until you go twenty four hours without it
is the way i wish you'd appreciate me one day but i doubt it

i see things things i don’t mean
and say things that nobody else does
maybe someone with a college degree
can make sense of this digital buzz

i feel like it becomes overwhelming
so many of my poems feel hateful
and i hate it

i want to write happy light stuff
about summer days and flowers
and feeling breezes
and skirts blowing
in that breeze

a diagnosis
fictional british soccer team
i thought it would help
but my teeth don’t feel clean
left on the lamp in the bedroom
swept everything except
what needed to be swept up

i’ve tried to list
the simple things
to make a list
their uniforms are sick
discarded lipstick
minus six inside of splints
for weak wrists
must be seeking ****
the G split with lighting
strict rules I drooled
on every pillow
zip lipped keeping secrets
this is
butterfly kisses

this world is a playground
we dance like daisies in a hurricane
and the crazies stay running in place
on the merry go round and pray
and when we sing songs
and swing the sun down
we go back to work
in our little towns
and we're all still so scared of clowns

your beauty is like numbers
i can't put it into words

it's harder to find the way out
when you don't know how you
dug yourself down.
sunken, so alone.
all alone now.
everyone left you above ground.

dust sprinkled donuts
i remember you from high school
she whispered behind a curtain
made of lace and laced with liquorice
wicked little sentiments
i dropped the keys like a mile back

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

she moves with the wind
they hold hands and skip
as they dance along the moonlight
they introduce themselves gracefully
to every fallen star and broken heart
handing out rectangular business cards
of condolence and compassion
the essence of what she becomes
when constellations reflect off
the surface of ponds and lakes
can not and should not be
describe simply by words
there's a very special room in hell
for those who even so much
as meet her presence with ill words

i wanted love
and received something similar

i believed in what?
a girl who only wore sweatshirts

she spoke of the dreams she had
and none of them felt like my tee shirt
pullover, zip up or button down
now the clown that frowns is me
painting in watercolor never felt so painful

i quickly became the antagonist
crushing up dead leaves
and sprinkling them on your bones
throwing a bowl of honey nut cheerios
in a public swimming
leveling the plain
creating a crater

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?

at the pinnacle of depression
a man can justify anything
in his own mind, nothing makes sense
but his own my mind.

use those beautiful words
you wield with an expert's precision
to convince this man to convince himself
to take the stairs

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

i love your violet tipped words
and how they could sip a cup
filled to the lip with cheese curds
another night has bent over backwards
seemingly for me but secretly to see
the sun smile at its pain

should i shroud myself
in the great, grey?
your display will claim there’s
something wrong with me

when i place everything that i am
and ever was and ever will be
into a blender, the terror in my bones
isn't born from pressing the button
but from dumping the contents out
for you to defenestrate.

the ides of my youth
i saw 8 different towns
each kept a piece lost

to disappear.
lying among the melancholy pages
with thoughts of paradise doing a waltz
in a ballroom called action that's
fighting to keep that name
i rolled over in my slumber
with hope that i would dream your face
cause i have a proposal i've been    
meaning to propose
let me take you away from this place

your pillow cradles your face
the same way i wish i could one day
the tinted darkness holds your attention
i'm envious of the tension in the line
from it to your eyes, a tight rope
lanced across neighboring giants
i would walk across it in defiance
of truth for a chance to dance through
your retinas.

this one will suffice
but i think i want that one
give me all your cash