Feels like you.

Or a whiskey bottle.

Two things.

I get drunk on too often.

We are empty whiskey bottles
Apologizing for always helping the helpless
Damning the ******
Liquifying any motivation
To make things better
Pouring ourselves out
To soak in sorrows
Begging and wishing
Someone would pour us back

There are no stars in Hollywood

That's why they are buried in the ground

Dislocate me from existence
Put me with the stars
Far enough away to see the distance
Into darkness without reprieve
Under burned down trees
and their shadows

I do not need your voice to convince me of things
like worth
or the color of my blood
These things I am sure of
My heart writes me letters about these things

Forget about what we said we were
Remember I was alone in your company
Your words filled with hot air
Boiling your words
Evaporating anything permanent

Liberate our nerves from any feeling we might of shared
Untie my limbs
Stretching out the presence
Drenching my skin with freedom
Calming the gooseflesh upon my bones

The well in our chests hides secrets
Ones that your words never pulled
The well filled with tainted water
So I added whiskey
And liberated your grasp

I will forever forgive you
Blending business with pleasure
Drowning yourself in an empty well
Dragging feet into the desert
of our yesterdays choices

I hate planes a lot. Mostly just the cabin pressure. It makes me feel real uncomfortable. Like peer pressure in the 8th grade. The snacks are good. I love complementary trail mix. Reminds me of filthy peanuts in a biker bar somewhere in montana. So here I am one seat away from a new destination. A new place where people know me... Or they don't. Either way I'm surrounded by strangers. Here on one side of me I have a California king. I'm not talking about a mattress here. I mean a man so tan his skin looks like stretched leather on a cowboy boot. Flip flops to match the watch that tells you time, or how much money he spends on accessories. He sits big in his little chair. Like an over filled glass of milk. A tan mark where his wedding ring use to sit. Divorce was spelt out along his confidence. And his MacBook.  And on the other side we have hello kitty. Dropped out of a commercial with zebra print pillows covered in comforted teal stories. An Asian girl. Traveling alone with a mouth full of things she will never tell me. Like " I hate that you hog the arm rest" " I don't like flying" and " where are you from?" We separate ourselves with awkward tension that you can't place in first or last. I'm 3 inches away from two parts of complete that I will never get the chance to know. So I realize this is the closest we will ever be. Me and you. In this space. Sharing this peer pressured air. Stuck between you and a compliment. I will never know what to say in these situations. So I will step of this plane miles away from anything I believe in. I'll drink a beer in the memory of every moment I did not take advantage of. Maybe I can step off this plain at 30,000 feet and fully recognize the brilliance of our time here.

Let today teach me the things that yesterday did not.

I think it really comes down to what you expect of someone.
That you want all these needs filled from artificial people who have never seen the checklist of your heart.

People that want nothing more to see a smile on your face.
A smile they can't purchase because they don't posess the currency.

I am my own country. I govern my laws. I am the one to control the happiness between my borders.

I shall not be dependent upon another being.
I shall only be held up by the same expectations that has kept this country strong and bold over past decades.

I will stand my fortitude.
Proud.
Allowing visitors all the while.
I will never turn down a caring heart.
Although I will turn down yours.

He told her

It is the beauty on the inside that counts

Her response

Then why do my insides continue to find themselves in the wrong place
Lifted into white porcelain gods
Asking anyone to compliment my withered self
Please make love to me
Tell me I am better than the acid on my tongue
The regret powering my mind as I struggle down my dinner
Inside is where I find these thoughts
Thoughts powering my actions
Into a spiraling pit of self loathing
Tell me I am pretty one more time
And I will show you my insides to prove it

I will not allow you to become a banned book
In an unknown library
Somewhere lost in my thoughts

I have read you over and over
Each time learning to not read the ending first
To use my book light during the day
For sake of not being afraid of commitment
Used dictionary definitions
For loving you doesn't always make sense
My dreams have become chapters
The ring on your finger
A ******
And the family we will someday have
The happy ending

You are my library
The words you speak my light
A leather bound promise of elation

The more you talk
The less I retain.
The more attention I lack
The less motivation I contain
The more I want to leave
The less these pages ring pure and true
The more things that mean less.
Give me meaning. Application. Knowledge.
Until then, be silent, let this experience speak.

