Ask me two years ago
Where would I be
I could never predict
It’d be close to the sea
I’d have never projected
The future in store
Would be one in which I
Didn’t have any more
Terse objections,
Complaints
Detestations to feint
That I actually care
Still concern myself with
Goings-on in the universe
Dare to commit
To a cause of nobility,
Selfless servility
Not solely self-indulge bliss
Instability
But, maybe its
Ignorance is unfounded
And by its abyss
I’m not always surrounded
Unbound and I’m often astounded
How free
It seems I really am
To choose my
Destiny

Finding my form again
Feel I fit in here
It’s clear
I might finally,
Even belong
Unbeknownst to new neighbors
Who don’t get me wrong
Are as friendly as anywhere
But unaware
Of what brought me this far
Across country and crisis
Identity all too indulgent
In vices
Distressed
By the lack of success
In life’s prices
And though cost of living
Outweighs the last state
An invaluable solace
I feel in this place

Shrooms in simplicity
Shared synchronicity
Spectrum sensations
Of sol serendipity
Closing my eyes
I see myriad skies
And the waves serenade me
With past me goodbyes
And by setting on shorelines
Beheld its disguise
Whilst immersed in a party
Of similar minds

Forget me
Just let me
Fade into oblivion
I know a million
Plus times
I’ve been living in
Such a concurrent
Divergent
Disgrace
Can’t escape
Inundated
By this dreaded state
It’s the kind
New beginnings
Can’t even suspend
Like a sickness of mind
I cannot comprehend
Only go on pretending
I staunchly still strive
To convince myself otherwise
Try to survive

Out of touch,
Out of tune,
Out of step with the times
Yet among a bit younger
Still often reminds
Me respect
Is upbringing
Integrity walks
And when court is in session
The leadership talks
Orchestrates the defense
Sets the pace of attack
And with sportsmanship
Runs any losses right back

Avoid designating
Refrain from disclaiming
Them all as unwanted
Inimical maiming
Of mental health
In the abstract
What is that?
Except failure to separate
Me from the act
Of what finds its way
Slithering
Into my head
As it coils and hisses
What I like to dread

After hundreds of these
Sordid entries
Into
Privacy,
Unreservedly
Sharing with you
You might think
I get tired
Exhausted all options
But even now clueless
I write it as often
As coffins compile,
Uplifting inspires,
Attraction beguiles,
Or nature makes fires
And only attempt
To divest it from her
When the last several
Still sit in silence
And were
Insufficient,
Haphazard,
Or not yet complete
There will always be more ways to say
Or repeat it

The one and only
Eye beholden
To a work of art’s
Emotion
Is induced,
Mass reproduced
This day in age
How disengaged
We have become
How inauthentic
Pixels dumb
Us down and numb us
To the sun
Last time I saw it through a lens
Of not on Instagram depends
To deem its gleam
Value aesthetic
More synthetic
Than cosmetic

Given away
I was so close to seeing you
Stuck in debating
Extraneous being true
Wasted all semblance
Of once we were there’d
And instead favored wavering
How much I cared
How I shared it was worse
More infrequent,
Distorted
Equivocated,
Obfuscated
Contorted
In all sorts of warped
Bending mind
Out of shapes
Anything but the form
Of the time that it takes
From us aging, decaying,
And drifting apart
From diminished roles playing
Their part in the heart

What you’re eating
Out of season
Like a beast
Devoid of reason
Isn’t needed,
Just desired
Just a craving
Soon expired
Fed the flesh of others’ labor
Global slavers
Have conspired
To consume, convince,
Condition
You to slobber for rewards
That good nutrition is
Consistent with
What gluttony affords

It’s in fearing I would lose you
So ironically
I did
Although presuming that I “had” you
Was a claim
We’d both forbid
And so refraining
From what makes you
Say you’re happy
And me not
The never certainty
Perversity
Poked holes into the plot  
And the conclusion
Was the usual
Disaster tragedy
But you remain
The most endearing,
Most enduring
Casualty

I can do more
I just choose not to
Watched it sink
Like Vanuatu
Never claimed
To frame perfection,
Can not blame me
For oppression
I just did
The best I could
A little evil
Greater good
Is how I justify
My silence,
Tolerate  
A little violence
Now and then,
Determine when
The free will leads you
To the end
So judge me,
Criticize,
Deny
Resent me,
Curse me,
Question why
Some wants and needs
Remain unmet
How loving
Is my epithet
If all I give and take
Is kept
Within the mortal me mindset
And swept away
Someday decay
Without a second thought’s
Delay

