Can't write a poem right now.
Can't figure out the sound,
or how the rest of this should look.
My phrasings are obvious most times,
and don't get me started on my slant rhymes.
So what do I have, as a writer, to offer the betters of my peers?
Quiet conversation,
loud argumentation,
fingertips clacking mechanics and a penchant to steer
myself across the happy, golden union.

I sometimes forget the only thing holding me down is the force
of something much larger than I.
It's the firing pistons alive in the mind behind both of my
grey-blue faltering like the autumn to the winter eyes.

Comfort is not a guarantee.
5:30am, quiet reads while listening
to William Basinski.

Sometimes I imagine myself as a radio mast. Cold steel
built on a hill surrounded by forest and fog.
All I do is speak through tunes and blink my light.
And during the day I'm remarked as an eye sore.

What's the one thing you could talk about without rest?

Who's the one person that made talking effortless?

Where is the one that changed you for the better,

where is the one that made you your best?

When did it all occur, was it recently, or more in the past?

Is this one something or someone you wish you could have back?

People aren't things,
and also, they aren't chances.
They're the same solemnness
between the sonder and the glances.
We all have our thing and some of us may have more.
But I prefer the passions of the focused
for whom hearts with pulse on sleeve are wore.

The soul is missed by me dearly.
It contained within it, simultaneously,
spark, spirit, care, and glimmer.
Lit by an inestimable null.

The escape of which I now suffer.
Is a daily sick.
Of waking up with shuddered groan.

I miss the soul when it had chance.
Even if my end were purgatory.
I'll take the grey to the decisive ends.
Focused edge where bright meets blurry.

I got a phone call from your mother today.
Her lips were pursed and candied, I'd say.
I couldn't see her between the borders of states,
but she told me I should let go of the blame.

She called me up to build me higher than I've felt for the longest day.
We spoke a while and dreamt on a nostalgic plane.
She told me sweetly that her memories of her daughter
involve me, too, in some way.
She lingered with each breath as if to sigh,
before she told me she used to lie awake.
Rue in her wrinkles for having turned me away.
From your funeral that long-gone but not forgotten day.

Her sighs turned to shudders and her facade of being a mother
shattered like chalky, kiln pressured Ohio Valley clay.
She sobbed through hysterics and left me feeling desperate
of feeling a similar love for the ghost I'll leave behind
with a note lengthened in a shakily scrawled essay.

It was pure and powerful to hear the shake.
In her voice as it pronounced my three syllable name.
Hoping she got my number right,
not knowing there's a reason I've not cared to change.
Today I got the answer to a question I never thought to say.
Speaking is important to lighten how the emotions weigh.
She told me I should let go of the blame.

But you knew me best, better than they.
I can't quit the blame.
But I can lie to her for her own sake.
So she can move on and feel less of the dismay.
No parent should ever outlive their own flesh given.
The sound of her voice like a subdued painful frisson.
I told her a lie to keep her spirits intact.
To keep alive a promise whose corners are bent, but without crack.
I know you'd let me out of any dotted line I signed if I wanted
free of your Faustian contract,
But I digress,
I'm a mess.
Full of shame for how I handled you and your name.
I've written and talked about you like you were an old flame.
I tried moving on,
but all the old noises I hear them new, and all the same.
Your ghost has followed me because I asked, and you came.

I love you,
I miss you.
I'll come play with you in space.

The port swallowed dry the remnants of the last season, dryer than the past and the reason was an unbecoming at the seams of the living.
But that seemed like a lie told by a child to an adult.
You had your own ideas swimming in your narrow canals.
For now, anyway, and tomorrow your thoughts would shift to how to pay the rent.
Which is fine. We aren't meant to live secretly,
with too much time and to draw lines between content
and resentment.
So you watch the thinning tides with intent on knowing how they've changed.
And even though the thick black line of watermark
that dots like mold on the dock tells you, "Here I was,"
the lower stillness of placid surface speaks a kind of whisper now.

You aren't listening. The writing has been written.
You're living even though your life is past tense.
******* work, ******* change. Do something to undo the damage laid plain.

But there are still boats buoyed out in the sea.
And for some that's scary but for some reason to me
"It's fine."

Houses in tall grass.
Another one shut down, the mines.
Boon of pride, swollen like a tick caught in your sock.

Winds blow through yesterday and are colder now.
Ever wonder why some things aren't allowed?

Attention like reception, cut-down by the everything in-between.

The quarry used to be a swimming hole.
Now it's just a hole.
Memories are the only reminders worth remembering.
The second hand embarrassment of a word mispronounced
makes my skin ***** with goosebumps.
Makes my hair stand on anxious end.
Hope no fleas are underneath.

Stay at home. Stay inside. Stay put.
Hole yourself up in your room.
The chance is a drink you'll wake to regret.
The mistake is in believing you know best.

What greatness have you achieved to give yourself advice?
Everything accomplished within four walls you've lived in alone.
Your whole life.

Houses in tall grass.
Sleeping in dusty room.
Tread softly lest you disturb the might-have-beens.
The first step in succeeding is listening to the lessons.