I detach.
Pain tolerance is a fascinating thing don't you think? I certainly hope mine is raised slightly by virtue of suffering, practice making perfect and all

II examine
Pain from the most common of illnesses, common for me anyway as I get it once a year(strep)
Feels absolutely mind blowing,
It takes my breath away, so I belittle the sensations.
pick it apart, each twinge and searing itch.
Why is it in my ears?

III conclusion
I am a big grump when I'm sick.
But laying in bed does give one time to meditate. And wonder, the things I strive for, that I love and lust for: how much will they hurt?

I I met a happy man of gold
he bit a man and let him.go
he ate another and said this is good
I met a moderate man of silver
he ate rice and thought it nice.
he drank wine and that was fine
i now try to be out of gold by Tuesday.

I met a boring man of bronze
he ate his rabbit once
now he eats nothing and that is all.

I have such a dreadful sense of motivation.
and a strong desire to show you.
its beautiful, can you see it?
Can you hear it calling you? its calling me.
like a voice at the end of a very long hallway
i can see the time track in my head,
a particular life path
shining, humming, vibrant and insane
even if achieved it's no less crazy
i think the only crazier thing than believing in it would be
the Nihilism of believing in nothing.
its crazy and i cant. couldnt possibly but i cant stop
its not real, right?
its just magic,
promise me you wont believe a word

So I'm laying in bed, and a thought occurs to me.
With such ferocity I think if I Were standing it would have knocked me down; "**** yourself"
and I stumble for a moment but I mentally regain my footing.
And in doing so realize I regularly survive my worst enemy.
I've outlived the gulling of my own demons tailor made to bring me down and I'm still here.
How much worse could the world ever really throw at me then that?
If i can survive me (And i can) I can survive anything.

Blood from fingertips
Like a vampire, pressed to lips
Metallic, sweet
Walking down the street
Like red caffeine
So let it stream

Burning occult logic.
A secret sacred savored fire.
Burn so bright it'll eat you alive.
Bright like a 2 am booklight tired
eyes so hungry for knowledge they yawn like little mouths
like your mouth...yawning, man do you know what time it is?
Time to learn, and read and be and burn.

Life is laundry,
life is dishes,
life is mowing the lawn
on a really hot day when you dont want to mow the lawn.
it's an itch where the scratch dont satisfy.
a broken reward circuit.
an endless procession of days punctuated by their ends.
several.
short.
halting.
sentences.
mop the floor.
walk the dog.
go to work.
awash in disappointment.
i'm always misspelling that word
familiar with it yet i fumble.
just like my ******* chores.

I could use someone to count on, as it is I can always count on you to let me down.
so accurate you could set your watch by it.
I'm not sure friends are what they're meant to be, I look at echoed memories of old friends and think to myself: **** they sure don't make 'em like they used to - maybe they never did.

Deafening, the sound of cars like the flow of water
Streetlights dot hope like a swarm of lonely fishing boats
Cars speed by like trout upstream
Wandering to the store like an urban water snake, slither
Walking alone, with my thoughts as only company
Along the shores of my concrete river

"Impossible"
It's my least favorite swear word,
its the lowly limiter i loathe.
its the only true curse word Ive ever heard and i try hard not to use it.
"she" might hear me
"she" is always open to a challenge
but no..."impossible" is not a word i choose to indulge.
It's too...boring.

I can't
I can’t always be there for everyone
in the perfect little way they've invented
every single time they have a problem
believe me, i want to be.
but sometimes even though its irrational
i just need to be there for myself to keep my head above water
and im sorry for that.
but ****

Tightness, wetness
******* again
Scratching
Biting
Pain on skin
Senseless
Nerves numb
Disembodied
Riding
Hips meet
Harder.
please
Back arching
Body aching
Hair pulling
Teeth grazing
Name…moaning
Wasted…loathing
Faking, groaning
******, phony
Over with, finally
Sadness is stifling
Staring at the ceiling
Sigh at the thought
Of wasted virginity

a strange and bittersweet sadness. a sordid golden sorrow like I've never felt before. like caramel drizzled over a sliver of longing. i have never had a craving like this. a howl, a scream wouldn't be loud enough, i have not the substance to sob. nothing quite so jagged ad anger or frustration, those are glass shard sharp, a crystal knife or steel saw, this is something different, there is a dullness to it, cold, like being bludgeoned to death with ice cream. I've never felt a craving like this before.

