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?

The lady in white asked me
"Is there anyone we can call?"
"No."
"You must have someone."
She said.
"Nope."
"Everyone has someone."
"You're not helping."

There was that time.
And the time before that.
And then the time before that.
And by the time
I figured it out.
I’d run out of time.

The wisteria hung like celestial waterfalls against a backdrop of splattered light. As if the sun had spilt paint across the horizon on it's way out of that day. I saw you in hues of blue standing in the rain. Strands of burnt chestnut hair clung to your cheeks like the blind hands of night had just found the most beautiful thing it'd ever touched. The moon paused and everything I once coveted fell out of thought. I saw fireflies, like fallen stars pleading their case to the heavens, flash in and out of the garden. I held this moment like my last breath for fear the sound of my sigh would break the dream.

Why do you cry?
Because you.
What about me?
You're not here.
That's no reason to cry.
You don't understand.
I do.
Why did you go?
Because.
Because why?
Shhhh it'll get easier.
No it won't.
With each new day you'll think of me less.
No I won't.
And before you know it, you won't think of me at all.
When?
Someday.
It hurts.
I know. It hurts me too.

It’s a schizophrenic utopia in here.
Voices walk the halls
ahead of the shadows.
Every time I reach for the bottle
I’m afraid the universe is going to fold in on itself.
The wolves stand in the entryway.
Watching me kiss the red flower.
The smoke seeps from my skin
and I close my eyes.
Only to find you there again.
So I take another hit.
Look one more time at the hand I was dealt.
And say ”**** it”,
while reaching for that bottle.
I fold.

Would you meet me by the Red River?
Robertson County, Tennessee.
Would you find me beside the black oak?
It's there I'll wait for thee.

"Ole Jack Bell" she called him.
Ma heard it and so did Jesse.
But the one who got it worst of all.
Was my lil sister Betsy.

That witch would hit my sister relentlessly.
She would curse her and call her names.
She could barely rest. Let alone do her chores or play some silly games.

The spirit says it's name is Kate.
And she often sings to mother.
She'll stay up late and have conversations with Johnathan my brother.

General Jackson had heard the tales about the witch.
And of course he came a calling.
His horses stopped up on the ridge,
a neighing and a ballin.

He spent the night and met our guest.
She **** near killed one of his men.
And just like other witnesses,
we'll never see them again.

My father he had taken sick just after Betsy left.
Our witch would torment father, she secured him to his bed.
Then returned to laugh and sing when she learned that he was dead.

That is I suppose all you need know of our family's witch.
That retched hag, who put our family through some awful fright
So beware of what you shoot at, lest it be a demon.
Or it could be you who hears the screaming, of a starless winters night.

Merry Christmas Grandma,
Thought I'd fill you in on what's been going on here for the holidays. Since you can't be with us on account of you having your vaginal gout flare up again. Dad says it's just as well since you're not actually my grandma and really just some homeless lady I keep writing letters for. So I thought I'd huff whatever I can find under the sink and write you up.
Timmy had had another bad dream last night. He wet the bed and the Wolfhound that had been given to my aunt by her ex Snott, his name was actually Scott but he couldn't pronounce the letter c. Well it went crazy and killed Timmy. The Wolfhound, not Snot. My sister Tammy is pretty upset since his name had come up in her ****** Advent Calendar.
Mom took us by the prison last week to see Uncle Skinny. He's still in isolation so we had to yell at him though the drainage pipe in the back. Says he's doing well. Still eating skin every chance he gets but hasn't had a cigarette in four months. We're all pretty proud of him. We used a tent pole to shove some chicken skins through the pipe and wished him a Merry Christmas.
Our neighbors are having a dispute over Christmas decorations. Seems our new neighbors the Crowleys celebrate Christmas by going from house to house and screeching satanic verses into a megaphone whilst making their kids dance for nickels. Seriously these kids will not stop dancing unless you have nickels. Try throwing a quarter? Nope, they just dance harder. Nobody in the neighborhood is sure as to whether or not it's child abuse so we just collectively try to make sure we have nickels at all times. These people will just jump out of the bushes screeching and dancing. The other kids are afraid to wait for the bus in the morning.
Well in an effort to get them to stop. Our other neighbor begain having an affair with the wife in the schreechy family. My guess is he was going to blackmail her to get her family to stop screeching and singing. Well she ended up keeping the baby he knocked her up with. Turns out her husband is a cuck and into the whole thing. So now whenever you see them, they're pushing a stroller with his kid in it. His wife left him for her stepdaughter and they're making ***** films in Burbank. Daryl and I are thinking of trying to cheer him up by decorating his house for Christmas for him. We're going to turn a woodchipper towards his house and throw green paint and squirrels into it. Because he's always feeding the squirrels so we think he'll like it.
I found out what my friend next door is getting for Christmas. I saw his dad shopping for trampolines at the trampoline store in the trampoline district downtown. They have to perfect yard for it. They'll probably put it near the pool with the waterslide and the next to the rock climbing wall. Hopefully my friend will do more than just sit in his wheelchair and cry about it like he does every year.
Anyway. I should probably go clean up what's left of Timmy. I was supposed to do it hours ago but the dog has playing with Timmys corpse for a while. He shakes it around and flings it down the hall. Then he picks it up and runs around the house with it. Mom and dad will be back from their swingers party at the orphanage soon so I better get to it.
Tomorrow is Christmas. I can't wait. After I open my presents and have breakfast. I'm going to do what I always do. I'm going to stand in front of the Mosque and smoke cigarettes in a very intimidating manner. Once they come out to see what I want. I offer to scratch their ***** if they'll bring me some figgy pudding. It hasn't happened yet but I remain hopeful.
Have a Merry Christmas Grandma.
Love Billy

