Kyle talked of suicide
how he wanted a way out
a release
but he never tried
I looked him in the eyes
and spoke
"In highschool
I poured a handful of Vicadin
down my throat
as soon as my palm was empty
I choked
as much as I wanted escape
I did not want to die
so I forced myself to puke
before it was too late."
I hope he understood

reaches to the end of the universe
and back.
Ever expanding, limitless,
beyond conception,
even for true hearted romantics,
of which I count myself one.
I'm pretty sure the sun goes down each day
because it's jealous of your beauty,
and it gets tired of being outshined.
Remember when we stood on a hill that night,
where you witnessed three shooting stars?
I didn't witness a single one,
my eyes intent on you.
Those missed wishes are alright,
my dreams are in the middle of coming true.
Each night we lay down together for bed,
every morning I get to kiss your forehead,
is a wish fulfilled.
Now, one year into it, I'm ever more thrilled,
to call you my one and only,
my love bug,
my world.

I drove today, down black and yellow
snakes, houses lined the banks
of the concrete river the snake
slithered into,
children played and parents watched,
I was revving and gunning and lost,
not on the streets, in sheets that smelled like someone
far behind me, in eye water and lilacs,
or two lips,
Then I parked the car,
shut the door,
and fell to a puddle on my
bedroom floor,
I am great, I am hollow,
I am wretched, I am hollow,
Let me evaporate
Let me evaporate,
please,
Let me evaporate

How can I tell him
it's not all his fault
he doesn't believe it
all alone
empty apartment
no dog, no son, no wife
Does he cry at night?
Does he hug his knees tight?
Does he cry just like me?
(at the same time?)
Is he gone at the bottom
of a bottle
of a bottle
I feel so weak
I'm just one sad boy
but so is he
a boy in a man's body
his real smile lost to me

Does he cry? (just like me?)

getting high while critiquing
my peers' papers as homework
I feel like a jack ***
knit picking and clawing
getting hung up on single word choice
I wonder if they'll read it in my voice
and think what a pretentious ****.
he thinks he knows everything.
when really
I read my own work and feel
it's full of holes
letting the light shine through
revealing me for a fraud

a fraud

I can define
pain
sorrow
regret
they rest in the furrows
of my brow
the ache in my shoulder
no hesitation to place
death I'm my mouth
but ask me to uncover
joy
ecstasy
hope
my words fall short
they flit from my stomach
to my lungs
and right past my teeth
before I can breathe them
back to my body
hurt is a household name
while happiness merely
haunts me

My fingers brushed the remains of Castle Magner,
crumbled stone, overgrown, abandoned, wind blown.
Generation filled me through my feet that trod
on ancestral ground, swelled into my chest,
lived again in each breath.
As I left I turned to see the decaying tower through the trees,
the spirits beckoning, drawing back, whispering,
"Don't leave us,
don't leave."

all I hear is
"Praise God for this!"
and
"Praise God for that!"
but to me
there is no arguement back
to why so much of the world
suffers
why heroes die young
and bad guys live forever
I known the name
******
better than any hero's name
ever
I hear "******"
more than "love"
and people expet me to
kneel to some man above?
Believe in white doves
that get shot down a second later?
You must be joking
If I ever see world peace
I'll be praying
to humans
for changing
not some omnipotent being
who is
faking

A day to celebrate myself feels strange,
a quiet resistance to believing that this year
isn't cigarette nights and one last drink,
isn't getting so faded it disappears.
Attention on me, I didn't do anything,
only stayed alive for twenty three years, so what?
Somehow a girl thinks I'm charming,
I'm in peewee and she's hitting in the major leagues.
A day to celebrate myself,
but I'm no longer burnt out, silent, drowning Dan,
I'm someone else.

a dull buzz grew
while my throat contracted
***** held back by a grip
then the spins
then a black out
come to in the kitchen
dishes in hands
water on
the whole world roaring
stumble up the stairs
close my door
fall to the floor
while the panic sets in
holy **** this is it
this is my end
breath sharp but distant
crawl to the bed for some comfort
before suffocating
then the terror eases up
lungs quiet and absorb enough
holy ****
the worst has dissipated
and left me frustrated
with my now aching chest
legs tightened
my entire body yelling
Frightened!
only my pillows
to whisper
it's okay, you're okay,
I've got you,
breathe with me,
slowly,
breathe
with
me
.
.
.

Why haven't I
been able to feel
like I did on
October 29, 2010
is it because
that date is still
engrained
in me?

Suddenly life seems long,
stretched out.
Scenes I'd long forgotten
display on an internal screen.
Could these memories be mine?
Do they belong to another me,
because they don't feel tangible.
How can it be
that I was that person and ended up me?

People I haven't thought about in a millennia
now dance across my vision,
telling me their secrets,
their heartache and happiness.
Could I be so cruel
as to dismiss the fact that they
live in my actions,
my passions,
that they've produced the man
I see in the mirror?

