What supports
Crushes.
The beams that hold a ceiling,
Bear down on the ground.


This was gonna be a whole yin-yang thing.
How I got squashed by the inverse of successful habits.
But **** it.
Most of it was fun.
It only got bad when I tried working too hard.

I need to be a real person.
Not some work-aholic
Alcoholic machine.

Seamus would talk about those,
"Sexually liberated Ithaca College girls."
I guess that's what I thought you were.

Cornell with it's ******* frat houses.
and ******* nasty frat parties.
We met in the basement of mine.
I was still hungover.
I don't blame you for thinking
I was just another frat boy.

I don't know for sure,
We were so far apart.
But I think we were both shocked,
That we had found real people.

Normal people.
Caring and sensitive.
Doing cute little romantic things.
Saying the right stuff,
And in between, saying the wrong stuff.
Letting the weird stuff spill out.

Then thinking maybe it wasn't so weird.
Maybe there was somebody amazing,
Hidden behind the person I made them out to be.
Maybe that wildness I saw.
It was't exotic.
It wasn't ***.

It was familiar.
It was looking in a mirror.
It was a sunset at the farm,
And morning coffee with my family.

I knew it when I saw it.
But it took me a long time to know what I saw.
If I hadn't learned who I was.
If I hadn't looked in the mirror and
Understood,
Finally,
What I was seeing.

I wouldn't have understood
Why I wanted you so bad.

I want to hold your head in my hands.
See that fire in your eyes.
Relive the first time.
Every time.
See home,
From so far away.

I'm not a poet.
I don't care if this **** rhymes.
Or if when I deliver it
I keep in time.

If this was a rap battle.
Bet I'd get destroyed.
They'd walk rhymes around me.
Fill fat purses with on the fly verses.
Drop that **** on me.
Thinking they're so ******* cool.

But for all the jumpin around
I see all these people doing on stage,
For all the time they're up,
Standing stooped like a dragons
In fits of rage.
They aren't standing for ****.

You can shout louder.
And talk faster all you want.
But this isn't the O'Reilly Factor.
Those rhymes,
Come from a dictionary.
Arbitrary and praying for cash.

That game's from the streets.
And those mother ******* streets are cold.
Put up the fire.
I don't need you in here with
That ice in your chest.
And flaming head.
Licking and spitting them.
Feet stepping in them.
Stomping around like a kangaroo,
Reading the map all upside down.

You're seeing the world all wrong.
"**** ******* get money?"
******* go home.
Give that **** to a shelter.
Because a lot of people don't have one.

Dark movie theatre.
A third into Kingsman.
Phone buzzes.
Can't check it. Have to guess.
That name.
That's who's important.

...
To myself as I walk out,
"Yeah,
Her son the waiter."

Remembering a ghost.
A shadow waits in a room now.
While the hollow body walks.
But the body and the shadow,
Remember a ghost they'd rather be.
He died and they're the leftovers.
That ghost really lived.

We don't.
"I don't write to be understood."
Some author or other said once.
Maybe. I want a creative answer.
Write up a Rorschach test.
And hold it up waving until someone sees,
Something worth having.
"Oh that must be...
I understand."
I don't.
But someone does.
That's a start.

I'm trying to build a window.
These aren't metaphors.
I'm not calling some empty headed person,
A beautiful vase with nothing to fill it.
I'm trying to say exactly what I see.
Rhymes, alliteration, technique are
Accidents.
These words just spew. I can't
Stop my hand
It's like a dull knife in the middle
Of butchering an animal.
It's barely controllable.
God knows if it'll go up or out,
If soon it'll cut me.
I like all this madness of action though.
It's almost a sport. Your heart
Doesn't race
But your head vibrates like it is.
You quiver and struggle to
Plan faster than instinct.
But are constantly reminded
That the whims of nature
Are so very out of your hands. Like this pen

Well, we could tell ghost stories.
Or we could tell the really scary ones.
What makes you?
What broke you and made you?
Can I hold you and feel the scars?

Until we're in love.
We'll throw anybody under the bus.
Until we find the person we can't
So we throw ourselves.

I hate it.
For a musician,
Maybe it's fun. The beat.
To keep you alive.

But writing is just like *****.
That sometimes,
Spills out all night
After a terrible day.

All I want is sleep.
All I get is words puking out.
Sharp little hands crawling up my throat.
Scratching on my teeth.

So up I go. Fumbling for the lights.
Again.
In the dark.
To let them out.

No. But we probably have the
Same zip code
One day soon we might
Share an address.

