I don't know about you.
But I've had enough of me today.
I'm going to go stand in the rain and laugh myself to sleep.

I don't know about you.
But I've had enough of me today.
I'm going to go stand in the rain and laugh myself to sleep.

Who were you?
Before all this happened.
Before that happened.

Would we had gone for each others throat?
Or would our hands just meet in the middle?
Perhaps indifference would rule the day.

We're unfinished people at the moment.
So who knows what's to become of us.
Or who we are to be.

I'll tell you this regardless.
I feel very fortunate to know you now.
And I'd be very grateful, if I could say I know you when.

we're as unaware of the before as we are the after.
so, it's not illogical to assume that this is it.
this commercial break of an existence in the ongoing celestial clusterfuck that is the universe/life.
so we witlessly scramble about
sentient but delusional.
hooked on euphoria, looking to extend the feeling for as long as possible
"others have done it, why can't i".
i'd argue
that they move about us.
every moment, every feeling
an illusion just passing through.
some, few, illusions stay.

I don’t feel you anymore.
Back when
there was a halo around the moon and stars.
With your feet in my lap.
Cigarette smoke like moments disappeared into the folds between night and day.
You’d sometimes reach out for me.
It was like being noticed by the universe.
You circumvented my illusions.
And for a brief moment.
I mattered.

I won’t walk to the edges of the world for you.
Not because I don’t love you.
But because I know you won’t be here when I get back.

Lie to me
Or
Tell me the truth

I wasn’t there
So
I wouldn’t know the difference either way
So
It doesn’t really matter

I was walking across the night sky.
Wading through a sea of fire and gold.
My eyes down as I'm want to do.
I looked up for a moment and immediately thought of you.
I didn't mean for that to rhyme.
I saw this singular leaf suspended by a single strained of web.
Where others were falling.
Here was this leaf seemingly levitating.
I thought.
How fortunate am I to see this.
I've never seen it before and I'll likely never see it again.
Of all the things happening.
It was just myself and this moment of wonder.
So I thought of you.
And how rare you are.
Then I smiled to myself.
Because I know you.

I never saw myself in your eyes.
Perhaps it was because you were looking through me.
At the setting sun.
The falling snow.
Or was it someplace you'd yet to see?
A distant galaxy.
Where you could finally shed away the preconceptions.
The misconceptions.
Swimming in a sea of starlight.
It's not where I found you.
It's not where I left you.
Still.
I hope you find it.

I don't need to be here.
If you want to know me.
Just go read everything I've ever written.
You'll figure out who I was.
Eventually.

Don't bother reading between the lines.
I'm not there.
I'm staring into the sun.
Between the "I" and the .
I'm resting.

If y’all could give me control
Of time and space
I promise to only fold it one time
I swear I won’t mess it up
Please
It’s just that
I’ve been hurting a lot lately
And if I could just hold her again

The moonlight creeps through my garden like a white tiger on the hunt.
It caresses the bench where you used to sit.
Come morning these trees will burst into flames of crimson, sunflower, and oranges.
I’d like to be able to imagine you there and when.
Add it to the list of things I’d like.

My pen is a wee bit cold, so I don’t think that I have long.
And since I can’t write you a poem,
I thought you might fancy a song.

It’s about a girl born with no hands and the boy she couldn’t hold.
The boy was deaf and blind, it’s just how the story’s told.

She’d wrap her arms around him, and thump his back with her stubs.
He’d screech in terror and find a way to run into some shrubs.

Sometimes you’d see him feeding her at the ice cream shoppe.
Just jabbing her face with a spoon while she cried and screamed “just stop”.

For Christmas he bought her gloves and she got him a dog.
It fell asleep around the fire and he mistook it for a log.

What baffled a lot of folks, is that their names were Betty and Stan.
For the love a soft and supple goat, Betty was the man.

Word has it they got married, and Stan well she said their vows.
And Betty he just stood there, spouting random howls.

They live out in the woods now, their feetless kids play there in the mud.
When you try to talk to them, they just stare out into space and chew on their cud.

