I told her
You don’t want any part of this
I’m a promise broken on the cracked surface
of loose lips going down with sinking ships
but I’m the rat fleeing the wreckage
to wash up on your shore
carrying the plague of free thought
and loud voices
she said
you don’t know what I want
and you don’t know what I need
and she was right
but she didn’t need to be my muse
all the others I’ve thrown empty and lifeless
in a ditch on the side of the road
which connects my **** to my gut to my heart to my brain
called the I-90 soul
and she says
yeah you go go ahead and pour another
poor ******* you
so down on yourself
because self-loathing
and low self-esteem
are in
and your calculated mask of apathy
is only to draw the people closer
So I said to her
I’m the spider in the web?
and she said
no you’re the abandoned dog
scavenging the streets
growling at strangers
when all you really want is a nice home and a good petting
Most people wouldn’t advise mistaking dogs for wolves
and she said I’m not the one who’s mistaken
listen to me woman
you might think that on the surface it’s all swagger, ego, and witty cynicism
but on nights spent lonesome
I waltz with my madness beneath the chandelier of the killing moon
I smoke and drink to quiet my mind
because no matter how prolific of a writer I am on a given day
I lose more words than I catch
and it drives me to dark corners of my mind
where razor blades and pills sound appealing
and let’s not get started on the selfishness,
she said who isn’t selfish
and I said you will always come second to the words
the only thing I know how to love
because I know how much I hate them at times
know how much I wish they’d stop
my head is full of drunk six year olds careening bumper cars into my skull
and they never go away
they just grow more quiet
and I go through periods of isolation
where any other human presence is just an obstacle of my test
my quest is never ending
just like the great human tragedy
So you don’t want me?
I do, and I want you to want me
but I need you to know
that you shouldn’t
but I’m selfish
I’m hungry for validation
and I can’t lie
the way you look in that outfit
looks like my next best poem
so sure,
be mine,
but remember that I warned you
the thing is about writers
we are as passionate as they come
but you won’t find a more fickle bunch

simplicity oozes out with every breath
not a "**** it" attitude
but a let come what may disposition
long fine fingers
ending in guitar string calluses
mestizo skin kissed by Apollo
and the eyes
always the eyes
a color which has no name
other than stunning
and hips and thighs and hindquarters
knock on the door which leads
to primal masculinity
and proceeds to leave it dumbfounded
a voice which sounds like
the nursery rhymes
mothers have read to their children
every night
all over the world
all throughout time
a bashful smile never far from the lips
with hair like liquid chestnuts
and a heart which beats
like a caged robin
her name is
untold bliss

The sun in the air is a pinprick
And heaven is leaking through
Birds shot forth as arrows
Rip through divine scenes
Of colorful vibrance
With their songs
Infecting my idle tongue
With rhythms of untold tomorrows
Living inside of the holy kaleidoscope
Shaken in an infinite snow globe
The time is melting down the brick of city walls
To pool in the streets
Like gasoline rainbows
Clipped winged angels eating Eden
Without any notion of good and evil
Black and white
Reality flickers like static
And I am a man
Lost in the sanctity
Of a wonderfully calm
Vast sea

She was walking down the street
and the way she looked -
the way she seemed to glide over
the litter strewn concrete
in that thrift store sundress -
punched me right in the throat
she said she didn’t have a name
said she was raised by wolves
Well I guess that’d make you a *****,
right?
she asked me for a lighter
for her American Spirit -
the turquoise box -
and she smelled like diner coffee
my ashtray
and cheap perfume
the black smudges of makeup
lining her face
told me that she was no stranger
to long nights
and I told her
I’m no stranger to
falling for pretty girls
maybe one day
I’ll be there to catch you
she said,
walking away down the street
disappearing into the spot
where the horizon meets my imagination
I pulled up my pants
and went off looking for a soft landing

When all the magic is gone
we will crawl from checkpoint to checkpoint
with dull great white eyes
always hungry
always starving ourselves
gotta look good for the summer
when all the magic is gone
we will howl out for sacrifice
it’s shoe harvesting season
and you’ve gotta cop some of this crop
when all the magic is gone
the national anthem will change with top 100
and when the air is stale
the prophets and poets will be driven out of town
to test their mettle in uncaring wilderness
when the magic is gone
we will hail the president on bended knee - blindfolded
when the magic is gone
everything will be trending
and nobody will give a ****
so get your abra kadabras in now
you don’t know how much magic we have left

