I don't want you to judge me anymore.



And you won't.

Someone tell me
That I'm doing it right.

Someone tell me
That I am the one person in this world that's figured it all out.

Someone tell me
I know our sky is black right now, and you're hungry, and cold, and nobody likes panhandlers with guitars anymore...but your heart couldn't be in a better place.

Someone tell me
Old man, you form the skeleton that holds in my moral organs, and I respect you for that.

I wonder how we would've gotten along if we were the same age.
I wonder how much can time actually change.
I wonder how long I'm gonna spend carrying out lives I hate just for some small ray of affection from any single person on a day when epiphanies change lives...
before I epiphanize
and suddenly it was all worth it.


I wonder when someone will tell me my name.


I'll be here.

The first time in my life, I start turning the lens back into the dreams. Point the telescope a full 180 away from the moon, so the moon can see a **** good closeup of the craters on my face.
I go to sleep
                                         asking for it.

My dearest demons, tear me apart. I am ready to die. I have done everything I could...

And here you come:
                                   traipsing down the stairway to heaven, stepping extra hard
on the creaky ones.

I think it reminds you of the way I used to whine for you.

To you. My dear. MY dear.
                                              Help me God, I whisper into your ear as you     sleep,
                                              Hoping you would wake up in my dreams and save me,
                                              How the hell could a person ever feel so ******* weak.

A bitter branch, that wanted to be a tree trunk. That tried to become enormous.
That only got cut down in the end.

That's how I feel. Not what I am.
Part of the poem, not of the slam.
Separate worlds inside one room.
Wanting to capture the flower in bloom.

Enormous tree, watered regularly by the gardening company hired by the     CEO
of the real-estate company.

The only company I really have in this lonely lake of scheduled sprinklers
are gardeners giving me much more than thanks.

They cut my branches. My unsightly twigs are mulched. I share my tears with them. They take a lunch break. We're going pretty steady.
Day in. Day out. Day in. Day out. Tick tock. Lub Lub. Goodnight. Help-

We came from dreams

Arrived in our beds

Having just been separated,
we formulated plots                that would return us to each other.

A switch from the subconscious sparked miles between us.

We talked through wires until it was no longer tolerable.

I went to find you, and found myself with you, the journey blurred.

There were others. They were all beautiful. But then darkness took our
                                                                      sight.

And everything was quiet.


I had never known beauty unseen, unheard.
                                                 but...you touched me

You felt me, like a cloud feels a mountain peak before taking the highest point away from the rest of the world's...sight.

Like a confused thing on a strange planet...but not frightened.
You touched me with want.
                                                       And I wanted you.
                                                                                            To know all of me.
                                             Including the bad parts.
And I wanted you to add to me, things I didn't even know yet...


The sad parts.

And a moment was a year to me. And I was wise for a second.


We left. your room. out into the night. the others around us, expressing such joyous jubilation.
And still I couldn't derive joy from their moods.
My capacity for happiness was overfull. All you.

Bring back the sight. Bring back our voices. Remember the touch.

Undying.

Our souls touched.
       The whole night long.
                Until we had to leave.
                        Because we were afraid of a supernova.
                               so we hurried back to our respective beds
                                         and that was the fastest I ever fell asleep
                                               and I know you did too. because I saw you there
In that room. In my room, in my head, in your bed, full of dreams.

Dos mil y seis. Yo fue yo...fue yo y tu. Me odio.

From the porch to my heart
As it skips and it starts
Building memories eternal
Even though you are so far
The stars in the sky
I’d rearrange if you desired
And I’d sell my scars and soul
If that was what it took to find her
But here she is before me
And she fills my eyes with radiance
Struck dumb by your beauty
Now just what do I say to this?
I say that I hope you forgive all my flaws
And simply accept us for what and who we are
The sole time we met
I think I know you well enough
To forgive the foreplay, the silliness, the pestilence
For now we’ll call the distance
A heartbreaking test of this

My life has been defined
And I don’t even know your last name
I just can’t wrap my mind
Around the way that you move
or the things that you say
Each day the distance between us is torture
I’ve known my destination
Since the first time that I heard your voice

I know that this must seem awfully forward
But I hope you can understand all the allure here
This town Is much too small for you to grow
And your heart is too big to remain here alone
From the first time we locked eyes
I knew you were different
Felt something inside
But it wasn’t resistance
It told me that I should approach with persistence
And not just confess these things
But insist them
So when we leave please hold these memories near
I hope I speak for us both
By saying “I won’t forget you my dear”

My life’s been defined
And I don’t even know your last name
I just can’t wrap my mind
Around the way that you move
Or the things that you say
Each day the distance between us is torture
I’ve known my destination
Since the first time that I heard your voice
I hope you move on to better things
When someday you find them
Just remember who you are

Fire Watcher.
Spark Guarder.
You smell of ash and the past.


Yea, burning your brother's shirt on the side of the street.
Stamping the spare sparks away with the soles of your feet.
Doesn't it hurt?
Sending souls beyond into the mist?
Turning the flesh into Flagships adrift?
Burning to be with the burnt.
Returning the souls to the earth.

Watching tiny flames ride skeletal monorails to work,
  wearing a brother's shirt,
    clutching father's overcoat...
      fan, release, stoke.
When we become tinder, Fire Watcher guides the cinders.
Tender eyes and mute mouth.
Ember skies and waking owls.
The wolf is allowed to howl again.

Spark Guarder waits for it all to go out.
Forgiveness in flame.

Solace.
Solvent globe.
Run away again.
A life, still small.

This was supposed to be a sort of ventriloquistic reverie, disguised as a mimetic purging of all shiiiiiiiiiit in the body and miiiiiiiiiiind.
Oh well.
Here's the story: A bug- not one of any high or low blood-
began his run among the trees
at dawn.
Stopped along the riverbed-
Sang a song of Sparrows Nests and Lions Manes-
Gave the chorus his very best and made attempts of quieting the refrain-
Fell short of a fourth verse and ended the third-
So as not to disturb the delicate force of terseness in the words-
with a cadence akin to the angel's wingspan
decadence falling like skin in the snow sand...
Feeling smaller than anyone he had ever felt...

