Somedays I don't feel like writing
and it worries me because
'Writers write everday --
real ones, at least.'
I fear being ordinary,
which is tasteless because
maybe being ordinary
is what I need.

The appeal of snapbacks
and hipster haircuts
is starting to make more sense.
Blending into a crowd
might suit me better;
to be invisible but
to no longer be insecure.

Rap lyrics make more sense,
even though I can't relate;
these words are my sedation,
these clothes aren't armor
but marketable camouflage.
My words have been said before,
but that might be okay because
I'd hate to torment myself
wondering about my relevance.

So, to move on, I write,
and I write, and I write
to pander and to conform.
Substituting thought for
appealing diction and
strong imagery, afraid
to show myself because
maybe you're too much
like me, which, surely,
would eat me alive.

God help me, I've tried
to get you off my mind but it's
i m p o s s i b l e,
especially when the memory of you,
your body pressing me firmly
into the grass, uncaring of the lingering rain-damp dirt,
is still burned into my brain
every time you double text for my attention.

The graze of your tongue,
against my own,
a motion so languid, a feeling so warm,
a taste so sweet―

you're like molasses against my lips
sliding, impossible to ignore, down my throat
and dragging with you the words
I can't seem to spit out

and I'm grateful for the soothing relief,
the way your syrup coats where I'm raw:
a glaze that leaves sweetness in its wake
where usually there's bitterness,
both from the coffee that wars with an insomniac's exhaustion
and the way I feel about feelings.

And that's all well and good, for a while.
After all, who doesn't have a sweet tooth these days?
But once the molecules in my throat
have melted away, gone is the glaze that
sweetened the taste in my mouth, and the dark thoughts in my mind;

smothering the taste of coffee with syrup
doesn't remove the stains from your teeth,
and then the more you do it, you find yourself with cavities
and heart disease.

Yell into my mouth the instructions for caramel,
please mishka,
my insides don't feel sweet, they're bottles of painkillers eaten with a raw hunger swelling and grazing all my skin. I feel pretty with you
and entirely worthwhile
but here
and here and here
I still hurt.

Your loveliness was never warm ginger in my stomach, it was the lily scent
to cover my decay.

so fixated on the idea of a father, just lately;
he's got a firm clasp on his own mouth
to stop himself from spilling,
wishing he could grip hard enough to
leave bruises
without thinking "look at me, becoming him"

pathetic, is what it is
shuts himself down with bitter thoughts and cruelty.
how ridiculous to look at mother's new boyfriend—
who she isn't even official with yet,
who she's only known for maybe four months—
and silently wish, more than wonder
"will i be calling you dad one day?"

his own dad, such a disappointment
that sometimes it gives him headaches,
trying to figure out who's more of a violent failure:
himself, or his father.
he has an ego the size of the moon
that compensates for his overwhelming insecurities
and hides his vulnerabilities;
but he can't escape his own self-loathing when there's
no one
to put on a show for

and since he grew up spending most of his days
alone and self-reliant

loneliness has been the best father he could ever ask for