In an hour and quarter
I'll be officially older than you

Things aren't so bad
when you're surrounded by dogs,
when the fog clears, beaten back
by sun-infused forearms,
shut off internal alarms.
Fresh breath from the wind swept set,
the serene scene aloes my singed ends.
In my grayed head
I feel a little flung off the handle,
like I went from cliff tops
to canyons, laying in shambles,
to resting at sea level.

It's unjust of me
to expect people in my life
to match how I write them down
in poetry

Has the potion of poesy
been processed out by my liver?
Maybe I ****** it out with last weeks whiskey,
or forgot to sprinkle it
over my frozen "meals for two,"
which always end up as a meal for one.
Has the season changed so much
that the wind carried it away?
The bees cannot find its pollen to spread,
and I cannot smell it
drifting through the complex...

What comes next? What comes?
Life after poetry,
do you scatter,
dissolving, dispersing energy?
Do you matter,
to the Earth, the air, the galaxy?
Or do you slip into an early routine,
forget the touch, the taste,
the sound of words
bouncing in your mouth?

Can you be reborn, reincarnated
as something new, something with assonance,
consonance, brilliance and shine?
Can I somehow get back,
back,
please come back
gentle poesy,
gently rhyme,

be mine?

Seething in me
troubles aggravate
so irate
******* A
now I want nothing more
than to be no where at all
ditch this town
give the finger to Long Beach
be a ******* ***
under an over pass
the last stop on a bus
going abso-*******-lootly
no where

My nights have gotten longer, my body no stronger. A foul air soils my apartment, stale cigarettes, my beer breath. Sleep doesn't bless me unless my brain is tricked, altered. Faltering footsteps due to shin splints, a spot of blood on the white wall by my bed from my arm. I gave up ****** harm long ago, or so I thought. It's just different now, I don't cut or burn, but I get drunk and fall, let people put out stoges on my back, fist fight for fun. Jeff said I'm a *******, and **** maybe I am one. I'd say I'm a mess even though I'm on track, pay my bills, work hard at my job. Hell, to the rest of the world I'm on my way up to the top, but to me...to me I'm a hazard, a ***** mop, a wreck. All I can think is that my own hands are getting tighter and tighter around my neck

all the eyes scan right over me
this hand hasn't held
this heart hasn't felt
this knee hasn't knelt
to any feeling of late
my plate is empty
and has been so for
many a day
I've forgotten how to say
words that melt or thaw
my body doesn't know
how to be raw or *****
I must be
I must be
fading
fading
faded

I watched videos
that made it through my operating system's
up date
some got lost in the crunch and grind
but a few slipped through
I look happy in the ones recorded for you
but click over one or two
and I seem worn, dilapidated
now I'm incapacitated
it feels like I used up all my romantic love
in a two year span
like after all my sweetness expired is when
I grew into a man
after all, the girls that came after
slowly morphed into women
and the relations I had fell short
of stable
now I reject the label "boyfriend"
I don't make promises because
I don't believe I'll keep them
the last time I held hands
and actually felt warmth
I think I was drunk
and helping someone up
who had fallen
her heel broke, almost did a face plant
I felt sorry and accompanied her home
she babbled and tried to pull me inside
I said
"No"
not because I didn't like her
or want her
I just didn't want to be
haunted by my lack of devotion
someone please come along
set the gears of my machine heart
back in motion
or better yet
turn the cogs back into muscle tissue
change the cables into veins
replace the gasoline
with real pumping blood
so I can once again
feel my heart jump
at the smell of a perfume
a touch
a voice
please
make me
human

You always shook my hand,
always wanted your family to flourish,
always seemed content
knowing your kids and grand-kids
were living happy lives.
I didn't know you well,
but I know you cast a calming spell,
and without you here
the world is missing
something important

foggy images invade my sleep
I groggily creep into a new day
then fade, transparent, shade
flirting from bed to bus
bus to desk and back again
am I like the crew seen
by the Mariner in his Rime?
Has the flow of sublime powers
slipped like a frog to water
left me feeling, further and
further?

The wind howled after the divorce,
debris flew about in hordes
and I simply couldn't hold my myself in place.
Sure, I learned to navigate treacherous terrain
with sure-footed grace,
Everyone around weathered the winds
with the same style, same half smile,
all saying, "It will just be just a little longer."
Years after I'd given up, become numb to the rain,
you walked by with an umbrella,
on your way somewhere, seeking more permanent shelter.
You stopped and offered for me to join you
under the umbrella's cover,
even though it was a tight squeeze for two.
Gentle, powerful, miniscule, monumentous,
I love you.

Do you ever try and imagine
the entire universe?
it really makes my
head
           whirl...

I don’t mind cruising in the slow lane,
despite this weather, hot and heavy
and not in a good way.
Seeing a torn ear,
blood smear, stitches,
the aftermath of a bad habit eruption,
and the rubble removal,
bit by bit.
A record player, clothing bags,
bits of sadness dusted from the blast.