He crushed glory into small packets and buried them in a time capsule
for generations to come.


17 Years Later
A still, small life.
During the swarm of cicadas,
I awake.
Opening halo to blurry globe of light.
A sound so silent it burns every inch,
Couldn't help but wake up.
Couldn't help you when you asked,
Now in hindsight...open haloes to a grasp on love.
Inside the oven life. Light's like a buried knife, deep inside a mound
of earth.

Turn around.
Go back in the ground.
Dig deep. Faces, yes my friends, asleep.
Tear them from the blackened soil.
Forests of fire, lakes of oil,
Unearthing everyone I know to be alive. ALIVE LIVE. NOT INSIDE.
Get out of the earth, it is not your time.
Grandfather face. Good, you remain. Your remains are welcome.
Dissolving in the globe.
Exhuming corpses full of life.
Dancing the dead dance in the silent night.
The music of nothingness guiding my way.
All the **** night and nothing to say.
Nowhere to run, nothing to find.
Back into sunlight with those of my kind.


"Please wake up."
"Please wake up again."
A small still life.
In the meeting place I see.
Double globes, expecting your face.
Constructing your mind, full of me.

What am I doing? I'm memorizing your eye twitches. Every time a tiny particle of dust, called a thought, lands in the ocean, a million muscles contract, calling the thing dust, and noticing me.

See it's all one thing. The dust, grass, air, video games, steak, Salmen, Salwomen, bears. Riding a bear, bare-back, and totally ****. Being inside a room, or a cave, craving tall glasses of milk, the cow urinates in the grass, and the steak melts in your mouth, and the globe dissolves your body, while my eyes open and close, taking away your halo, and giving you a pair of human eyes instead.

Every time I open my eyes. It's all one thing.
The meeting place where I see my friends.
The circle of life, the beginning and end.
The smallness of death and the land of the love.
The sense of your presence below and above.
The time that you held me, and I held you.
This is the world. The cradle and tomb.

It's a part of you, that's clear enough. All I wanted was to see the whole thing.

I talk to you to talk through a medium to myself. When you silently sit there, and soak up my words, all around me becomes a panorama of open ideas that can no longer hide.
Each Primary Motive in my center is displayed on a picture rack.
It’s sometimes the closest I can get to really meeting myself.
It’s a clean break.

I talk to you because you’ve always had this one motif to work with. It should really be mine. It’s about me. It’s for me. It’s my own well being as a provider of life, and the ongoing journey of a nomad’s soul.
Some say the nomads have no homes. That wandering is in their hearts and they shan’t ever settle for one place.     I say the nomad only has a harder home to reach.
Some of them never reach it. Perhaps because they only exist as far as we know now, in a physical world. There is more to home than where we buy a house.    

It’s a thing that is built, over stress and pain and love for the creation.                                  The stronger the will the stronger the walls, and NOT the facades this time, the walls that are constructed with the sole purpose of being able to welcome others through the gates of them.
Some build them from what seems like so much emptiness and nothingness that we should all deserve a religion of worship for the adverse feat of triumph. Perhaps we can believe, or hope,  that not everyone's destiny is achievable, on and of this earth.

Pretty soon I'll go back to a place full of holes and crazed dreams, then press on, not knowing what else to do.
But let's sit here as we are in this clearing of sorts. Every forest must have it's clearings to rest in.
without that rest, even a soul on fire could be lost amongst the foliage.   Let's sit here, and I'll talk...and you'll listen. Or seem to listen. Or I'll listen to you listening to me. That way, I can project it, and hear it myself. Instead of muddled through all the dreamed visages, and confusing chains of events.
All of the most and least convolution happens when I sleep through times I won't suffer. My ultimate escape is to equally give myself as much clarity as I take away, in each desperate step for the next ledge of meaning.

So I talk to you about my plans, to have a legacy, so that people will look up to me, and when all is said and done in the end I'll finally feel like my life was meant to be.
All the while this, picture panorama of forgotten imagery circles me, and you sit there in the middle...listening?
If you're listening, you're doing more than I ever could for myself.      I talk to you to talk through you to myself.  Because when you talk to people about what exists...you learn that nobody knows what they think exists and what doesn't.    And when I talk to you...you see me and I exist. And that is all. Your through-line pierces my heart, and soul, and has anchored it's rigging all over my body. It's slacked but whenever I get just a little too far out in the cold, and I've forgotten which way is up or down,

You can drag me back(under).
And give me another chance to drown.
Who knows, maybe some day, I'll realize that I'm not cut out for the swim team.  And that, I don't talk to you because you listen...I talk to you because you're there.


And you always will be.


Just like...

Ok...I'm pretty sure I just walked in on you *******...but then again, I'm not really sure what your kinda people would call it.      

Oh and now you're all over me like you were thinking of me the whole time. Uh-huh.
Wow.                     I'll give it to ya, you stay the course.                 Makes you pretty convincing.
What else do you have to think about though?

I suppose the internet battles over freedom of speech don't mean much to you.   You never did use it much...

I mean speech...somehow you're all over the internet but I've never heard you speak a **** full sentence in the time I've known you.


How the hell do you remain so connected?                Language: the great equalizer?    
                    Your scars run really deep...deeper than mine.   I still don't know which side you fight for.

I side with life, for all it's misgivings, misleading mysteries, and willingness to harbor these words through...existence.

I fight for the right that someone or something gave me to be formed from atoms and other smaller unknowable ingredients as part of a less knowable system.

I fight in the dark for the hope that one day the sun will actually rise and show us all what each other look like.
                               and show us we're not fighting on sides like we thought we were.  that we're the only ones left.
and, well...**** we better start making something of our existence that isn't...a fight.

I feel like you're ten steps ahead of me, which is all the time in the world when you've been seein' the light at the end of the tunnel just up ahead ever since you first opened your eyes, first set foot in the cave, first made the leap into a dark earth.          
                                                Ignorance is bravery here...but wisdom comes from outside...when we accidentally step out into the light for a second. And then we shuffle and shimmy past whatever bright new horrors we don't wanna see, slamming our eyes shut until we're back in the cave.




dark.




