The hopelessness in a foreseeable car crash--
an emotion lasting a split second--
is unlike the crippling anxiety of a passenger
who fears the leather-bound mobile mercy seat.

Yet the mirage renders the victim just as helpless
in the impalpable facade of doom.

To never leave this room.

My friends and I
are forlorn fabrics
haphazardly stitched into a quilt.

Comprised of different textures and fabrics,
frayed at the ends,
rejected pieces meant for the trash,
not good enough for made-to-wear mall clothes.

My friends and I
fit like a puzzle
consisting of pieces from various other puzzles--
found under coffee tables,
between couch cushions,
tossed into the bowels of forlorn toy bins--
forming a collage of something
disoriented and ambiguous.

Crammed together,
smashing our appendages,
leaving crooked gaps,
wrinkled, torn, ****** up,
but feeling better here
than in our small contribution
to the bland image of our factory's design.

My friends and I,
outcasts, rejects, punks,
convening in the junkyard heap
where we dance and laugh among trash
that makes us feel clean.
Pure when we're filthy.

Quilts and puzzles,
to instill and befuddle;
****** treasures.

It is my first and only belief
that I truly know nothing.

That every truth is relative,
that every reality is a perception,

and in time these perceptions may shift.

It is from this footing, therefore,
that I can begin to
ascend towards illumination,
                 or descend into madness.

But
if I am first to believe
that I must indeed know nothing,

how is it
        that I know
                    up
           from
down
?

In my dreams, it makes sense.
                                                               It's axiomatic.
            Like flexing an impalpable muscle.
                             A curling of the toes,
                                 clenching of the sphincters,
      I feel my feet lift from the ground
                                                    
and I levitate.

The lot of us strangers trying too hard to stay aloof in a narrow corridor plagued by awful trendy folk music blaring out of unseen speakers and I shrouded in silence wore it a pseudo-epidermal layer taut force field writing this poem so to be a little more pretentious than most by opting not to check social media and the selfie I posted this morning not sure how many likes it's gotten since an hour ago but I'm not going to check yet Everyone here looks so miserable and it's barely 8 AM the Kate Gosselins and Ben Afflecks grab their coffee like a servant grabs the King's goblet to test for poison there's this mumble of a thank you seeping out of frozen lips and half opened eyelids harnessing dull hazy eyes and they drudge back to their hybrid cars with their five dollar savior and amble down the gaping highway that consumes their soul and all the while shoulders never touch and eyes never meet and we stand idly in the waiting room watching the alchemists conjure up our poison thinking about our selfies and how much we hate ourselves and our lives but honestly I just wanted my first pumpkin spice latte of the season celebrating the first cool day of the year in my denim jacket I resurrected with glee out of the elated closet in the middle of September so I say Beware you miserable cretins you obligatory acolytes of the virulent elixir one day you'll wake up and no amount of coffee will purify this cesspool you've lain yourself into like a regretful baptism you didn't believe in.

I know love not as an arm around a waist,
nor fingers teasing hair and running down a neck--

but as a temporary tattoo,
and the fleeting taste of Zebra Fruit Stripe Gum.

And just like Da Vinci never slept,
but took several naps a day--
So do I fall in love daily,
but tenfold!

The deep yearning that wells within my soul
and sits as the lump lodged within my aching throat,
I stumble through the day tripping over my enamoredness
towards any kind soul who dares to look my way,
or speak my name,
or touch my hand--

and I want to set up a kissing booth
in the middle of a shopping center
or my college campus,

and solicit others to grant me a taste of their humanity
in the holiest of ways,
man or woman,
young or old,

to but press their lips against mine for a second
and I would become illuminated,
rejuvenated,

and I would leap from my weary mental confines
like a grasshopper springing out of tall grass,
and love would well up within me--

Not as a transient fix,
but an anchor in these uncharted waters,
a cool glass of milk to a parched throat in a late night hour,

outlasting any cheap ****** or content stomach,
and shying away the facade of complacency.

I would burst forth like a battering ram
through the prison cell doors I weep and wallow behind,
and I'd have a skip in my step
that would ferry me across every pond and great lake.

For these hands do not pray,
but they tremble, and they ache.

And these lips do as hands do,
as they rest upon a placid face
that looks in the mirror and reads
of the anguish seeping out of inflamed pores
and burrowing between the creases
alluding a furrowed brow,

and if but a kiss could render one free
from such odious palpations,
then I'll gladly set mine to the liberator,
whomever it may be--

And how many lips does it take
to get to the center of my frozen aching heart?

The world may never know.

I'm going to hold onto my birth certificate
like my mother holds onto receipts

and when I write my last rent check
addressed to whomever lives upstairs

I'll knock on the door

and when they open
I'll kindly flash them the paper
which never expires
and I'll ask
for a refund

and they'll say "No,"
"We only accept exchanges,"

and then I think I'll believe in reincarnation.

It wasn't God

                      that chased me down dark recesses

            both seen and unseen

                             but the allegory.