So the slow lane will do,
the engine doesn’t need the stress,
unnecessary revving,
destination mute.
The trunk and this chest
on their way out
to a cooler place

I smoke my cigarettes
like I want to die
I keep my secrets
buried in my spine
your name still falls from my lips
I can't eclipse it
I can't eclipse it
people ask questions
what can I say
I'm okay ay ay
empty bed
cold sheets
nobody laying next to me
restless dreams
torn seams
from all the love I have
leaking away
if you want my thoughts
crawl through my ears
before I disappear

I've taken falls for all the wrong people
I've broken walls but there is no equal
to tearing down my own
to tearing down my own

It's eight p.m.
My hand holds connection
to friends
car keys turn in the ignition
forty minutes
a few cigarettes
park in the dark
LA greets me
An hour later I'm tipsy
two days later I'm hungover
my left *** cheek bruised
no closer to nirvana
I just wanna forget Long Beach
here my reach outs get response
my lonely haunts turn into
songs
here I have company
that doesn't mind a stiff drink
a wild night
I think it's safe to say
I've gotten a new form
of
running
away

It started nibbling on my spinal chord
not long ago
each day the bites get wider
tossing me into throws of
this all means nothing
or looking like my dad
while staring at the mirror hanging above the sink, It lingers

when I'm on my feet for too long
they turn red
making it hard for me to
stand for anything.
maybe my bed has a selfish plot
to keep me from ever leaving
with its sheets full of envy
forcing me to repeat defining moments
every time my mind deems it fit
to dream

spiritful sprites exploded color
off in the distance,
a forty in my hand, a roof top
under my feet,
each new rocket was greet,
with a whoop or holler,
as circumstance would have it,
each new rocket also made my heart
feel smaller,
like every explosion chipped away
piece after piece,
and the only one to scrounge them
back up was,
me

I was told
that the lines in my hands
looked promising

I try my hardest to stray away
from machine rolled cigarettes
which take away the test
of perfection
of creating the best
I know each one
leads me toward the dead
at least I can say
I died at my own,
supremely rolled, hand

hello shadow
oh shapeless guise
candle light
can make you dance
but when the tallow melts
and wick burns out
you drape over all
you rule
this
house

the grass is green
where ever you give it water
I feed the pastures
ever further from my farm
so all around me
turns dusty and dry
then wonder why
my crops have withered
and I starve
tethered to an idea
what I wish was
when I should be
living with what is

I'm sorry but poetry does nothing for me. Half the time I don't read it and when I do I like less then half of what I read. I think I'm done for a bit, maybe a long while. See y'all later, hope your sad words give way to physical smiles

I can feel you in my fingers,
my muscles remember having you
in my arms.
I live on little miracles,
like when we think of each other
at the same time.
My rumbling mind mulls over
every sign until I shush it
with a sigh.
I rub my tired eyes and tell myself,
        "Go to sleep!"
I listen half the time,
half the time I eat.
While I rummage through the kitchen
I imagine you singing
in the living room,
your velvet voice
laying soft on my heart.

I stopped smoking ****,
thinking that it was at fault
for the empty swirling,
I felt
like I wanted to curl into a ball
at my feet, and disappear
I haven't gotten drunk in weeks,
hoping it was alcohol that
elongated my funk and stole
crows feet from eye corners,
I quit all substances that could
make my mind turn in on itself,
I thought it would help,
make the world clear,
but that empty swirling is
still
here.

I'm neither here
                    nor there
a terrible rut where I forgot
                                    who I was

Water spills through boulders,
in no hurry to fill the watering hole below.
Fallen trees lean in,
stretching for a taste
of the cool liquid,
as if it could replenish their vitality,
stand them back up to their old grandeur.
Everywhere around them
humans splash in the pool
formed by the rocks,
causing a raucous,
their coolers, inflatable tubes, towels, beer cans, wrappers, bits of old food,
lay spread,
marring the landscape.
Do the fallen trees hate disrespect,
or are they satisfied knowing that, one day,
the human epidemic
will die.

Tonight I hope to dream
of riding fog
out to the sea
where the waves will
greet me
swell up
accept me to the deep

Tonight you are off, far away,
you've left this place,
left a space in hearts that hurts,
though you intend it not.
Your grand daughter is in knots.
Please appear in her dreams,
tell her all the things you love about her,
let her wake, a deep breath
to calm quaking hands,
and feel you smiling,
sipping tea,
happy to have been her grandpa.
She loves you endlessly...

A soft golden tongue
flickering over oaken bark.
The leaf light patterns
playing through the trees.
A warm and gentle forest
to pause under in wonder,
then live in forever.
The depths of Mother Nature.
The jewels for the uncrowned
Queen of the World.

has it abandoned me?