i stick the plaintive letters
of friends and family amidst
the pages of my favorite books
they mark choice passages
concerning our species and the
fate of this ancient universe

one desperate plea for me to
return to the hypocrisy of Christianity rests in my copy of Camus's essay "the Rebel"
tucked nearby Dawkins'
"god Delusion" and Bakunin's
"god and the State" which share
a space with unholy texts on science
art and philosophy on the top row
of my overflowing
alphabetized bookshelf

on a silent Sunday drive home from
church some years ago i
once asked why it was such
a crime to believe in myself
my father imparted it was
an insult to my 
invisible creator
well here’s a ******* to 

my mythological maker
i don’t need you
i’ve got two feet 

planted firmly 
beneath me
i stand strong beside the ones
who resist a culture of misanthropy

i am what i am
a wanderer waylaid in the chasm
of gray matters
i no longer see the world in
shades of black pitch and white snow
your absolute truth is sharp
and out of tune with the
empirical realities of nature
i am not a zealot inculcated
on the drug of elitist predestination
i refute the elixir of everlasting life
heaven is a dream that keeps
us numb to the hellscapes around us

i face the unknown sobered by a
measurable cosmos which wasn't
made just for me to see
but spawned all we call
reality in the throes of a fourteen billion
year old eruption that flung planets
and stars into existence

we are amiss upon a floating rock
adrift in outer-space and instead of
utilizing our capacity for ingenuity to
cultivate a sustainable community
we looked towards the skies
and fashioned gods in our own image
we made god compassionate—a benevolent  
creator who breathed life into nothingness
we made god hideous—a malevolent
dictator deciding the destinies of the unfortunate
we engineered division where once was
sanctity and instigated violence on the
premise that one faith was better
than the other but
they all ring hollow
if you ask me

i am not a sheep and your Christ
is not my shepherd
i am not a timid and pitiable creature
stumbling along after some imaginary master
Jesus of Nazareth was a revolutionary
executed for instigating rebellion
against the Empire of Rome
he said nothing about waging endless war
in fact he urged his followers
to turn the other cheek
i imagine he'd be rolling in his grave
if he could see them know—provided
of course
he hadn't so famously vacated it

riddle me this
why do you hate two men who cherish
each other when your savior said
the greatest commandment was just
to love and be loved by one another
if the etymology of Christian is
Christ follower why not cherish the
lines of red in your holy book
your god bled and died for

even the most progressive of faiths
pale in comparison to the certainty of
evolution or the terror of global climate change
why mythologize that which we don't
understand when history shows that
we only learn more and grow with time
when we question everyone and everything
why dwell in circumstantial metaphysics
when we can just as easily admit
we don't have the faintest clue

i arraign myself against any warped faith
that privileges bigotry and arrogance
i reject the religion of atheism and
buddhism and Christianity
i stand apart from the ethos of
Hindus and edicts of Islam
i have no gods and no masters
my conscience is my only authority
i'm the only one who can
save me from me

in my father's latest letter
packed safely away in Carl
Sagan's "the Demon-Haunted World"
he informs me that i'm
the prodigal son that some
doting deity awaits me
at the gates of heaven
to put a ring on my finger and
slaughter a fattened calf for my
welcome home dinner but
how did an omnipresent god
not deign to ascertain
i'm a vegetarian

when i say
**** the police
i do not feel obligated
to justify or quantify an
assertion that seems
fundamentally apparent to me
i do not find it necessary
to recount the endless horrors and
psychological terrors visited upon
ordinary men and women
nor do i deem it essential
to my personal ethos of
mutual dignity and
profound respect to
needlessly revere those
behind the badges
and the guns
i just see pigs dressed in blue
prove me wrong

i'm still waiting

when i say
**** the police
there's just one thing
i hope you understand
i do not detest the finger on the trigger
nor the hamfisted hand shoveling
Krispy Kream donuts
into a bottomless gullet
nor the fist clutching the baton
pummeling the peaceful protestor
who gave a riot-geared narc
a bouquet of flowers
nor the thumb emitting mace into
the unsuspecting face of a teenage girl
with a hot-pink mohawk

i do not mean offense when i remark
officer
your mustache reminds me of a walrus or
officer
were you the high school bully or
officer
can you direct me to nearest KKK meeting
please and thanks

so when i say
unequivocally
**** the police
know that it is because i detest
a racist misogynistic homophobic
apparatus of institutionalized oppression
that harasses the marginalized
as it butchers youth of color
and masks the misdeeds of its privileged elite in
a fraternity that utterly disregards morality