It's a nice day
Cool enough to wear jeans
Warm enough to wear a shirt
Mid sixties to low seventies
Even the Mosquitos don't bother me

Last Friday we were ******
Walking through the art district,
Looking at all the galleries
Listening to the music
And the street preachers
I got stopped by sister Michelle
She was a Mormon on a mission
Or something like that
She asked how religious I am
I said debate doesn't matter
I'll live my life the way I want
If somebody is watching,
So be it

We drifted off
Drinking their cup of free lemonade
As they looked disappointed
But the air tasted good,
**** good
And the energy was right,
One hundred percent
A+
And I went to sleep
Dreaming of broad street
All lit up and full of life
And I figured
Everything was going to be
Alright

When the bottle's empty
times are at their hardest
the weight of world brings me down
with every step I take
when the bottle's empty
is when you most need it
Like a good friend
moving across the country
you remember all of the good times
the long shared laughter
the caught tears
when the bottle is gone
and the world once again starts creeping in
it's best to go pick up a six pack
at the twenty four hour gas station

something special seems to happen
when the sun goes down
when  the street people come out to play
drinking in the moonlight with greed
I got new DVD's at a good price
I can hook you up man
I feel most estranged
and most comfortable
when the sun is down
fill up my cup
give me a drink
and i can write you poem
after poem after poem
I can give you introspective insights
and parts of me
which only exist between certain hours
with a cat's eye
and a devilish grin
you sing me off
into another, stranger land

When the words won't come
I always have you
to refill my well
when the ink runs dry
I need only
dip my pen in your blood
when the paper is dead
the thought of your laughter
breaths new life
when hope is lost
you give me courage
you make me
a better me

where are you?
it's three a.m.
so probably sleeping
but no sleep for me
the possibilities
playing across my eyelids
like old home videos
where are you tonight
when I really need you?
you don't know it
but I am yours
if you'd take me
I count the days
until you come back home
and in my dreams
you tell me that
you won't ever leave
again

Where are you?
and why isn't
that where
this where
because I have to level with you
I could really use the company
I could really get lost in your eyes
like you get lost in music
like I just plain get lost
when you aren't here
there are no more lullabies
no more dreams
trapped awake
way too wide
if it were anybody else
I'd have lost faith
but I can't lose faith in you
even if I wanted to
I don't always tell you
but I've been betting on you
since day one
and I'm not rich from it
but I wouldn't have it
any other way

where are you?
come put me back together
I had a great fall
and I don't think I've stopped yet
but I'm tired
and I'm hungry
so I am going
to try catch a few
and if I'm lucky
you'll be here
this where
when I wake up
smiling like you never left

a man stands in an empty lobby of his apartment building
the night had hit its stride and was walking tall
in front of the closed doors of the elevator his finger falters
lingering just as the red display reads: 4F
he is confronted with a decision
up or down?
above him lies his apartment, his home
his girlfriend of many years
conversation about his day and the promise of a meal
then television and watered down beer
endless talking about the rent and what the new girl did at work
talks about relationships and the ever-looming future
what comes next?
the man pulls out his phone absently checking the time
below him are the basement apartments
and the apartment of the girl he met last week
when the trash chute was clogged so he had to go all the way downstairs
the girl who lives alone with barely any furniture and no heat
the girl whose brown hair always bears the sign of a good morning
tangled and askew
the girl whose thrift store clothing clings to the contorts of her body
so effortlessly
the girl who had once said
feel free to come over sometime. We’d have a lot of fun
I can keep a secret if you can
he pulls out his phone and checks the time again
he is late
his finger presses firmly against the up arrow
the elevator chugging to life
he fixes his shirt as the doors open with their familiar bell
the man enters the elevator and presses the button for his floor
and goes home

yesterdays like today
expecting what is to come
with the rising of the sun
like a Chinese whisper
passed through time and ancestry
the overall message
is muddied along the way

Maybe there will come a point
a turning point, swiveling on
the axis of my rotations
and I'll hear the whisper
barely audible small and infantile
and I will finally understand
until then the days are transcribed
into tally marks
etched out on the walls of life