I yelled at my grandmother this morning.
She was knocking on my door.
So worried.
Asking if I was okay.
Afraid every time of what she could find.
I came out howling mad.
I talk so quietly, she hadn't heard me.
With my head as frayed as it is,
All that rattling awake crossed some wires.
I don't feel it was wrong.
I just shouldn't have done it.
This is what insanity must be.

That is a horrible pen name.
I'm not a Frank.
I'm all thin, and gangly, and erratic.
I came up with that when I was
signing up for this website.
I couldn't put my real name.
I'm not a writer.
In a few years the people I work with
At my real career, won't understand
all this.
I'll keep these months to myself.
Burn this journal. Delete this account.
Put up a bunch of terrible peices.
Get offensive. Trash talk the
Couple of people that followed me.
So in the totally off the wall chance
anybody cared about what I put on here.
They won't look for me.
If anybody asks they won't answer.
Eventually, I'll have to Be as much of a
secret as the ones I keep.

Maybe that's over the top.
This is all about learning about myself.
But from what I know so far I wouldn't
push people away.
Or hide myself.
If somebody finds it.
Asks me, "Holy hell were you crazy?"
"Yeah but I'm better now."
They might not understand it,
But I think that sounds so strong.
If you've totally snapped in half
And you can recover.
Knowing how to put yourself back.
If you did it once,
If you're capable of it
...
I want to say "you can take anything."
End it there.
But that isn't true.
I couldn't take killing a bunch of people.
Or selling out someone I love.
I don't think I could handle prison.
Or staying out of school.
Or not doing something that makes me feel
like my paradise is following me around
Hovering like a cloud.
I have to know my limits.

If you know what went wrong.
And if you know what made it feel so awful.

Wait.

I need to use "I" instead of "You."

You didn't do it.
I did. I did it and if I do one
**** thing differently it's to think
and admit in the first person.
I need to hear the echo in my ears
of my own voice
making the excuses.
I want to start seeing those memories
- Of silencing the alarms
- Skipping classes
- Ignoring textbooks
- Stumbling around drunk.

I want to start seeing them myself.
I write this and I'm starting to.
I'm not living them like I need to.
But there's a lot to come to terms with
Before that.

All these goals and I can't write under
my real name yet.
This isn't finished. I know there's something missing in it.
Like the message isn't complete.
But it's not to anyone.
It's for me.
I feel like after all this rambling I'm
Still not understanding what I wanted to.
I have to end it.
I'm burned out and I'm done for now.

I'm so tired.
And it's so late.
My eyes are blurred.
Slower.
I'm skipping letters,
Or just writing the wrong ones.
But I know there's still something to say.
Some weight before sleep can lift me.

She texted me this thing.
A guy she was hanging out with.
How he was such an artist.
I immediately thought he was a *******.
He had taken her phone and
God knows why,
Was texting me.

Didn't know it was a guy.
Thought I was humoring
One of her girlfiends.

He tried to convince me
Raleigh was the "cultural capitol of the south."
"If I could go anywhere, I'd go to Savannah."
"...nah."
That ******* line. "Nah (my opinion is more valid than yours."
****.

Any guy that had Jessie's phone
Would have been a ****.

Because I saw that girl one day,
She's never
Out of my head.
God.
Three years.
Or two?
Still.
Two years and nothing happened.

Nothing even came close to happening.
I can take a hint but,
Is she even that good of a friend?
Why?
The hell am I upset of this?

I'm planning some crazy trip.
Risking the life of my car
(she's on her last cylinder)
And...
I can't think of a good reason.
She doesn't even like me.
I'm not sure I even like her.

Unless of course I'm stupidly in love
with a person I've had two years to
barely know.
And all that was denial.
Grasping at reasonable straws.

God I'm lost.

I am more free now than I've ever been.
Money, time, the horizon stretches out.
But.
If I had wings,
It would feel like they were set on fire.
More than clipped.
I'm not thrashing. Like
A cut bird would be.
I'm frozen here.
The air is bubbling and I can't breathe.
There's barely bone left to walk on.
I could maybe stumble. Get a job
Daze through workdays.
But my head is frozen. Thwacks from
Bats. Shrieking cracks coming through.
I can't think Everything is so
Blurry.
The thwacks aren't rescuers.
They're not breaking me out . They're
Waves crashing on me. Adding to the
Ice.
Every piece of mail,
"Have not met our
Academic Standards."
And I am deeper in the sea.
They're so many whistles to go up.
Friendly porpoises saying I can still go
Up.
But the waves are pulling me
Down