In the presence of god and all of his creation I will tell you the stunning amazement that is the northern lights.
The way that god will drain the tub he relaxes in. Just so we can be rained upon by this phenomenon called aurora borealis. Graciously dancing across the sky we have known as blue. Knowing it is nothing more than a universe full of questions I am afraid to ask. So tell me.

I want to know how they felt 100 years ago. How did your culture interpret this magic sky shifting juncture that formed ballets above them. Tell me how they navigated the north star. A fixture in the sky meaning nothing but everything to the right person. Finding the broken piece between reality and imagination. Our compass has been thrown off by the deception lain across our flesh.

Let this culture lead by example. That we may one day step outside our lightbulb lives and exist in the moment that we use to call the world. Moments like sunsets and the things we refer to as constellations. May those anomalies cross your brain, find you broken in bed. Clawing out of your chest trying to show you what it is to feel. Embrace what your ancestors left. Dreams of a sustainable culture. Get off your ******* phone and cross the lagoon. Respect the chucks of history laid on your shoulder. It is not just a chip.

May those moments haunt you in your dreams. And have the culture injected into your veins. Have this as a message. Fill your dreams with nightmares of a village under water. Drowning in learned helplessness. Not understanding which direction is up when the clouds are out.

America has taught us that the past is irrelevant. That in historical events we have always made the best decision. That slavery was justified, if you ask the right person. Columbus was god upon men. Yesterday is gone for we will embroider the memories of what once was into any shape we desire. And America has given up and now PBR belongs to Russia.

This stand is for you, Inupaiq Eskimos. Let the Eskimo games begin. Show this culture that you have not forgotten the importance of your ankles. The function of chasing Caribou. May the preservative dust upon the shelf as you are dusting the tundra for dinner. Shall we build a fortified wall around the unique skills no one will dig their fingernails into.

Live off the land under the toes of the greedy americans. Show them the flowers that have been stomping upon and how these flower heal the broken hearts held in their chest. The flat land that is looked after as boring with a hint of forgotten. Show them the importance of leveled landscape. Where to find the hidden dips in the skin of our earth. How your bones will forgive you for this moment of rest.

I will never be an Eskimo. I have only live here for a few months of my life. But ****** son, stand up with your spine into your skull. Connecting you with right now and days we have left behind. Please take a moment. Read a book. Learn a trade. Apply the sinews attached to the bones in your chest, and take a moment to breathe in your heritage. Take your first breathe and see life, as it is meant to be.

Love me like I am no longer broken bones in a working body
Find that I am still whole yet divided
Forgive me for never loving myself
This dream I have still projects itself
Knitting the sky together with plea agreements
Begging for you to finally see me clearly
The rain is gone and we are still here
Broken bones heal and I am still alive
But know that I am trying
Trying to be better than me
Working at building a future out of hand grenade pins
Pulled from mistakes thrown out of my life

She asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up

I told her many things

Like a fire truck
Something large enough to put out the fires we create
Glasses
Shaping things up and making them look better
Let me be an iceberg
Built from breaking down and re freezing

There are other things I would like to be as well
Like a father
A husband
Or a man
I want to fill in the occupations my father
never grew up to be

Arrival came in rays
A deceiving amount of sunshine
Endless light from above
Does not expunge
The cold of darkness
My bones found the tundra first
Gift wrapped in shivers
Skin danced lonely
Find me someone to hold
These words shake off my tongue
Replace silence to voice
Give darkness your light
Allowing warmth to conquer frost

The purpose of this day
Will be to own each second
As if it will never come again

For the time is now

Tomorrows clocks has stopped
Yesterdays clocks erased
Today's clocks are still moving

For the time is now

Do not let the ticks slip away
Tuck them into your present
Take a deep breathe

For the time is now

I will read you like i read a dictionary

I promise I wont abuse you,

because I grasp the knowledge you possess

I promise to use every page

because every page of you is important

I promise to keep you around forever

because you are timeless

I promise to never be selfish with you

because everyone should see your beauty

you girl,

you are an un paralleled dictionary

in a library full of books

When I was a volunteer fire fighter I found out that when a human being is trapped inside of a house drowning in fire, often they do not burn to death it is the smoke that kills them. My biggest fear is being burned to death.