In times of great strife
times when people turn to God
for solace and answers
what are the Godless to do?
It's hard to rationalize evil
when you know it might go unpunished
it makes you question
what's the point of trying to be good
but I think the point is
to live in a way
so that others might see
divine hope through your actions

She walked past him
heading west on broad
as he walked east
skinny and twisted
head high
chest out
like a vector he followed
his stained smile
his flashing eyes
looking directly at her
like he expected something
have a nice day
he said
she kept on walking,
thinking to herself,
*what the **** was that guy's problem

you wait
and seconds become years
which haven't happened yet
but you feel like you've already lost them
you wait
like the good little boy
or girl
you wait
like you've been told your whole life
good things come to those who take them
so why wait
why wait for what you want to be passed down
hand to hand
like a Chinese whisper
until what you get
isn't "strawberry ice cream"
but "very sore need *** cream"
you wait
hoping the time will come
but that train already left the station
and somebody else is conducting

I dropped out of school after my first semester of freshmen year. My parents had just gotten a divorce. I was in a state of perpetual, adolescent, hopeless confusion.
I've always loved stories. Fiction or nonfiction didn't matter. Just as long as it blew my mind. I, like so many before me, was going to be a writer. Not just any writer either. No, I was going to be part, Hemingway, part Kerouac, part bukowski, and part Thompson.
The decision was made. I only had one problem: I couldn't tell anybody my plans. I am a privately educated kid from England. My path was laid out before me. Hard work to college to minimal success to family life to riches I never knew existed. So I wrote up a fake class schedule. For some reason it contained multiple French classes... I don't know either.
So every week day I would "go to class". Which meant I was walking to the Bowe street starbucks with a pen, a journal, and a laptop. I wrote so much terrible poetry that year you could replace me with any teenage girl suffering from rejection and self-conscious body issues. But you know what? I put the ******* hours in. After a while I found something which I could pretend was my style. I started getting emails from strangers telling me how good my poetry was. I got a lot if reads - 100,000 before I knew it. My head was so big I had a hard time fitting through doors.
Have you ever got so high you forgot your own name? I have. The *** helped me ignore the constant whirring of anxious thinking. The drink helped me shed my politically correct layers of defense. The validation from my poetry ensured my needy feet would never touch the ground. My pride told me everything was fine. Better than fine.
So I started writing less and less. Started staying in more and more. *** fueled day dream benders became a regular thing. Icarus had never came so close to a fake sun.
People started to notice. Aggravating talks about my potential and intelligence. Horrendous awkward dinners with my family. My mum used to tell everybody that I was writing a novel. I didn't have the heart to say I was lucky to get one poem on paper everyday.
Friends stayed distant. Girls came briefly and left as quick as their legs could take them. I became a ghost, haunting the streets of Richmond with bohemian declarations of... "True freedom." Life had lost it's luster. My control was slipping.
The story I would like to tell is that I won. Conquered cultural wilds to paint myself a noble individual. But none of that happened. This isn't a story of my success as a voice of a generation. This is not a story of redemption. This is a story about a confused kid who gave into the temptations of spontaneous decisions. A kid who needed help and advice but was too proud to know how to ask. This is the story of coming to the brink, and not caring if you fall.
So where am I now? I'm back in school, dealing with feeling like I have severely underachieved. I am waiting tables for people I could care less about. I am catching up with my Friends and peers who have already surpassed me. But I am alive. I am still writing. I am here to tell you that life punches in no pattern. Haymakers come with jabs, and the bell always seems to far away. You don't beat life, not even on a technicality. You just give everything you can to try and go the distance.

Oh,
how I wish you were here
telling me anything
you wouldn't even have
to say real words
but I miss the sound of you
almost as much as the sight
and on my loneliest of days
the pictures taken
revive a spirit
of a kindred spirit
maybe I'm selfish
and only miss you
because you make me a better me
like the night were you got too drunk
and fell asleep on my lap
spread out across the couch
and I gave you my bed
and took the floor
there are probably
a million little things
I could say to you
but they wouldn't be enough
to truly get the expression across
and certainly,
a cheesy thrown together poem
doesn't come close
to saying what I can't say
but I can say
I wish you were here

