I went to a sanctuary today:
The remnants of a dammed river
Called Tanyard Creek.
Life was vibrant and flourishing,
Glowing with green and streaming sun,
Cascading falls and clear pools.
I even befriended a turtle;
It was all very lovely, I assure you.

Yet, this used to be a river
Before Man built that dam,
And it must have flowed for miles --
****** and untarnished --
Before Man built that dam.

I'm reminded once I reach the other end
Where it flows under an overpass
That this all is simply allowed to exist:
Someone owns this.
Someone can trample all of this.
This fledgling remain of something ancient.

This is the fate of the entire world:
It all has a price tag.
It can all become a parking lot,
An oilfield,
A sweatshop,
A mall,
And if this system goes unchecked:
This paradigm of infinite consumption.
Then that is where we will one day be,
With backyards that need to be genetically-engineered to survive.
Where every animal is exotic and rare.
Where New York is underwater.
While we lie in gas-heated homes,
Huddled away from the decaying world,
As we chase away the fear
That it is far too late,
That these wounds are fatal,
And that we let our greed and indifference
Ruin the world that gave birth to us.

Let the frantic words of a caffeinated mind flow forth:
I shouldn’t write poetry when I drink coffee.
I shouldn’t drink four cups of coffee at 3am
With the intent to squeeze poetry out of my shaking fingers.
Seriously, I have to **** after every stanza.
How am I supposed to keep on track?
I can’t, I tell you,
So let’s just mark this up as postmodernist –
You know, the sort of art that is actually ****,
That shouldn’t be considered art,
Like that exhibition full of pictures of *******
(No, seriously, that exists);
That’s what this is.

The only effect I can hope to achieve is irony,
Or humor, possibly.
It’s about time I stop writing about love and life,
Like I’m trying too hard to be taken seriously.
Maybe that’s the way it is for a young writer,
Like I’m screaming in the street:
“Hey, pay attention to me!
I’ve experienced things and apply pseudo-elegant words to them,
Then call it poetry!”

You want to know the truth?
I don’t want to work a routine job.
I don’t like the way the world works,
And I’m scared of being still.
So here I am, writing and drawing and taking ******* pictures
With the faint hope that my creativity may,
Some day,
Be worth your time,
Ask valuable questions.
Spark valuable thoughts,
Give you an escape,
And pay the **** bills.

I remember late nights,
The interstate lights,
Their yellow hue
Through the windshield
With “Float On” turned up
All the way,
And our ****** voices
Singing anyway.

We went to the edge of town:
Those hills in the country,
That canyon we threw bottles into,
The back road where we cried in the rain
Like rapturous children
Bursting with joy,
And the warmth of friends –
Of people that love you.

Now, 500 miles away
I am typing words on a computer screen,
And I write about nostalgia:
About all of you,
And how I miss you,
How I love you,
All of you.
This is what I’m left with:
Memories and melancholy.

But I visit town often.
We drink and smoke together.
We throw up and pass out together.
We talk about futility and love and humanity
Infinity and *** and society,
Relaxed and without pretense;
We aren’t trying to prove anything –
We’re just talking and laughing and singing.

You’re told to move on,
Like the past is a commodity:
A tool for your growth.
Whoever says this never had friends
That were the family they never had.
They didn’t grow up alone.
They didn’t have an alcoholic father
And a distant family,
And years spent alone in a room
Playing with ******* Legos
Because they couldn’t catch a football.

I don’t want to move on.
How do you expect me to move on
From the people that kept me alive?
That made me laugh off suicide?
That gave me happiness and joy and warmth?
That turned the darkness
The desolation and decay
Into a vigorous existence?

You shouldn’t expect it.

I dream of going far away.
Plunging into the grandeur
And the vastness
Of the world.
I am ready to leave this place;
I am ready, I say,
To be away.

I will write and draw,
And take drugs with strangers.
I will sleep on the beach,
Bathe in rivers,
And plunge into nature,
Away from four walls,
From screens and cars,
And toward greenery and stars;
Splendid laughter and epiphanies
Spilling from the ether,
Behind trees and over mountains,
In the silent water of calm lakes,
And in the crimson sky
Of some northwestern twilight.

I will wander abandoned roads
And drink coffee in midnight diners
Thousands of miles from home,
For the road beckons,
And the moon never waits.

The wanderlust of youth
Is nothing to waste.

I miss what was:
The late nights,
Street lights,
Midnight diners,
And old music.
I think to myself
How lonely this is,
When the past
Was so splendid.

They're memories
That should make me smile;
They only empty me --
Isolate my heart,
And show me what
I no longer have.

The small cracks
Become canyons
That you can't fill,
Look what we are:
Distant stars,
Drifting apart.

Lonely satellites,
Singing to ourselves
In the depthless
Void.

Perhaps I'll find,
In due time,
Some lovely light,
Somewhere,
In the sky,
And we can sing,
Together.
Yes, we can sing,
Perhaps forever.

Waves crash across the horizon.
Salt and sand stir in the curling crests.
The sun falls into the sea, ages away.
An expanse ignites in lucid crimson.

Calmly the sea reaches for the shore.
The lonely moon floats in depthless black,
Clustered with ever endless stars
Indifferent to the futile toils of man.

The multitude of eyes that look to this sky,
And shrink from the unfathomable void,
Laugh the whole of their little lives
As they willingly wither with the weeds.

Yet there are whispers in some ancient breeze
Of a timeless dream of something more --
A future that all of man should strive for:
Free of famine, strife, and senseless war.

Yes, we must believe in something
To keep the dreadful darkness at bay,
So we have created a perfect world
Forever confined to our mythic minds.

Listen, I force myself to laugh
At myself when I can't see past
The dark shroud of every day;
Sleeping in and withering away.
It's a defense mechanism I made
For when I couldn't get myself out
Of that senseless cycle of ******* doubt,
That I wouldn't make it out,
That I was doomed to obscurity,
That my life would be small.
*******, don't do that to yourself.
Smile and make some ******* friends;
Tell yourself you're never going back again.
Laugh it off and move on, ******* –
There's no use in apathy my friend.
We all face the void eventually,
We all lose hope existentially,
But that's part of this life;
There's struggle in every work of art,
And there's beauty in every scar.
I'll tell you that life has meaning:
The meaning that you make.
Seek your passions until you shake.
This ******* world is yours to take.

So I want to see you smile every single morning,
And you're not allowed to call anything boring.
Every day is full of potential ready for the pouring.
I want you to laugh away the darkness;
Every second is something to harness.
But a lot of people think life is pointless,
Saying **** like we all die regardless,
Or that every ******* is just heartless;
They need to realize everyone's an artist,
And they're still clinging to this life
Because they can't fight the fire inside –
The inferno to live like we'll never die,
So you might as well enjoy the ride,
Gaze with glee into the endless sky,
And learn to share the truth inside:
This empty world can be filled by our glowing minds.