So what's it like to inhale so much smoke that you quickly become it. You drift through the broken air full of charcoal grays attempting to find anyway out. A floating wish of a better tomorrow.

A window, a vent, a mouth. How much longer must we test the the water slide of convincing cancer. Smoke can lure you in oh too easily. Inviting you. Reaching for you. Holding you.

Boy there are so many thing I would rather be held by. Like koalas. Loosen your grip and follow me away from this place. You deserve better than an empty promise. I know dad conditioned you to eat them up.

But this is a broken promise. One that is going to break a family of two when you break a family of two you end with one. I know you want to feel like mom did, but she should be endured that pain and taught us how hearts can break when perfection is drifted away.

My friend, step off your pedestal. Mercy won't stay with you forever. And you know for a **** fact we don't have forever.
Open the window and flee. Drop your cigarette and grab my shoulder, we're in this together.

So when I realized you are in a house fire. I understand you are not going to die from the fire alone. I get that you will smoke yourself out before I get the chance to save you.

We are fire fighters. Mom taught us, so put our your fire.

Delicately run your fingers across my neck

You will find the scars

Freshly healed

From when lonely

Clawed its way out of my throat

Never underestimate

The gravity

That exist in the core of your tongue.

For the words of strangers

Have grounded me

My brother,

You are my brother. A man of bones and too many cigarette ashes lacing your lungs.

My brother,

We are a bond. One that got chewed up by the next door neighbors dog but is still his favorite toy.

My brother,

I am so sorry for the things I believe you can do.

My brother,

From the second she left I have been saving my water for the day you run dry.

My brother,

Drowning is not the cure.

My brother,

Distance can sometimes be the best thing for someone. It gives you perspective. And the further away something is the bigger you feel.

My brother,

Please, be my big brother. Be bigger as I go further.

My brother,

Let me crack your back. Stand up straight and look me in the eye. Wash this moment with the idea that we are water. Running through a valley of flash flood and we will overcome everything here.

My brother,

Take my hand. Let's snap this broken wishbone in half and make our own dreams come true. Let's become everything we thought we could be when we where five. Let's fight like tomorrow is waiting for us. Like mom, maybe like mom can hear us. Let's show her how much we truly love her.

My brother,

I know this is not easy. No one ever said it was. But pick up your bootstraps. I need you... My brother.

When you fall asleep I will still kiss your upper back.  This does not take place in hope that you will wake up, I want my kiss to seep into your nerve endings and find myself in your dreams. Dripping my kiss into every ounce of your future.

It's natural to be afraid

So step into this

Be terrified with me

His heart

felt like a word misspelled

in a spelling test

cursed at, then erased

replaced by new formations

without comprehension

Science has discovered the speed of light

I am present and perplexed at the speed of darkness

The day that you passed was the only time I felt close enough to understanding why you are gone. It made sense to me because your hand was in mine. The curvature of your fingertip figured times tables into my palm that I will spend the rest of my life decoding.

Each day since then I question each footfall I conquer. For I can find your footprints upon this sandcastle heart yet all I see are my footprints being eaten by waves. Everyday has been a dislocation of hope, wondering why they took you and not me.

Asking my cells to work musical chair patterns to fine a cure for the algorithm I can't remember. Your nails. I remember them. Pictures. I have them still. You told me, in a house fire it is your 2nd item to grab. For a photo can't be recreated.

You never wanted to be recreated. So we cremated you. Burning ash tray loneliness into the humid smoke upon these lips. So why does it feel like I am jigsaw puzzling you back together in each picture. Attempting to take pieces of the past and walk into my future.