The well groomed professional takes a sip
from his Styrofoam twenty ounce coffee
He glares at me - his eyes green with disgust
the night before I walked beside the moon
that morning I rose anew, born in flames
The well groomed professional takes a sip
from the corner of my eye I see her
standing waves of gold, porcelain smile
I glare at her - my eyes red with my lust
dancing to the flickering glow of bulbs
she pauses, a breath, Red Eye anyone?
The well groomed professional takes a sip
glaring at the mirror - his eyes black with
fear
I take my coffee and walk out the door
adrift in the cold Richmond winter air

Words amount to nothing
yet hold more power
than thick leather wallets
bursting apart
green at the seams
on their own
they are just symbols
a vocal vibration
indicative of emotion
hunger
but with the right backing
an idea
an unspoken truth
prayers whispered
over candle light vigils
then they are infinite
no knowledge of death
a light which shows
the true face of fear
a mirror to the self
the true self
bombs which drop
with more force
than Nagasaki
A light so bright
only few can stand to look at it
only words
have the ability
to pass through
the meandering rapids
of time
and they touch us
awoken from life long slumbers
ancestral in power
and they shake us
to our very souls

what's good?
no not what's up
the ceiling hardyfuckinghar
what's bad?
Me?
but not bad like fat with a p h a t
i mean bad like blowing out six candles
on a six year old's birthday cake
or telling kids that santa died in their chimney
maybe if they'd been good they wouldn't have all that coal
where were we?
what's good?
like cops throwing the drunk black guys in the paddy wagon right?
like *** with a hot stranger?
like kids going to college and getting jobs
I'm all good like a summer day
with good ****
and liquor which isn't cheap
riding in a top down jeep
like long conversations through the night
with that pretty wild girl whose wildly pretty
I'm good like a mind lost in the clouds
just wisps of cirrus clouds like smoke
mind in technicolor
no 60's blackn'white
and camel billboards blowing smoke rings
it's 2000 and technological conformity
and my windows are all stained glass portraits
of kids on corners talking mad game
take a microscope to the skin
and find the smiling similes chasing meaty metaphors
dead on dialogue and diction
**** syntax sent sideways from silly slick talkers' sentences
words which mean nothing
usually mean the most

the first thing you notice,
is the smell
all of the water just gets recycled
and it gets so *****
you can't see through it
the tunnel smells the worst
where the cars come through
and the laundry station is
I either get told to punch in
or that they don't need me
go to the break room

then maybe a car comes
probably not if it's a Monday
or if it's raining
but suppose one comes anyway
you get told to jump on it
pull it into the tunnel
then run down to the other end to catch it
pulling it onto the lot
you check what kind of a wash it is
if you're lucky
it's just an exterior
but let's be honest
it's probably going to be an ultimate
upholstery coated in dog hair
that the over privileged
WASP
stay at home mother
pesters you to get out
no matter how many times you explain
it isn't store policy
we don't cover dog hair ma'am
maybe her toddler spilled an entire happy meal
into one of the side pockets
you do a ****** job
she'll probably stiff you anyway

you're out on the lot
for hours
just making the same clockwise motions with your hands
over and over again
this can last for hours
then it's back to the break room
where the bosses cut lines of coke
off of the managers table
the place reeks of something
the IRS wouldn't like
you're there from 8 to 7
and you're lucky to get 5 hours on the clock

You get home
and the smell doesn't leave
and the first thing you want
is a drink
or a smoke
preferably both
and you want to sleep
for hours
sleep away the lesser moments
and the bigger one
but you know
you have to wake up at 6:45
to drive back over
and do it all again

would you
hold my hand
on a day
when I truly need all of you?
would you forget
all of my stupidity
and the senseless ****
which falls from my mouth?

would you kiss me
when I feel bad?
when all of the world
seems to weigh down on me
and it all get's to be
too much
I just want you
and only you
would you make me feel
immortal?

would you wake me up
when I sleep in too late
and forget the world?
but don't forget
I will always need you
deep in my heart
would you tell me
everything I want to hear?

