Measure me.

Can you quantify the gradients of emotions
I spin through daily?

If I awake from years of passivity,
will you still know how to walk through years of
conversation and growth?

I hate when
I call upon the gods of anxious hearts,
The ones who have troubled
every decision you have made.

They make your commute from genuine emotions
to a grey, murky house full of
players pretending to be teams,
blue's pretending to be rainbows,
and persons pretending to be people.

Come here and hold my hands.
Mine have been missing their fingerprints
for countless lifetimes.
Touch my incomplete, hungry dreams.
You alone can.
I alone can.

Can I?

She left us a cookbook before heading down South-
I don't know why, we don't know how to cook
nor was her cooking ever good,
so it's hard to say if we can even trust this book


"A Gentleman's Essentials in the Kitchen"


My brothers and I (three of us) were in a diner,
debating on what to do-
after Mom left the funeral we were forced to
acknowledge each other for the first time in years


1 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup milk


She did not remarry after the divorce,
so I think she probably took it hard coming to Dad's
"Life Celebration"
She probably had some lingering love for him
But I don't know, it is the first time I've seen her in 17 years


1 1/2 cup of flour, 1 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder


I hear my older brothers arguing over the logistics of the funeral,
how cheap it was, how weak the amount of attendees was,
how smelly the reception was, how shaky the transitions were,
how sad they were, how mad they were,
how defeated I was


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease and flour a large pan


Dad never spoke to Mom (not that I know of) since they split-
I don't think there was anyway he could ever see her face without
falling down crying over her mistakes/
I can still smell her putrid odor walking through the front door 17 years ago
I can still hear them yelling knives, gravely ripping through the air with arguments and deflections through many rooms 17 years ago
I can still feel the spike of pain and blood running down my face by "motherly" hands 17 years ago


Cream the sugar and butter, beat the eggs, and stir the milk in


He wasn't a good dad, he was just objectively better than Mom
He remembered our birthdays, but never got us a cake-
I think he tried to bake one for my 10th birthday, but
all I remember is him taking off his oven mitts and taking us to
McDonald's
saying, "You can get a happy meal today, the rest of y'all, pick from the dollar menu- or share a 2 for $5 with me"/
Mom always baked us a cake
My brothers used to love my birthdays when I was a baby because she would still bake a cake, even when I can't eat it
For my 7th birthday, it was a simple white cake


Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven


Why did she even come this weekend? She had nothing to do with Dad's life for years. He was fine where he was, and so was I, and so were my brothers, and probably so was she. Is it a social obligation to go to your ex-husband's funeral? Is it a social obligation to divorce after abuse? Nobody forced them to do anything. I was forced all my life to go there, move there, eat there, study there- but all the freedom lies on my stupid parents. She can leave whenever she wants and it's just me and my brothers arguing and picking up the pieces. She leaves a book and is it supposed to mean something? Is she going to bake 17 awful white cakes from all the years she decided to frolic in the grass and hide from my scars? Is the book a symbol of her love or a ****** way of saying sorry in a poetic manner?

Take it back. I said I didn't need it. Exchange it for a real apology. I don't even want to exchange it for my Dad's life, just say something  meaningful Mom, don't hide behind a ******* book.

Just stand up for something righteous. I can't breathe your unapologetic air that we shared.

I felt a tear drop onto the page of the book that was open on my lap. It was the first time I cried the whole weekend. That single tear had been crawling its way through the trenches of my depressed visual vessels only to be dropped off by gravity onto a recipe for a white cake.


The cake is done when it springs back to the touch


I sink back into my chair being pulled and gravitated towards the floor, exhausted and learned

I hear it through my feet, the salty waves that break the stone
Stones that until now have never seen my gaze
My gaze alone will fill the stones with love
And the ocean will take my hand and guide me through their ways

And the people in the town - the friends that I have made
Let’s say they’re bakers or they’re artists who made a way in life
They’re gonna come into the water with me, taking note of all the joy they see
And share a look up at the moon

In another sky

All that I have left is this short little walk
Then I’ll see 5 more million stars, for all the steps that i took
I’ll bring the city key and build a stairway with the folks who’ll call me family
And we’ll take off and leave the ground behind to another sky

Another sky

I find that I wish there were 500 people, so those 500 people will see that sky
I find that I wish there were 1000 people, so those 1000 people will see that sky
I find that I wish there were 1,000,000 people, so those 1,000,00 people will see that sky
I find that I wish there was just one more person, so that I - I can share that sky

With you

So come,

To the other sky

Put down the taco. Eyes close. Then - Zooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmm!