Grandeur's delusion
                                                        ­                               is an allusion
                standing on the precipice of greatness
                                                    
  ­                                                                 ­    it's something intrinsic, ain't it?

On the living room couch,
I asked my phone a verbal question:
"What is an albatross?"

And before it could answer,
my father began his reply
from the kitchen counter--

To be cut short by my phone who had finished thinking,
the screen flashing a series of definitions for "albatross"
and reading them aloud to me.

My father stopped, and looked at me forlornly.

I daren't look back--
And the sound of a heart breaking,
whether mine or his,
and the silence it engulfed,
was hidden under the blanket of the contraption's monotone voice.

A little more humanity was lost today,
and my father yet again was faced with the reality that
even if he had all the answers,
as he had in my inquisitive childhood--

No one was left to ask him the questions.

And so here it is:
My secrets, my fortune!
The untold treasure harbored within my mind--
impeccable wisdom, and tormented genius!

I come to find illumination
and write poems--
in such a fashion as this:

It is I,
with heart on my sleeve
where I cough and sneeze,
becoming mired and virulent--
utterly human and fraught
for the world to see.

The magician who empties his sleeves,
overturns his top hat,
shying off his smooth pallid gloves!

Lies down on stage,
in a pool of my own blood and *****,
retching, trembling, aching,

gasping for air
roasting under an inquisitive lonely spotlight
I stare into
with a distant and longing gaze--

Eyes vacuous,
bulbous in sick contortion bulging veins popping
cracked lips gaping mouth tongue waggling speaking in tongues
choking air and body trembling in hideous convulsions--

for what benefit have I,
to purport and distort myself
in such a fashion?

It is for the sake of humanity,
in the flagellation of the human conscience
as it queries further
into the ambiguous amorphous impalpable
dark matter of the universe--

it is for our sake,
our illumination,
that I retch, and I ache.

Take note.

I am here to spread the gospel.
Yes I do declare I am a diligent disciple.

I have come to gaggle the good news,
to proselytize the perpetuity of heavenly wisdom.

I have come here to speak on behalf of poets everywhere:
young and old, alive and dead,
of all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, ****** orientations,
of every human being loitering upon this lush and teeming rock--
I have come to spread your word!

We, the poets,
beg you to hear our words
and put them in your mouth.

Store them in a cheek;
chew thoughtfully, and don't floss,
so we may linger between your teeth--

ready to eject with your spit we shall speak for you
and you shall speak for us.

We lie dead in the dirt until you breath life into us.

We sit poised on your tongue waiting for you to lash
into the air piercing thought bubbles with your voice.

We are instruments lying collecting dust in their cases,
ready to be grasped within calloused hands
and clasped between ruddy lips.

I have come here to tell you how to become a disciple as I:

Lovers, bring us to share!
Speak to your hearts from within worn and jaundiced pages;
we are merely ink stains until you make sense of it all.

Until you speak us into life
Until you soak us into your soul
Until you weave us into the very fibers of your being.

Fighters, bring us to bear!
Shout to your foes from atop grainy soapboxes
embedded within the grassy earth;
let your commanding footing propel you into the heavens!

Feel the wind carry your voice across the open plain and
SPEAK! BELLOW! SHOUT! BATTLE CRY!

They shall know the fear in their bones
and the goose flesh under their rattling armor
like death prickling the hairs on the back of their neck
until they become trodden in the earth like footstools--
until you walk across them head held high and victorious.

Pedestrians! Love if you dare!
Whisper these words under your breath,
holding doors and blessing sneezes,
smiling lovingly and making eye contact purposefully.

Take the joy in stranger's company or in solitude;
we will linger like pleasant specters,
like a lover's ghost:
waiting for you to follow me into eternity.

Yes, I do declare to be a diligent disciple,
and I roam through dusky towns with no pack on my back
nor a shelter over my matted head;

shouting through barren city streets into the desperate night,
roaming these dusty corridors praying a stranger opens their front door
and turns on the porch light
and lets me in for supper and a place to rest my weary head.

Though I'll soon be on my way again in the morrow,
my prayer,
the one of every aching poet in the midnight haze,

is that I'll linger.

On the days I hate music,
I entertain silence,
in a sense.

I stifle one music and greet another:
Silence accompanied by the soundscape.

In my car, windows rolled up.
The world outside my vessel becomes dulled.

The silence I sing ain't so quiet;
tempo'd to the turn signal's metronome,
the droning hum of the engine,
the screaming world seeping through cracks and crevices
within the assemblymen's exquisite craftsmanship.

I hear these songs.

I roll down the window;
I hear the staccato shrieks of impatient cars.
I hear the bombinations of the road worker and his jackhammer.
I hear the droll of the cement truck drudging down the highway.
I hear the light treading of the jogger
making her way down the eternal sidewalk.
I hear coffee poured and pondered over in the coffee shops.
I hear grocer boys bag absentmindedly in the supermarket
(where Allen and Walt linger).
I hear silverware jingle in the busboy's bustling trays.
I hear dog's elation leaning out their master's passenger window.
I hear tires groaning over the hot sticky pavement.
I hear the wind carry the sunny tune like the steady conductor
guiding their orchestra across the threshold to the enthralled audience.