                                        That's a
                                                  short suffering
                                         For what we become.
                                                                                      Standing at the bottom of a murky lake
        in the comfortable                                                     telling ourselves
                                                                                       this is it
                                                                                       We'll die where we were born:

Good morning,    a stagnant air
  Warm like the blood in my brain from the night before
   Eyes crusted shut, to keep the air out
    Avoiding a lack of movement that embraces my room
     Deepening into dreamlike space
   The flicker of a cigarette glows open the shadows of hell
   Turning over and over inside me like a toddler in a
                                                                                 bathtub


    I *****. Most of it goes out my nose.

Good evening, I ------------can open my eyes now
                to block out the light.
                          The faint glow of a cigarette warms
                                 the frigid air.
        My skin stands up, reaches out to the fire
                       Clinging to the warmth of the blood
                               from my mouth.
  He is there standing over me, smoking and I
                     cannot see his face.
           He devours my genitals whole and I want to move
           He ***** out my ear bones and I want to protest.
           He strips the hair out of my skin and I want to struggle
                           I won't move. I cannot see his face.
                                                   I can still hear him coming

Good night. I open my mouth and **** in the cold warm
  air.          Drinking the moisture they left last night
                                                  into my lungs.
    It mixes with smoke as I **** in a drag.
Exhale the room into your vulnerable face.
            Your skin in the bathtub, warm and moist still.
               Your mouth and your eyes closed.
                                -----------------------------
                      never to taste me
                                never to see my shadow
                                        stagnant forever more.
                                     I *****, most of it into

So self conscious about your every move.
Ne'er knowing
Which twitch
Might be
The last.

As she swayed to the tide of music nobody heard
The ghostly rhythms of my own forgotten soul caught FIRE
Tap dancing tenaciously on the tightrope of the void
Calling forth cascading cataracts, callousing over the mind, a cacophony of Mallards, flying south for the winter,
NEVER AGAIN TO SEE THEIR MOTHERS.
She tied my brain into a rope and swung across the chasm
Laughing like a Mameluke who had just discovered his feet.
The camel was left behind at the gate
The Babble went on till the break of dawn
Till it stopped.
And collapsed.
And felt weak as a Sunday Noon Tide Carolers
Bunchcake, Fun and Dry, Severing again and again the Hair twine
Randal Slappy Blimp map candy man Cadillac attack
A BOTTLE OF WINE AND TWO LEFT FEET LATER
A scumaladdoodalla frigate-splayed poodle-cups
When finally she agreed to let me into her preschool
I had already given up the hope of ever having a career in the arts.
Bean friends. Are the only friends. That accompany you. To heaven.

Saw it happen.
Witnessed it. Did not experience.
Yet, left with a more interesting outlook.
An objectivity can rise above. Settle down. Rework, reword, reward, rewarm.
WHY DID I SEE THIS. WHY WAS I CHOSEN FOR THIS RESPONSIBILITY.
Screaming in the large end of the megaphone.
Screaming for the world to let you down.
Clutching at the door handle, hoping to emerge into a forest of rifles, a city-hive of pollen pushers, an oasis of blood.
Suddenly it makes sense...communication without contact.

Words on a page, worms on a plate.
Wards an’ a cage, words in a place.

This is our medium, through which I can love you, for better or worse, the medium that is.
The medium carries a meaning without judgement.
The judgement, if and when the word is received, is irrelevant.

The last dead deer rises, taking back his rightful place as the last living deer in a dying world.
The green world empties its poison, sheds its thorns, ***** out its parasite.

The glass is half empty.
Now its half full.

The glass is empty of meaning.
Now its full of ****.

My skin is raw and bleeding.
My love is as real as rifles.
They both hurt.
In different ways.

After the bombing

When you walk through the



rubble of the theatre




see the dancers
splayed corpses


still in costume

stained with blood


frozen forever                                                                   a
                                    in


graceful
                        pirouette

In my moments of release, my letting go of all
attachment to a definition and a romanticized idea
of having a home... In this eulogy of my
origin, I have never felt so complete. I have never
felt so much like a part of something. I have never
felt so close...to a place...to home. My entire
life exists as a fable in the woods. Those trees
that hold so many secrets own me too. I belong to them.
I am a part.
                      "Do not die yet."
                    Only after your whole heart has
                    healed can you prepare for death.
                    Do not give up your precious time
                    here without attempting
                    for this body to get better
                    in every way. For this body is
                    what we learn from and teach through.

You brought me back from
the brink and now I have to carry you
past it.

An inability to write                                                            ­in great
                                                           ­                                          grief

As he drew his hand away from her body, she drew from him a solid block of breath that would have withered and died on a typical day. Days these days for him just aren't like they used to be, typical isn't a notion that makes itself heard.
There's too much time not being spent to spend time working for an end to justify a feeling...they'll get it sooner, not later.

She broke everything. Every bone cracked, every sinew split, every ounce of blood spilled, until there was nothing but a soul. A hole. And another soul.
And if souls worked like clocks, with the physical concept of direction, their eyes stared straight into each other, but not through. A soul is not something that can be traversed through, it is the end, the all. And when the two souls stared, end met end and made...
A whole.

The cold. Moonlight. The sound of the rain in trees. The silence of snow and space. The smell of large quantities of *** breathed into my face. All things that I can somehow feel anywhere. Eyes. Always the eyes. I see them in the dark, as they glance around searching for something...what. Then they connect, to mine. And quickly sever, like they'd seen God. Or something too beautiful to mar with an impure comprehension such as sight. They always draw back to the irresistible eyes, and away again.
But then they fix. And they dare to not move for a minute. As if they are locked in some sort of challenge, the purpose becomes to win.
                             Now it is too late
                                                        The purpose has become undefined.
                                                                ­       And nothing has felt this way before.
                                      And nothing you can do can tear you away.
                    And the only things left are fear and beauty.
                                              

And then all fear dies. And does not come back.


Maybe that's what changed about me. It's felt weird not being scared.
It wants to come back, but it can't. I can't make it. No matter how comfortable I remember it being.
Now all I have is time...but beauty, if minutes and seconds are what your life is made up of...then we don't have much life but a lot to live for.
Because I didn't feel alive before.  
The ice in my chest is gone...if I can I'll breathe steam into you.           so...
Lovely, don't waste time.