My body at this point - already melted into the chair - head whirling cold - loozing touch hehe

Oh! Don’t leave without saying goodbye! - I said this to the infinitely expanding black void that-

“I’ll be back. I have to unlock the final triforce. It is locked behind a backlit Pluto.”

Clearly we were in a Mexican restaurant

But

The gods were clearly on his side with that pink **** and all so this chromium dude was on to

something - ope! My powers disappeared! I guess my time is up in heaven.

And there will be tears filled to its highest salinity
and masks melting with every confession of sin

When God came down to judge our insecurities,
our cancerous thoughts that slowly rip our untouched *****,
where we usually hide our true prayers,

When He came yesterday

to blow away the golden cornfields of a child's memories,

to set fire on the marshlands where one notices the roots
of the trees facing up, grasping, reaching,
and pulling for air that is polluted with God's smoke,

to bring a thousand faceless angels coming not to guard our souls,
but rather to shatter time into
a thousand little paused moments to keep for themselves

God stands

in my very own Judgement Day

Hm.

Where was he last week?
When I was crying tears filled with its highest salinity
and I melted with every confession of sin.

Where was God?

It recently just rained.
The air still has leftover water in the pockets of its existence.
I can feel it.
I swat and shoo away the mosquitos,
who can smell my fresh blood ten miles away.
While I am distracted by the pests,
the river flows.

The river is murky- a not yet green, not yet yellow,
not yet brown Beast that has vague faces on it
from the reflections of the clouds.
The faces are so hidden and so unrecognizable
you cannot tell if they are
happy, sad, mad, or even emoting at all.

The leaves on the river glides along forward,
as if it is going to work on schedule-
cars along the interstate hoking at the other cars to move.
Meanwhile the river takes its time,
lazily it dries the leaves along.

The sun's perfectly crafted light can be seen
like waves on the underbelly of the
-alive, dark, green-
leaves of the limp tree that hovers
over the river on the bank.

The river looks peaceful from afar-
afar, it looks like a constant, steady movement
from left to right.

But, there is a war.

Two sides of the river are constantly fighting.
One side is constantly victorious, however the other side
keeps fighting and struggles to live,
but it seems as if the table can turn at any time;
a chair with three legs.

The sun is facing directly at me,
while still casting a towering shadow on the surface of the river,
due to the trees that look like giants from another plant
that I read once in a comic book.

A cool breeze rewards me for being in this atmosphere,
for staring at a body of water for an hour and analyzing its heart.

But does the river have a heart?
Does it have a brain?
What does it think of me?

open circle
closed circle
open circle
closed circle
open circle
Open Circle
OPEN CIRCLE

OPEN
CIRCLE

O
P
E
N

C
I
R
C
L
E

closed circle
closed circle

closed
closed

close

The dry eraser has a soft, light, grey fluff

with a brush black finish,

that's been tainted by the imprints of black ink,

and a black rectangular prism,

that also has the word "EXPO" bolded in large letter

in an organized yet artistic fashion

as if to say,

"I erase ink"

This particular eraser has...

I flip over the wood chip,
only to realize that there is a little ant
dangling on the belly of that wood.

I wish I could say that I led the ant live,
that it prospered and brought heaps of
food and sugar to its kingdom
.
.
.
.
But instead I killed it

If all time was you, I’d have a watch so I could quantify how much I love you
So when time stopped like it did today
As I was walking my daily path
I thought of you
I thought of loving
Through all paused time all times

It probably is the pollen all
around me. The trees and flowers are all super
***** and putting all this drunk,
yellow pain into my
Or maybe it is the amount
of time I spend looking at

Nonetheless I find my eyes to be very itchy
and I find myself reaching for the eyedrops.