The wind carries the tune to me,
and I hum along.

The days I hate music
are the days I remember
why we make it in the first place.

I escape to and from the soundscape.

“Well if the shoe fits.”

And it never does,
either too tight or too loose,
with my paint-thinner feet,
narrow, knifing through the canvas
heels flopping out at the back
toes mashing together at the front,

pacing between shelves at the store,
growing anxious mom impatient
in the waiting chair,

shifting between sizes,
walking prison-style with shoes zip-tied,
a second, third opinion,
salesclerk gets out the foot measure,
I take my socks off,
put them back on (are they too thick/too thin?)

feet either mashed or cavernous
if the salesclerk crouches down and presses a thumb at the end
and gives me an okay sign
I’ll walk around with ****** toes and bruised heels the rest of my life

because only others can convince me what my body truly feels
because mental illness is impalpable and therefore
unbelievable
and broken bones and black eyes
will perpetually surpass what lingers in my troubled mind
for I know not what the body wants (it’s ***, I think)

no,
I don’t know how it’s supposed to act,
or feel,
so I can let someone else decide for me,
as I let mom order my Happy Meals,
and buy my clothes she picked out,
and tell me what kind of girls I like,
and make my doctors’ appointments,
and file my taxes,
and pay my bills
(I just give her the money),

and I am convinced my body and mind
do not exist on the same plane,
and whatever signals they send each other
I render skewed
and the messenger disabled

and tonight I told mom
the shoes I’ve worn for five days straight
don’t fit
and my feet hurt
and she sighs and laughs simultaneously alongside the family
as she hands me the number to the store

and I halfheartedly wish
she’d make the call
or lean down and press a thumb
to the end of my shoe
and convince me it fits.

--Home, August 19, 1:41 AM

What is this
Satirical mask
That weeps self-deprecating tears
Through plastic slits
Down over a contorted smile
That mocks society
In pictoral flagellations
Of an aching conscience.

I want the poetry to mean something tonight,
              as I pace in my bedroom for hours
                                      under jaundiced fluorescent light.

                     I want to write something profound and true,
something of solvence to rid the demons to which I'm glued.

My eyes are on the screen,
but my mind is on your hand,
lying pensively on the arm rest,
the screen's flashes dancing upon its frame--

Exposing the space between fingers I'm dying to cease.

Your hand lies there like a puzzle piece--
My heart races and fingers twitch
as my mind interlocks them with yours
to complete an image of grace,
one I've fantasized for nights on end.

Your eyes are set forward as mine,
I cannot even fathom what lies behind
this silent countenance of beauty.

How wholly engrossed are you in this movie,
are you tormented same as I?

As far as I'm concerned,
we are the only ones in this theater.

The popcorn in my lap,
the soda in the cup holder between us,
moments where our fingers touch
then retreat--
All without our eyes ever leaving the screen,
peripheral fantasies.

But that's where my intentions lie,
your hand dancing with mine
in the corner of my eyes
and the forefront of my mind.

How you weave through the popcorn,
your hand bumping against mine like an atom,
plucking the greasy morsel
and tossing it into your mouth--

What if our fingers lingered?

The soda our lips shared at separate times,
a middle-man between a kiss
I could only dream of.

These transient ecstasies
that pale in comparison
to the real thing.

But I'll take it,
in these peripheral games we play
in a darkened movie theater
on a Tuesday night.

Matinee screening,
our parents waiting impatiently in the parking lot outside,
nearing the end of the movie,
I've yet focused your hand in the frame--
These peripheral games.

Lay with me,
Sweet Poetry.

I prostrate myself
atop your holy temple,
amassing desperate yearning kisses
down your strong-legged pillars.

Weaving in and out of your corridors,
through the garden, your hair falling around me
like roots, like falling leaves--

But I dare not enter your hallowed chambers.

I am a ******, Sweet Poetry.

I have sauntered through the courtyard,
never the courts,
I have tread in the waters of your fountain,
never submerged in your bath,
I've danced around the holy fire,
but never touched my flesh to the healing flame.

Are the walls to your inner sanctum made of concrete,
or something impalpable?
My mind can play ***** tricks,
flagellating a million reasons why our love is for naught,
and why my body should shrivel and fade away before you.

I am a ******, Poetry,
and what love and demons I have in reserve,
I lay at your feet.

I'll linger if you'll stay,
sleeping sound at your side,
your breath on my skin,
your body warm against my shivering frame.

Pluck the maiden fruit from my aching tree,
lay with me,
Sweet Poetry.

Can we jam, brothers and sisters?

Dare we meet at the impalpable chat room
that exists beyond our third heaven?
Dare we to speak in tongues and timbres,
our skin taut across hollow shells,
our veins strung across cadaverous bodies?

I'll grab my drumsticks if you grab the guitars,
and there's somebody on the bongos
slappin' the skins with zealous fervor--
where my tambourine girls at?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten our forlorn hero
sitting behind the keyboards--
Tickle me those ivories with pious hands and aching fingers,
shake em down sweet Jerry Lee!