Young and aware
Of what’s going on here
And you don’t want me telling
The world
I see clear
Through conspiracy theory
To blatant infringements,
Hear populist speech
As elitist enrichment
We get
That this globalized
Laundering scheme
Still comes at the expense
Of a kid’s right to dream
And with dignity,
Eat, play and love
Their identity
Willfully
Deem what their destiny
Ought to be
Sovereignty
Owed an apology
Long overdue
From the old leadership
Still afraid of the new

Incorporeal
Spiritual
Entity
A million points of light
Single unit
Of reality
Reduced in half
To ad in-finite
Then I wonder
Who designed it?

Stats and factions,
Facts and fictions
Good intention’s
Contradictions
Lying dead
For promised land,
The losses gaining
Upper hand
Though seldom from it
Passes grasp
Of power into
Lower class
The apparatus acclimates
Itself
And then recalibrates
The plan
Then weatherman’s ad hoc
Projects its stocks
And locks the vox
Within a box,
An echo chamber,
Feedback loop
Of fueling anger
Just to get
One click away
From censoring
Each word you say
For pre-determined
Points for talking
Social credit score
Is stalking
Hawking eyes
Are everywhere,
Don’t blink,
Don’t think,
You wouldn’t dare

Pick a cause,
Any cause
Then traduce it
Down to flaws
Not justified
To drive its message
Sloganeering
Its progressive
True intention
Buried in
The factory wreckage
Manufactured
Discontent,
Last vestige of
The dissident

Talk about what?
At the end of such times
Like the world’s almost over
Awaiting to die
Always me
What I say
To the other’s dismay
Then alone, contemplate
What was left to convey
Put it all on the table
Unstable
And shaking
So scared I would hurt you
And lust in the taking
Of hearts again
Never mend
Once in the breaking
Of winters,
And razors,
To roses in bloom
Spilling deep in its dissonance
Lighten the mood
Wanted to
Be renewing you
There when you fell
When you laughed,
When you cried,
When you reveled in hell
I would dwell in your spelling
And check every line
For a rhyme out of place
In your orderly mind
With its elegant, urbane,
Eclectic design
Like an image instilled
In a frozen tomorrow,
A bundle of sticks
And elixirs of sorrow
A twist in the system,
A matrix glitch dude
And you knew that I was
Always in such a mood

Feels like there’s almost
No road left to go
But much further along it
She’s out there, I know
And though doubtful
Convinced
That persisting at this
Will eventually see me
Back there in her midst
Or at best
Wishing wistfully
Wilting will cease
And some semblance of blooming
Vitality peace
Will release me,
Return me
Into the empyrean
Fearing no more
Like a free at last Syrian

If only retention
Had no imperfection
If hindsight was really
A hundred percent
And if memory served
With unswerving fidelity
I’d interact with linguistic celerity
Articulate
With impeccable eloquence
Confidence in what I say
With intelligence
Read back a book
In verbatim synopsis
I got this
Before
Any public speech topics
And not just
To ego boost
Boast of my genius
I’d merely make strengths
Of my know nothing weakness

Don’t want it depleted
Be better deleted
Entirely
Finally free
Of my need to be miserly
Dollars and cents
No more nickel
And diming me
Anxiety
In numerical form
All the ways I can spend it
Within my brain storm  
I could give it away
Put a dent in my debt
Or regret yet another
Failed self-invest bet
And on that note
It makes me think
All that I am
Is an app
And some digits
Computer program
That I do not control
And at one moment could
All at once
Hypothetically
End livelihood

Not looking
To hit it big
Get rich quick scheme
Or to chase
Unattainable,
Puerile dreams
I’m not prospecting gold
Or a silicon monger
I just want my own
Little slice
Of less hunger
Plucked from paradise
An adventure or two
If it’s not too much trouble
Determine my place
And embrace what the struggle
Assuredly takes
Me off in the direction
That leads me to former lives
Formal defection

Excited
Expecting
To be on my way soon
Move into a place
With my friends,
A new commune
To seek opportunity
Knocks at the door
When I answer
Can greet it with
Change in decor
Anything that I want
To no longer feel home
Is consistently roaming
And go it alone