I promise you, I am not writing about
rubbing my eyes for clarity nor for hope. About the stupidity
of previous circumstances and how to resolve my issues
and pains with another person, nor about the sharp
daggering embraces we reluctantly continue to dig into each
other, nor about the seismic novella you choose to make me
read through every indeterminate eye glance and concave
movement in the curvature of your lips, nor about the
indescribable, uncontrollable, unbelievable,
in-*******-consequestional amount of times I can't
help but to think when I was happier with you-
but you weren't.

Maybe I should stop rubbing my eyes, it's making it worse

If you can still feel it-
The warm wind that rushed into our lungs,
while we drove straight into an inevitable
iron judge-
Please let me know.

Because your deadly silence
pulls the green, rancid thoughts out of my mind-
Prioritizing comeback-arguments and
glass-shattering-jealously
over our lost harmonies and simplicities.

To open my eyes,
To remove the black and white filters of staged Polaroids,
To realize the naïveté of dying campfires,
And to strip the layers of paint from our canvas,
Calls for forgiveness.
Forgiving you.
Forgiving me.

It calls for change and allowing the dams I’ve
artificially placed immeasurable love into,
to wither,
So the natural rivers can flow.
To allow the ecosystem to thrive.

To move on-
I put on my old sweater.
It smells of loneliness, heavy browns, and protection-
A wall to my heart.

Please forget the combination to the lock on my dreams,
If you can hear my silent tears.
I beg of you in the key of F major.

hey babe
babyyyy
i want you to
count all the legs-

wait
no

babyyyy
i want you to
count all the hairs on my legs

each one has a story

each one gets rock hard

each one and two and three and four and

a lot more hair

until all the legs-

wait
no

hairs ON my legs

are counted for

160 calories
0g of saturated fat
420 mg sodium
1g sugar

Literally zero satisfaction

I can eat mountains worth of these
little Pretzel Sticks,
yet none of those mountains will fill the vast space,
the vast universe,
the vast vacuum


of my stomach.


A hole that goes on and on forever.

If a lobster is a regret, then a regret is not a lobster.
The lobster is just is, it cannot have regrets,
yet it is a regret.

Although, the regret is fully a lobster,
with its claw and such of course-
it is not not not a lobster.

I have not lobsters in my system,
but many regrets.




what

And the word is out, the word is out, it's all around,
you never loved me
Bring the armies, the townsfolk, the countrymen,
let's all have a vote
And the nation is hungry for answers that
you never gave
All your brothers are running away from
terrible dreams

I have lived my last, and breathed my last, and wept my last
under the old moon
And the blood of the oranges, the nectarines, the citrus
we shared
And the people are waiting on porches for your
naked voice
All the demons are standing around
waiting to pounce

Oh, the seed
Oh, of joy
Is lost

Is this right? Was this haste?
Can I let another person be interlaced?
To share my burdens and celebrate my joys
Twisting and changed; a girl meets boy

I can't seem to find any reason in my decisions
Her eyes, her hair, and her voice interrupt my straight visions
Should I be careful? To let it grow naturally and blossom so?
Should I be carefree? To make it through some ancient vertigo.

It's important to realize such boundaries ahead,
Days and days of longing letters unread.

But then I saw how beautiful she is.
Her black dress and our lips touching on swings-
I forget about all my walls,
and have faith: my heart and all.

Seas of memories drool into my sight,
memories of joy and things bright

I hope

How about a game between two forces? Might be interesting to watch.

I’ve never taken physics, so if one train that is 50 tons rushed up Lake Shore Drive north at 7,000 MPH, and another train that is 51 tons also RUSHED down Lake Shore Drive south at 7,001 MPH,,,

Then I would have no idea what happens to them physically.

I’d just see nightmares of metal and hear a Jackson Pollack painting for the first and hopefully last time.

Your portrait is forever painted on my heart
How can I ever pay you back this art?

And when you leave, the colors start to fade away
So, give me back those colors



and stay.