He had a clock in his stomach
Time is a hungry crocodile
After eating your hand
And learning he likes the taste

That is when the arthritis kicked in
Or the unexplainable pain
Caused by a broken wrist
Or maybe just aching joints in the cold

I think of all the times I wanted to sever my own shadow
Question my presence
Even in moments of light

Where do I stand
If I cast no shade?

There is a boy
Who one time for hours
Pointed at a can of pringles
In the hopes that he could make it move
With only his mind

The bike he learned to ride on
Had flat tires
He one time shaved down and spiked the back of his head
Then grew his bangs out and dreaded them

He had an albino rat named snowflake

Those were his angsty years

Then he found this crocodile
And it was so cool
And it ticked like a time bomb
It didn’t hurt him or anything
So he kept it
Until one night it tried to eat him in his sleep

So he ran
But maybe it thought he was its mother
Or love wasn’t enough
Or it was just mean

He wonders if his got hungry too early
Burning bridges at both ends
Forcing him to jump in the middle

He was a darling child
And he was lost for a while
Then he was found
By a crocodile
With a clock in its belly
And really
Who doesn’t want a pet crocodile?

My heart is a hitch hiker
She ain't afraid to stick her thumb out
and grab a ride with the first loser to pull over-
No grudges.

She'll stay gone for days,
Can you believe that?
Sometimes weeks...
She doesn't care to sleep in vacant parking lots
Or dark alley where the homeless creep..

She'll sit too close to a strangers fire;
Drinking whiskey while walking a wire
and everyone around will laugh-
But meanwhile,
she's just crashing...
Daydreaming about her next hitch
Like a fix
It can't come quick enough.

She'll get comfortable too fast
Hoping for illusions to last
Spending too much time on a forgetful past-
And before you know it,
She's calling fantasy her home.

Oh, that *****
Who likes to hitch
Calling fantasy her home.

I don’t need yo' ******* light
I can take care of that on my own
All I need is a candle and a wick
Keep that bulb **** outta my home

I don’t need no x-ray vision,
and I say that with gumption
***** you Scheele, I’ll stick with steel
So you know what? **** Tungsten

I’m not sure there are words for this
It is like suddenly finding out your heart is hard and hollow
Like a shell
And the heaviness in your chest goes without explanation

It is like these arms are revolving doors
For bodies that will not stay

It is like phantom limbing lips that aren’t yours
And maybe you kiss your own shoulder to remember the feeling

It is telling a chat-room ******* you love her
And almost meaning it
But you could never tell anyone else about the relationship
She says she loves you back
To everybody

There is the silence
In the spaces between sleep
When your thoughts take you places that are not calm

There is the mirror at the gym that you sometimes look into for too long

There is you without the words to be honest so you come on too strong

On the non-tattooed side of my chest
Are childhood surveys
Check if you like me
Check if you don’t
Please leave a 500 character minimum explaining
Your reaction to your most recent encounter
Thank you and remember
I only aim to please

There is this fancy worded poetry
With bits of her body tucked in between lines
So that when I speak them I might get to taste her

It is the broken record of your confidence
And no one has moved the needle

Sometimes you separate yourself from it
But you can’t even name it
It isn’t lonely
It is speechless
It just sits and feels
So you try to feed it
But it doesn’t eat

Sometimes you come close
But the words sit awkward in your mouth
Fall out like blocks

But they have no weight
So they don’t hit hard enough

All I know is that when I look at her
I feel the exact opposite

But there are no words for that either

This is the year of the search party
The year we stop looking for the answers
The year our inner commotion
Winds down to a clockwork steady

The year where everything is okay
Because it is
Because you are not your lame job
And you are not your last semester
And you are not your bills piling up

You are the moment your lungs erupt
A steady stream of your own breath
Taste it like biting cold
Or cigarettes
Feel it like a mudslide on your own skin

Let it go

Let it go like the millions of choices you can make today
Let every choice you have ever made fall away
So that you may take a moment to be satisfied right now

Assume you had no other options
And because you had no other options
Where you are is where you were meant to be

This is the year made easy
The year the search party found the answers
And hand delivered you note

The year you are a nuclear reactor
Every time you stand still
Feel the hum of your breath
As it fills up your chest
And you get so hot
The snow bending your branches melts away

The year you do not still yourself because of your anchors
You still yourself to watch them fall away

This is the year you make peace with the past

Be in the moment
Make this the year of forgiveness
And the year of less stress
The year you shake hands with your vices
The year of really good ***

The year the search party stopped
And you walked away
Dropped all your gear
Because what you found was a mirror
And it felt like you saw yourself for the first time
Because you did

Because there are no answers
Because every choice you have ever made brought you here
And right here is where you were meant to be

I wish I was more permanent,
like a mountain range,
a fossil,
a beam of light.
I'd even settle for the permanence of the words that I say.
When your legacy is fleeting,
as mine is,
you strive for the strength to last,
to be permanent.