Rough ,Wet, Make it hurt
Sore in the morning
No time to flirt
No love, no whispers
Not even a kiss
Like animals, Mechanical
Tasting this
Bruises, teeth marks,
hickeys, thirst
*******, licking, Harder, grinding
The spot, Almost
Screaming, finding
Spasm, tightening
******, blinding

I have nicknames and designations for all my friends.
You, not a ghost but a phantom, not a ghost because you are my friend, always, and I will always love you.
But a phantom, an echoed impression of a  old friend.
Foggy, misty, silhouetted figure with a familiar outline and unfamiliar details.
Looking for the person you wee in the ancient days of my youth like looking for rice in a snowstorm.
Not trying to rekindle an old flame you see,
but trying to find the fire-words to light a new one.

The words of infamy, elation and dread are as follows:
"I think we should have ***"
exuberance immediately follows, this is what you've wanted for so long.
but your body betrays you again.
nothing. nothing. nothing.
the lack of response from your body like a negative heartbeat.
a deepening hole, a very real depression. the object of your desire, even your love in front of you and your life, your thrill for *** flat-lines.
such depression is the death of joy.
the body is willing but the flesh is living dead.
you still breathe, you are still alive, but the question remains:
is life worth living when your passion is flat-lined?
I'm not sure it is anymore

when light fades
and hope dissipates
whether you see me sitting on a high seat in valhalla
or in a semblance of the underworld
speak to me and i will listen
i whisper words of the forgotten
to the ones of the shattered hearts
the ravens, the wolves, and the midnight breezes
are my messengers and my voice
when it seems all else has abandoned,
you are safe in my embrace
for i am the dark god
and in the shadows i wait

trying to find myself, like a ghost in a snow storm.
every time i do this, its like waking up from a dream.
a dream in which im watching my life play out.
familiar motions keep the appearance of lucidity
but its really coordinated stumbling I'm a puppet
pulling my own strings, but then, there are days like today -
the wind blows just right and i am here.
i am here and i am me, and it gives me a headache - but i enjoy it.
10 out of 10, would headache again.
i wanted to say to you, all of you know know me and wonder where ive gone even if im right in front of you,
that for the moment, i am here
i am here now, and i see you, and i love you.

A symphony of harsh tones,
Tearing chords, pounding drums
Something that so many define as simply ?noise?
is so soothing to our ears
Being classical in a way only we can comprehend
Expressing feelings that we cannot
put into words.
things we feel in a way
only that beautiful?noise? can describe
When that harsh symphony swells to a peak,
a crescendo,
We feel release of the pressure
on out hearts and minds,
and for a short
and all too rare and precious time,
we can be free

how are you?
I'm terrible, actually, or maybe I'm fine, I'm never quite sure what to share with people,

since sharing everything isn't even close to being an option, that's just ridiculous.
I'm left with wondering what things to give away and what to keep, but that leaves me feeling like I'm playing with my own feelings and they aren't important and I'm not being honest.
but then I've never been one hundred percent sure what honesty and sincerity is.