And so we begin--
I lay down the drum beat that bops heads and scatters feet,
and the bassman always on top of things
slaps and slides and skips and sizzles
hot diggity dog!

I hear that sweet guitar scream and moan,
praying for death under hazy lights
and we all coast with eyes rolled back into our skulls
and torpid lips drooped open over slack jaws.

Not a word is said from a human voice,
we speak through hands and feet,
basking in colors eking from every kick drum stomp
and the desperate wail bleeding from amplifiers.

Feedback sings and screams, fighting the silence we taunt
and hold at bay.

Around every corner the colors trail
coursing through our vesselious bodies
propelled along the dizzying venture.
We somehow spot every pothole and take detours,
embarking down backroads and backalleys--

We can turn the wheel,
but don't think for a moment we know where it's going.

And the mirror's have all vanished,
we know not from where we came.

Someone shouts from the discovery
as we exit a phrase to enter serendipity,
toying with destiny, clay in our hands,
stretching out the ****** perennially--
We laugh as the gods try to remind us we are Man.

And the screams and the moans
sensing the ****** is getting close
so there's a crescendo I ramp up the tempo
ahhhhhhhHHHhhhHhHhHhHHHHHhhhETERNITY IS NOW AND WE HOLD THE KEY TO HEAVENS GATES AND TIME STANDS STILL AT HIGH NOON IN THE TOWN'S SQUARE WHERE TRIGGER FINGERS TREMOR AND WE SPEAK TO GOD ON HIS PRIVATE CHANNEL COMING THROUGH WORN SPEAKERS CELESTIAL CREATURES IT WOULD BE SACRILEGE IF WE WEREN'T SUDDENLY SO HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY

So I say again, brothers and sisters,
can we jam?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

So I say again,
brothers and sisters,

can we jam?

The soda can rumbles in the bowels,
tumbling into the gaping mouth
into which I enter a hand
to protrude my sugar rush.

sssni-kah, then the slurp of an obnoxiously pleasing sip.
I let the carbonation tickle my tongue,
reveling in the effervescent sensation.

The smell of old tires,
malodorous oil and gasoline,
and stale cigarettes fill the air.

My vexatious sips go unperturbing the dense atmosphere
that thickens outside the small air-conditioned office
and into the gas station,

where the mutters and sputters of drills,
kakadoo, kakadoo,
the squeaking and squawking of rotors and axles,
the interjections of swears and grunts
fill the air.

I peek through the ***** smudgy glass window in the door
to see grimy overalled ants meandering
under the body of our red mini-van
hiked up into the air like a figure skater,
suspended by the rusty clawed accompanist,
not a tremor of strain, unflinching,
letting the greasy men crawl underneath, hiking up her skirt
to examine her anatomy.

I walk outside and sit on a dusty tire stacked with others
on the side of the building--
some growing forlorn in tall grass
weaving in and out of the aperturous rim,
the fingers latching onto fissures and pulling it down
into the hungry earth.

Another slurp and I set the can down
to step onto my skateboard--
rolling across the gritty pavement,
snapping ollies and pop-shuv-its
to add my timbre to the cacophony
leaping out of the open garage doors.

I look over to the barbershop adjacent to the station--

The off-white single room squat allowing the cylindrical swirl
perpetually pirouetting atop the door-frame
to dazzle in a placid manner.

It is there I get my close trims
and pull a lollipop from the cavernous bowl
sitting atop the counter.

The barber, working silently behind his dull gray mustache
and dull gray eyes.

Outside the barbershop to the left,
Leicester Highway ambles onward,
diverging at a fork just ahead of the lot,
and the road adjacent that winds down my neighborhood,
Juno Drive.

I've never embarked down either divergent,
and I wonder which one is the less traveled.
(Frost, guide me.)

I go to the mailbox teetering on the edge of the highway
and hastily grab our mail,
the wind slapping at my *** as the cars whisk by
in their infinitesimal haste.

I feel like time slows once you step onto Juno Drive.

I turn around and saunter back to the station to see Billy,
my Working-Class Hero,
who I mostly see strolling up to the driver's side window
of our dull red mini-van
to loosely rest his arms crossed atop the window frame,
resting his sweaty forehead on his sticky hairy forearms.

Leaning in,

his blackened hands with his greasy smile
behind a scruffy scattered beard caked with dirt and grime,
atop a dark red leather face--
but eyes bright and merry.

His laugh, a phlegmy two-pack-a-day sputter
hacking and pummeling through the van,
all the way to me in the backseat peeking around mom's shoulders
to catch a look at this superhero anomaly.

And his southern drawl wrenching out of lungs
caked in tar and exhaust fumes,
that torpid slur that executes like the garbled hum
of an Oldsmobile engine chugging restlessly--

His laugh, an engine that won't turn over, sputtering to life
but falling right back down into the dirt,
lying on the oil-stained cold concrete floors ***** boots slipping over
and sticking too like wads of gum.