But what do I know
About love
I just felt
A sensation of chemicals,
Offered myself
Like a writer
Seeks constant
Revision of draft
Like an artist
Peaks new inspiration
Of craft
I committed,
Devoted
A faith to its leap
As I countered a culture
That from me would keep
This phenomenal,
Pheromone
Fatal attraction
Fixated upon
A romantic abstraction
No, it to me
Far less inscrutably
Came
At first sight
And in every day after
In pain

Might make
A big move in my life soon
It’s something I’d tell you
If you were still there
At the other end,
Other side
Of this cell box
Sending signals
Replied
In our ongoing talks
Or just text,
Put it best
When it was a contest  
To see who was more loyal
To finding themself
This should spell it out,
I clearly lost
The heartfelt
And only regained it
When it was too late
Now just stalemates result
In this chess game with fate
And sometimes I still think
It was all in my head
That you didn’t exist
I was already dead
Or however explains
What this other autonomy
More or less said
Both to me,
And of me,
From your world to mine
So much more going on
In two lives intertwined

Becoming the writer
I dreamt I could be
I just never imagined
It’d be poetry
Not some novelty
Story
Compelling me on
To renown and acclaim
And conclusions foregone
No delusions of fame
Just a roof for the rain
And enough sustenance
To existence maintain
And if it’s supplemented
In wages or pages
I pledge to persist
To rephrase it in phases
Develop my craft
Indigent
Or affluent
And offer the movement
Consistent improvement

But dependence on senses
Can leave you deceived
And bewildered
In questioning
What you believe
To be true,
To be real
Is a desert of formerly
Forms that could feel
Now subsumed
And bemused
By the master technician
Encoding,
Uploading
Inhuman condition
Omission of any impulse
Organism
Yet even illumined
In stark opposition
Its iron fist
Surgically seizes
Submission
Securing its future
Is equally metal
And in its advent
Have we played instrumental
Components collectively
Bound to its reign
The mainframe
A control center
Artifice brain
In a vat
Of pre-programmed
Demanded supply
Of what choice you have left
To conform
And comply

Contained in this limited
Me apparatus
Inhibited by
Wires of
Systematic
Meticulous matrices
Making these mazes
Can only be certain
I’ve occupied spaces
Within scope of sight
And affirming my form
Are these words that I write
Only glean
What is seen
Only know
What is shown
Or revealed
In a dream
But deprive me of sense
And I’m just a routine
An empirically
Learning,
Computing
Machine

Come closer to courting
Malevolent forces
For some form of
Temporal pleasure
Abortions
Discourses with fewer
Of flesh
By the day
So I turn from the faith
And to faker gods pray
But at least when they lie
I already expect it
And so when I die
At least that’s not regretted
As well
Had enough
Of lament in this lackluster life
To rebuff
Any pious hope pirates
Pretending they save
Anyone,
Any world
From an imminent grave

Lately I find
Being lost
Not so bad
When you have a few friends
With whom bonds ironclad
Can withstand
An onslaught
Of discordant ordeals
With a steely resolve
Then we share how it feels
To be searching still
Looking for love and discovery
Mired in grinding through days
Made of drudgery
Judge me
I dare you
Assume that you know us
And hate us,
Degrade us,
We’ll dance on your graves
And defile the racists
Contagious our sickness
Is wit with a vicious
Charisma ice cold
And the guillotine’s swiftness
Abysses don’t phase us
When muses have made us
Inspired and proud
To share gifts that they gave us
All flawed and imperfect
But kind and sincere
Genuine
To the bitter end’s
Nothing to fear

Can’t be described
But here goes my best try
It’s ineffable gods
It’s the blue in the sky
It’s the human conditioned
To think it at all
It’s the ocean’s enormity
Bask in the thrall
Of its forces of nature,
Its danger,
Its source
It’s emotion,
It’s motion,
It’s timeless of course
It’s the universe
Planting its seeds
As it breeds
As it breathes its life into
The bodies it feeds
It’s a memory’s
Melody,
Pleasure and pain
It’s microbial jungles
And cells in the brain
It’s the energy jolt’s
Inspirational spark
It’s the howling wolf moon’s
Looming gloom in the dark
It is solace’s
Salience,
Silence’s synthesis
Synapses syncing with
External stimulus
Susurrations
Of the wistfulness winds
It’s the smiling sunshine
On the earth as it spins
And continues presenting us
Plentiful gifts
So partake
And reciprocate
Its blissfulness

