A fourteen year old borrows five bottles of his dad's daily beers, puts them back with ache at a brisk pace, and spends the night growing acquainted with an unfamiliar porcelain throne.
He wakes up with the bathroom spinning, and laughs with friends of friends about all that stuff he pretends not to remember (because that's what alcohol does, he's told).
And he does it again, and again
and one time he ends up alone
on the ground on a brisk autumn morning,
and he's moist and chills define his spine.
He goes home and still alone,
he lays on a bed that his parents bought.
Hours later, he wakes up to a glass of water and an advil that appeared on his nightstand, as if delivered by an angel.

Not all cages have barred windows,
some captors build walls
around
themselves.
The mirror holds me, keeps me
captive,
bleeds me, leads me
only to loneliness.
I sit with the door
locked
and the window
locked
and my life
locked down.
Comfort
holds the key,
and I'd be best to
break free from my confines.

Sometimes you've got to stare at your feet.
Like when time stands still,
blood curdles with news
and shock takes over your
already white, emotionless face.
Like when you see past, present, and
maybe a lack of future,
all at once. Like when
you yearn for morning sun
because sleep eludes you.
Sometimes your feet aren't the
most interesting thing in the world,
but a bore might just delay or mend the cure.

Bay Street Bus Terminal at 2:23 PM

A small bird travels between the feet, one joyful hop at a time. It's accustomed to the careless giants that move about,
and it knows nothing but doors and trick glass and steel and cement. I doubt
it's ever seen a natural, unabashed forest in its lifetime. Nor have I, but I belong to
the rapists of land, molesting everything natural that should ever cross our paths. I'm not an exception, I type poems
on my smartphone and wear nothing but name brands, I travel by burning oil and I consume everything from plastic cases and my protein comes from animals
that sit in cages, their feet crushing old food and new ****, but I don't like to think about it. So I won't,

and I'll keep on enjoying the company of a small bird that can't even conceptualize a forest.

A friendly smile makes
distance irrelevant. Home is
where your friends are, and time
will pass.

Pizza boxes sit at curb sides every thursday.
Bottles and cans fill most weekends, some
week days because why not?
We celebrate in ***** rooms, letting liquids leave all sorts of stains.
Semesters pass and we pass (sometimes),
with nothing left in our pockets but long-term debt, friendly conversations lost in the haze of moderate alcoholism, and memories that we feel will last forever.
Youth is wasted on the young, they say,
but what better way to spend a Tuesday than day-drinking in eternal ecstasy?