You make me wish time could be like jars of honey. Where I could take a particular week down from the shelf. On those nights when the wind is trying to claw its way in. And it would still be good. I could slip between the flames and wake up in your eyes. Darin reminds us of Mack the Knife and your bishop is in check but we can’t stop laughing about the sad gorilla. Therein lies the life I’ll tell them about. If there be a thousand more lives. This is the one to be remembered. Because of that one jar of honey.

I keep my head down
Not because I’m sad
But because I know if I look up
There’ll be no one there

I'm not going to lay claim to the answers.
I'm as lost as you.
You can ask me advice.
Though I'll advise you not to take
my advice under advisement.
See, the difference between you and I.
Is.
I don't know where to draw the line.
"Is that a plane?"
"Could be. Or it could be a construct of my imagination suffering from the power of your suggestion that that is a plane. As I have been instructed sense youth as to what it is that constitutes an object as an aero plane. In truth, any second now the entity maintaining the computer simulation program that is our lives as we know it. He hasn't backed up any of his data lately and his county is undergoing rolling black outs.
Everything is suspect.
Everything.
So no, I have no idea what the **** is going on.
You going to eat that last waffle?

To care, or not
Caring elicits emotion
Emotions arrive in waves
Waves bring turbulence
Upsetting the quo
It's
better for both of us
That I don't care

You call yourselves poets
Artistic souls that see the world through the eyes of angels
Filleting their feelings like strips of cod, laying them out before a market of other poets
The air in here forces me to scoff, to gag on the air of over embellishment.
I pen as well, but not as well
I’ll admit to that
Over a thousand poems can be arrested to me
Though I do not call myself a poet
No
No my hapless ink stained celestial bound brethren of disdain and misery
I am a mad man.
Always desperately trying to find the right words
Frantically mashing away as if my fingers were trying to stomp out a ****** fire
Trying to keep my fingers busy
Lest I leave them be
They’ll **** me

Ever feel relegated?
Trying to climb out of a hole filled with mud.
A relentless pursuit for freedom against an onslaught of forces beyond your control.
Even when the rain lets up and life seems to have turned in your favor.
You’re still in a ****** hole.
Eventually you just become so exhausted.
You start to think that you belong in that mud hole.
That you’re just not good enough to be up there in the light.
You were relegated to that hole.
And it’ll never matter.
You will never matter.
It’s just you and a shitload of mud.

Over the devil I don't know.
I'll keep with the devil I do know.
The devil I know is me.

Where were you,
when they came back for me?
When hope left.
When doubt came back.
While the rain fell hard
and the moon hid.
Where were you?
I waited.
Where were you?

I take my morning walk.
Through tunnels of bleached trees. Over the remains of names long forgotten by those who promised never to forget them.
I close my eyes.
To check on the multi car pile up of words in the back of my mind. A twisted burning wreckage of things left unsaid, things I’d like to say, and things I wish I didn’t know.
It’s been going on for so long the death toll of ideas is immeasurable.
There’s nothing to do now but listen to their screams.