The charismatic mechanic who knew the answer to all things,
always ready to flash me that crooked greasy smile
stretching across his ruddy leather face.

I step back onto my skateboard, with soda in hand,
mail in the other,
and silently say goodbye to my Greasy Eden
before making my way down Juno Drive
towards the first house on the left,

following the road as it snakes past the trees,
alongside the creek, around the bend,
and out of sight.

When
                                   every exhale's a sigh
         every question's a why
                                      every moment's passed by

                                                                                  I've lost my mind.

Thomas, Tommy baby,
you are both hot,
and sweet.

Tom Cat you’re red hot--
when I catch you in your Tom Cat Strut,
sauntering across campus,
strolling like it ain’t no thing,

cuz it don’t meant a thing
if it ain’t got that swing baby.

So dig this, Tommy Gun,
you groove with the best of ‘em
when I spot you strollin’—

Your head, teetering left and right like a seesaw, boppin’ baby,
arms hangin’ loosely, swinging freely, wildly, go! go!
legs scooping forward in boisterous trombone slides--
Groooooove Tommy baby!

You’re Louis’s best blows--
ten feet from the mic and the Fives baby,
you’re hot, red hot,
any closer and I'll burn up!
Go!

But you’re cool, real cool,
and oh so sweet.
Super sweet--

in your beard like a pepper and salt shaker tossed across the table,
I look to see those rosy lips part,
and peep those pearly whites shinin' like the bell of Louis’s cornet
brandished in the air, under those ballroom lights--
you’re screamin’ Tommy!

Let me hear that laugh that shakes the room,
punches like Blakey’s bass drum,
thumps like Mingus--

T-Bird you’ve got that hard bop in your soul,
you’re gonna bop to the top TB,
into the third heaven where the angels fall in line to your swing,
that incessant strut that keeps the devil at bay,
Blow! Blow! Blow!

And I see you now Tom Cat,
up there in the clouds,
digging your way across eternity,
bopping and jiving, swinging and blowing,

in your faded khaki pants and worn tennis shoes,
loosely buttoned collared shirt,
tight rectangular glasses that glistened the bell of your eyes even more--
I gotta stand twenty feet away Tommy baby!

You glance down at me and wink,
rearing your head back to let loose that Mingus and Blakey
bottom-end laugh,
guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

--so hearty and rich,
the backbone of every nervous first-year classroom,
and the sniggering seniors you continued to befuddle and dazzle
with your mysterious ways
and insatiable swing.

So blow, Tommy Gun, blow!
Go Tom Cat go!
Dig T-Bird dig!
Let loose Tommy boy!

Swing for us, swing swing swing--
Hot and Sweet, Tommy baby,
hot and sweet.

We sat outside the coffee shop
next to a fire,
watching the sun set behind decrepit buildings.

I lamented over the lack of a roller rink in the area,
reflecting on memories of wobbling around in circles
with dizzying lights and blaring speakers
ejecting Pink, Daft Punk, and Eiffel 65 onto my critical youth.

I felt like a king.

We finished our smoothies and retreated
to an empty hotel parking lot,
where I taught her to skateboard.

One foot over the front bolts,
the back foot over two of the back bolts
but resting over the tail,
kick, push,
it's in the ***** of your feet--
weight distribution.

Tic, tac, scrape, thud--
she falls repeatedly
and gets back up.

I admire her resilience and perpetual smile--

This is what skateboarding is all about.

We roll around the hotel parking lot,
our endpoints being a lone luminescent lamppost
and a telephone pole beleaguered by a plot of shrubbery
that demarcates itself from the pavement.

We circle around the poles for hours,
forming an imaginary oblong track between the two,
our laughs carrying into the cool summer night lullaby
that sang the drowsy small town to sleep.

The fading throb of the wedding reception
at the bottom of the town square by the wharf,
carrying over to us.

The stores closed up hours ago,
silent empty windows reflecting the lonely streetlights
and our ambulance back at us.

We skated on unperturbed into the night hour.

A man walks outside the hotel
to have a cigarette on the sidewalk--
I imagine he is watching us and admiring our glee.

Rolling between this telephone pole and lamppost,
the glare and reflection of the empty silent windows,
the soundtrack singing above our heads,
our laughs, and the tic-tac of skateboards
and groaning of wheels over stubborn pavement
bringing my melancholic reverie to a halt,
recognizing and understanding happiness in the present moment--

This is my roller rink.

Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.

It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning

under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,

skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.

Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,

college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.

After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.

We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.

I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,

I am perpetually Emo.

The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.

I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--

as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.

This town gets smaller every day.