If I have no beliefs. No faith. Then I only have thoughts. Thoughts manufactured within a vessel of questionable integrity.

My understanding of reality is solely dependent on my minds interpretation of the world through external stimuli.
However.
I don’t quite trust my minds interpretations.
Sometimes I’m convinced that it has no idea what it’s doing and that it’s just making up **** as it goes along.
So.
Before you ask me if I love you.
You should know that I’m still not entirely convinced you’re not who or what you say you are.
You could just be a figment of my imagination.
Neither one of us can prove our existence to the other.
So.
What do I say?

Are you still there?
In the mist, where I left you.
Under a crumbling sky.
We were alone
And I couldn't understand why you were looking at me.
Wisps of fog march passed us.
Like an undead army from an ancient battle.
You sounded more frustrated than anything.
So I left you there.
I still think about you.
On those dewy mornings.
As the sun breaks over the trees and sets the world on fire.
I'll smile to myself
"the **** was I thinking?"

Let's pretend it never ends and instead goes on like this forever. That reality bends life suspends and we never again say never.
We could sit and watch the stars go out and just eat caramel.
Tickle your *** with a blade of grass and see what time would tell.

Ponder the moment that happened before and see who laughs out first.
Drink all the whiskey in Ireland if only to quench our thirst.
Dance with the waves though not with the bears but under an autumn moon.
And never or ever say never again because never would just be too soon.

Look, I'm going to be honest with you.
I'm not sure what's going on.
Reality and I aren't that close,
we just chat out on the lawn.

There's this cat out there
existing in two opposing states.
And I just learned the other day
that dolphins *******.

I only bang the crazy ones
cause they're the only ones that let me
Though I'd eat some glass to meet the ***
of anyone to get me.

I'm not even sure I think,
so don't even I know I am.
Then again if I were,
would I even give a ****.

You see where the problem lies,
it's that I'm everywhere.
While at the very same time,
I'm never anywhere.

I guess I'm like that cat.
Permanently divided.
If you take away all my lamps.
Well I'd be delighted.

then there was that time you needed help
you reached out from the dark
and couldn’t find my hand
because it wasn’t there
my absence wasn’t apathy
it’s just that I can’t presume to think
that it’s my hand you wanted to find

My scales never found balance.
I'm not sure I'd ever want them to.
I've managed to elude serenity so far.
By keeping my plates in sway.
I find solace in the rarity of those quiet moments between the sun and the moon.
The high is better because it's fleeting.
Or at least that is what I tell myself in those moments of chaos.
My nirvana will be here soon.

It was in October.
The rain fell ******* tin roof over the deck.
There were only three candles left but there was plenty of wood to burn.
There was a ash colored teapot.
The fireplace sat between two windows that overlooked the lake.
I couldn't tell if you had been wearing the same stretch pants for two days or if you owned multiple pairs of that color.
A blanket of crimson cashmere draped over the back of the couch.
The kitchen smells like bacon, the livingroom of old cedar.
The stars found solace in your eyes that night.
As did I.

She's a momentary lapse of reason. A case of temporary insanity. Your entire perspective on life will change the moment she licks her lips.
She's poetic chaos set to Tchaikovsky against a backdrop of life moving in slow motion.
Much like alcohol she is both the cause and cure to all of life's problems. Even going so far as to leave you wondering if you're the problem.
You're that one guy at the poker table who's spent the last hour trying to find the sucker only to realize it's you.
She's a satin sunset that can move through you like the ghost of every dream you ever had.
Her eyes can leave you feeling stretched. Turned inside out and yanked from your mortal coil.
You'll learn to transcribe Ulysses in Latin from memory before you ever understand her fully.
She stares at the moon because they understand one another.
The trick is to let her run herself out.
Once she's exhausted all her tricks.
That's when you find out who she really is.