I’d like to think there’s a time and place that suits both you and I.
Where we sip tea in a lil cafe and watch the angels die.
It’s sorta the end but not for us because we’re both just passing through.
You’re almost at the edge of me and I halfway to you.
Tipping celestial windmills while laughing at illusions.
Shooting the fools in mid air as they jump to their conclusions.
I kinda hope that they ask me what I’d like to do.
And honestly I wouldn’t care just so long as it’s with you.

Don’t presume to think that they love you, because the truth is that they don’t.
Nor should you ponder whether they’ll want you, because the truth is that they won’t.
They tried to warn you ahead of time, they were trying to save you the trouble.
Apparently they saw your future, just your dreams in ashes and rubble.
You didn’t listen, you held on to hope thinking it was at least worth a try.
Now you drink, you smoke, and you curse. Because you believed your own lie.

Is who we are
Where we’re going
Or simply where we’ve been
Or are the details
In our actions
What we did and when
Perhaps it’s in our words
When we speak
Or when we don’t
Could be when we listen
And not replying
As we are wont
My guess is
Tis all these things
By which we are measured
Unto ourselves
Or by some god
What is lost and what is treasured

I don’t care about your driveway or your recliner
You only serve to make me sad
As you prattle on about your cold bathroom floor
Your Land Rover voice command not working
I can only sit here, out of respect
Though
In the back of my mind
Where I go in times like these
There’s a nice fire, a lamp, there’s a chair and a window
I listen to El Campanella and watch the snow fall
She’s there too, reading Don Quixote I think
You, and your pettiness, are far away
Being seized upon by vultures and hyenas

What am I
If not nothing
Am I what you see
Or am I what I see
Does it matter
And if not
Does nothing still apply

And

You were the love of my life
Right up until
You told me I was the love of your life

And just as the morning sun forages through the forest floor.
Like it’s looking for a dropped contact lense.
So too I, a mercenary of reason. Waking and trudging through each day.
Starved for purpose. Understanding.
Instead I’m asked to just choke it down. The hypocrisy, the indignant righteous illusion of free will.
Tongue scraped with charcoal. To the point I question whether or not.
Would it not serve me better to just bite down on my own throat?
To clench my teeth and pull back just far enough to watch the light fade from my eyes.
A poem like the ghost of a memory that was never real. Floats just out of reach.

I’d write you a poem but my hands are too cold
There’s little light where I am
And my will is growing old

I’d say the last time I saw you, under an electric moon
Was the last time I felt warm
And you took that warmth too soon

Bast and I still speak of you, over fires and amber soaked rocks
That smile that lit a world
My sadness that memory mocks

I have no one to send this to, no one I’d expect cares
Perhaps one day you’ll read this
And see I’m always there

We're the keepers of each other’s past.
Holders of memories, long lost or stranded.
I can say that I knew you when.
That’s to say I knew you then.
Though you’re not that person anymore.
You’re not the one I knew before.
Tomorrow again you’ll be anew.
What are you going to do with you?

And so it was seen
Under the sheen
Of a sheet of sapphire blue
A chord in motion, a melodic notion
That moment when I met you
So where am I now
Without you somehow
Surrounded by shades of grey
A thought to inspire a breath of cold fire
Sans you, another sad day

I decided to see just how important I was to those around me.
So I wandered off.
To see if anyone would come looking for me.
Turns out,
I'm not important.
Go figure.

I have a red room
Down the end of the hall
It’s quiet and warm in there
My crimson red room
At the end of the hall
It’s when you’ll find me where
I have a black pipe
In that red room
It’s resting upon a table
It’s always there
Waiting for me
Even when I am unable
You can sneer
At my blood red room
Please go ahead and scoff
I’ll be smoking
My pipe in there
And you can just *******

Show me your star, the one you look for
When the clouds have parted but for a moment
In which direction do you look
Is it to the west
Should I stand before the setting sun
Does your star dance on the velvet lights to the north
The darkness is familiar enough to me to wait for you there
The southern seas off the coasts of Latin
I could write you poetry in the sand
For now though my beautiful one
Look to the east
Where I can tell the sun where to find you