Had to stop. The color outside
Drew me.
The air smelled like a lake's.
And I begged for the water again.
That's gotta be the next step.
Find water. Float under it.
I gotta see it. And smell it.
The dying light of rain.
It makes me feel like
Dust floating.
A million different pieces.
Thinking for themselves.
Held together. Happy like that.
The dew makes me see lines,
in the grass blades.
Follow us.
I wrote about those connections
In my little pocketbook.
There were flowers.
Thrashed in the wind.
Didn't care.
Wanted to.
Maybe I can. Floating.
Looking at the water.
Maybe paradise is at the shore.
Atlantis. Happy. Under water. By water.
I can see it.
Lawn chair. This book. Me.
Smiling or too happy to move my face.
Just laying there. Sun. Orange with the evening.
Sunglasses. My grandpa's.
He can see it. I can see it.
Found it.
Paradise.
Fresh water. I'll fish in it.
I can run down and swim.
For. Or float.
Not feel nasty when I walk out.
Let the sun bake the water away.
While I figure myself out. In here.
Paradise. I'll go.

Life hasn't hit me too hard yet.
Winds of change feel like a freight train.
But they pass soon enough.
The deafening noise was a low,
Middle of the workday growl
From the air going about its business.
But I had decided to scream over it
With my indignation that nothing better
Could be ahead.
I was the train. Lights off and shattering.

Maybe I should look more at the birds,
That try to fly against the wind.
And are halted mid-air.
They rock and flap.
Sometimes the hawks screech.
They should know the hunting
Is just as good behind them.
They could so easily
Fly ahead of the storm.
But still they look into it.

It's like trying to repaint a Jackson *******.
It's so ******* easy. But you can't.
I tried to do the same thing E.E. Cummings did.
Attack sight with a keyboard.
Drag it onto the page.
Semi-colons for fluttering wings.
But it didn't work.
Of course it didn't.
I'm not him.
I didn't see it like that.
It's not that it's bad to copy something.
It's just a thing.
But **** me for lying through somebody else's words.

The howling wind.
Through the shrieking trees.
The creaking fence.
The clanging chimes.
Everything I can see, I can hear.
As what I can't wraps around it.
And carries sight to my ear.
It's all an echo. Deja vu.
Meeting again those dull things.
Alive tonight.
The fury of a storm is not in the wind.
It's the ordinary finding new life.
Ghouls on halloween and the trees roam,
In the hurricane.
Don't be afraid of the foreign winds
From far off seas. Now in your yard.
Fear the familiar.
The family dog biting.
A tree house in its jealousy destroys your own.
The still and the quiet are loud in the wind.
Alive again.

**** that.
**** running off all those amazing people that want to know us but just can't crack the code we're too ******* selfish to give the key to.
And **** "sharing," our art expecting people to figure it out.
"Here let me crack these prescription glasses, smear a little vaseline on them....
Okay. Now tell me what you see.
**** that's all wrong. Why can't you figure it out!
I just need some space right now."
Acting like we're saints.
Off to the monastery.
To figure out God.
All this self exploration and we can't draw a map?

I can't.
I know I shouldn't demand people do things I can't.
Who the hell am I to give orders like that.
But I want so desperately to be able to.
I want you to want it as desperately as I do.

I wrote about you being guarded.
That you were holding your sword close to your chest.
I said let's start lunging.
Then I looked at mine.
Here next to my face.
In front of my heart.
If someone has to start swinging wildly,
I guess I should be me.

Here's my point.
If we don't start lunging.
And falling.
And getting cut.
And living.
We'll stand here alone.
On opposite corners of the world.
A thousand miles.
Or a foot apart.
So before we turn into stone.
Before the marble smiles start sticking.
Before they start cracking.
And we fall apart before our time.
Let's fall on our own.

Before we we have careers.
And swolAnd swollen joints.
Or get paid to be smart.

Let's be really, really stupid.
And swing wildly.
And run off without any plans,
Or reservations.
Crash parties.
*** joints.
Or get paid to be smart.

Let's be really, really stupid.
And swing wildly.
And run off without any plans,
Or reservations.
Crash parties.

I don't know if I can keep it.
But right now I'm suspended in happiness.
The air is thick with it.

I found that place I was just talking about.
Even my letters look less frantic.
The words still fall out.
But slower now.

The other stuff came out like *****.
I was,
(am but not now)
Sick.
A sick mind has to write like that.
Fast.
Each word running away from the last.
Like they're trying to lift off the page
before they become part of a letter
left to tell why something terrible happened.