Time is just moments
seasons are so short,
May, June, July - into the stretching straining warm yawn of fall.
Then Detroit's long low hum of a winter.
Finances crashing into Needs and wants like waves, like the ocean.
Oceans of time, the gentle rhythm of regular mundanity
soon turns into later and we, weary traveler turn into causal observer.
"I miss you" turns into "what happened?"
life flies by in snapshots I don't see.
What shape my life might take if you, added like an ingredient in a stew not changing the exact nature of the recipe but enhancing the flavor.
but time. like seasons just...passes

Macabre reality
What is it
Is it not
Does it matter
No it doesn’t
No it wouldn’t
No it shouldn’t
How could it
How could anything matter
On a macabre black and white and grey
Rainy day
With no colors to express the way
And no way to express the colors…….
And a sun with no shine
And a day without time
Past day but not night
Just shallowness and insecurity
And madness and sadness
And self righteous  impurity
And a grey moon
In a dark sky that’s not dark
Like fire with no spark
Like a world that’s sad and sullen
that bleeds and screams to die
While we cry at the sky and ourselves from afar
even though were right next to each other
Like no other

I don’t “need” you by any stretch. that’s not what im saying,

I’m fine now

but it’s been a rough week

and with the miles of words our mouths have walked and the years full of moments we shared as friends, having you around really would have helped.

I've been thinking. About anger and intensity. About how I can't seem.to muster any, I think I can start. It's okay to Stop nerfing myself.
Every day doesn't have to be some swamp of grey mud.
I think this.
I let myself feel it and tell myself that is okay to not blunt my own edges.
And that makes me angry. So now, what do I do with it?

We exist in shadows
The night kind
Hiding from the world of light
Not understanding the chaos the exists in the brighter hours
Standing in darkness shaking our heads not knowing who we are or why
And why the world around us looks so bleak and desolate despite the busy activity around us
Thinking that possibly they are right , that something is wrong with us
That we are “weird” , “insane” or “different” for finding our only real peace when the sun sets
For loving the power and clarity that comes with the absence of  brilliance
For seeking solace when the moon rises
But truly they are the “weird” ones
For only we know what exists on the realms they cannot see
Only we understand the energy of focus and silence in the midnight hours
We are the ones who can hear the whispers of the hidden forces that are far beyond their reach
The night kind
And Yes, we are different
More so then they or perhaps even we know
For we Possess an  “inner light” that they can never understand

A rainy dreary Halloween from 2006.
Candlelit late night
bedroom phone calls.
Your dream about a train ride and mushroom farmers.
My dream about hidden cities.

"I want to feed you ****** and a muscle relaxer and **** the **** out of you"

How long has it been Now?
Too long maybe, some lines are stretched too thin, through waiting and longing, love and lust and the once closest of friendships,
Stretched like Taffy till nearly gossamer strands wound meandering miles of complex life events and other unshared memories.
A too familiar voice.
Echoes of "I want you to have the perfect *******"
Spaces in conversations that would have been empty  if not for the most contagious laugh I've ever heard.
One not matched before or since.

Can you live in the past and long for the future? Is it greedy to desire more of something that was already so sweet? I don't tell anyone about my dreams now. Candles sit on.the shelf primarily unlit.

There are no more secret cities.
No mushroom farmers or train rides
But there are still threads
Stretched like Taffy but woven like a tapestry.
Across time and distance.
Made of memories.
All you'd have to do Is tug on a thread.

Once upon a time ago,
She said: adulthood wasn't supposed to take away my friends.
I do miss them, for what a horror life has been without
my few splendid friends.
But I'm busy and so are you. Adulthood has made a mess of us
And a nightmare of our schedules.
Time is short. Sadly I have only enough time to miss you.

by far the worst cruelty in love or affection or attachment is that it is involuntary,
when you care about a person,
they suddenly become a piece to your puzzle,
a part component of your being.
when they are absent from your life, truly a piece of your life is missing
a silhouette shaped wound, a metaphorically bleeding chalk outline,
the scene where a friendship died.
sometimes a person can come back,
but i think the wound can scar over.
it's shape distorts - their puzzle piece no longer fits the same
but with effort and will, you can make that piece fit again,
it will be tight in places,
it will feel odd and the image will not line up just right,
but
you will be whole again.
often they didn't ask for this, love is insanity that way, a kind of self harm
but volumes have been written on the stupidity or futility of love.
so we keep doing it, cutting and cutting. odd pieces here and there breaking us up,
fitting us back together. odd bits skewing the image,
the puzzle of our own life made occluded by the inclusion of others
people aren't meant to be islands to themselves.
but neither are they aren't meant to be filled with person shaped holes.