Or it will **** you.

Awoke to the sound of gunfire
Chewed teeth pacifying the burning rage against the disease
Mother's Milk a distant dream
And the sweet salt of your super nature
Caressing the cavities in my head
Swallowing the holes in my soul
as metal shards make more young soldiers whole
completing an illusion of control.

How long can you hold onto a necessary reverie?
As long as you need assuming you both agreed to dream tonight,
To face to face the side by side
To never ever lie
To reprobate the profligate
And accept the overwhelm
All allowing of the atmosphere
Loving every moment hard and soft
And every crevasse in the journey between.
Revive the sight of yourself within the mind of one who reveres
the eyes with which they have been blessed to look upon
a ****** deity,
and to worship fading gold and cracked plaster,
knowing it was born to age and die.

Gone.
I think...
Used to be right here.
I swear...
Let me check in the back,
Like lungs on shredded feet.
The rocking chair,
Nervous air still swings
...temporarily discarded, that's all.
On the couch cushion,
Here's his book of adventures
The laughter is unmistakable.
Yes I remember the sounds,
Have I seen?
Can I get you anything?
Of course I'm happy to help.
DON'T SIT THERE, that's an antique-
Enjoy the still air, untouched-
No, it's no worry, come on in
The one holding his kitten tight.
Who wanted to save the princess?
Where is the boy in this photograph?

I hear a series of loud buses taking people across a bridge.
Taking people home.
Taking people to work.

People I don't know.
People I won't ever know.

Shrugging off the tired.

Riding the bus again.


Until the Ghostman screams.

He screams a ****** hellish sound.
And all the buses suddenly break down.
And all the people quickly file off.
And huddle together in fear.
Touching each other for the first time.
Holding each other like newborns.
Forgetting the past, and the future.

People I will never touch.

They calm down and start to talk.
What was that? Who are you?
What am I? Where are we?

Questions I will always ask.

They get back on the buses and go about their days.

They get off at their stops and part ways.

But the Ghostman knows...

He knows they will never forget...

Those people they were with...

When he sang his same old song.


A song I will always be singing:

I am the Ghostman can't you see?
Floating around so (s)carelessly
Get off your buses and settle on down
Everybody's coming from a different part of town
And everybody's going to end up the same way
A ghost like me with nothing else to say,
But "GET OFF YOUR ******* CELL PHONES, LOOK YOUR NEIGHBOR IN THE EYE AND SAY I LOVE YOU, YOU DISSOCIATIVE LITTLE *****."

The End

Dear Death,

Stop calling me.
I gave you multiple chances, and there's a time when we must realize that something is unhealthy for us, so that we can cut it out of our lives.
I am sorry.
Maybe under the right circumstances I could have loved you forever.
But those circumstances are not ours.
Rotten luck.

Have a nice lif- err, have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Your (Former) Love Interest




Sincerely...you have nothing left to say, don't say anything else don't say that there's nothing left to say even, don't even think about the creeping corners of memory storage in which there might be a few grains of substance at the bottom of a seemingly empty box. There is nothing left to say. And you know it. So don't.

Nothing never nover nether 'mother netting noting nothing.

******* lamps. Not a great hobby.


Shadow shanty.

Singing a song of the Sea.
Wringing the throngs of the clergy.
Stinging the Dongs of the ******
Clinging to poems of the clergymen.

Shadow shanty.

I tried to take a look in the direction of the sun. And what I got was a whole face full of God's good redemption. So I clambered on until I found the dirt, and I dug straight down into the earth until I hit rock. And I smashed my head on that rock until I could hear again. And I listened my way out of the hole that I dug when I decided to hold on for one more second when I didn't really feel like holding on. When I waited around to be changed instead of changing. And when I was holding on for just one more second because I felt if I didn't hold on I would just hang up. And my whole theme song is just elevator music, we're going up and up and up and the air pressure's decreasing the ringing in my ears can't wait for it to just POP and clear and let me out of here, cuz the hole that I dug was a million stories deep, and I've not even told a fraction of them yet.
Which is why I remain.

In the light, nothing can be wrong or right.
In the light, I can makeup for deafness with sight.
In the long light of the day I can withhold many words.
In the longest nights, I can free myself. Finally.

Shade Chant

It's comfortable here. Let me never leave.
It's comfortable here. Let me never leave.
It's mighty nice here. OH please, oh please.
Please never let me be free.

It's time to dig my final grave.
It's time to dig the final grave.
It's time to dig that final grave.
That final grave into the sky.

My soul I send, into the waves.
My soul I send, into the waves.
My soul I send, all into the waves.
Goodbye soul I don't need ya no more.

Shade Chant. A ***** spiritual. From the black, black heart. Of a white supremacist.




This week I will bury you.
I will never see you again.
You will never help me through.
Never push me past fear.
Never guide me to love myself again.
Never remind me of the innocence I never lost.
I will bury you this week.
And it won't be me.
I'll watch it happen from above in the trees.
As I bury my sense of self alongside.
I will bury you.
Since you dug me out of the grave.

"Get this **** cancer out of me." you want to scream.
      And I want to do it for you.
"This isn't part of me. I don't hurt inside like you do,"
          you laugh: in the face of death, to hide
                       the fact that you're only hanging on for me.
    And I feel like saying the same to you but...
I laugh along and...
                             we don't speak about it.
                                              Because we're men.
                                                            ­and men don't fear death.
                                                          ­                       we laugh in its face.

                        But also because
                                if we speak these things, they might
                                                           ­            become true.
             and so then,       what are we laughing at
                                                        but the truth.

Entitle.
Breathing in this second.
Been a long time, still no exit.
Still this air, this place, no effort.
Someday when you are are free.
You will no longer have need to breathe
Someday when you are free .
you will become your anxiety.
Someday when you are free.
Transitive motion becomes liberty.
Someday, when you are free .
Signs will be leading you back to the sea.