It may be the eye of the storm.
But still.
It's so beautiful.
And still.

The wind is blowing gently against me now.
Yeah,
It's still out there.
A storm I mean.
I can almost hear the far off howls over the crickets.
But the crickets,
I like them.
The soft light in here, I like it.
Like the orange glow at dusk.
Night might fall on me soon.
But the orange light is so gentle
and the air is so cool.
It feels like only better things can come.

"Bear with me here. I'm no Oscar Wilde.
But when I read your writings I get sad.
Forgive me, but I figure you're sad.
You speak of heroes and villains as if either is a direction.
Not all bad guys are all bad.
And the same the other way.
You have no idea who you are.
But you can't just decide that.

You look like a human Superman.
Clark Kent.
Brilliant. Reserved.
Official in a suit.
Intelligent around everyone.
But you're hiding something.
That's brash. But you aren't being honest.
With yourself or absolutely anyone around you.
And it's forming you into a human brick wall.
You won't find yourself.
Sitting there like a ******* wall.
You gotta form into yourself.
Answer your own questions.
And anyone else's.
I figure you will.
In your own time.
I mean obviously.
But if you want to...
You can start with me.
I can help.
But I can only help if you're honest."

I'm gonna tell you all the little things.
That are keeping me afloat.
"Did those intake forms all by myself today."
"Made a kick *** breakfast today."
"The chef said the funniest **** today."
"Dude I found a sick playlist today."
No they're not that important.
But I'm making a raft out of them.
And it hurts.
And my hands are tired.
And I'm almost out of rope.

If this falls apart.
And it might.
At least I yelled.
And someone knew I was here.
Because I sure can't see anyone.

I can write the tired away.
I can out write the anxiety.
I can put down the words faster than my
head can put together, crazy, non-sensical,
yet nonetheless horrifically painful
possible scenarios.
I can beat it.
And be happy.
In the throws of my madness
AC's right
Insanity is painful
But it hurts to fight it.
But you can write it back.
I can put down all the horribleness
So it can't grow and **** me.

Save me.

When you're on the ground, I will bring you up.
Break my hand and dislodge my elbow.
I will bring you up.

When we're standing together, get on my shoulders.
I will bring you up.

If I fall and can't stand again.
When I'm gone.
Stand on my corpse.

I will always bring you up.

All this:
- sleeping until noon
- going to the gym to forget
- watching Friends for hours
- doing sporradic "educational" ****

Cannot be healthy.
It grabs onto me every once in a while.
Out of nowhere I get paralyzed.
I feel like nothing
Drifting in a sea of everything.
I should be doing.

I need to find what "it" is.
And get it together.

I've got one friend. Ryli. My sort of girlfriend.
I'm getting way too attached. I really feel...
All sorts of crazy ways about her.
But it's starting to show and I'm worried I might just be
Acting crazy.
There's a big difference between
Feeling crazy in love
And acting crazy in love.
There's a fine line between
Thinking about them all day,
And thinking about sacrificing
Goats to them all day.
See?
Just a few words away.
I've got to chill.

And he was so powerful.
That after his death.
Past time,
After all the comings and goings
Of a million imagined heavens.
Into the deep black frothing at the sides with stars.
They would scream his name.
And he was so powerful.
The most that had ever lived as we could understand it.
But, the scream never made a sound.
Against it, it found the rushing of a roar.
The deaf wave of a quintillion and many more.
Souls deafening any single brightness.
It was only what it was at the time.
And it was all of what it was.
There is the matter and the motion.
The matter, didn't matter.
That it moves is important.
That a half dozen billion other carbon made,
Things are moving with it matters.
To look at any one.
Is meaningless.
To look at any moment.
Is meaningless.
It is the rise and fall,
The roar of millions across the thousands of years,
Becomes the lapping of waves.
From incoherent screams,
To the soft speech of a force.

You know when your grandma makes something and you ask why it's so good.
She says some terrible cliche like,
"The secret ingredient is love."
You blow that off and ask for a recipe anyways.
Then you make it and it isn't any good.
You make it again.
You go to work.
Have *** with the girl from class.
Mix a drink by yourself.
And even the weekend baking isn't any good.

From a light
At the end of a tunnel.
But I'm facing a thousand
In a thousand directions.
Dead ends running away.
Above me and below me.
Through my chest and in every
Direction my arms can point.
To a thousand black dead ends.
From somewhere.
Maybe not one but a dozen.
A glow finds me.