I imagine I'd make a good dog owner.
Because I wouldn't establish myself as it's owner.
The dog and I would be equals.
I'd let it up on the couch.
Take it for car rides.
Reward it with treats.
And teach it to be disgusted by children to the point where it starts gagging whenever a child comes around. It'd revile them for the ineptitude and ignorance.
I could teach it how to sit and how pass judgement on people before getting to know them based simply on their hairstyles.
We'd go to the park and play frisbee then we'd get high and mock others openly.
I'd probably name it something cool like Cerebrus and then whenever anyone asked what it means the dog and I would look at each other and laugh while pointing at the inquisitor.

As if he'd waded across the Salton Sea with the weight of the sun on his back.
Skin stretched and smoked, thin hands strong like talons.
I'd seen that look before.
Tired, resolute, and dark.
He pulled a bone knife from his boot and splayed his left hand on the bar palm up.
He didn't even press his lips to the bottle. Unable to swallow as fast as the whiskey poured it spilled over.
One more look over his left shoulder he pressed the point of the bone knife into his palm.
Sliding the blade up toward his fingers he then pulled it back towards his wrist along a different line.
Folding back his flesh he reached into the cut and removed a key.
A fierce wind rushed in from the south as if chased by some ancient god bent on revenge.
Every door and shutter flung open, candles extinguished.
I looked pass the stranger out into the night.
A storm highlighted by stilts of lightening approached.
I relit the candles and checked on the horses, nervous but still tied to the posts.
The stranger folded his flesh back into his palm and held it over the candle.
Reseated before him he motioned for my hand.
I unfurled my palm on the table and he placed the key dead center.
I closed my fingers around the key and he squeezed my fist chanting a language long thought dead.
I unrolled my fingers to find the key had sunk into my flesh.
"The key must always be passed from hand to hand, all will die should it touch land. That storm will follow you for the rest of your days or for as so long as you bear the key. It must never catch you. Or all is lost. Though from now on. You are immortal."
The stranger stood before the door and breathed deep.
His horse made no sound as he disappeared into the darkness.
I looked down upon my left hand wherein the key, a relic of some ancient magic, now resided.
I looked up at the storm approaching.
Foreboding reminder of the chaos that would become my life from then on.
I finished off the whiskey.
Stared into the candles flame.
Freed the axe from the block and rested my key bearing hand where so many chickens had lost their heads for the sake of a stew.
I brought down the axe and missed.
Just the tips of my fingers on the first try.
Quickly before my mind was to catch on to my carnage.
I brought the axe down again.
This time I was successful.
My left hand.
Cursed and abandoned.
As if it'd betrayed me somehow and was now banished.
I do feel bad and yeah it hurts quite a bit.
Though I'll be ****** if I'm going to spend my life outrunning a storm for immortality.
I tossed my hand into the fire and lit a cigarette.
Once the hand is consumed, the key will sink into the ashes, and we can all burn together.

I, I don't know
I suppose
I suppose I do it for the pale blue dragonflies.
Translucent wings that shimmer in the light of a setting sun over a quiet river of gun metal grey.
The bats. They flutter about like scraps of a night you wish you could revisit.
I do it for the girl sitting alone at the end of the bar.
Freshly painted fingers spinning a beer while her eyes dance between her phone and the window.
For the ones that feel so alone they wouldn't recognize the sound of their own voice.
I write.

A single leaf floats alone down a crystal brook.
Shimmers of sunlight and mossy shorelines.
In my youth,
I'd imagine myself on that leaf.
From that perspective
the world could remain as it is.
While at the same time,
be new to me.
A super positioning of perspective.
The world being two different things at the same time.
I didn't see this tiny version of me as adventurous.
Gripping the edges of the leaf, wind blowing through my hair, staring excitedly at what lies ahead.
Nope.
In fact, I was sleeping.
It seems no matter the perspective,
I'd just as well not be there for it.