See you again.
See you my friend.
Milling the fen.
Willing the zen.
Breathing the pen.
Ten thousand offerings.
Never enough.
Sever my soul from like apple on tree.
Fall to the ground.
See the fools drown.
Drown in the tears of the poor of the town.
Loved till too late.
See you in the ground.
When you come around.
Your side or mine?
Sides or time?
You're on my mind.

High point of my year: you. Congratulations! Also knowing you is one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through. I'm not mad about that...thank you. The only reason I've ever said anything mean to you is to keep from killing myself. I feel like that may have been confusing for you...but I also feel like you kinda knew all along that I still loved you and that any mean words were empty. Let this be clarity: I will never stop loving you. I really do hope you're happy right now, and you know what I mean by that. Happier than someone in good company, happier than a kid with a new toy, happy with yourself. And if I can ever really help with that...I will.
Happy New Year, make it a beautiful year.

I love you __.




p.s.
The wedding is still on.

I am the mountain man.
I am the shifting sands.
I am the laughter through gritted teeth,
I am the squint of concentration,
I am the missing piece and the stone that won't roll.
I am the Zeit Ghost.
I am the Underwerewolf.
I am the Pseudonami.
I am not what you say I am, until I say: "I Am."
I am the Red Sun Samurai.
I am the Locomotive Provocateur.
I am the bones of kings and slaves.
I am the breath of the wind in the trees.
I am the Electrocuted Interlocutor.
I am the whip of the matador.
I am sunken cities in the swamp.

I am Firestarter.
         Spark Guarder.
I am the assembly line whereby the machine reproduces.
I am capitulated capitalism.
I am the captain of the sky ship to
                                                        Ghost Country.

I am a natural amphetamine
         a synthetic homeopathic
         a cure for the sad
            curation for the lost
            death for the solid and unchanging.

I am the mask of roots.
I am a treehouse full of books.
I am the sword in the daytime.
I am the Day Waker, the Cloud Shaker
the Continent Unmaker, the Deep Laker
the childhood of broken dreams and unbreakable boulders.

Half-slumbering in your living room.
One eye on your joy, the other searching
for answers to the unanswerable question of:

where did it go?

Fully alive, pacing the gravestones
kisses to flowers in the new moon
and a pocketful of reality checks.

Helping you let go of everything
                                        Holding you back.

Hoping you'll hold onto me.

He stood on the corner and cried.
Not for his mother.
Not for his brother.
Not for his lover.

He cried for the old world.
A Memory never coming back.
Cried and Cried.
What a *****.
Memory.
My first love.
Was a *****.

He stood at the corner and cried.
Cried and Cried.
Until he died.
A little death.
Mouth agape.
Exhaust. Intake.
Painting his pate with lovers and lakes,
He trembled and raked his mind for a day,
He jumped up and down but could not shake
The way he felt about his own best friend.

The further he was the tighter the tension
It didn't make sense, how could a stupid boy choke him up.
Invisible chains tied to invisible cuffs on his wrists,
but he knew he was free. He didn't want to break, see
He chose the chain to remind his brain, that he could make me
live again.

I was his best friend.

Still am until the end.

Whatever that means.
See,
he sees outside of time.
He knows how he will die.
Collapsing with a sigh,
He sees me by his side,
Attached with arm and knife,
He finally rests his eyes,
on co dependent life.

Wholeness.
Whole-grain fullness.
Plump gun powder keg.
Ready to ignite.
Stillness.
Still felt helpless.
Ignition counteractive.
Writhing in the light.
Wilful.
Triumphant.
The better part of something.
The whole respect of nothing.
Bring sleeplessness a cure.
Rend ugly new allure.
Inspect the intro.
Respect the retro.
inflate the softened stone
a breath will bring you home

To feel this love.   to feel this love.   to feel this
           love.    to feel  this love.    to feel this love. to
       feel this love. to feel this love. to feel this
       love. to feel this love. to feel this love. to feel
       this love. to feel this love.  to feel   this
      love. to feel this love    to feel  this   love.
To feel this love. To feel this love. To
    feel this love. To feel this love.   To feel
       this  love. To feel this   love. To   feel this
           love.
                       to feel this love.   to feel this
        love.  to feel this love.    to feel this love.
to feel   this love   to feel  this love . to feel
    this love. to feel this love. to feel this love. to feel this love.
  tofeelthislove. tofeelthislove.  tofeelthislove.  tofeelthislove .
  ttttttoooooo ffffffeeeeeeeeeeeelllllltttttthhhhhhiiiiii
                      ­   ssssss lllllloooooovvvvvveeeeee .
        .                . . . . .
To feel this   love.
              As if you've never felt it before.

                      or

       As if you've entirely forgotten what it
                                                      felt like.

Pose for me. so that I can write a poem about you.
So that I can be inspired.
       So regal, so gaunt, you're going to be a star
            soon.
       With your death comes your decomposition comes
        your rebirth comes your relive comes your
redeath...comes the death of the Earth. Comes the sun, comes the stars,
-and every time I check back in, you avert your gaze, stoicism,
  god forbid I realize you're interested in anything outside your
own chaos theory about destroying the constitution of
   men by raising them right.
                               But you saw me write that in my mind
                     and now you've switched demeanors to
        the disapproving yet ultimately caring parental.

           It's funny that I rescued a parent
                        in you. (Tried to.)
                 While doing my best to provide (the best of dreams) for both of
                 us, I somehow hit a bump in the road
                 that beat me into awareness.
  Now that I'm awake, I can tell you, you're
            just like me: terrified, alone in your body,
            wrought with worry about the possibility of
             your mind never reaching mine.

Neither of us were well enough prepared for this
   to end so soon.
                   Trust me to share in your discomfort in
                   dying with no true heir.
                  But trust me also that I have become as
                   much you as any progeny could ever be.
                 And know that I do NOT trust you
                 to definitely leave me this time...you've
                  Cheated before.
Made me feel like we really were angels, if only for each
other.    You've crossed me for the last time though.
    Like a bridge, I collapse, and I rise.
               Like a breath I am labored, I fall for you,
                          to mark safe passage.  But I DO NOT WILL
NOT CAN NOT Burn away. You will always pass by way of my support.
You're small again. Like when we were young.
                               I feel like I could hold you in one hand.
  Sometimes it takes a lot to make us realize the magnitude
  of the things we are experiencing. It takes stakes
  for us to see that this is one moment we are sharing
  forever and never again. It takes pains to force us to
put these experiences down in writing, and it takes guts
to know. to know.  to Know.  that this love is worth
   having every ******* second that we breathe.
                           It takes a lot of guts, to know, when you won't be coming







Back.