To the class of __,

I hear them call my name
as I briskly walk across the narrow stage.
Encumbered in my regalia
weighing me down like chains,
I peer up into the blurry faces
protruding a hand from ambiguous bodies.
I shake rigidly looking across the stage
to face a mass of opaque beings
accumulating into one lump of ambiguity.
I know not their names nor their lovers and dreams
I dreamt alone I sat alone I cried alone I ate alone I worked alone
I sighed alone.
Though in the company of many,
their ship had sailed and I sat in the lonely rowboat
moored to their rear listening from afar
to their ecstatic shrieks of glee
glimpsing the glow of fire in their eyes
flames like distant stars finally reaching me
a dead and gone ancient memory.
A diploma weighing in my hand,
I exit the stage and take my seat to wait patiently
then once we turn our tassels to the right we rocket
into the air blissfully triumphantly
bodies joining hats soaring I amidst it all
the aimless rowboat in a sea of smiling faces--
tossing and turning in their wake.

Feeling like the kidney transfer in a foreign body.

I'm dreadfully afraid of silence,
so I play the music loud in my stereo--

falling asleep with the ringing in my ears,
like the distant echo of heaven.

"That's it! I'll take it to the scissors myself!"
Mangled, wrangled, tangled mess,
meandering tendrils coil and cross, clump.

Split ends,
knots so impossibly tied the eagle scout is left bewildered,
sun damage: fried, frizzled, frazzled, frayed.

Broken teeth in a gasping comb,
choking brushes enveloped in the furling mess,
hairspray, fruitless, face it:
(Another) Bad Hair Day.

"That's it! Today's the day!"
The call is made, the appointment scheduled,
you sit and wait.

X's mark the calendar, the day is nigh,
your do's judgement day is at hand.
It's time to settle this.

The day before, you wake up,
absentmindedly getting dressed, drudging through routine,
mirror's the last thing you see.

Crusty eyes suddenly open wide,
as split ends seal and knots unfurl,
sun damage heals and combs sing ceaselessly.

The day is met with a new life,
and the dark days of yore seem like a past life,
as this sunny day seems like all there is.

You laugh at what now appears to be such trivialities,
"Twas a bad hair day! And merely so!"
You allow yourself such a shallow deception.

Your hand grabs the phone, your fingers make the call,
your voice makes the cancellation--
"How could I have been so foolish to resort to such measures?!"

You hang up and scoff at yourself,
a hearty laugh in jest at such hastiness,
tossing and swishing your luscious mane to and fro.

You allow it to slip through your fingers,
on the cusp of the cure,
as the bad hair days truly outnumber the good (you know it to be so).

For the next day will come--
You'll greet the mirror with that heart-wrenching sigh,
in visible anguish at the chaotic mess that encroaches upon your head.

          Don't let a good hair day fool you;
                                                        make the call.

I've got the world's best kept secret
locked in 2 AM screenshots--
her late night musings over a crusty joint, a crushed pill,
or some ***** cigarettes.

She sends me her thoughts,
fears,
anxieties,
insecurities--

at her most vulnerable,
absolutely the most beautiful.

Her anguish stressed in the digital scroll
(though she doesn't like Kerouac, I let her borrow my copy),
her stained fingers mashing all their hurt and nicotine
into the keyboard--

and her pen aches and her paper stains
with the unrequited love she empathizes with
in the somber pop punk songs that explode from the stereo
she sings loudly on cold and lonely night drives
(I shiver in her passenger seat).

And she made for me the greatest of mixtapes,
her holy scrawl expounding upon a dull grey donut-shaped
slowly fading form of intimacy,
a blank CD--

"This mix is a good time"

and when I jammed it into my car stereo I was illuminated.

She is so cool, she is so punk,
and in her clandestine drugstore car charger thefts,
broken poems,
impalpable aesthetic,
impeccable music taste,
illuminated or even further obfuscated drug trips--

I have the world's best kept secret,
and more than anything, I wish to share it with you--

                                     so she can make someone another mixtape.

It's seemingly not enough
to curtly say what I've done
and truth be truly told,
there honestly hasn't been much

so thank you kindly
for craftily making it seem
like apparently there's so much more
than what's inherently me.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.

She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.

I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******,
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.

I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,

her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.

(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)

I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-*****
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.

(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)

I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.

          Young love looking for little things in a small town.

For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.

(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)

I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.

History Repeats.
Regardless how many times
You may press delete.

The smell of a spring rain
settling on the earth
is the smell of life anew.

At the window, I sit with a book,
both cracked,
cooled by the alfresco air seeping through,
and tiny droplets glissando down the pane.

The pitter-patter of a soft rain
falling to the parched earth
is the sound of life replenished.

At the rain's offset, I leap from my chair,
exiting the front door,
to saunter through the lush green pastures
that linger outside the library's confines.

How green the trees appear, and the grass--
how rich the stalks of the trees,
their boughs with budding leaves quenched,
glistening in the sun.

I even enjoy the scent coming off the once arid pavement--
it is the smell of the earth,
freed from its impedance,
rising above the stifling asphalt.  

I smell the life that lingers beneath,
and the dull metallic tinfoil taste of the pavement
fills my open nostrils--

It is pleasant, though a little less so, than the ambrosial landscape.

I inhale ever so deeply,
relishing my favorite part of spring,
in the offset of a warm afternoon rain on a brisk day,
sauntering through the wood-laden trails on worn brick paths,

to the paved parking lot where my car awaits--
delineated in a filmy layer of mired pollen residue.
It needed a wash anyways.