Consider this.
As you're reading this. There's this creature called a demodex. In fact, there's thousands of billions of them. They're not entirely unlike you despite they're relatively short life span.
They hatch about three days after being deposited. They spend four days eating and learning about the universe, where they stand in the grand scheme of things.
Then they start with the ***. It's not the sweet rose petal on the bed "I'll try not to get it in your hair" ***. It's the raw, unapologetic, "I don't even care enough about you to ask your name" ***.
This roundabout of ****** and gorging goes on for another seven days, and then they die.
Though I imagine that last seven days would be wondrous. Just a non-stop ******* session of apathy and gluttony rolled up like a taquito. They're spraying their ***** about like firemen trying to coral a brush fire. All while stuffing the other end of their bodies with the flesh of the dead.
For the record. They're skin cell mites that live in your hair and on your face. Wash all you want, they'll be back. Your face is the VIP lounge of a Japanese massage parlor and they're not leaving.

Look down at your feet. Those are your shoes. You get that, right? You get that those are your shoes and yours alone. And you certainly wouldn't try to force anyone else to wear your shoes.
The same goes for your ****** religion.

And your needs. I care more about the average amount of precipitation in the month of November along the Shenandoah river than I do your needs. I expect the same amount of apathy from you concerning my needs.

The sunrise startles her bones to stir,
they grind against her will to get up.
She mourns the moon,
reluctantly tolerates the sun.
Another passive aggressive morning,
another cigarette.
Her thoughts fall through space,
trying to remember a time.
Until her mind hits a wall,
like a wet sponge.
Having to acknowledge,
that there was never a time.
Still, she turns to herself
and gives her a grin.
It'll happen someday
when.

Should I write another batch of words
to appease and placate your ego?
Or should I write about us, when, and
those places we would go?

Honestly my hands grow tired,
they're simply losing steam.
They're starting to wonder if you're real
or are you just another bad dream.

Forlorn emerald eyes gaze out,
over fields in crimson hues.
Skin of buttercream frosting,
and a heart that sings the blues.

Wherein would I have found you,
if not I needed a drink.
Probably somewhere in the back of my mind,
where I go to think.

Some had life ****** upon them
And they resent that it's called a gift
Suffering life with little so hope
It starts to feel like a grift

They don't tell you it doesn't get easier
And there's no mention of a return
It's just survival for the sake of survival
How do you live and not learn

Billions of carbon based lifeforms
All just meandering about
Thinking they've got all the answers
Not a one of them has any clout

They didn't ask for an invitation
And they wouldn't have come anyway
Though they were more or less kidnapped
And for now it's here they must stay

Break every bottle you have, then set the floor on fire.
Then drag me across the room and tell me what I mean to you.
In the moonlight overlooking a great blue field.
Cast me down into the surf.
And tell me why.
Until your throat dries out and your blinded by the saltiness of your own tears.
Hold me up to the void and let's curse the gods together.
We can tear away at each others flesh until our souls stand naked before a rising sun.
And when it's over.
When the world falls silent and the winds finally cease their eternal race.
I'm going to look at you one last time.
And laugh.

There may come a day when the wind will abrade me, when it'll cease in feeling like breath on the nape of my neck.
The sun will seem crueler and callous, I'll feel that I've lost it as a friend and instead it'll only begrudge me.
But it is not today.

Fire and whiskey, and here I am
Alone with thoughts of you
To bask in what's left of the day
And to wonder just what is true

I gotta warn ya, before I scorn ya
It isn't what you think
My love for you could fade away
With just another drink

Though while it last
For what it is
Which isn't really much
Let's pretend for just a minute
That you remember me as such

We break upon each other
Like two waves
One retreating, one forthcoming
Melting into one another
An ethereal dream
Where a thousand sunsets meet a thousand sunrises
Exposed like a nerve endings
Shapeless, we converge and fall apart again
Over and over
Fingers outstretched over an event horizon
Never quite losing sight of one another
Lost and found and lost again
Where will I find you when

Oh to be of such terrible character.
You'd think it would accompany grief.
Nay says I with such attributes.
Tis can be but relief.

Will they or won't they like you?
You already know the answer.
So drink as much as you like
And then belt out some Tiny Dancer.

It solves all your problems in earnests.
Will you ever be happy, maybe succeed in life?
Of course not because you're terrible.
You'll get nothing but hate and strife.

How you'll go about your days.
Wondering if they'll be finest kind.
Or course not you hapless idiot.
Because of you and what's in your mind.