                                      to a place you call Home.

Because that feeling you were holding onto
                                           went down deep in Earth.
    And up into space.
                             But somehow it's still in you
   when you sleep and dream and wake and eat and breathe and
           live                                and                     die
   and [Move]

                                                         ­                and (swim.)

     Where you belong                        is not a constant.
     Where I belong                              is not fixed down.
     Especially when
                                                what you are, my love
                                                            ­  changes     forms so
                                                              ­               frequently.

                                                    ­                 And you're moving along so fast.
                                                           ­          I couldn't hope to stop you now...

wordless.    You  are.

I know you're trying really hard
   to be ok with this.

                            It's fine. You don't
                             have to keep up
                               appearances any longer.

                            I know death is more
                             painful than you thought
                                      it would be.

We all make misjudgements.

        If you were perfect,
             would I have ever
            learned anything from
                                            you?

Fight to the bitter end if
      that's what your instincts are
         telling you. You were always more
       in touch with instincts than I
                                                        was.


    Still searching, but for
          what?
      What secret were you put here
           to reveal that you haven't yet?

      Too large an agenda for such a
             small body.  Some of the
            universe's mysteries will
           stay lost to you as long
                as you remain here on
                           planet Earth.



   This time around    you drink like
        there was no water left on Earth.
                    
                     I guess we both learned
                     to fight against our
                     own self-destruction around
                     the same time.

"Clean yourself up, we gotta go soon,"

I just had something to write. I knew you were asleep and I went to get my pen. And I came back to watch you breathe, very creepy and I know it. And I started to get lost in the rhythm of your labor. And I set down the pen. And I sat at the keyboard. And I sat at the Piano, and I set at the keyboard. And I closed my eyes. And I typed up a poem in only 7 notes. It was a chord I had never heard voiced before. And it was beautiful. And I had no idea what to call it. And I tried to play it again. But I couldn't.
                                                     So I let it go.

Earlier today I saw your face through the window. It was a very sad face. And I wanted to go touch it, and force it into smiling. And I walked to you. And I put my hand on your shoulder. And somewhere along the line from my will to yours, I recognized we both wanted that face to smile. But neither of us could force it.
                                                        So we let it go.

Tomorrow I am going to wake up. Hopefully I will see you. I will make another trip to the hospital. And I will come back home. And I will pack my things. And I will leave on a plane to someplace you can't even imagine. And you will watch me go. And I will wave goodbye...again. And you will ask me why...again. And I will still not have an answer. Some twisted root metaphor about tearing' 'em up, and sewin' the seeds, and pastures and the importance of planters will spill from my lips. And you will listen to every word. And you will hold each syllable in your heart. And you will weigh the meaning of each distorted poeticism. And you will stare into my eyes. And I will feel it. The aching pain from when I was born. The longing for you. And I will turn and run as fast as I can. Away.
And you will see that I just cannot understand your love. And you will feel the same aching. And you will have compassion for my suffering.
                                                      ­So you will let me go.

And you will turn.
Return to your home.
Go back to your bed.
Lie down.
And die.


Unsatisfied.


and I'm sorry...

You    

                                  are
   a

                dying


          angel


                       .

hmmm

Here's a light.

No I don't smoke.

See that house?

No I don't home.

We're going in.

I don't know.

Come on all your friends are in there.

I don't care.

See the big one? He's loving on your girl.

Not my girl.

We'll jump the gate, nobody will know.

Not my girl.

Everyone will be excited to see you.

Not my girl.

Well what do you care!

Not invited.

So ******* polite all the time.

Not polite.

Ok stay here.

No I want in.

Ok well let's go.

Wait.

WHAT?!

How do you know?

What?

That he loves her?

I can see him through the window, getting touchy feely.

But she doesn't love him.

She looks like she's enjoying herself.

It tears him up inside.

He probably wants to do that to her.

He wishes he were me.

Why?

Because it doesn't tear me up inside.

That she doesn't love you?

...


Don't know.

Well?

Don't care.

It doesn't hurt you even a little?

Doesn't belong.

What, you?

No, her.

Doesn't belong where?

To me.

And you don't care?

I don't possess.

And he wants to possess.

And he suffers.

I see.

Yes.

So?

Yes.

Let's go in there.

No.

Why not?!

I can't stand to see it.

See she does get to you!

No.

Well what then?

Him.

Him?

Yes.

What about him?

He suffers.

Yeah? And?

I can't stand to see it.

...

Oh.

Yes.

Well.

Yes.

Ok...well I'm going in.

I'll be here.

I could be                                                                       inside your bones



                             or outside Earth's atmosphere



either way




the image                                                                        of your back turned




will                                               always.



be    etched      on           the           under                 mind



the sideless coins placed on my eyelids after i died

and in that dream of death


your face is always turning



but i never quite see your eyes




                                           .before
                                                .waking.
                                                      up.




What is love anymore? IS this what you wanted me to see? Nothing but
              this?

Constantly seeking out a smaller and smaller space to fit into.
                                  Pretty soon you'll cram yourself so small.
                                                       You will vanish.
From sight.


A speck of gold in the corner. A fleck of green in the dark.
A flicker of warmth in the winter when the fire won't start.

We've grown so incredibly old together.
I, taller, stronger. You, more emaciated...wiser.
Here's to separation of spaces.
Here's to someday being united.
Here's to...

            


                                                  Love.

