Why didn't anyone inform me that I would sharpen your knives with my tongue? That I would undress in your shadow. That I would cry on city transit and desire despair above all.

I sit here, in a quiet, quarter-lit room with broken coping mechanisms. Lost in the profound. Writing from the vanguard of violent dreams. I bled the furnace. I lifted the fog. I detailed the temple. Divide my provisions into a seven day schedule and act accordingly.

You are a body of water
May I drown in your rivers?
There is a rhythm to your movement
A fluency I cannot fathom

Inside of an hour
We hollowed out a bottle
With nervous haste
She;
A shade pinker in the face
******* on her teeth
Eyes as wide as Jupiter's moons
Orbiting the room
Singing of lost love
Longing to be found
Among the evidently lost
With no hesitation, I inhale
A sufficient lungful
Of ash and apprehension
And whisper with confident uncertainty
I think I love you

Fight fire with fire
’til the ashes tell the tale

The exit sign at the end of the florescent hall is no longer illuminated
And I am okay with that.

I'd construct you a Kingdom
out of the salt-bleached bones
of past lovers

Hollow out the marrow
the femur, fibula
Develop instruments out of them
flutes, string chimes, reskin the drums
for your arrival

I'd ***** walls so high
That they penetrate the clouds and wage war
on the skies
Submitting the sunlight
Trapping it at your feet

And each day at the gallows
memories of old will die
for you to sit comfortably

If you grow weary of the palisade
and develop a longing, an ache
the forest, and it's density
is just beyond the gates

For you to run and smell
the richness of freedom
without requiring its taste

But please, return to the comfort of my walls  

the protection of my arms
Before the walls collapse
before the Kingdom lays to ruin

I had a cranium full of
graves
that I didn't maintain very well
sometimes I'd water them with wine
and
imported beer,
sit back
and watch the weeds
grow
wild and out of control

Now I slice lemon and
drop it into my water
spoon honey into my tea,
and my ****** hair is a matchstick
past my chin
I no longer stow the flames
or conserve the coals
or bleed from my orifices  

I go to and from my overwhelmingly-underwhelming job
staring at the cracks
in the asphalt that cancer and
split
forming little rivers for the rain-
water
to flow and congregate at the curb

I know where to find you
drunk in the garden
having another existential crisis
conversing with the plastic pink flamingos
they think you're 'hollow'
and that your exterior is too polished
he sees his own reflection when he looks at you

Your youth was made up of  
cringe-worthy hair styles and room temperature beer
with the taste of **** and vinegar
and the prospect of milk and honey
alas, you're 24 now
perfecting the art of escapism
disenchanted, delusional  

You're just clearing your throat
to say nothing at all
ahem
and continuing to romanticize recycled lifestyles
in the name of authenticity

When you begin to wonder
wonder what it all means
that's when it'll get you down
you can't scratch the surface
of purpose

You stumble in the darkness
fumble for the nearest light switch
or anything
a table leg, a television stand
a tigers paw
anything to remind you
that something is there
flesh it out
dry as a bone or
drunk

Life was
and is
a series of letdowns
false starts, faulty brakes
expired milk, premature *******
flat tires, flat chests, flat soda
the world was flat
for awhile

As soon as you stop and think
about Sun, Moon, and Stars
that's when you realize
you're a matchhead
in forest fire
a drop of **** in the vastness of the ocean
nothing more, nothing less
nothing?

Maybe that's the point of it all
a dash of cosmic modesty
you never saw the ants complaining
or the flowers weep,
for very long

Just get out of bed
and put your t-shirt on
one leg at a time

this poem...
is aptly named
for I have nothing to say anymore
perhaps I never did

I just sigh and scratch my scalp a lot

I wake up
every morning
or afternoon

With a happiness of 1
on a scale
of 1 to 10

On most nights
if the dice are good to me
I reach an impressive 7

But as sure as Sunday
I fall asleep

Down the ladder
hitting every rung
on along the way

Naked, flaccid, wasted...
watching the Sunset
swallowed by a landfill

The machinery has since
fallen asleep
the insects have now
taken back the silence

My mind is bankrupt
I owe
more than I own

The hourglass is a sandbag
with a bayonet tear
leaking grains

My poems are parrots
on the shoulders
of greater influence



*This poem is about drinking in a trailer by a landfill.

I am made of Ruins
onion-cutting eyes, phantom limbs

I am made of odds and ends
hyena fur, elephant skin

I am made of bravery
swallowing knives, a kamikaze cause

If only I could mend all that I have torn apart
sew together every loose stitch or broken heart

but I am not made of miracles