Throw away forever
In favor of eternal
Lay to rest
The mortal soul
In deathless pages
Of this journal
Join me now
In disembarking
From compassion’s hesitance
Your empathy is not a weakness
But a conduit to this
Commiseration
Correlation
Know you feel me
Just afraid
To ever deign
To stand before me
And confess you feel the same

Moonlight is blue tonight
Luminous glow
Peering out of my window
At go away snow
Melting at a pace
Glacial
Too slow for my liking
I want open spacial
And temperatures hiking
Returning with haste
My impatience insatiable
Time laid to waste
But the portents of thawing
Apparent today
Warming up the inherent
More pleasant landscape
To sanguinity cheer
For the advent of Spring
And its promise
Of weather
Much better
Will bring
And whether or not
Its fecundity blooms
For me too
Or just once again withers
In winters entombed

Someone please tell me
How do you get through?
Do you wake in the morning
And make it come true
The desires compelling you
Onward into
Weeks and months
Then the years
Setting goals,
Playing roles
You envision yourself
In this picturesque pose
Or position
Some service you’ve given
Some function fulfilled
So society’s aegis
Can leave you the bill
And instilling within you
That half empty cup
What to be
When you finally
Like me, grow up

You think you have talent,
Uniqueness,
A gift
An instinctive
Distinct
Perspicacious skill with
What so few have made living
An art form reform
When they couldn’t conform
To the unwritten norm
For you’re born in a system
Demanding you work
But in love with a world
That inspires this quirk
Yet requires you keep it
Concealed and repressed
And you can’t pay for food
By describing depressed
Maybe meet someone special,
Who tries to relate
But however wholeheartedly
Fails to equate
What this practiced,
Precocious,
Essential component
That constitutes genuine you
In the moment
Is saying,
Conveying
With their still delaying
To find the right words
To recite as you’re laying
In rest
For the rest of eternity
Was
Just absurdly,
Assuredly
Lacking because

It’s like he got back
From the war
In the Peace Corps
Can’t figure out
What is left
To be lived for
Reintegration
Was seamless enough
To be home,
A relief
But he hasn’t done much
Since returning,
Just learning
How little he can
Anymore of this alien world
Understand

Graduated with honors,
Made love like a beast
Earned my place among the muses,
Then championed peace  
The world over
Alone
Far from home
Have I roamed  
And then into my tombstone
I chiseled unknown
But no, never forgotten
A rose from the coffin
My unfinished business
To witness the autumn
From where I was raised
To emblazon its flare
Like the winter fox
Facing
The mighty black bear
Have I tread on undaunted,
By her ever haunted,
Heartbroken
I wrote to her
Lost and exhausted

But never lost sight
Quite completely
Of who
I am proud
Son of Judy
And friend of the few
Coolest dudes on this rock
And imbued with their brotherhood
Seek to unlock
What we’ve yet to learn
Searching
The infinite depths
Even if
All we find
Is an imminent death
We were here
We were real,
Redefined how we feel
Our ideals indomitable,
Adamant steel
And unyielding our strive
To be more than alive
So let this be my testament
Ever in time

Always just had to go
‘Way for a while
The miles I distanced myself
Now compiled
As this abyss lachrymose
Lonely lament
The escape artist
Nowhere to hide
His intent
Anymore
Not to hurt
Or to see us resent
One another
Can’t talk to you now
As a friend,
Nor a lover
Especially not
No, now that ship has sailed
As I passed it right by
Like the life that I failed

Do I still have to say it
It’s mass exploitation
An ******
Free of charge
Pain mitigation
Salvation for all
Gullible
To be told
Just forget
The real suffering world
And behold
The eternal one,
Die to believe
Lies we tell ourselves
Honestly
Offer reprieve
From atrocity’s cost
And the loss
We bereave
But deceive you no longer
The lordly class can
When you take up the hammer and sickle
In hand

Another rejection
I question now
Am I
Who I had assumed
I would be by now
Can I
Do anything right,
Just be given a chance
To afford the refinancing
Lack of romance
Or whatever this
I must have more
Life is for
If I knew
No demurring,
I’d gladly be poor
Even if
Still afraid
To my dying day stay
Relatively unchanged
It would say
On my grave

To talk about history
First you need war
Lot of thinking before
Was the better reform
But beware it is tyrants
And conflict engaging in
Waging warmongers
Encased in the brain again
Buying it,
Selling it,
Seeking its heat
Or its cold
Either way
Always ends in defeat