I felt trapped in an endless single moment of time.
Nothing was real except the deafening silence of the dynamic between my mother and father and the lie of a white picket fence we had been gritting and grinning our teeth to trick the world into building for us.
Every thing slipped slowly backward, as in a dream of falling down hill, not quite real enough to feel the fall, but not grounded enough to move away.
If it were not for daily walks in the nearby almond orchard, I would Not have known that the grass still grew in the spring. I forgot that the spiders still built webs that were taken down each new rain. I forgot that the bees were kept, and that people were fighting addiction in order to make it home to see their nephews.
I found freedom in the silence at some point. A sandbox world for me to wander in, no real consequences to my actions. It was a loneliness like the womb. Eventually I tried to escape. Many escape attempts. How many miles put between me and that room? How many cars busted down on the side of the road, running away from home. I discovered new worlds I never knew could exist. I watched the leaves turn in different biomes. I made love to other lonely people, unhappy and afraid of the world and their place in it,
not when we were together though.
together we were infinite, real, in awe of the fact that we could be so
unmasked.
naked and unafraid.

I watched the masks of my parents relationship deteriorate with
the advent of disease and age.
I watched the pain and patterns of abandoning I had felt my whole life play out in their pantomime before me, day after wretched day.

I stared at a wall.
I slept with my guitar.
I slept with more lonely people with perfect hearts.
I invested in the means to transmute all these...feelings...into art, audiovisual storytelling, and physical creativity.
And once I had built a temple to my pain,
I boarded the doors and windows. I never went inside.
I just sat on the stoop, obsessively trying to work out all of the world's problems- my problems as an inextricable part of the world- by thinking.
If I could just strategize a way to never get hurt,
Then I wouldn't need to deal with the inconvenience of pain.
If I could concoct a cocktail of constant cope,
I could cruise forever without feeling the ocean
of space
between us
all.

If it were not for the orchard, I would have forgotten that frost formed on the ground. Even with the endlessly straight rows of trees, the square grid of houses, and the box-like hospital next door...a tiny twig out of place or a clover, remembered me that there is wild growth, that I am wild growth, unfettered and untethered by the paltry attempts at geoscaping.

Inland, I remember how vast the ocean is.



how vast




the space







between






us











all









and







­
still









still













still











Inland, I yearn for the ocean.
Remembering that I have always felt most free in the water.

Nice to see you.



Really.


It is.
Good.

To see you.

To hear you rustle the ground.


               smell what you were eating for lunch



taste your sorrows

the salt
tastes like cat food to me.


I'm not mad
I'm just glad to see you safe.
Sad to see you go, of course, of course.
I hope that doesn't seem coarse, of course
everything sad runs its course, of corse  

but no

Don't fall in love with a farmer.
You'll never surpass her horse.

Never enamor a catgirl.
You'll only eat tuna or worse.
..
no further questions.



Mad at this world of hard-backed chairs,
claw-footed,
  unbending,

Impending toe stubs every time that I get up.
Bruises where love left me rained on to rust.
Beautiful blue maroon yellow half moons
on my rib cage
Many noons overhead have burned tunes in my head that I sung and I bled to commune with the dead at the tombstone I'm led to the old riverbed
still to this day

there's a hole in the ground where you bury a body and
             a home in the sound of you carrying all my
                                                                ­            unease.

Please
don't
get
up.

I am swiss cheese.
Pain floats through me
and onto the breeze.


I will sit and eat this plain tuna bowl
because I need to complete a macronutrient profile
I looked up on the internet
how to make this temple
   a place where people will come to pray
  and play
and stay for longer than
a fortnite


Tastes like freedom.
Tastes like kibbles.


There's a pretty lass next door
who tastes like tears

And the sound of a breeze blowing through a hole in my wall.


Without hole,
how finish bowl?

Frame hole.
New role.

A door, for the strays
A fine feast of fish.
Dinner is dished.

Dinner for kin.
Home again.

how will my family know when to come in

Dark Part of the world
Hold on
I am looking through shredded bed sheets at a sliver of open sky
                                       like it's the only exit left
                                from the cave we entered in

I am healing in this hole because I do not want to die
I am heading back to heaven but it hasn't been my time
Yet.

Open-ended ending open sky open mind not my time.
I drench my arms in gasoline and give myself a warm hug.
Hold yourself, and the child within.
I deserve I deserve I deserve this burn.
I slowly unthread the *****,
                                      showing red, showing white, showing blue.
I slip off the mittens protecting my hands,
                                       showing blood, showing bone, showing bruise.
Get a hold of yourself, you're not a child.
Grown, Growing, Gone.
I gently unstitch the seams,
                                       showing red, showing yellow, showing green.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
I try again.
Cut off
         The dress
                        You once
                                 Were buried
                                                      In

                                                                       Relax, Regress, Routine.

Bury the scent
              In comfortable, callous, code.
                                        Secret Secret Never Gonna Find
                                        Down in a hole in a hole in the mind
Code the key
Pretend you're okay
SeverSeverSeverSeverServerError------

Remember
That time
You opened your mouth
And breathed
The very first time

That was it.
The opening.
The exit.
The ending.
The craving.
The air.
The sky.
The dark
        space
        holding
        hugging
        cold      and        alone
                                    but not lonely.

holding everything that came before
and a sliver of lips
open to sunlight
words
hearts
sickness
medicine
fear
friendship
forgivene­ss
and all that will come
when it will.

it will.

a sound that carries
farther than where our ears can hear
beyond title
beyond nation
beyond fear
and
carries reminders
of the end of all we hold dear.

hurt
to hear
hurt
to say
because we cannot stay.

We stand on a foundation of pain
And smile
because we know
we share the fall

so
    we look each other in the eye
  and
       without uttering a word
it is understood

There's a hole in my stomach(heart)
Dear Eliza
Dear Eliza
There's a hole in my stomach(heart)
Where I never got enough love.

There's a storm in my city(psyche)
Dear Eliza
Dear Eliza
There's a storm in my city(psyche)
and the streets(thoughts) tend to flood.

Can you weather this weather?
Dear Eliza
Dear Eliza
Can you weather this weather
If your head stays above?


How long can you tread water?
I know you swim better than I.
Point of pride.
Pride of endurance.
Enduring exhaustion.
Exhausted and lost and
honestly just
broke
at the wishing well
dreaming of the deluge
the healing water that will wash away the wounds
and make us whole again.
if only I had a penny...

You said to me
I can weather your storm
but not if it drowns me

or maybe
I can weather your storm
but not if it drowns out mine.

