I'm likely to breath in
diesel fumes on Sunday
than ever the soft efforts
of spoken word saints.
Burnt out eyes from blue lights
and empty coffee cups full
of muddy rings.

Melatonin bleeds out blending
a wasteland of words.
Off season is
oft spent without thought,
gone in subtle joy.
Heavy knee across inhale
in a flesh crush,
so much, so maybe
it is the best moment I've ever had,
or heeded, until tomorrow
is sought for with a fresh smile.
I do have morals regardless of god.
I peel off layers of time,
hot and reeling in exertion.
I'm putting together something and
it just might be me.
As it was the time before,
but each time- a little better,
at least in this moment.
You say live in the now,
as if I should live in fear
of a future gone sour.

I don't fear a loss of power,
of limbs sawn off,
psyche sent scrambling, insane.
We are all in the red rend,
whole and writhing
ripped from lapsing grip.
I rasp that, for now:
it is all mine.

I wanted to stay up to watch the meteors
Not for the sake of the stars
But for the chance to slough off a bit of loneliness
I’ve been restless
And sleepless
And it would have been nice
To have someone gazing back for a change

It would have been nice
If you had come to share the starlight with me
Not for the stars’ sake
But for mine

I wish I didn't know you
but it hurts too much when I don't
forever lost in this paradox
you keep slipping and making me watch
because I could never help you
you are too far gone

circling the same questions in my mind
not being able to answer just how we got here
thinking about you makes me sick
especially knowing how much time I have spent
waiting, understanding, giving you chances
it should have killed me

I may have lost all reasoning as to why I exist.

I am quiet in front of the ambient lights.
Confronted among these Ambien nights,
with alluvial life, a hot bed of technical idolatry-
It is hard in the valley of the sun
the people who over-extend
self, carry impotence and
a loaded gun-
The land of geriatrics filled with frolicking snowbirds
who cast out their alcoholic offspring
to grind under gears of the economic machine.
Modern man is genuflecting in the sanctimonious pantheon of self.

He says he can’t voice his thoughts
But wrote me a lullaby about landing planes
And the first time I heard it my feet were on his dash
And the windows were down.
He says he can’t voice his thoughts
So he steals mine and feels guilty
“I love you too’s” and “I miss you more’s”
“To the moon and back, baby.”
I know he can’t voice his thoughts
My stomach ties when his tongue does
High and dry, just try for me, darling,
Try to tell me everything I need to hear.
He can’t voice his thoughts,
But he always has a bow in his locker
and some nights
I have strings too.

While I drive left-handed
you scratch at the white clouds
drifting out on the growth
of my fingernails, and
rub salient fire down tendons
toward fingers of gnarled roots
and less a hand, than work incarnate-
in essence of character. In lines, in
worried skin and flattened bones:
the misshapen unity of labor in lengthened phalanges.
You speak to me about how getting older means:
you can always remember a better time than now and
about the city of angels who never sleep,
staring open eyed, hazy with intangible halos.
How is mans great struggle now with society and no longer himself?
As the sharp angles of the road drive our skin to tight contact,
I find myself in the air between your breath and sweat slickened palms.