I’ve been mired in an existential crisis for so long now, I don’t trust jelly.
It just doesn’t look right.
Bear with me here. (Barry the bubbly brown bear. See what I did there?)
What if, jelly disproves the life is a computer simulation theory?
Why would a sentient machine running a computer program to simulate life write jelly into the programming?
It wouldn’t, right?
So now that I’ve nixed that theory for y’all.
What else ya got?

They keep telling me
I don’t have the right
That these aren’t my bridges to burn
I disagree
If I burn it, they won’t try to cross it
I’m saving them from themselves
So from where I’m standing
I have the only right

I met a girl who wasn't there.
She wasn't there yesterday.
She wasn't there again today.

I met a girl who wasn't there.
I said I loved her yesterday.
Then I asked her to go away.

We can share anecdotes and spit. I can tell you my thoughts on the whole Achilles Patroclus thing.
You can ignore what I'm saying, wait for me to stop talking, and then ask me what's for dinner.
But.
I can't be that guy.
Because I'm not that guy.
I'm the other guy.
The one you never think about until that one song comes up on your playlist.
And I hope you smile to yourself.
I mean I wouldn't.
I just get angry whenever I think about me. Then I leave an angry voicemail with that ***** at the library and I feel better.
You though.
I hope you're smiling.

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

I envy those that have never found themselves asking if they were alone.
To be Frank. I’d have to change my name.
Though if I’m being honest.
It terrifies me.
The thought of you feeling like I do.

It doesn’t matter how dark the night gets.
It doesn’t matter how thick the forest becomes.
It doesn’t matter how much I drink.
Nor does it matter how much I sleep.
Whenever I turn around.
I’m still here.
And nothing else makes me sadder.

Those moments of vulnerability. When hope stops on the precipice and they'd give anything for that feeling to be snatched from them like a falcon and a mouse.
It's in those minutes when if you look beyond their skin and block out what they're saying. Focus as if your trying to find a snow fox in a grove of pines on the morning after a snowstorm.
You see just how fragile the heart can be. You can practically run your hand over the scars. That's how you learn what it is that can hurt that person the most.
Not to sound like a sadist. But let's be honest. It's up to you how you use this knowledge.
Trust is a funny thing.

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.

She paints her moments on her caramel skin
Those ones she knows won’t last
Sorting through things said
Reliving the storms, hoping they stir her again
Whether it be rage or loss
As long as she can feel it
So the stars look for her
And the moon has missed her soul
While she hides in her corner
Because she doesn’t trust the light

And then she
Forget it I said, never mind
Alright I said, Finest kind
And that is when the storm came in
So let me try, To begin again

A summers eve, a winters mourn
Does it even matter when one is torn?
Pine and curse at everyday
That’s come to pass since I went away

I’d call you a witch, a demon
A sweet nightmare when I’m not dreaming
A sorter of truths and desires
Building bridges for the love of the fires

Say what you will or don’t
Don’t mind if I do but I won’t
So you see how you’re rather confusing
All while maintaining amusing

This story that never got finished
Never to be replenished
I’ll still think it was what it wasn’t
It’s what a fool does and doesn’t

So bend the light and skew premise
And we’ll just say that it went amiss
So I’ll stand beneath those stars at night
To find and see Andromeda’s light

I’m too afraid to turn around
I’m too afraid to see what isn’t there
My footprints, my words, my acts
Washed away by the tides
Of all who were in some way
Better than I

If, if you should ever see me.
You'll have seen more than I.

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.

I’ll admit I fear the harpies
Hence I’ll tie no noose
Lest Dante be correct
And Zeus’s hounds are on the loose

So there’ll be no poison, save
the love I have for you
No shiny silver bullet
For a soul that’s overdue

No pop tarts in the shower
Slightly brown along the edges
No jagged rusty razors
Or standing out on ledges

No shotgun to the face
I’m not as messy as Cobain
No gasoline and fire
I’m just not that insane

So no I’ll just suffer
While I watch the embers fall
Rub my gasping heart
And hope one day you call

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.

I can't be to you what you are to me
I can't be the moon, the sun, or the sea
I will be when needed, your knight for a day
Knowing full well you won't ask me to stay
A few caring words and perhaps a good deed
I'm good for a spell but I'm not what you need
I love you my dear this need not be said
Close your eyes my love I'm already dead

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.

I can’t move beyond the nothing.
I’m not upset about there being nothing.
Just wishing I could move past it.
For a while, I was envious of others because I figured they’d moved beyond the nothing.
Turns out, they never reached the nothing.
So now I stand guard.
A sentry pacing back and forth in front of these gates.
“Nay! Turn! ‘Tis not the place for you here! Go over there. It’s better.”
The idea of seeing someone else here terrifies me.

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.

A list celebrity.
Owns four homes each eight figures.
Makes eight figures a movie.
Wants me to donate five dollars.
*******!
Just don’t buy another home!
That’s twenty million!
Now could you stop trying to guilt me out of buying lunch?
I feel like a ******* for taking a long shower.
While people in Puerto Rico are going without.
And Mr My Bentley got **** on by a sparrow so now I have to take the ****** Bugatti, is over here washing his dog with Johnnie Walker Blue.
The ****?