Enjoying the cool evening air
in the middle of May.
Walking my dog through the neighborhood,
enchanted by its bucolic setting--

Besotted with the scent of freshly cut grass,
and the drone from the lawnmower that renders it,
and the chatter of crickets far in the distance,
preparing for their evening performance,

and closer to me are the squawks and chirps of the birds
hunched in the brush and perched upon telephone wires.

Enamored with the sight of lush foliage,
scintillating at the utmost tier of the woods
where the golden haze of the shrinking afternoon sun
is still hopelessly chromantic in its fading vigor.

The clouds, dispersed like shreds of cloth
against a looming soft blue sky,
the color of the walls in my crib-room as an infant.

The affable hand-waves veiled behind translucent glass passing by
propelling fleeting smiles onward in the journey.

Though the atmosphere is dense,
its ambiance expounds a soft lull.
          There's a hush over the six o'clock late afternoon day,
as the auriculariae settle gently aside my temples,
placating the rooted tendons wrapped tautly
in my grove of flesh and bone.

                  It suddenly becomes disturbed

by the creaking and squeaking of a rusty frame,
the slow groan of old worn tires treading across harsh gravel,
and the conductor of the indistinct cacophony himself:

A placid old man,
in his worn red and black plaid long sleeve shirt,
faded grey work trousers,
dingy black socks,
muddy crusty ragged off-white sneakers,
and an old camouflage military cap to top it all off.

His face, barely visible under the old cap
and the worn silent shroud of his visage,
holds dull dark eyes steadfast peering ahead,
off into the horizon,
with slackened skin the color of clay,
from afar having the countenance of subtle cracks in worn concrete.

The One Man Band rides atop his aged machination silently--
I hear no stressed breath or grunts,
but in passing--

a slow mechanical raise of the right hand,
a slight tip of the head,
and a soft whisper of a hello in greeting.

          If I had blinked I would have missed it.

He slowly creaked and squeaked and groaned his way onward,
in his slow and steady rhythmic pace,
until he disappeared in the golden afternoon horizon.

I see him every morning and afternoon
as I drive in and out of the neighborhood--
I wave, always he in return with that slow mechanical gesture,
like an old theme park ride from the fifties.

It was the first time I had actually heard and felt his presence,
to see up close the picture of health and resilience that he is,
the Dorian Gray of bicyclists,
transferring his years of wear and tear onto his metal frame
and his balding rubber soles.

Every time I see him come round the bend now,
I still think of that aged Carousel with the rusty horses
and the song worn a semitone off-pitch,
or the "tranquil" boat ride with the languid mechanical dolls
with thick black eyes goggling eerily
and sallow arms waving infirmly--

but he will not erode as the horses, dolls, and his bicycle--
he will live on, and only he shall demarcate
the trash from the treasure.

A tease, a tease,
oh how I am a tease,
for I write poems of which
you shall never ever read!

I eke, I eke,
these thoughts with blood as ink,
on gasping pages drowning
in the anguish that I bleed!

I speak, I speak,
of demons I've yet freed,
solely expelled for exorcise,
whose omens I must take heed!

I tease, I tease,
I do not aim to please,
for I write poems of which
you shall never ever read!

I again glimpse of eternity.

I saunter where the shadows stain the streets.
I linger where my essence is silhouetted in the moonlight,
or beamed under a street light,
                                               or doused in headlights.

I loiter with friends in parking lots of frozen yogurt shops
in a small town--
listing torpid quadrupeds,
whose shells glisten and dazzle in the myriad of lights,
scrolling down the boulevard.

I find myself behind the wheel,
grazing among pavement pastures,
hungrily consuming the open road
on a silent night,                         in the still air.

          Night makes everything seem to go on forever.

From the speakers I hear the sizzle of ancient synthesizers
envelop the interjections of pulsating snare drum
slaps and snaps, cracks and claps.
          Hypnotized, I hit cruise control and drift ceaselessly.

At home, face illuminated in the television's glare,
my body buried under the weight of scattered sheets,
staggering dreams, snacks and drinks,
          my eyes burn steady into the void.

The television, likewise, burns into me,
as I ingest films that depict time travel in all its ambiguity.
I rip through the portal, feeling simultaneously
expeditious and sluggish.
          Did I stop time with breakneck speed,
or did I freeze like a river in the winter solstice?

Either way, I now stand outside the confines of mortality.

There's the sands of perception (identity)
muddied by the breaking waves of time,
where my sunken footprints
appear
and
disappear.

Relinquishing the captain's chair,
my mind fills with lucid dreams,
          from the TV screen.
Surely I know this is not reality,
but I cannot help it--
I am an accomplice in these chronographic schemes.

Though I appear in control, or at least aware,
I surrender my earthly duties to the conductor of time,
or its deviant: The Vexer.

The Vexer, the mischievous time traveler,
who dances between the dimensions,
with black holes for ears,
the speed of sound for a voice,
the speed of light for eyes--
it is the pestering worm digging throughout the galactic space apple.

