Fearing his shiftiness made his mummy and  daddy weep you could see the fear there eyes. Knowing there son had pollution in his body. Which made him shout out in anger always wanting more money. Trying to creep in after dark all alone but they keep telling him this is not his home. Hidden away safely are their jewels and expensive things but nothing is to hard to find for this ****** king. Drowned out in a sorrow of sound with flashing blue lights lighting up a dreary grey sky. Now cuffed up on the floor covered in blood with needle marks, open wounds and sores. He still can't see he's  just a pawn in this drugs war. As the cell door shuts behind him. As he starts his sentence there's a secret regret and repentance on his face. Knowing he's going to have the runs like a cricket score feeling like he's been battered red raw. Even on morphine and codeine he still can't dream as he wakes up with the sweats to put on his oversized prison jeans. The only addicts that don't come back are the ones who always stay clean like the man called dean.

Holding the pads trying to remember
The sequences working with a southpaw
You have to think one way
Doing everything backward
Trying to think fast without explaining
Keep the drills going not wasting time
Focused on technique learn to slow down
Drill with form pause to take a beat
Reset then start over again
The pop from the gloves hitting the pad
Side steps to keep from being flat footed

A Starfish lying dead
on the beach
when touched by waves
begins to breathe.

BILLBOARD
Fraying
Paper heart cuts
A penny for my thoughts
The sinking feelings
In the back of my head
Swell
Has the quicksand won
Falling short
The hourglass has fallen
Fly on the wall
Shocked
Talking to god
Black butterfly sputters
Stuck in a cocoon
Trying to disguise
The hurting
Defuse the situation
At all cost
Mourning
When the sun
Won’t rise on your street
Advertisements cold and wretched
Far from fake news
From shore to shore
It continues to print tirelessly
Realistically
What exactly
Am I looking at
Head in my hands
All this blasphemy
Nazareth
Paint a prettier scenery
Produce much better results
Someone call a hearse
Inner circle
Who’s pulling the strings
Holy wars
I’m all ears
Dark ballads
Never missed
There mark
They mocked and prodded
Any chance they got
No vacancy sign
Guess it wasn’t bright enough to see
Clearly
Yet you all lived
In my head rent free
Like a bad neighborhood since birth
And I want what I’m owed
Plus back pay
A billboard that should be
Burned to scrap donated elsewhere
Idyll as I am
I’ll take a one way ticket to a new euphoria

Sometimes I feel so worthless,
lost in dreams that are fading,
And often its the best ones,
that leave me so miserable.

Like the one I had last night,
this beautiful girl I don't know,
engaged me by the arm
talking so rapidly warmingly.

She would bury her head,
when I cracked a decent joke,
into the side of one of my ribs
and would always walk with me.

It was a reminder of the one
I could never hope to have,
but hopefully it was a vision
for  her sweet-ness the next life.

I discover myself, tiny, bean-shaped on the tiled floor.
Raised to my knees the edge of the counter feels deadly.

Thank the gods, not this.

The mirror stares back at my shame with only wet redness.

I look at the offending object.
Well, that could have been worse.

I look to the ground.
Well, that could have been worse.

The effort required to hold back against the floor worries me.

I kept it cool. There is no mark.

I discover all of us.

We are as leaves floating in a puddle.
We rot.
We may become adhered to a shoe,
Or squished into the ground,
But we know we are rotting.

Numbers are something I used to adore,

They never changed—always the same.

I loved how they opened this door—

To a world with nothing being tame.

I liked being organised, in perfect rows,

Everything right, it had to be clear.

But now I know that it comes and goes,

And numbers can whisper what I fear.

They ARE everywhere—I used to smile,

Counting stars or tiles or days.

But now each digit feels like trial,

Measuring me in all these ways.

There are too many numbers in my mind,

Each thought a sum and each move a test.

Even my body is redefined,

By math that doesn’t let me rest.

I calculate all the words I say,

Their weight and worth, what they cost me.

I never thought I’d feel THIS way...

But numbers tell me who to be.