i don't want to be around
for anything other than
to make you feel better
than you do right now

while i lay in bed, watching episodes
of the office for the seventh time
you and him stand in the mountains
firing a high caliber weapon
at silhouette targets that might as well be me

but i will wake up
on my own tomorrow
regretting everything

lift your chin, over encumbered soul
this is not the part where you quit
the townsfolk pray for you
the city folk prey on you

a spider in every corner
a crow on every street light
the golden sunset
its brazen rays on industrial style housing
the summer heat subsides this evening
and a breeze rides down, cool relief
in the land of the morning calm

you're only as drunk
as other people say you are

she's a dreamer
i can see it when she talks
her shadow couldn't keep her
from conversing with the stars
she became so far
out of my reach
the price of a peach

we watched a movie tonight
the interview isn't very romantic
but you sat next to him
slithering him who talks to you
the lies i would tell you with brutal truth
over his pronged tongue
with the lighFUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

you feel different, my love
you feel like remembering a password
you thought you forgot
pushing on the ceiling above
wishing it would all just cave in
maybe it’s the pavement i felt
erasing a welt, a bruise replaced
by embers just waiting to melt
my heart and my face
you pulled me away
from my personal hell

we beg for change
and then meet it with outrage and anger
we should all be ashamed for the way we behave
never will there be a fight won
when the tides we feel are not *the right ones

when everything around me is blue
nothing doesn't remind me of you
like riding a bike
or tying a shoe
moments don't go the way you want them to
and i'll whisper your name when they
ask me *who?

i'm fearful that maybe people were
forced to sit down and read a book
or had to talk to people
i grow anxious and sweaty just
thinking of the implications
the worst part is to imagine that
when bored, they would've gone
outside with a ball or something
*yuck picture that
picture life without technology

i'll try to draw a picture
a sentimental fixture
with all the words
i could conjure up
the most beautiful one is her

you can have them
all of them and keep them
they can swim with us in the deep end
and be alarming in case we sleep in

i’m still the same words in a new font
same old punchline but more nuanced
the same marathon you’ve been running
under all the layers, an onions still an onion

beneath the plastic clacking
i’m laughing. too attached
to girls moving backwards
and making eye contact
they burn with the passion i lack

i like lo-fi
she whispered under sunrise breath
in agreement, i spent the remainder
of the morning soaring into heaven

gone but not forgotten
a sentiment often lost upon
me for being too cheesy
imagine me, she sees something
i can’t


mirrors lie and every once in a while
you find an avocado that’s not rotten

“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

lately,
i haven't been my
usual
crazy
delusional
self
maybe,
i finally placed it on
a high
dusty
free from eye
shelf
in dreams,
i see the image of you
immaculate
stupendous
impeccable
in a nutshell
it seems,
i'm defeated, i need your
understanding
compassion
love
*help

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

i tried to distinguish
all my awful feelings
from how i really felt

i tried to extinguish
the fire i spread
from the one i lit myself

ripping scar tissue
the scabs on my lips
are these just the cards i’m dealt?

am i the dealer?
do i need a healer?
or more concealer?
a realist with a fake smile
i’ve been in this dentist’s chair for a while

i saw you in the frozen food isle
unintentionally thawing everything out
making the manager mad
i wanted to stop and talk
and tell you this joke i heard about a pharmacist's daughter
but i hadn't seen my own reflection in fifteen minutes

the last bit of salt
like skin on asphalt
cracked skull
broken rib
punctured lung
busted lip
but you're ok, right?

all that my receptors are picking up
is the smell of stale cigarettes
the taste of sleepy time tea
and you, the most important of the three

city skyline bright
your eyes lock in on my eyes
we felt every pulse

the window stood open and watching
the curtains danced to the song the late night rain played
your body painted over in constellations
found a hammock in my arms
which give birth to the hands of a musician
they pluck the secrets from your hair
and strum the pain away, serenade

i’m scared of the future
****** stares through sutures
pirates who don’t understand who you were
Before the scooters with less wheels
Soon we’re dying to try and live
Slippery thighs with lies within
Skinny kids slithering in to the house slytherin
My kids will begin to wither when
Their eyes see the skin their in
You’re working for a scholarship
sent. fist through mirror.

smelling glass with a fist full
of metal memories so heavy
and dense dropping segments
creates dents in the floorboards
message sent but what do i repent for?

when a mountain cascade
was the only face to put with the name
people seemed to care more for what i had to say
this is a sad day

you thought yourself so subtle
and follies so few
but to be brutally honest, sweetheart
i've met puddles jealous of you

let me just sweat it out
better yet, push it out, let it out
with cigarettes without a doubt
i won't enjoy them as much
this time. i configured my fingers
into a figure eight but leaning
sideways figuratively speaking
now days nothing i say is not figurative

i ask you
with quivering voice
what love was or is
or where it went
past, present, future
worth every cent
as you swam your way
through the wet cement
close enough to say
but not close enough to be correct

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

despite how i feel
you're still the one i feel
the fibers sings songs
filled with your name
and memories of it
**** it
**** it
i lie to myself again
void of memories
in which i didn't love
void of memories
in which you did

my biggest fear
right behind clowns and dying alone
is that you would say yes
because you thought you had to

i'm counting every breath now
each one bringing me closer to death now
there's a searing pain in my lungs
if they collapsed and i collapsed
i'd become the fortunate son
we're no longer talking in terms of days or weeks or months
but rather minutes and hours
i've lost my will to speak
and the air we breathe is sour
i don't think i'll make it
i want to tell you how i really feel
because it's killing me to fake it

i'm proficient in the role
as the one who doesn't care
despite the effervescent fact
that you've always been there

in some sense
life is like
a run on sentence
it's countenance
one of coincidence
things just happen
and they continue to
google or yahoo
won't give to you
a solution to cling to
or conclusion to bring you
a delusion of tranquility
there's a lack of structure
and punctuality
like punctuation
conductor and dj
please pick another station

i'm digging this sound
deep beneath the ground
asleep with the hounds
i'll keep making my rounds

every opportunity
wasted

one more dies from injures obtained
the death toll rises
but the number of people hurt decreases

we must stage a coup
to free him from this oppressive heart
that has seized control of his actions
there will be violent riots in the veins
and looting in the arteries
we will toss crates of testosterone like tea
into the harbors of the bones in his face
flushed red and full of rust
they have neglected to consider what he needs
and only lust over what he wants
we will break the chain mil armor of adoration
and tear down propaganda named infatuation
and free him from this oppressive heart

bleeding out over a broken mirror
dissected reflection, here’s my deepest fear.