To be honest
It’s ****** twisted
The things I listed
The reasons why
I love you

Though to lie
I’m ****** wrecked
When left unchecked
The reasons why
I hate you

There runs a path just to the north where wrinkled giants stand.
A thorny worm as it were that yields upon a river.
There’s not much light along the way.
It’s too sad a place for the sun.
Ancient ghosts whisper their tales along the riverbanks.
There are those that visit here once.
The sad ones.

I thought about you today
I walked out into the silence
Because I needed that moment
Where I could just stop my world
And think about you
You don’t have to say anything
You could just smile
Or not
Still though
I think about you

I get a kick out of asking you questions.
It’s fun to watch you answer them.
Because you want to answer honestly.
And I’m smiling.
Because neither my questions nor your answers, matter.
It’s like asking space how far it goes.
It/you could lie to me.
It’s not like I’m ever going to know the truth.

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 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.

I don’t feel alone because I’m alone, I feel alone because you’re here
So while I’m an expert on beer and scotch let me just make myself clear
Because in the morning, I won’t know **** including your name my dear

Nobody knows what life is, they’ll say they do but they lie
They’ll tell you it’s love, finding love, and some **** about the man in the sky
Truth be told, nobody knows, especially you or I

It’s like I’m running a race, and millions of people are there
We’re all running towards the sun, and they seem so **** unaware
And I can’t even have one minute, to show someone that I care

Just tell me you’re lost too, just tell me you know it’s a sham
Relieve me of all this ****** doubt while we drink and not give a ****
Cause tomorrow I’ll forget all this and we’ll have to begin again

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

Fingers dragged kicking and screaming across an illuminated dance floor as if this were some new age line dancing competition for people who have no idea what they’re doing.
That’s what this is.
It’s like being asked to sculpt out a scene from MacBeth in jello using a chainsaw after doing blow with a hyena who has a grudge against HR over the comprehensive dental plan.
Do you see where I’m going with this?

Get a skill, go to work, do something that you love.
I happen to love ******* with my favorite latex glove.
Well no not that do something that will make you feel empowered.
Like that time I did coke while getting golden showered?
Not so much I just think you could find a good vocation.
I did, last summer, in Detroit, I got arrested for solicitation.
You could find a job in which you’re proud of the sweat upon your back.
Well I put down in my resume that I’m a urophiliac.
A job is something of honor into which you could place your pride.
I’m working on an **** **** that I call slip n glide.
Don’t you want to be able to buy those things that you really want?
Nah, not really, I’m happy here, just a worn out silly

I won’t remember writing this.
And it’s funny.
Because I can remember with excruciating accuity everything I know about the person that inspired ninety percent of everything I’ve written.
You can quote my own words back to me minutes after I’ve penned them.
I won’t recognize them.
I can sit down at a bar and write a poem on a napkin about the girl three seats down on a whim.
And not remember a word of it or her probably.
But ****** if it wouldn’t take a lobotomy, I’ll never forget Colibri.

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.

I had a long day.
The sun met me at the foot of my bed.
The grass was moist.
I didn't burn my toast.
No cat puke to clean up.
My car started.
I sat on my deck and stared at the nothing.
I didn't think about her at all.
Until now.
My steak came out good.
I still had four nips in the cabinet.
Wrote a poem for the moon.
Under the moon.
I had a long day.

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 wish I could be like you
So happy
Light and free
I wish I could be like you
Anyone but me

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.

I hate the tv, I hate The Doors, and I hate this ******* couch.
I don’t like soup, Ellen just *****, and my cat is a ****** slouch.
Both parties ****, Steve Harvey’s an ***, and *** is antifa?
My job’s pretty cool, the pay’s not bad, still *** is antifa?
The *** is good, see I’m not *******, but the milks gone ******* sour.
My dad lost his watch because it’s been ten years and he said he’d be back in an hour.
There’s too much *******, not enough *******, because now there’s too many people.
The reason being, these pious ***** take their orders from a guy in a steeple.
So yeah maybe I’m *******, tuna’s too pricey, and I ****** hate Country.
We get it, you’re drunk, your truck broke down, and your wife left you for Humphrey.
You know what it is? Why I’m this way. A cynical merciless *******.
I’m too **** busy at work all day, when I could be getting plastered.
Ok fine. I’ll stop for now. And you’re all some lucky suckers.
Btw Johnny Cash blows. Take that you bunch of neckbearded *******.

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?

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.

I simply don't have a reason.
There is no validation.
To continue this existence.
A permanent vacation.

I asked her for some help.
Of which she offered none.
So I'm thinking I should give up.
With this life I think I'm done.

I fell in love a few times.
And it was rather nice.
They never loved me back.
I gave up after thrice.

Now I go about the motions.
Pretending that I'm fine.
Still looking for that reason.
For an answer so devine.

I can't imagine being missed.
Not a single tear will fall.
The void lies within my reach.
For I can hear it's call.

It isn't hope that keeps me going.
It isn't fear that holds me back.
It's the pain inside I relish.
This ****'s like ******* crack.

So perhaps one day they'll find me.
Lifeless, blue, and out of luck.
Something something something.
Something something ****.

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.