I deserve you.
And you deserve me.
This isn't about time or ***.
Distance and days apart
Can't hold me back.
My heart is raging forward.
My body is just the foam on the wave.
A pretty face,
With no control
On what's below.
But I want to come for you.
I want to be yours.
I don't have a choice.
But I want to ride the wave.

What I'm doing here.
It's weird.
It's gotta land heavy. Sharp.
All of it getting thrown at you at once.
But you're so strong.
I can feel it.
I feel like I've gone so long knowing I can really care about someone and just not doing it!
So I'm gonna do it.
If it ******* kills me.
If I never do it again.
I'm jumping in.

This is the part at the ledge.
Where I grind my teeth and teeter.
Bend my knees and straighten them.

Put my cards in my hand.
Squeeze them.
*** them up because there isn't another round.
Throw them all in.
Throw myself in.

It's not about winning
It's about hoping I win.
It's living or dying and feeling alive either way.

So I'm making roots.

I'm giving you everything.
So if I start to worry,
Lose my resolve.
Think about an easy way out.
Cheat my way out.
Go cold.
Sink in again.
Try to run away.
Pretend you're not important.

I'll have to tear them out.

I don't care what happens.
It's not on you.
It's on me.
For the first time I can remember.
I'm growing.

...
Did you hear me?"
To myself as a Green Day album blares:
"You know what writing is right?
I talk to paper all day
No way
That's healthy."

Like all the other stories I want to tell you,
I don't know how to start it.
The hook is that I'm this tall, strong, clean cut, put together looking
Adult.
Last night I screamed and cried.
For the first time in a long ******* time.

I'll start from the day after I guess.
So I was watching this really sad animated movie.
And it.
Somewhere in the weird haze of time after I started it.
It's like my mind fell out the back of my head.
I was sort of sick.
Like how your stomach lurches,
When you skip a stair.
Falling?
H
O
W
L
O
N
G
? I shouldn't be happening like t
                                                         h
                                                            i
 ­                                                             s?
T­hen I hit.
And I was just really lonely.
On the pavement next to that seventy story building.
Rolling around on that **** stained carpet.
With my mind flopping around.
Bleeding thoughts that were getting soaked up and lost.

Then my ******* kept feeling like it wasn't getting enough blood.
Which is ridiculous.
It's a finger.
There's nothing on my wrist or anything.
Like stop you itchy tingling ******* thing.
And all the despair was so ridiculous.
I went and stood in front of a mirror.
And tried to talk myself into feeling
Better.
But the words took so long to bounce back.
Where they'd have any meaning.
They felt so weak.
Like they didn't matter.
Like they were getting whipped up in the wind.

When I started screaming.
And crying.
And begging for God.
And to just die.

But not in New Jersey.
" Just want to ******* die but I ******* can't because then I'll never leave New Jersey.
...
I can't die in New Jersey."
Then I tried to calm myself down.
Talking like there was a mirror there.
"Get a hold of yourself."
Came out.
But the words were weak.
So I cried. Because I was weak.
And screamed. Because I wanted to feel strong again.
And lost myself.
In all this noise that wasn't mine.

Tonight. The movie paused on some stupid scene.
The silence.
Buzzing in the air and lights of passing cars.
I lost myself like I had in the screams.

I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
                 Just kept coming up.
I can't shake it.
Can't even write it away.
God, I was close for a minute.
To just doing it.
**** it.
Just get out of this.
I kept thinking.
While I was staring blankly in the mirror.
...
"I can't die in New Jersey."
And I went to bed.

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

Yesterday a hunter shot a deer. His aim was poor. So was the light. He ran a long time before he remembered he had died.
'Bang.'
"God. I must be dead. But run? I should run?"
A long ways off. Deep in the woods he slid down to his knees. The adrenaline faded fast. When there was so little blood left.
"God... I forgot... It was only... So long ago... A minute... When you're bleeding so much... It's slow."
His big, cold body slept there through the night.
His chest looked to breathe. But it was the swirling, slicing winds tearing the night in all directions. Swaying his short fur.
The morning crept in blue. After a mourning black night. Navy skies swept in.
Coyotes catch his smell as the winds choose a direction and slice that way only.
The Family trickles in.
Drip. From the woods. One. Lonely. Follows the air.
Splash. He finds him. Deep in the woods. But darts away.
"Deer don't fall like that."
He watches crouched behind a cactus. Watches for kicks. Shakes. To see if the fur moves like he's breathing.
The wind made its mind and his chest rests still.
Still as the dog. Nobody else is. So he does.
He rises up and cracks int the morning with short, sharp howls.
And the family drops in. Rains in. On that dry navy morning.
There's eight now. They watch each other.
Not the body. They watch each other.
"It's free." They say.
"Free to me." They say back.
"Howl lucky we are." They laugh and laugh and lust. Lust for the free wet meat on a dry day.
Circled they tear into their free meal. And each other. A little.
When they get in the way. Can't blame them.
There's so many. So hungry. Don't get in the way.