Don’t worry about me,
Move on
Don’t look back
You were meant for the future,
The past is my path
And I’ve strayed from it often
And even now deviate
Can not alleviate
How much it hurts
To inflict the affliction
Of memory’s curse
On the blur that was her
Still a chapter I cherish
Would rather fixate upon it
As I perish
Remember it perfectly
Not this perversity
Warped mutilation
Instill it within
My despair sequestration
And dwell with it
Lingering,
Haunting
My days
And by night
Write it as
This forgetfulness maze
But escape
Inconceivable
I still believe in you
Thus, the undying impression
You’ve made
Carves its way
Once again
To take shade in the fade

But you wouldn’t **** me
For I am you too
And I know how you think,
All the things that you do
You would seek first to reason
With me,
Make amends
But I am not interested in
Being friends
A reflection
A reckoning with
The self schism,
The guilt in the shadows
Of our dualism
Division
Illusion
Distinction
Discerned
In divergent
Confusion
Conditioned and learned
But the image is spitting
Identical soul
And you can not escape
I’m a part of your
Whole
Other world you keep hidden,
Pretend not to notice
Uncanny resemblance’s
Symbiosis

I can’t live without her
Whispered
In the dark
And perhaps if she heard it
From me
At the start
Then I could be now
Proving it through
Equal parts
Giving gifts
And presenting you with
All the ones that I missed
Immaterial testaments to
What we share
But I simplified it
To about you
I care
Very much,
Deep enough
To imply love is there
But not beyond doubt
That its absence
Could bare
Us together
Into the indefinite,
No more itinerant
One day a year
To be brand newly intimate

Everyone needs someone
Unless you still hunt
I suppose
That it’s possible
Highly unlikely
But there are those
Who still actively
Spite me
Though among friends
Am I journeying ends
And I want nothing more
Than to see her again
With the all of us gathered
So we can be one
You will hear
As I speak
To who’d carry my son
With impressive oration
For her
Adoration
The man she was waiting
To be above boy
To care once
At least for
Something more
Than destroy

So this is how dying feels
Rotting inside
In decay,
Decomposing
You’d think I’m alive,
That I’m perfectly fine
At first glance
Who could think
This goes on in my mind?
Like a bottle of ink

So out of focus
Forgetting what hope is
A million plus thoughts
In the time that I wrote this
Sporadic,
Erratic
Descent into madness
My scatterbrain drained,
Concentration
Don’t have it
The static is torment
A torturous angst
I just want to turn off
Like a ****** to tranqs
And mistakes I keep making
Just making it worse
Everyday is a funeral
Night is the hearse
And by life I mean
Some sort of
Synthezoid cyclical,
Robot repetitive,
Cynical ritual
Such a habitual,
Dismal despair
An implacable dread
Is the burden I bare

Incomplete piece
For another
Non-lover
That wouldn’t be her
Someone new to discover
I smother compassion,
Affection,
Connection
As soon as it feels
Like attachment
Is present
And end up resenting
Them for
Imperfection
Until it’s been years
Since caresses have tempered me,
Humbled me
Stumbling in darkness,
My future in jeopardy
Vain to have once
Been beholden and held
To and by
The whom with
All the me parts would meld
But I dwelled
In dispelling illusions
Too long
And replaced them
With heartache’s
More comforting song
So familiar to me
Until I finally
Came to see
That the clarity
Ever eluding me,
She

If death is just a timeless dream,
Then tomorrow
Make believe
Deceive yourself
Is guaranteed
Rest easy
You’ll see them again
Or maybe not
Beyond the end

The memories
Over-identified with
Become who we are now
A self-evident myth
That we tell ourselves
Better or worse
Still defines
Us as trauma,
Mistakes
Or a moment in time
A goodbye for now
Special someone
Is not I
Just a part of the story
And in it resides
Where it shall
Be remembered,
Preserved and referred
Back to when
You require
Your tale to be heard

Feel like each one of these
Spells it out perfectly,
But I was seldom so down with this,
Living it up
In my basement,
Encased in
The still giving up
We were barely embraced
And yet here I am
Wasted
So spaced in
The depths
And because you
Still searching
Their infinite breadth
For the rhyme
That brings genuine
Heat
To this house
Or the one to clutch closer
Despondent in doubt
I was cold,
Very distant,
A strange
Estranged lover
The same way I am
As a son
And a brother
Alone
You must know
But I want everyone
To be similar, no?