Rain makes me wax poetic, I'm not sure if this state of being is good but if I could help it I wouldn't be here.
I have someone in particular to thank for this, for good or ill. I wouldn't be here if not for them regardless of the rain, perhaps the rain really.makes me think.of them from witch kits to "4 a.m. knows all my secrets" many long years, many gods and angels, the real demons are in our thoughts, whispering things we already know, the worst thing they can do is tell us the truth, and the devil is in the details.

Hello old friend
it's time again for flannel shirts
and dead leaves
bitter coffee and cold breezes
jack o' lanterns are our totem
and 4am that knows all our secrets.
its autumn again and the veil is thin
I hope the witching hours Find you well

The world is like sandpaper to my nerves
Raindrops seem like bombshells to my ears, and well
Every touch by my own hands is met with an internally antisocial taint
Heartburn and headache are my companions now
Light burns my eyes like sulfur
I need someone to **** me senseless and wake me when its over

itch and twitch
tick and scratch
pace and stretch.
the prowling Need
Craving.
Hunger.
for *** sometimes comes along
not with a hot roiling growl, but with a blind groping.
at first you think you're hungry, then maybe, you think: i want coffee
but it's still there, that sensation that makes your lip curl
up over your teeth, baring your fangs like an animal.
your worst enemy then is an empty room.
a blank social calendar.
then only fantasies notice you.

i am drunk, i hate myself.
im crazy and attempting to be crazier
"sage the house" ******* random old psychic.
and the worst thing, watch it work. amirite?
i am drunk, i hate myself, so you know what i need?


snacks.

Voices without faces
Without form or foundation
We’ve gone unnoticed
Much to our dismay
We are still here, still speaking
If you would only give the time of day to listen
Music to our ears ,
like phantom speech
Would be the sound of our own voice
above the crowd

That feeling when.
When you don't care how strenuous
Or how tired you are
Our that your shoulders are burning
Because you are being therapeutic.
Your hips are medicinal
Her lips are mythical
You pull her ******* to the side and make her forget about her day

Could you call it an anti-massage? my back bunching up
of its own accord.
Stress sinking to the lines of a body. Going over a hill but there is no hill.

*** is...is supposed to be
about a kind of abandon
ive never felt.
An act of letting go.
Hold on so tight
my mental hands hurt.
Mental hands, i bite my nails.
The me inside my head does too. Both of me's need to get laid.
Ridden into the sunset.
Exhausting me.
No energy left
for the parasite pf anxeiety
to latch onto.

Let go.
Let go.
Lets go

life isn't what you make of it.
its what you've made.
life is constantly living with the aftermath
of the mistakes you've made
if you're prone to making them
it's a recurring past tense result
check-sum of your most fantastical fuckups

Once, Curiosity was a beast in me.

writ in deep lines and stark highlights
it carved itself upon my face. telling a story in the curves and hills and valleys
of expression.

the passion for life not so much extinguished as a half faded memory
this is writ large too, in the bruise colored tired eyes of fatigue.
but it is not dead - never that.
it howls for the great hunt of life

curiosity, passion, ambition and love. still a beast in me.
tired, weathered,
greyer than ever before,
but a tired wolf can still bite.

You are not distant, and your memories are not far away, but it feels so, absence makes the heart grow fonder as well as other things
the way i feel, have felt for you has always been more than ***.
though its definitely a part of it - id devour you in heart as well as body.
you give my heart a *******, a heart-on.
you make my emotions libidinous and my mouth ravenous
You give me an affection *******.

