I'm not sure if I
Want to get better
Just yet.
I am happy,
But I miss the sad passion
I used to have every day.
I miss the drowning in my lungs.
I miss the tunnel
I could never escape.
I miss the monsters and demons
That would swim in my mind at night.
But I do not miss
The old me.

I like to sit around and ****
lean back and watch my room cloud with smoke
beginning to feel every hit
Mary Jane you're it
I enjoy these moments with my boy
he always brings me joy
I listen to your fingers glide
strumming those guitar strings
I love your voice
when you serenade me
when we sit back and enjoy the smoke
I love you
even behind my cloudy eyes
you're the one who makes me shine
we take a moment
we take another ****
we take time and watch my room fill with smoke
with you by my side
I'll always be all right

it wasn't the fall
that worried her
she enjoyed it
the wind in her hair
the gentle sunlight
trespassing onto her skin.

it was the landing
that worried her
the uncertainty
of where she'd end up

hoping a cushioned cloud
would wrap her up and keep her safe
but knowing
that a landing in treacherous waters
was just as likely

but she enjoyed the fall.


a//j

I feel like I have fox-holed my gut
Sleeping only in the shape of a ball

And I have folded the thought of you into a trench
so that I might sleep safely tonight

But I have learned how not to be lost
In the sharpening of my shoulder blades
I have learned never to shrug
In the off chance I will
shed my wings
and truly be lost

Come back to me

I have been drunk for a week now
and I feel like your breath will sober me up

I want to hold your head like a sunrise
strands of gold drizzle out to the tips of my fingers

I am buzzing
Lacking structure

Your smile
like a hammock hanging from the laugh lines in your eyes

You laugh like a runway held up by your own cool breath

I want to place my mouth there
In darkness, aquatic nightlight glow

Your skin, goose bump braille
a language I am still learning

My fingertips
tracing the topography of your smooth

Your landscape
I want to get lost

My hands
your skin
My drunk
your breath

Come back to me
Sober me up

Poetry is just a tool

To speak your mind, not serve as rule.

Constructed help to bear one's soul,

Declare one's love, or friend console.

To speak in verse is but a scheme,

A packaging for fancy dream.

Fixing meter's common place,

But it's up to the writer's taste.

To rhyme, to pair these simple sounds,

To fuel the whimsy, feed these hounds,

Can sometimes be itself a crutch,

Or hind'rance if it's used too much.

The feeling and it's heartfelt message,

Speak more than some structured presage;

Create your voice from humble words,

An ode or sonnet, praise or gird.

Loose your arrows, verbal arcs,

And dot the Earth with sharp remarks

And when the last launched barb should fall,

Who minds if they should rhyme at all?

I want a blanket named crash
and a pillow named home.
Save tears for the foreword,
I'll return before long.

Sleep-sing me, Glasscatter,
the metal twists sweet.
The headlight's no Source.
Let oil, as blood, seep.

I turned, not for nothing,
little bird in the road.
We took flight, singing softly,
so glad that it showed.

You will never know what it means
to be a father, until you have a son.

The overflowing joy, and the love
that echoes in the ***** of my being
when I looked upon you;
the sense of honor when I’m able to pass
on something good into your hands;
the heartbreak brought by my demons
that keep me from being the man
I want you to see.

The man that stands in front of you
or has left your life, who
has the power over you — for good
and for bad — that will never let go,
is the man you’ll only see.
A privilege, a great burden it is to be that man.

Sense of manhood, self-worth, responsibility
to the world around you — there’s something
that must be passed from me to you.

Yet, to put this in words is hard.
A time when it’s hard to speak from the heart —
that’s where we live. My life is tainted
by thousands negligibility, and the poetry
of my spirit in silenced by the thoughts
and cares of daily affairs.
The song of being a man is silent.
I find myself full of advice but devoid of belief.

I don’t have all the answers to your questions
but I do understand. I see you struggling
and discovering, striving upward
and I see myself reflected in your soul.
So I can say, I have been there.

To walk, run and fall, I’ve learned.
I have had my first love, my first heartbreak.
Sadness and fear, all of them I’ve known.
I have wept tears of sorrows and joy
but knew that God’s hands were on my shoulders.
On moments of darkness, I thought I’d
never see light, but He’s the light.
I want you to be near Him, the Light.
I have felt myself emptied into the
secret of the universe, moments when the
smallest slight threw me into rage.
When I barely had the strength to walk myself,
I have carried others, yet some other times
I left them standing by the side of the road
with their eyes begging.
There are times I feel I’ve done enough
and better as what others expect; yet other times
I feel I am a charlatan, a failure.

I am a man, as you are.

And albeit you’ll walk your own earth
and move through your own clock,
the same sun that rose on me, will rise on you.
The same seasons, the same paths.
We will always be different,
but will always be the same.

These aren’t meant to make you into me,
rather, I’d like you to use them in yours.
To watch you become your own self
is my joy. To be your father is no more like being
the Summa *** Laude in my class, it’s much more.
You allowed me to touch mystery for a moment
You are my love made flesh,
and I want you to pass that love along.