Maybe it's youth
but I'm impatient
I want it all
write now
words which come from a place
that I can never find
but always seems to find me
dreams of other souls
walking around lost
finding solace
comfort
companionship
in these silly little poems
write now
not later
because standing still
doesn't go well
with my restless leg syndrome
write now
because tomorrow
is never a certainty

Writer's block
does not exist
if you are a writer
then you can always write
and you always will write
writer's block
is just a convenient excuse
for when you are too lazy,
defeated,
preoccupied,
sad,
and you know what?
when all of that is coming down on you
all you need to do
is take a deep breath
shut up
and write

I first saw you walking down the street
I don’t know when you first saw me
maybe at home
in the mirror of your memory
maybe in the pages of the book
you were reading outside in the winter
at that cafe
You had me all smiles
and I had you
all similes
a pretty little thing
to stroke my pretty little thing against
You in your fashionista bombshell outfit
me in my childlike excitement
as I walked on past
and I wonder
if later that night
you were in your bedroom
which is just as messy as mine
I wonder if you thought to yourself
“well hot ****, that was one hot ****** guy”
if not that’s fine
my words are subjectively an object of your subject
Does that make sense?
I seem to do that a lot
rambling over myself and over myself
as if you caught me in a lie
I hadn’t yet told
I hold on to the belief
that You caught me in the corner of your eye
and decided to save me for later
It’s the only thing us passing strangers
have really got

She's one of my best friends
ever since ninth grade
I thought I'd ask her to homecoming
but my other friend beat to the punch
and it was okay
in ninth grade nobody needs a relationship
and they were so perfectly wrong for each other

she asked me to talk to him
he smokes too much
and it's hurting his grades
and I want to tell her
to scream at her
you're asking me to give advice
the blind leading the blind
because we can always see it coming
the sad part is we let it take us
when being high or drunk
is the only true thing you feel anymore
sold soul to the dealer
lost in an ABC store
I want to tell her
I can't help him
like you can't help me
we carry these globes atop our shoulders
and it gets so heavy
our knees shatter
until we are left kneeling
waiting for that ax
until we can learn to help ourselves
we can't reach out
until we can look in

He was born on the wrong side of the tracks
a ruffian, lowlife, wastrel
probably addicted to drugs
taking from a society
which was never there for him
"don't end up like him son,
he's on the fast track to nowhere"
born on the wrong side
the bad side
the hopeless side
sitting at the bar
he ponders life
in a glass of whiskey
"where is the right side?"
he asks
to no one in particular
he doesn't understand
why he seems to be trapped
every city it's the same story
always caught on the wrong side

but that question got to me
what's better?
to be a ruffian
lowlife
wastrel
addicted to drugs
or the other
over privileged
a smile bought
at a great bargain
wrapped in plastic
ready to be shipped off
used and used and used
worn out
but there's always a replacement

submission or punishment
these are the lives we pick
and regardless of which side of the tracks
we are born on
we've all made our beds
we're just trying to accept
that we have to sleep in them

what if the story
of how Jesus
turned all that
water into wine
was actually incorrect?
What if Jesus
could drink wine
like it was water?
what if Jesus was
a total tank?
a typical wino?
the wine would explain
all the talk about love
and it would explain
all of his miracles
talking to voices in the sky
walking on water
sure you did Jesus

What if Jesus only
flipped the gambling tables
in the church
after he was already way down?
What if Jesus was a sore loser?
It would explain the coming back
after he was already executed
What if Jesus was just like all of us?
It would explain
the what would Jesus do
wrist bands

They never cared for much,
born into a world
which changes faster than they
attachments lost in the dull facade of trends
attachments never made
hooked to quivering emptiness
they never cared for much
other than a second look
The big man flashed neon colors
from the corner of the room
sitting in a box
of demanding power
and their thoughts are contained
confined
by character limits
points of data
and ceaseless lifeless numbers
numbers which scrawl the wall
like days left of a sentence
they see their souls
on the empty bus stops
and bleak dark houses
rocking in the stale night wind
and their cups never fell empty
nor did their lungs go long
without suffering
trying to find some chemical reaction
which might dissolve the world around
like mad scientists
they didn't care for much
only a yawn
a yawn
and an illusion

That being said
we give as good as we get
don't stop at neon red hands
nothing but green go men
across clay and goshen
behind the Siegel center
Don't go to was with rams
a play pen ain't just for the kid
we need playpens for grown men
so I play with my pen
while I wait for my beer to get here
Don't point fingers at me
I cut looser than amateur directors
I cut looser than sad teenagers
never reaching the veins or arteries
with a BAC over 9000
I grew up on the internet
but tonight I throw up in your bathroom
and thank you for keeping the towels laundered
cheers for tonight
may tomorrow never come