So fret not if you'll ever find love.
Or a sensible reason for being.
Just soak in the fact that you're awful.
The relief is sorta like peeing.

These, these aren't my dreams.
I know them, as I would an episode of a tv show I might've seen in passing.
I don't know who they belong to.
And I can't say what they mean.
I just know that, much like a destruction of cats, they've found me. Encircling me.
Howling and biting.
And much like the schizophrenic who sees the man at the top of the stairs who isn't there.
I wish, I wish they'd go away.

I have this weird feeling that how I mattered won’t be revealed until I’m gone. And I can’t help but wonder why.
What good will it do me then?

I like the unnoticed ones. The ones that think they’re ugly or unwanted. So alone even when by themselves. The ones that’ve given up talking because they’ve gone so long with nobody listening.
Not because I think just the opposite of them. Not because I want to be with them. I don’t deserve to be with anyone. I just can’t stand the thought of them going their whole lives feeling like I have for mine.

Sometime, somewhere
Between my next breath and my last
Before my hearing goes or my vision fades
If it’s not to much to ask
I’d like to know
What it’s like to mean something
To someone
Instead of being an expert
On being nothing
To anyone

Love
It's the only thing I was ever good at
Just as the sun nourishes the dandelion
Just as the rivers guide the course of the lives that depend on it
I can see to it that her needs are met
If she likes a particular meal
I'll learn to cook it
Should she like the bed made a certain way
I'll see to it
I will listen and I will watch
So that when she cries
I'll know why
Should she need a smile
I'll find the joke
Crafting has never been my suit
Nor can I write her a song
Though there is that one thing
I can do
I can make her feel safe
Warm and loved
For as sure as the sun will rise
Not a day will suffer
Where she can question
Whether or not I love her

I’m sorry.

You may not remember meeting me.
I’m just not that memorable.
Though I’ll never forget it.
I imagine it was like my first time seeing a candle.
Though I’d seen it before.
I thought it was just a dream.
I couldn’t have imagined you were real.
The moon was waxing gibbons.
Tempered spirits that never as so much crossed paths as to crash into one another.

Is it a measure of strength, resolve, or stupidity?
To say I love you.
Knowing full well,
you’ll never hear those echoed back.

Now I’m just an old man.
Waking up everyday.
Heart in hand.
Holding it up to the sun.
Only to watch it pass me by.

Not much will be said about me.
Maybe a passing thought.
Though at least it can’t be said
That I didn’t love

I can’t help but think
That there has got to be
At least one perfect
Combination of words
Lying just beyond my reach
So
I keep writing
In the hope
If even by accident
That I find those words
I have to
Because
Writing I love you
Didn’t work

You there lad! Fetch my quill.
And the ink bottle there on the windowsill.
Now fetch more coal and parchment quick.
And shut the door lest I get sick.

There’s this thought that has come to pass.
It’s about a thing that wouldn’t last.
Forgotten people worth forgetting.
A different song in a forgetful setting.

Long ago I watched you by
Some passing stars up in the sky
I set about to know you then
Shooting stars don’t shoot again

It’s that person that you’re sure you know.
If not from now then long ago.
And there you are so sure of them.
But you don’t know where much less when.

But then there’s this unspoken thing.
Annnnnd I just lost interest in going any further.
This is just awful.
You should go shower.

I’ll probably just take a walk through the stars like I would a field of wheat.
Run my fingers over the reeds of starlight protruding from a time long dead.
Spend a day with the sun. Take a nap on our quiet moon.
Then I’d like to awaken in an ancient forest by a silver waterfall.
To build a fire. So if you should ever want to find me.

I never got that sunset with you and now my skin feels heavy. Auburn moons and crimson leaves, yes. Not one sunset though. Dragging my quill like an oxen with its plow, my hands as blind as they are always seem to find you.
Tell me again. While I can still hear you. As if it were a whisper from the other room. That something you say from under your breath because the power that keeps you from saying it is failing you.
It feels bound at times. As if hindered by barbed wire. Like a lamb that was frightened by the storm only to find itself ensnared. The more it struggles, the worse it gets.