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.

Loosing something that has no interest in you.
Freeing yourself and finding that you have nowhere to go.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I got to imagining things like I used to in high school.
I thought, maybe I was an alien hidden here.
I imagined them charging in there. Tearing at my collar for a mark.
Some irrefutable proof that I was theirs.
I imagined it happening in front of all those people.
Having my people stand me in front of them and claim me.
Five hours later I clocked out.

It was easier at Cornell. The day dream was constant.
It was wrong.
It was a mirage in a dry, sleepless desert I had lost myself in.
But, it was nice. Living in the daydream.
For a moment.
A single godly heartbeat lost in the enormity of time.
Flying away into that void,
Before I could catch the flap of its wings.

It was insignificant.
It was a dream.
But,
God what a dream.

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.

How do you write a love story?
You go backwards.
How do you know if you're in one?
You wait.

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.

I shouldn't see her tomorrow.
It's gonna go so badly.

Not like that.

I gave my heart away. Way away
But there's a little rattle in my gut.
I'll pick her up.
Talk while I drive her home.
"Nah I figured the app stuff,
Out on my own."
Your place or mine?

Never gonna make it to the gym.
I ****** that money away.
It was so logical.
But my guts were rattling.
I made it worse before I heard.
Signed. Gave my card. Bled my account out
One day I'll listen to them.
It'll be when I'm dead.
When the only sight I have
Is 20/20 hindsight.

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

If I'm going to wait for the
Big
little earth shattering thing I do.
By holding my breath.

I might die.

I can take the little things.
Maybe?
And use them to breathe.
So I don't pass out when the big one comes.

Do you keep the first drafts somewhere?
And look at them until you remember.
Those long nights choking on all the
Hate you cooked up for yourself?
I've been a ghost in a shell.
A roast cooking right in hell.
Pitch the forks in the trash
Use your hands to pull me apart.
Leave the bones.
Something of me will stand firm.
For once.

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.

I don't feel it in everything yet.
I'm staring at these flowers being thrashed
(gently)
by the wind.
And for all my metaphors about winds of change
and being violently thrown around.
I don't see it the same.
I keep waiting to really
Feel
That connection.
Appreciate the universality,
the totality
inherent value of life.
But it isn't here yet.
I need to get out.

Oh god this makes me awfully anxious.
I'm writing this in a floor seat at a huge theatre.
There's all these eyes around.
I know they don't care.
Not about me.
The ****** in the blue suit.
Tearing away at a notepad.
What if they do?
What if the couple behind me is catching
every other word?
It makes me smile.
The danger of it.

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.

I'm back to thinking I can sleep a couple hours,
Get up,
Go to an appointment
Go back to sleep and
It won't wreck my head.
The last time I did this kind of stuff,
It sunk me.
I gotta grow up soon.

Sleep like humans are supposed to.
have a routine,
Make something.
I'm a tree with no fruit and
The storm is furious.

God this is hell.
No I can't see the light at the end.
But if I don't stop scratching at the walls.
I'll be stuck here forever.

"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.

You ever stand there,
In the Fall dark.
Hearing the City as a groan.
And dogs fighting past the yard.

And think. That's something.
They have something.

In some yard I've never seen,
But I know is bare of grass.
From kids and paws.
Where there's faded plastic
Rotting toys.
The kind you pedal around in
Or gnaw on.
Or pick up and know the cracks.
Because you bought it new,
But now.

And those dogs, with another
dog for each.
           They've got something.

I've got bread. Good dark stuff.
And a pen. And lots of other things.
And people. And places.

More than those dogs.
I don't know if I want any of it.
Love and comfort, great tastes and sights.
I know I'd feel sick if I ever lost it.
Just, sick at the void.
That I'd have to fill of go down
The change would worry me.
And my stomach.
Who really does his own things.
All those kids at that pep rally
Who watched how that warm soda unfolded.

Unfolded may not be the
best way to describe horrible
acid ***** humility that I brushed
off then but worries me so much now.

The change.
I think mostly I'd like to sit in the
Same place, and do the same things,
And drink the same couple of root beers.
And just see how all that goes.

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

Writing is just like *****.
It spills out.
Until it doesn't.
It's been years since I wrote anything
That I cared about.
And even this feels fake.
Forced.
Yeah it's late, and I'm drinking, and sitting in the same room I
Used to.
But its a different life now.
Like remembering thunderstorms I watched as a
Kid, I beg the skies to rip open again.
Then maybe,
What I write will feel like its real again.
And I can stop waiting for a reason.
And live in the vertigo of the retching and
Writing.
How I want to be sick again.
To live again.

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

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.

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