You are a city
during Christmas time
full of life and light
love like a blanket of snow
You are a city
in the Spring time
when the sun rises
over the river
painting the skyline with embers
You are a city
when the leaves change
and even after the birds fly south
the sound of you singing
makes us forget them
You are a city
on a Summer night
sitting on the back porch
watching the fireflies
as they mimic the stars
You are a city in which buildings
only grow taller
You are a city
which I would like to call home

there is a valley between us
the distance between my was
and you are
my want
versus your need
it's all the same
it's all just one more drink
one more moment spent
between the breaths of our cigarette
shared beneath a waning half moon
at night the monsters pour out of the closets of boys across the land
and maybe they look like you
maybe it doesn't matter
girls are shaving their vaginas in the bathroom mirror
as the tv chuckles wildly
as I meander from dark empty to room
to dark empty room
hossanah on high judging the judges of yahew
as they drive tent stakes into the sternum of evil
I write to write to write to **** to **** to ******* to **** to manipulate this conversation
into a direction which ends with you stroking my pulsing ego
you aren't a muse
you aren't some special being
you are just mine
floating around in a head full
of my selfish thoughts about my selfless need to make you
my selfless thought
I'm a bullshitter
and you are a **** eater

You can hear a pin drop
when the brain goes pop
and you can't see the world
for all the rain drops
and then it all stops
suspended outside of reality
hitting like a crushing finality
but it's no fatality,
in actuality, it's more like taking a drug
and being treated like a ****
no more kisses
no more hugs
no more best wishes
you're on you own
atop your thrown of throwaway thoughts
surrounded by all of the ghosts which haunt
their cheekbones thin and gaunt
carrying all of their sins - they flaunt
the cha cha chatter of the keyboard
allows you to soar
up up and away
looking for a better day
but let me put it in a simpler way,
when the words start to drop,
you can hear a pin drop

If I were humble
I'd never make it out the apartment
sitting in dank basements
like that creepy guy in your building
good for me I'm not humble
if I were I wouldn't heat up reading Hemingway
I mean if I were humble
then your grand kids wouldn't be reading my poison in the 9th grade
If I were then my name would drop off
but Harry J Baxter is too good of a name to go unheard
so even if it take twenty years
I'll stay on my 10,000 ft soap box
obnoxiously screaming in your ears
from computer screens
paper pages
street corners
and bathroom stalls
you can't spell arrogant
without **go

all the good luck in the world won't save you
from yourself
we were born as four young men
all at odds with something
we couldn't conjure a name for
a masochistic lightning bolt of self-destruction
streaking through us

the straight man
doing everything right
with a bottle of soda
which gets so shaken up
that it pops and spills over
on drunken occasions
body becoming synonymous with temple
a place of worship
with a strong love
for vicariously living the southern life

The anarchist
spelled ID ID ID ID
is getting ****** up
and thinking he ***** up
all too often
Mr. Insomniac
Mr. smoker's hack
ash stained fingers slowly yellowing
as the hot Richmond sun
turns our skin to leather
He is brave
he is impulsive
smart, but not smart enough
to figure out how to get out of his own way
some would say criminal
he would say unlucky
I would say
What's the difference?

The anomaly
much older than the few years he carries in his hand
to skip away as stones
across the pond
of awkward, confused, troubled adolescence
at home in front of a room full of people
doing stupid ****
in clever ways
making them laugh and laugh
at home locked away for countless summer days
in his bedroom talking to strangers
in some online video game
he reminds me much of myself
which is why I have always carried
the chips on his shoulders
close to my heart
because if we raise him right,
he'll be better than all of us

The OCD CEO
the creative type
with a metaphorical hippy flower in her hair
a teacher
a healer
a support beam
and a ******* basket case
gifted in the tongue with the art of embellishment
and when her kingdom comes under attack
she uses love as a shield
and guilt as a sword
she can read all the words
but only if they are jumbled
in the precisely right order
just because
"That's how it should be"

The King of Abdication
made of steel and iron
as still as a stone until
the scent of blood reaches his nostrils
so strange to see the visage in the shattered mirror
of cold, calculated, killer on the battle field of capitalism
nerdy, awkward, silent on the battle field of human relations
A rolling stone
who always rolled on back home
who taught me
that sometimes you have no other option
but to buckle down, take the hits
be a man and finish the job
as well as you can
frugality and hard work and yaddah yaddah
surprised me when he told me
"Sometimes you just need to jump,
Jumping was the best choice I ever made"