A crow lights on a lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

The first to see.
The sky shed its navy suit and starts to see.
But first came the crow. The first to see.
The day began. It shines first on his feather. The first they see.
He drops neat to the earth and rips the lid from the eye of a little coyote.
'A test.' He tells us he thinks.
To the family. Blood is blood. From the little nip they rip more. A hole as wide as their hunger has made their lust. For blood. Blood is blood.
It took a little nudge. A nip. To do what's natural.
Little coyote died more naturally than the deer. He was splayed much more quickly. In the dust and the blood and the fur. Who could tell?
'Who can see this but me?'
'What you've done to the least of you, you've done to yourself.'

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

This day as the last day. Begins as it ended.
But the night was quiet. Still.
And the crow is quiet. Still. On his branch.
What more is he to do? They can't be taught better than any of the others.

I feel like there's this second life being lived around me.
One of those toys. Where you wind it up. And it
Spins all over. And falls over. Spent.
The other life might be like that. Where a gear gets to winding,
In this standing thing that,
Thought blank I guess. Seems quite not
discontented with all this standing.
And there's this burst. All this flying around
and schools and cars and highways and highways.
All these roads swirling around on, riding
on?
And then I drive up after my morning classes.
And just don't want to leave.
But the winding has to start again.
Some law. Nature.
I get cagey. But mostly I'd rather not leave the cage.
So this other guy with all his motives and ****.
With his resume. And his fantasies of
martyrdom and heroism and political
winningism.
His campaign t-shirts.
His volunteering.
His training.
He stands there and puts up with me.
     Real me.
        The. Me.
        The guy writing to you. Real me.

He puts up with me until all the cranking bit
is finished and he zoom off away.
Sometimes though I think. When he's walking.
Or when all the walking and talking and training
stops.
He thinks about me, and why his chest feels so cold.
He's off with his fire fighting.
       friends, work, homework, campaigns, life.
And I'm just shivering. Waiting for a body again.

How else could I write you this letter?
I have to wait for him to circle back.
To miss this chest full of fear.
To come on home.
To what he should be doing if he could make any money at it.
and if anybody ever saw they'd put
it in a magazine.

But we don't care about money.
I've never wanted anything that badly.
There's no place I'm furious to see.
     (though I like those relaxing ones)

We just want to do that thing we're supposed to do.
The ticket out.
I'll keep on writing.
     (I feel good about it)
And he'll keep on with the life saving.
And the TV show happy face,
Real jobs and everything.

Until it washes over.
Like a cliche preacher would say.
Or warm surf.
But I hate the ocean.
Hot air in a car after all day in the cold
classroom.
It'll come.
And I'll just go.
Warm.

The City. It wants you.
It was this, unrequited love.
But then you're a transient.
With all these dreams
Nobody around you wants as
Much as you do.
Then from somewhere
In the black of the theatre
New York shoots into your head.
You can't shake it.
The City wants you.
Like Jesus on the cross
It says come to me I'll save you.
These people want what you wants.
Come to me I love you.
For all your faults.
For all your hate and
Your cutthroat attitude
I forgive you.
I love you.
Let me help You,
Help You.

I'll have to make it.
I'll find a little cabin by the lake.
Have some animals.
Goats, chickens.
A cat that prowls around.
And a dog that lays down.
I'll have a little gym set-up.
Free weights and places to hang.
There'll be a fishing pole.
With a box of lures.
Every evening I'll pull out
that box.
And pour over it a while.
Loot at all the lures and
dream of enticing new fish.
Then choose the same one as yesterday.
And yesterday's yesterday.

There'll be a little dock.
That's where I'll have my lawn chair.
And a fishing pole holder.
So I can write when I'm not watching
that bobber bob.

I don't know what I'll have to write about.
Everything will be okay.
It'll be a beautiful life.
Lived on a beautiful day.
That's setting.
Bringing a beautiful,
quiet, night.

Maybe, if I can't write,
I'll stumble off the dock
and check on my lure.
Give it a tug so my fishing pole
thinks there are still fish out here.