I don't remember exactly the phrasing.
Maybe because the water was already drowning you out.

You don't have to shout.

No matter how loud my insides are screaming
I will always open ears like basins
larger than mouths like calderas
to find a way back to listening.
I will open heart like valleys
bigger than hurt like dams
To hold for you a space that's safe for swimming.

heart(stomach)
stays open
because
the hole  
is too big
to close

when you pass through the other side
every time
a new piece of you stays
for a while
my new favorite chapter
in endless
series

You don't have to shout
but
you may scream as loud as you need,
and
I will hear every furious decibel
and
understand it as music.

Fish
in a pond

in a room in the sky

pond is beginning to dry.


Squirrel in a
Tree
in a park

in a town that is old

after dark
the city is cold.


pond .
**** .
little
lights
in
her eyes
teach me to hum

darkest nights
coldest lungs
barely hearing
what is sung

i have become
wretched and numb

abhorrent to face
incredibly small, insignificant
unremembered
a discarded cassette

sometimes, i can laugh at it
how silly to be
powerless
and wrong
worse than *** sandwich, **** flan switch

"giggle"
<spoken in an empty room repeatedly
   <for forty two days
     <with no bathroom breaks and
       <no bathroom humor

words may pass so fast they become
bee *** and glass
                       breaks
a loving body falls fifty six stories to the ground
                              telling sixty two stories of how i met you
                              to seven closest companions
                                                          concretizing
every
little
metafloor

koi meets squirrel
head over hurl
floored.

floor 56 look out at the skyline isn't it beautiful? look at the lights!
not as beautiful as you dear.
oh stop.
no really, they make your eyes look all shiny. it's amazing.
well we're in the Center of the city after all.

I wouldn't Trade this for the World.


in the sea
there are
plenty
of fishes
and one
gasping
gilled
breath
not of the earth
but someday

to feel the hard ground underneath,
walk among
                     the bright lights                 and
                            cold stares                    of
                            calloused lovers
steps upon cold concrete
in tempo allegro
holding on
to a hum
from very good
one

the song about            
when you remembered
to come back for me
and i remembered
          how to breathe...

what are we


floating

in

air

full

of

empty space


grasping at each others hands
hoping for
for a small touch
to move the hair on our spines

trembling to stand
daring to
to walk away
afraid to die
alone.



we are worms

sightless soundless
sensual

alone.

rubbing fingers together
hoping to
conjure control

we made fire and what else?
endless boxes to isolate in
obsessive walls
invented power
aeons of escaping
our simple claws

our feeble knees

bend

and straighten


our spinal fur

curls

and straightens


when our hands


touch other hands.





Holding anything


but empty space.

When you wake up
do you feel good?
do you feel rested?

do you remember what it felt like
to wake up
contented?
with peace in mind?

or do you
Rise
stand in the rain
let it soak you to the bone
and wonder why
your skeleton shakes

Run
to every adjacent address
asking direction to where you live
please can I borrow a reminder
of a time when
i remembered to rest

Fall
asleep
to the chirping chorus of lost birds
flashing emergency lights through the window
as your neighbor whose name you can't recall
is rushed to a holding cell hospital
until a room opens up in the great river
and they return home

what would happen if you rested?
would you forget,
everyone
whose name you can't recall
who receive your thoughts and prayers
who look up at you with fearful eyes wishing
you had the power
to stop
and say hello?

This is an ever-refreshing circle of
long for-love-attach-suffer for

and when I eat food
they are the blandest meals
for I must avoid any taste of salt
because salt tastes like you...
and when I recall
how sweet
you are
I hurt


and I should not hurt.

if I don't hurt, i will not be deserted, and then i will not hurt.
circle logic.

at least it has a shape.
Otherwise, what form does a life take?
What sense does this world make?
And so, i stay, inside the circuit,
because I have not learned to lead myself away
and if I were to learn that I love myself,
and that I cause this hurt to myself,
I don't know how I could ever forgive me.

There is a terrible storm raging outside
and I am here, and I am alive.

My skin is dry and cracked and bleeds from the smallest friction
and I am here, and my body works to replace the forsaken flakes,
and I am alive, and feelings the pain of touch.

I have valued myself, yet again, dependent upon the reception of another who I cannot speak to, or speak of, for no one quite understands obsession and self-love as two suits of the same card.
and I am here. and I suffer. and I quell screams. And I stew a soup deep inside that could feed millions of children whose parents didn't want them, who weren't ready, or who wanted them too much for selfish reasons. I bring a ladle to my lips every few weeks to test the seasoning. I burn the taste buds off my tongue every time. I keep the fire going.

and I am alive, underneath all of this callous and scar tissue, pointing out the stars that still our myths depend on for direction, ******* in sugar like a hummingbird whose body has grown too fat for its wings, the energy needs to move this bloated body growing ever higher.

i still sing to myself, for comfort and joy.
i still listen for familiar sounds to remind me of the stories I've told.
i still dream.
I'm still me.
screaming inside
hoping to be heard
lonely from being inside myself so long.
waiting for the lock to rust and break.

It was a hot day when we departed,
A fuming day in the land of Ashes,
Hazy from the smoke of a fire three towns over.
All day felt like sunset.
Beautiful.
Inescapable.
A thick air and a thick knot in my stomach that began to unweave itself as we let go of each other.
Years of twisting and intertwining fibers
wrenching and writhing away from their shared center.

Warm, overwhelming, I'm-going-to-be-sick feeling.

Breathing deep lungfuls of haze and hot air.
Filling up the painful places in my body.
Exhaling all the life you breathed into me over so long.
Nothing to do but embrace a slow and sweetly inevitable
death and rebirth process.
My god it hurts.
Nothing to be done besides hurt.
Cry a little. Just to cool down my flustered cheeks.
Nothing to be done besides
feel the emptiness that has formed between us,
and gaze into the abyss beneath the burning bridge.
Feel the knots unformed in the safety rope round our waists.
Orbiting without a tether.
Lovely little dreams of freedom.
Infinite frictionless momentum.
Eventually.

I'd like to enjoy the feeling of freedom.
Of release.
Of forgiveness.
But death is always painful, even as it frees us from suffering.