The Rebel,
highly frustrating
intelligent
confident in his lack of self-esteem
unaware of what happened in those hazy years
to lead him to reach out
to total strangers
like he was begging for a new toy
"Look what I made! Isn't it good?
Please tell me it's good.
Please tell me I'm okay."
who never liked being told
"I'm older than you, so do what I say"
so he made it his own personal mission
to do the opposite whenever he could
regardless of what it meant for him
and in his mind
he paints himself as missed genius
too intelligent to ever be happy
with the world he lives in
and in everybody else's mind
he is a whiny little kid
in need of a kick in the pants and a job
a grade A reality check
before his burning protest
leaves him stranded with no bridges
a hermit of his own making
constantly looking for that human attention

The cast is in place
the audience are taking their seats
but this isn't a play
not a comedy, tragedy
not a hope
nobody knows how it is all going to end
but like fair weather NASCAR fans
they are just there for the crashes

A steering wheel is freedom
as much as another step down an
unfamiliar path laden with that new car smell
Headlights break through the fog
and we pass each other with a nod
and a raising of the hand
pilgrims chasing our own shadows
as the sun slowly fades behind
scarlet horizons
The ocean is calling me home
and I feel the oncoming wind
in each blade of grass
taste the lightning in the air
and feel the thunder in your
beating heart
the rain will come down in buckets
and we will dance beneath
our eternally blissful ignorance

it's all alright
quit worrying so much
for just one second
you did everything they asked on the app
wrote your essay
brought it to the lady at the front desk who irked you so when she asked,
"You've never been abroad?"
you'll get in
walk through the door onto that plane
maybe a 767
maybe some other form of human packaging
mixing elbows and hips with everyone else bound for the country I once called home
it'll be about seven hours of careening through the air
seven hours an angel
Heathrow is crowded and a wave of people threatens to take you in their riptide
but you'll be better than fine
in the middle of all of those great buildings
I mean,
****,
it's London:
one of the greatest cities in the world
and if anybody should be there
it's you
and you might get lost over there
in all of the faces of strangers and opportunity
and that makes me happy
it really does
but at the same time
I'll be here in Richmond
good old Richmond
our Richmond
doing my best to be supportive
doing my best to walk the straight edge
between waiting and living
doing my best to get your face out from behind closed eyes
You're going to London
and I'm going crazy

You said you loved me
I said I loved you too
So that's it right?
End of story
they all lived happily ever after
except not really
the miles between us
care little for
teenagers who think they are in love
It has been jaded by too many
psuedo-Romeos and Juliets
Who get all caught up
in idealistic notions of love
but **** the road
we aren't like them
we are true
and we are strong
aren't we?
and I would bridge the gap
there's nothing keeping me here
except my signature
on the lease of my apartment
and of course
I love this city
and I think living in Harrisonburg
would only end up with my suicide
but some times I just think **** it
who's stopping you
even if everybody says it's a bad idea
isn't that what being young is all about?
making really dumb decisions?

I may not be good for much in this world which seems to have forgotten us
but armed with a handful of words
I am capable of feats
most people couldn't begin to imagine
I talk to a lot of younger kids
and they say
I want to be a writer
like you are trying to be
and I say to them
are you sure?
because every form of art isolates us from humanity
writing especially
and the rejections pile up faster than the bills and calls from collection agencies
and the doubt brings you down to rock bottom
ever held a knife against your own throat?
one slash away from a restful eternity
and if you think you can do it -
more power to you
but just know
that we're in the jungle
and I might be your friend
but it's just as likely that I get hungry
and cannibalize you
because the market is flooded
and I don't need any more competition

I can not call myself a poet
with any good faith
I respect it too much
the raw words which shred out of me
come from a place
which I don't know
I didn't put them there
and though you don't know it
I'm pretty sure
that you wrote all of my poems
it just so happens
that the pen was clutched in my hand
the keyboard just happened
to be within my reach
but you're more than a muse
transcending language
you are a well
of emotional explanations
my guardian angel
pulling my strings from behind the scenes
if my poems are beautiful
it is only because you are too
if they are ugly, pointless, obscene, *****
it is because that's how you make me feel
you are a cathedral
which I can't besmirch
I hesitate to attach my name to this
what's a name anyway?
you are a poet
and you don't know it
you wrote this