My feet are wet from walking through the watered down alleyways of yesterday. I have robbed myself, beaten the best senses senseless, and found my ****** self laid up in darkness. Interrogating the best reasons to walk into the light.

In a college psychology class my professor told me about flashbacks. How these moments are defined by intense, vivid memories of a dramatic event in our past.
A camera broken face nervous
Shooting out pixels
Attempting to recreate your image
Hospital beds
No
Chemo dripped needles
No
Flat lined arms holding onto anything stable
Why
Now every doctor has the same voice
Each one of them presents themselves in forms of your death
When will the good memories come back?
At what point will my camera work again
The pictures I keep in my head are not the ones I want
This dark room is getting darker
Without producing new pictures
I need exposure
To the laugh you use to have
All I hear is your cough
A rippled wretched cacophony of cancer
Until then,
I choose to see you
In any way I can
To remind myself of your presence

Every thing you left behind is still here
Collecting parts of individually wrapped humans
I refuse to rearrange the furniture
It helps convince me you're still coming back
That you have forgotten how to love
Taking a hiatus to expunge selfish
There is a spot reserved here for you
I am the only one that can still see it

She held me like an etch and sketch
Caressing my edges unit we forgot my past
Cranking tomorrows fortune into figures and shapes
Believing in my ability to live openly
That now, is ever-changing

That now, is a masterpiece

A single tree stood a few feet taller than the rest of the forest. The branches, further off the ground and harder to reach. Leaves luminescent in their shifting wind. Full of life and everlasting complexities. Roots embedded into the earth. Unmovable to the temptations of this place. Bark the texture of mountain ranges. Speaking of every valley full of rivers from the rain dancing across it's surface. Nests lay high into the sky of this tree. Spots where the tree is delicate and life giving.


I want to climb this tree. Navigate my way around each root to educate myself of the raw magnitude of this tower of life.
To reach out and feel the details of every bark outline. Traveling toward heaven with good intentions. Finding the thickest branch at the bottom. A journey I know I am not the first to reach. I want to weave through each maze upon the branches. Finding the life that exists here. To investigate the soft spots where nests lay. Enjoying the view of the world. A spot I know only this tree can experience.

I will lay upon branches to feel like I truly know what it is like to sleep here. To share something so simple inside of such a unique place. Continuing to the highest point of this tree. Here the branches are the smallest and least visited. I want to study these branch for years. For without these branches this tree would not exist entirely.

So from here i can view the rest of the forest. The tips of lives skirting to the end of visibility. As I delicately climb back down. My body feels at one with this tree. Knowing that my fingers will never understand such beauty. I found this tree tucked in the density of her ribcage. Beating like a war drum. A forest I wish to walk each waking day. Climbing her tree with delicacy and fiercely loving her forest built heart.

We ran out of words
So we spoke with our bodies

I want to read you

Like the fine print

In the Terms and Conditions

Written in Braille

So I can feel

Every word written

On your heart

They called him a black hole
A collapsed version of his former self
Exhausting all energy found inside
Absorb nothingness
This is universal rock bottom
Gravity can't grasp this freedom
Releasing all forms of attachment
From here he evaporated
This is everything he has ever known

I watched
As the fire burned down their dependency
Melted away their hope
Charred their smiles

He watched
The man looked at me
Talking with the smoke in his lungs
"As long as our teachers are safe"

I watched
The fire inside my chest
Filling my veins with names of the people of this place
Knowing that I am melted where I stand

Cover me like snow.
Sweep me into your pocket.
Loose me in your sunrise.
End these faulted comforts.

Pick me above head for a view.
Take me through the tunnel.
Break down the iceberg.
It's all fresh water.

Can I walk through the door?
Maybe have a seat?
Ill stay for as long as you ask.
Faint presence in a silent room.

Tread the streets lightly.
Make me a reality of adulation.
My ear loves the patterns of your breath.
Breathe into me.

