From bed to couch,
with shoulders sharing a distant brush,
you light a cigarette between sharp teeth,
your back bent so the cherry illuminates my naked knee.

That small fire spark,
of blooming blushing color,
grants me more warmth,
than you are willing to donate and let me discover.

It's smoke fumes the voiceless room,
the ashes drift delicately to embrace the floor,
I watch with eyes of green and wobbling lips,
until you complete the parting ritual.

Once you're gone I sit for a while,
mulling and chewing on my gagging thoughts,
endlessly seeking an answer for just...
one dreading question.

Why does smoke and ashes,
always linger longer around me,
than your presence?

A swan cruised down Lough Atalia
as midnight struck this brisk November
a second followed in its wake.
Sparse weeknight traffic sews by,
Woven into the quiet breeze of a new Wednesday.

I listen to a few tunes as I cycled down The Line,
Pausing to note this moment
and gaze upon G-twn.

Sometimes I feel so stricken by choice,
Yet constrained by an apathy
I wasn't born with.

In the quiet I keep watch under all the stars.

As they cradled each other
Rue and Jules turned the world 'round their scars.

As one ages it can become difficult to see
that beauty in the world, I try
to remember to look for it,
To enjoy simple aesthesis when possible.

Listening to Ocean Eyes
and I feel older inside.

Realized how alone I am, wondered
whether I haven't been clean for too long.
I keep forgetting
I don't have a substance use disorder, I keep forgetting
I'm not currently a drug user.
I gave up that life, and
can't remember why.

Take enough benzodiazepine and you can time travel,
But only forward;
Was never really too bothered with benzos, 'cause I just
wanna go back

what has our intelligence done for us
other than soften our instinct
slow down our reflex
made us into habitual
connoisseurs of convenience
curators of insta-gratification  
creatures of know it all
without the need
to understand anything
the universe just
a night sky out of reach
just a spattering of stars dot the sky
all the cosmos overhead
and we are too consumed
by the blue screens that feed
the narcissism of our egos
to look up in awe and wonder
to question the arrogance
of our intelligence
to see how little we know
about the things we know
as we have killed the view of heaven
with the artificial light of our pollution
facts blurred with faith
and we ignore all the fiction
that causes so much friction
that we allow our children...
that we force our children...
to ****** other children
boys feeling like men
poisoned by patriotism and pride
in such a rush to die
for the words of freedom
never stopping to question
the definition of the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the redundancy
never stopping
the redundancy
the redundancy of war
as we will not question the intelligence
that infects us with
the sovereignty to be exalted
by our own cruelty
how else could we excuse
our history that keeps repeating
keeps its transcripts written
in the death and blood of the innocent
mislead by prejudice and hate
taught by fear and ignorance
all brought to us
by what we call intelligence

why were we given these hearts
this muscle beating below our ribs
what good is it
if only driven
by the intellect of our minds
our self indulgent intelligence
why have hearts at all
if we never stop to listen
listen to the message
of its beating
its pounding on our ribs
if we never stop to accept the wisdom
it sings in ever silent word
words that need no definition
need no ink or blood
written down in a declaration
of its reason to be living
it needs not our intelligence to survive
our intellect to live
it has its own wisdom
the wisdom of love
and in our grand intelligence
we are too blind to see
too deaf to hear
too unwilling to feel the truth
of how useless any intelligence is
without the wisdom of love

Part of me is gone, stolen
from my psyché. I lost my tribe

and with them, my raison d'etre.
I lost my anthem
when I settled for normalcy,
When I stopped believing I was special.
When I ceased questing for ventures curious, and

considered sated my cravings most fiendish.
I lost my anthem
when my writing diminished,
When my exercise withered,
When my drug use slipped
and my demons pleaded.
I lost my anthem

and it's left me
plenty of memories
I can no longer pronounce
without a tone of condescension.
Those misarticulated metaphysics have
timbres' as junkiesque.
That'll suffice for a sentence in G-twn. Heaven.

My heart feels too heavy
to carry through another day
which means
it is still alive
still beating
and yet
to be honest
I don’t want to hold my head up
I don’t want to stay above
the waters of a shallow grave

what in this world
will give me back
the will to live
when hate is so quick
to take a breath away
to stop a heart
inside a strangers chest

what thesaurus of fear
what dictionary of ignorance
what is it that defines
the vocabulary of the blood
inside the mind
that loathes the brother
he does not know

the senators keep praying
praying for another distraction
the congressmen keep thinking
thinking of no one but themselves

and we just mindlessly nod
and bob our heads
debating who is to blame
pointing fingers while ignoring
our own reflections

apathy keeps us choking
on our own silence
and why are the living so quite
how is it that the dead
with no air in their lungs
no movement in their hearts
can sing so much brighter
can speak so much louder
than so many of those
that are still alive

nothing good will come
from the living
who refuse to speak for the dead
and the dead must be sick of dying
and I wonder why the grieving
aren’t sick to death of grief

and in all honesty I find it hard
to live another day in a world
that can make my heart

feel so heavy

too heavy

to carry through another day

but its there in that weight
isn’t it
that heavy
that burden of hope
that we know we are still alive
that are lungs can still take
and give breath
that our hearts can still beat
still pound beneath our ribs

and there in our pulse
no matter the weight of our hearts
should we not always
find the will to be alive