I'll hold my breath.
And appreciate this other place
that's mine.
The light rumble of windward waves.
The silence of everything living there.
And how like them I'm quiet too.

Not silent. Even in my dreams
my head is full of the trouble
I'm wading through now.
But maybe,
When I'm finally there.
My head will be empty.

Sinking slowly
Then shooting up.
All without a thought
to make a sound.
And spoil the beautiful,
underwater quiet.

"Yeah."
...
The follow up questions,
"Was there a note?"
Yeah.
"Did you have something to do it with?"
Yeah.
Next to the notebook.
That boring blue notebook.
It didn't start out like that.
It was a ******* admissions essay.
But it ended up like that.
...
Then I got up.
And got it.
Laid it on the table.
And looked at them together.
...
For a while.
...
Then I think I walked out.
And went back to sleep.
...
I hid them before anybody say.
I don't want any of this,
To sound like a cry for help.

I'll ask softly for that.
Or lay down by myself.

**** it.
I'm trying not to lie.
But sometimes wishes slip out as facts.
"(I wish) This got published."
Silent.
Crickets.
Blank air.
Right here.
Look up.
Nothing there.
Drawing
Breath.
Hiding.

I'm talking to genies all day and it's getting distorted.

I broke for the first time today.
I almost got lost in it.
It reminded me of being under water.
You know you shouldn't hold your breath
You'll die.
There's no going back from that.
Bit is sure does feel nice.
All the pressure stops being so acute.
It turns into this dull thud.
Almost tingling the nerves in your limbs.
Little angel fingers plucking you all around.
While firm hands hold your skull and
Squeeze.
You pick how hard they do.

It scares me a little.

But now I'm having an adventure.
Traversing dangerous lands.
A mis-step and I'm in an asylum.
They told me not to play with matches.
I'm a good listener.
Nobody said,
       (It'd be poetic if I stopped here. Like I lapsed again and cont fishnr

You're like a match at night.
The dusk settled.
It's navy blue out and I can see okay.
I see something on the other side of the little yard.
That must be pretty,
I think.
Then I strike my lighter.
Hold the flame between me and anything.
That pretty thing.
You drown out the world.
Your light. fed by the wind.
Trying to blow you out.

I wanted to wait until I could hold you.
But now I want you to tell me.
Show me the scars.
And tell me about the cracks.
Tell me how you're broken.
You already know mine.
You're already my other half.
Let me be yours.

Show me the gaps I can fill in.
Lay me over what you want covered.
The jagged space between us.
Where you fill a valley,
And I hide a ridge.
It'll be ours.
Our own private park.

It's the changing perspective.
How deep is a puddle? Cool your hands.
What about when you've seen a pond?
Wade to your knees and feel the mud on your toes.
A lake? Swim on a summer day. Dive under
with the quiet. Sleep by it on a calm nights. With
little rushes of air. Stoke a fire with your friends.
Make little circles on your expensive boat. Know all of it.
From the two kinds of fish. One frog. Seven sunken logs
and the dam on the other side. Your lake.
Then a sea. How deep is a sea after the puddle and the pond and the lake?
there is no bottom to see. No other side. Salty water. Floats you up.
How easy it is to swim here! Like it's keeping you up. Out.
Full beaches. To mountains to tuck it secretly in.
Windward waves and wild things in it's belly.
Sunken ships in the harbor and in the deep.
How deep is the sea with it's wild things and
buried boats? How deep are they hidden?
Sail away and the ocean begs. Did the sea scare you?
Could it hold you?
The oceans call.
Surely the seas were shallow when in your strong heart
you drop as far as any have dared go here.
What rests in the dark is not wild. It has never seen the tame.
In the dark there are monsters.
And mirrors.
When your light shines on them, which will you fear more?
Take one breath. It's one face twice.
How deep. How far.
Then Dante's door. From the deepest circle of hell
to heaven.
In the worst of someone else, there you are.

It is a beautiful thing that I was born irresponsibly, irrepressibly, psychotic.
Oceans and ponds are just water.
One mile or a thousand can be walked.
It is beautiful that I wake up every morning as crazy and inconsolable as the one I was born on.
I have never thought she was too far.
Or beautiful, or successful for me.
I am a fool but I won.

I stopped putting things on that website
Because.
Because, I think.
When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.


I stopped putting things on that website.
Because.
Because I think when It stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

I stopped putting things on that website,
Because when it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

Those may be the most honest lines I've
ever written.
They're missing something.