Lets walk these paths through the forest.
The unknown ones.
Just like fresh steps in the sand.
We know they are washed away.

Get lost in focused tension.
This rock of solitude doesn't move.
Fallen tsunamis on soil.
Immovable occupied space.

These days will end out of storms.
in warmth and peacefulness.
Laid down soft pillow cases.
Accept this excitability.

Use your snow to make angels.
I'm not some lint in your pocket.
Keeping me warm summer.
Faults filled. Solved.

Thank you father
You were never the man we needed you to be
But you did leave me this gun
In the shape of a bottle

Genetically manipulated to magnetically stick to any addiction within reach
This bottle is strong arm robbing me of reality
Creating blasphemous momentary relief of my pretty great life

I am presently attempting to place bottle caps on broken bottles
Trying to put spilled liquid back into my mangled mistakes
I never wanted to be like you father
But here we are

All you have to do is be a man.
These words bled through my veins with disgust.

A man he said, does not smile
The flat line of his lips laid across the lower half of his face and read empty.
Shocked I was, when he told me that a man does not find joy in little things.
The leather skin palms that have seen more death than life.

A man he said, does not clean
A brain in his head, full of reasons why he can never show affection.
My arms wanting to do nothing more than wrap them around him.
Love may not be the answer to everything

A man he said, will never back down
His eyes burned, when I backed down
The ocean between will never be filled.
May the waves of tomorrow be ever calm.

As our callused palms met in between the peace treaty we signed in our heads,
The muscles in his face relaxed.
Not one more word was said.
His presence stands over me like an angry sun.

Burnt and shriveled.
I shall return home.

Today will conquer many lives
without reason
For the sake of remembrance
I will breathe in each tender second
with a stronghold in my chest
grateful to live
another wake up
A blink longer than those less fortunate

May I conquer today
with all of the reason
To remember those
who have now become
small bits of gold in our history
A bold outline of a life once lived
I raise my wine filled heart
to those who are no longer here

Maybe we are in love with emptiness
Which explains why we feel it so deeply

If we keep spilling
our hearts--

often enough,

someone is bound
to mop it up--

You are my perfect nightlight
Giving me light in darkness
Subduing the fear in me
Protecting my shins
From dangerous coffee tables

There is a small village, tucked under the arctic circle, in this village I met lonely. He was a stand up guy.

His shoulders,broad and spread apart. Ready to lift broken spirits and alcohol bottles. This man gave my heart a chance to truly palpitate. To rhythmically shock my ribs with a frequency unheard by the human ear.

This mans eyes, were deep. Swirling ideas of not coming back and don't pick up the phone. A land far way laid behind that iris. One where family was unknown and friends were ever changing.

His smile, crooked. Bent between the weight of the sky. Melted from the suns happiness.


We talked, for a while. He convinced me I was better than that. He told me that I didn't need anything more than my heart and mind to discover freedom.

From that moment, I could breathe. And when I started breathing, I started living. From this point on will be history.

I have manipulated this poem
To be a mask of emotions
Not letting you know
I am falling apart
Because bulimia is only for girls

Men do not reject their self worth
Due to pressure from society
A consistent of not good enough
Photoshopped billboards

Recalling my most recent meal
In attempt to match my expectations
The ones I have created for myself
Through tainted understandings
Of the world around me

My heart my favorite sweater
Warm and worn on my sleeves
Zipping up my ribcage
to protect myself from the elements
Pockets to hide secrets of my past
Hooded to keep me hidden
from the bandits in my dreams
Mine to wear in the fall
Yours to borrow in the spring

Mother please,

Give me the strength to carry your legacy
The words you left here are heavy
Loving the world never came easy

Mother please,

Keep the dust off my memory
I want to remember you fondly
In your entire excellence

Mother please,

May I have your hands
Something stronger than my torn flesh
A way to hold on a little longer

Mother please,

Allow me to see through this
One step more than I took yesterday
Another breathe through the lungs you created

Mother please,

I need you
Here with me
Always