I dont know if im okay.
i dont know "where" i am
i want someone to notice sometimes but i dont think there anything that can help, most of the time i dont want anyone to noticee at all.
its strange to be tense but directionless, like all my energy is being spent locking me in place.
i cant get out of my chair, or my bed, i sit around with one shoe on,
is this "bad" ?
is it bad enough to need help?
from where? would could fix this?
and like a scream reaching its end, it dies, and im fine.
i get up, i go to work, i brush my teeth. i take a shower. even exercise. and im :fine"
and it happens again. i lay on the floor and i am restless. but i sit up and im dead.
i dont know where i am.

giving up would be so easy.
to be a puddle, a porridge of emotions if you will
i try to tell myself the old guard: who will do those things you want to do, if not you.
but still. it is a yawning ache.

i guess coffee is still a thing that exists.
+1 to constitution

and alcohol
-1 to inhibitions.

so. another day i guess.

do you ever think it (life) feels like you are dragging your feet through one maze-like dredging eternity after another? but then sometimes, just sometimes you see a glimpse of possibility, what a beautiful cruelty that glimpse is bright enough to keep us trekking on. i don't know, my beloved eventuality, i don't know how far away you are. buton the off chance that im walking just a bit closer to you,
ill keep walking just a little farther.

I wonder after the things I've lost, opportunities ideas or house keys, people most of all, so many I was white close with, where does intimacy go when it does? When you see a person, in a Wal-Mart, at a bus stop, on Facebook, in your dreams and say, "where have "we" been? I miss "us", emotions are energy, if energy can never be destroyed then what happens to it? The snap and crackle of synapses that used to mean love but now are unreplied messages on Facebook or on a phone. We've become island into ourselves floating in lonely seas while what once was is  laid neglected in a friendship elephant graveyard.

It would be nice if you thought I was somebody.
A decade passes or thereabouts and you pass on me like an side dish or salad, you'd rather not.
No thanks, I wont be bothering with that today.
As though our friendship was a meal you're just "done" eating.
What you could once have called our "friendship" is in ruins
And all that's left when you're "done" with me
are the tattered remains of a once great civilization of camaraderie.

Im a Grouch. On the inside
I try to be a lot of things, I try to be a good friends, a good, listener
To be generous and forgiving, try to be a, man of my word
I try to be all these things.
That would be easy if I wasn't so angry
"Your a grouch, go live in a trash can"
Nothing could be more accurate eh?
A receptacle for the worst of people
A place for them to discard the spent little pieces of themselves
Crumpled up and thrown away.
You become filled with that. The wrong stuff
You become a discarded napkin on the inside
Coffee and lipstick stains the echoes of rough mornings and old heartache.
Other people throw those things away and move on.
But you, their ******* bin are forced to hold on to those past aggressions
Is it any wonder I'm so angry?  
Were all like that, memory is garbage.
A festering old sandwich in a bin that clearly reads, paper only, recycle please.

There are lines under my eyes,
not the dark circles ,though there are those.
little lines.
creating bits of ever adding wear and tear, the kind of tiny things you wouldn't notice unless you looked at a face every day.
smile lines on either side of my nose, that one grey hair in my beard.
these are ticks on a clock and there's no one to watch and pass the time with me.

you never think things will sneak up on you like this, that your problems will become a monster and eat you.
i blame "fine"
we parrot that, even as kids - we are taught to be "fine" - not taught to be aware that something might be wrong; that might mean something happened - no, we bathe in and wrap ourselves in "im fine"
but the truth is, were not.
**we are not fine

The world is a grey
buzzing vibration.
Pock marked with heartburn and old memories.
What winter is colder
Than vibrant communication gone silent.
Friends
Our loves, our various loves.
Are the spring and autumn
of the heart

sentences go off like gunshots.
the smallest of sounds have the loudest of consequences.
whispers make waves.
the quietest of confessions carry the most catastrophic concussions.
words are weapons and our mouths are at war.