Staring into the depths of a bottle
Trying to warm my bones
"You look lost," he said.
Smiling, I replied
"Not all who wander are lost."
His eyes were sad and grey
Long roads I longed to travel
And then his sad eyes spoke
"Maybe not, but you are."
He knew me.
Knew how I'd been spending my nights.
Seeking comfort in the open road
Finding home with each new person
In this beautiful broken world
With its beautifully broken people
The only people who can know runners
Are runners themselves.
He takes my hand and the roads stretch and melt
The hallways dim and all the doors close
My heart races
"Run with me."

"if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or ******,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was." - Charles Bukowski

There is nothing in the fridge
But diet coke.
No one who lives in this house
Drinks diet coke
We all hate anything diet
Especially diet coke.
My dads girlfriend likes diet coke
But she doesn't live here
So why the hell is there so much
Of that **** in my fridge
The diet coke.
The only explanation is-
She must be moving in
With her diet coke.
Maybe I should tell her
Before she does
That diet coke gives you cancer
And actually makes you gain weight
Maybe then there wouldn't be so much of that **** in my fridge
******* diet coke.

I miss the cold air penetrating my lungs,
Bringing me to life.
For once feeling cut off-
Independent
Completely free.
Its empowering
Entrancing
Intoxicating
Poisonous.
That feeling of freedom
"Just one last cigarette."
Repeated a thousand times
in dreams, on long highways,
at the corner buried in snow at midnight.
One last sin
Again
And again