The Vexer, who has wrenched me from my mortal footing,
to cast me adrift among uncharted seas,
with gloomy waters murky but heavenly
in its dark and rich violet glow,
like fires that burn hot hot on the color spectrum.
          A color less seen and therefore depicted as serene,
but all the more potent in its mystery.

The Vexer, with a wink of its cataclysmal eye,
grabs me by the wrist and tears me across the night sky--
I stretch thin between the television lines,
the endless roads and the mystic synthesizers,
peering through the night sky,
where human senses dull and the mind wanders--
          I have found myself in the Twilight Zone.

I am bound for eternity, ****** through the
tunnel vision telescope of man,
refracted as I bounce among the mirrors within,
expounded among the stars and the space between,
exploding in a brilliance in the vastness of its bliss.

The youthful laughter that ejects from the parking lots
of frozen yogurt shops,
the night drives with eyes that gloss over as it peers into oblivion,
dulled human senses that leave room for the mind to ponder,
the television screen that burns steadily into the mind,
the Vexer who oversees the mind's pondering of night life,
who like the court's jongleur skips and leaps
around the immensity of time's preponderance--  

Feigning insomnia to reap the benefits of illumination
in the infinitesimal night hour,
in these lingering hours that warp around somber hands
frozen on the midnight clock,
where thoughts of poetry flow and still bodies collect dew,
          the proximity of night life as it pertains to time travel:

The two are entwined.

Marching on thru our circuital seas:
A moat lurking beneath tremendous Facebook walls,
delineating our impalpable fortress of solitude (irony).

We slog through the trenches like Lee's troops,
drudging on a fatal course
to an awaiting Grant in Appomattox (destiny?).

Soldiers falling at the wayside,
from wounds, starvation, disease,
hashtags for dog tags draped around cadaverous necks--
Perhaps you can identify us by what's trending.

Had we the strength to shout,
and tear down the walls of Digital Jericho,
would we have been able to do it,
in 140 characters or less?

The vultures swarmed above me,
and I wondered if it was I
who lay before their narrowing gaze.

If they were fallen angels,
Lucifer's harbingers,

they'd have harvested on the soul
I'd left to decay.

Flip flip slide slide
grind grind pop pop
concentration.

hours and hours
sweat pours
bruised ankles bruised kneecaps
scraped shinbones scraped elbows
scabs and scars.

shirts and jeans torn, worn;
shoes a tattered mess--
laces shredded to bits tied desperately
clinging on to lapping tongues.

hair matted to skull sweating within damp skullcaps,
whether be it helmets (by choice or restriction),
or fitted baseball hats turned backwards,
or cuffed beanies in the dead of winter.
(father says the latter choices work well to soak all the blood up, I always roll my eyes in naivete.)

The paved driveway, where on my eighth birthday
a shining basketball goal sat at its full height
towering in the mountain sky--

stood forlorn in place as wide eyes glued to the pavement--

where shoes stood atop the gritty surface of a wooden board
with wheels attached to gleaming metal axles
rolled smoothly excitedly across the pavement in perpetuity.

destiny.

I cradled the unfurling shed snakeskin delicately
admiring the imprint of faces and places
swallowed up in time.

An ancient amative light sat patiently
on the blank sheet
before the electric medium;
the electric medium sitting buzzing
eager to tell another silent story.

I wrapped the skin around its spindle;
and from its den I extracted slowly and cautiously,
urging the skin into the hungry buzzing medium--

And minute punctures in the skin,
where the projector's teeth sink in,
whose teeth chatter like plastic wind up dentures
as the skin passes snake-like through its dusty plastic entrails.

The tattooed skin is illuminated at the heart of the vessel--
where the countenance of a single solitary bulb
omits a radiance, brilliant and magnificent--
powerful enough to cast the skin like a shooting star
across the darkened room

onto the patient white sheet
where my eyes await the tattooed memories
to dance before me.

I sit in my torn and weathered leather chair
echoing the silence of the screen--
(hypnotized by the hum of the projector--
an incessant electrical drone accompanied by the bombinate
incantations of chattering crickets.)

The stories are shielded from my inquisition
by layers of translucent grain
that leave textures gritty--
and a soft focus that leaves faces obscure
and expressions ambiguous.

(How clever you are to stay silent,
and leave me in such tempestuous musings!)

Vast pores pop up excitedly burned and scabbed intrusions
and if you linger for too long
the brilliance of the glare will burn into you--

Like the shaman who dances too close to the holy fire.
Like Apollo flying too close to the sun.

I must be careful,
and fully aware--
of your transience.

These ambulant hieroglyphs
speak volumes in their silence--
and I find myself drawn
to the blurry smiling faces
as they peer into my soul.

History breathes.
and History repeats.
but lies silent
in the sands of Time.
Becoming muddled,
but waiting.
for its story to be told;
for the mediums to rise from the grave.

I suddenly agnize myself as the last generation
to have its memories and histories burned onto tape.
and as I sit here I wonder
of the Society
whose soul I will peer into--
when I am unearthed
out of the sands of Time.