On the day that I lost my name
I took a nice long walk
To the edge of infinity,
Searching for it

You know, they say the earth is round
And as I leaned to peer over the side of it
There, lay a vast blanket of outer space
No continuous ground— like they said
No path to move on from
Dead-end roads  and deadened feet
Had led me to this edge, where
I cut myself on contemplative thorns

“At what point did he stop loving me?”
“My friends are gone”
“Rehab couldn’t fix me”
“I don’t want to wake up tomorrow”

No, the world isn’t round
My thoughts are round
And so are my vices
Always spinning and falling
Into a perpetual mental cycle

So when I looked beyond the cliffs of my flat Earth
Into the depths of nothingness
I pondered what it would feel like

To
      tippy
                 toe
                         my way over

                  To lose myself forever

If I never wake up tomorrow
Would they remember my name?

Unsettled
Unsure
Underneath my composure
I cringe
I fold
I lose all sense of control

Time forces me past this dividend
But I still yearn between two ends

To find
To know
To somehow let it go
Or run
Or hide
Or burn it all inside

What does it mean to be
Emotionally unavailable?
My manic thoughts keep me starving for
An imagined happy

“Are you single?” They asked
Well, my heart is as open as an old wound
That reopens & bleeds & scars for
Vicarious validation
Yet closed in the sense that it shuts down
Every time it starts to feel something
Almost habitually,
As if in self defense
I guess you could say my heart was a
Twisted & distanced kind of available...

But no
I’m not available in my mind
Because it knows better than my
Feeling *****
The human container that’s headstrong
To it’s gullible nature
My thinking ***** knows that
Vicarious happy is not real happy
Which labels my forehead like a neon sign
Emotionally Unavailable

I crave a validation that looks like your love
But it won’t fix me
Or provide the happiness I
Desperately need for myself

My heartbeat's gone all wrong
A stuttering flutter of rhythmic butter
Something this *****'s been slipping on
And what is the tempo marking, dear?
Quarter note equals freakin’ infinity
It's come to my attention, I fear
I never breathed a note this long

I couldn’t possibly die today
I haven’t given Dr. Itoh his keys back
Or read the book he told me to
I have not smelled the November sunflowers
Or gone to that concert
That plays in the beginning of October
Live reggae
I could live a little longer for that
I still owe Kevin ramen
And I still owe my sister a visit
In her hometown
Next month
To see the stars far away from city lights
I could stay another month
For the stars
And my sister
I haven’t shared my novel
Or poems
I think someone might like them
And if not, at least
Someone could understand
Where it went wrong
Someone could understand why
I drink for my happiness
And sleep for my sanity

a domesticated dog you are
clutching your presumed territory
the yard of a house, the fence you are leashed to
you can bark but you cannot speak
no justifications, never
so you bark
and you howl until someone
understands your menacing threats
what for?
not hunger, but
defense
defense of your territory
your fence and your leash