A beginning and an ending.

They're the middle of a story.

That's hopeful I guess.

Today,
This pen took orders.
"Write them."
It wrote that.

My face smiled when I wasn't happy.
My legs knew they were tired but didn't stop.

I remembered to straighten my tie.
And wash my hands.

I got abused and didn't give any back.
I wanted to so badly.

I didn't hate anything today.
I wasn't happy about anything today.
The hell kind of day is this?
The hell kind of day is this?
Is this a kind day in hell?
Is hell just like this?
trapped in ice.
Like Dante's devil.

In my little notebook I rambled about other stuff I didn't feel today.
I don't have to list it.
I can.
Quick.

I tore out some notebook paper.
Blank.
Burned it.
Made a wish.
For anything.
Just now. I listed it. I gave up gave in.

To feel anything.

Even tired.
Even sad.
Even angry.
Or furious.
Make the djinn make my heart burn,
if he can't crack the ice.
Let's melt it.
Even the pain would be something.
Even a little hurt would keep me going.
Remind me I was still going.

Surfing channels on your car radio,
And there’s a great song covered by static.
A few words to know what it is, but oh well.

I closed the book on her a few years ago,
But at dinner yesterday I could almost hear it.
It breaks me like glass every time.

After she tells me
She can't do this long distance thing again.
I'm too worried, angry, sad.
My heart's getting poked apart by an icepick.
I'm picking up my uniform to start
as a waiter tomorrow.
I didn't finish that letter to Paul.
I know what his reply will be.
Get on a plane. Get out of there.
Pack your ****. We will not lose you.
Get out of there. Get out.
But I can't send it.
So I'm lying there
kicked aside,
the pillow I was pretending was her.
And I just start thinking about
What paradise is.
I'm anxious all the seconds
I'm not something worse.
But I know there's somewhere
Where it'll stop.
It'll feel right. Like this is the
Way ahead.

I think too much.
But I think I knew it.
When I say you.
Something,
Your eyes maybe.
It was weird.
I was a little weird.
Too much energy.
But you were so calm.
Everything you said,
Every. Single. Thing.
I thought,
"I like her."
First it was with a head tilt.
"I like her?"
A flash of narrowed eyes.
Curious of myself.
I was staring dead ahead,
At someone else.
Then this movement in my peripherals.
Like leaves rustling.
Like apples dropping.
"What was that?"
A bird flashing its feathers.
"Wow that..."
From the other side of the trail,
A doe huffs at me.
Big indignant eyes.
Shining in the sun.
What fire.
I can't linger too long.
My eyes,
Back to the trial.
The path clear ahead.
But.
But now silently,
I'm begging.
For the rustle of leaves.
The call of the wild.
Something natural.
A call I can't ignore.
A haunting on all sides.
But I'm through the trees.
The sounds only echo.
As I walk alone again,
On the grass fleeting under foot.
Infinite but alone.
The trees spring up around me.
A long time later.
As if I'd wished them there.
My confused head,
With all it's begging.
The forest came again.
And again I followed the path!
Indignant.
Decided.
On the trail.
The clear cut path.
Eyes fixed.
Feet marching.
They march down the clear trail.
But my heart,
Breathing in gulps since I saw her.
It had eeked it's way up.
Into my eyes.
It,
Finally,
Looked to the sides.
Into that hidden expanse.
Begging for movement again.
Beautiful birds to sing.
That doe with the fire eyes.
And my heart.
Pounding agianst the will of my body,
Could not,
Stop my stride.
I marched on.
The clear road ahead.
Through.
Past.
That beautiful place.
It haunted me.
The movement on the sides.
How I had been watching the
Wrong person.
The whole time.
It was strange.
How it lingered around me.
"I'll go back.
Go back.
I'll go back."
But I was lost.
In the haze that had caught me.
Wandering lost and dead.
I only knew gray.
Couldn't see tomorrow.
Even the echo was lost.
Bouncing at the border of my prison.
Begging to find me again.
When I was through.
And it had found my ears again.
I didn't scream.
I want to say I did.
I want to say
It was a dramatic awakening.
But my world built again in peices.
When I remembered,
Finally,
I said to the wind,
Broken.
Wishing.
"Come to me."

"No. Come to me."
So now I dream
Awake because they keep me up.
My dreams determined to be real,
Won't let me sleep.
I'll have to make my days as
Perfect.
Catch up with reality.
I can't wait to lay in the shade.
Run away into the woods
And be lost.
Lost and found and warm and free.
I knew it when I first saw her.