when i say
**** the police
it's 'cause i realize that absolute power
corrupts absolutely but the same
could be said for even a modicum
of power that twists and churns
and transforms the best of us into
vicious caricatures of humanity
the fissures of hegemony are exposed

as hierarchy crumbles we find inside us
the power to extol truth
even when it's unpopular

and say
**** the police
'cause they're too lazy to use
their words when the State gives
them a gun and
a license to ****
all charges will drop
because the only police who police
the police are the police

when i say
**** the police
it's because the State uses fear
to control its subjects
in hopes we won't realize
we don't need them
they keep us scared of one another
of the demons hiding in the dark
focus our terror on the monsters
lurking underneath our beds rather
than the Feds driving down I4 with
firearms strapped to their hips

when i say
**** the police
it's because it has not
escaped my notice
that the U.S. has the largest
prison population per capita of
any nation in the world due
to draconian laws governing
the use and abuse of substances
and i may be straight edge but
i'll be the first to point out
that the State's manufacturing new slaves
with its arbitrary arrests over ***

so i say
**** the police
because i remember
my brothers and sisters
who swine stole from this Earth
though i wager i'd never meet them
i'm certain their so-called criminal behavior
certainly did not merit an execution

and contrary to popular belief
black lives matter
so pull your head out of the sand
with that
all lives matter
hog-wash and open your ears for just a second

brother Michael Brown shot
down in Ferguson for walking
along the middle of the street

Eric Garner
strangled by a narc
accused of selling loose
cigarettes after dark

Sandra Bland failed to use her turn
signal and we discovered her later
hanging from a rope
like Roxanne Gay said
even if she killed herself
white hands are still locked around her throat

Trayvon Martin dared to wear a hoodie
and trespass in an affluent community
for failing to return to the ghetto
a vigilante **** sent him to the morgue

twelve-year-old Tamir Rice
played cops-n-robbers in his lawn  
no one stopped to tell him
its the boys-n-blue
who're robbing young kids of their lives
with bullets packed tight in their 9's

over 860 men women and children
killed by thugs draped in red white and blue
in these first 9 months of 2015 alone

so when i say
**** the police
i say so out of a sincere conviction
that there will be no peace until we get
some ******* justice
and i know the State Department's supplying
our masters with leftover gear from its
exorbitant multi-trillion dollar wars
M-16s tear gas flashbangs,
body armor HumVees tanks
rubber bullets surveillance kits and small arms
to suppress dissent and smash
lawful assembly with violence
but when they order us to cease and disperse
or suffer arrest
we'll have three words poised on our lips
**** the police

we labor under an oppressive thumb
not realizing the very leaders
we exalt will use that power to
hold us down

we've armed them with
the greatest of weapons
blind conformity
empty apathy
unquestioning obedience
what we believe in is a puppet

as our so-called democracy devolves
we increase in callousness
masses designed with a singular purpose
to extinguish original thought

accept or die
embrace or be ostracized
belabor the point
that your purpose is to labor forever
another slave along the chain
another cog in the machine
bent-kneed
stooped before some
corporate conglomerate
a faceless superpower
pulling the strings behind the scenes

politicians bought and paid for
shouldering the burdens of the
Fortune 500 companies
who helped them purchase their office
beholden to back alley deals
and smoke and mirror gimmicks

artists traded rebellion for comfort
now they ply their craft for profit
to appease the brainwashed masses a
morally—and financially—bankrupt populace

they catalogue our every thought
metadata ensnared in the dragnet
mass surveillance a tool to bend the whims
of the people to their rulers

we **** black kids in Ferguson
as they walk down the middle of the street
shoot 'em down as the snack on skittles
and sip Arizona ice teas
they forbid us to feed the homeless
lock us in a jail cell if we dare to disobey
city ordinances designed to keep the
City Beautiful looking beautiful
but i see beyond the thin facade

expose war crimes
thanks for your service
Chelsea Manning
that'll be 35 years in federal penitentiary
hack a surveillance network spying on
activists and protesters
can't have that
that'll be 10 years at State
Jeremy Hammond
blow the whistle on the panopticon
thanks Edward Snowden
but we've grown to adore our own shackles

fear
24/7/365
fear this fear that
fear god fear death
fear Muslims fear blacks
just don't fear the rich white straight
males in their 4k suits and crooked smiles
pay the white-collar Wall St. Bankers no mind
the 1% who've left us all behind
as they lurk in the shadows
ruining everything

a fearful electorate will bow to the
whims of its masked dictatorship
and march without thought to the beat
of the war drums

**** them
**** all of them
ISIS Pakistan Iran Syria
all the Muslim savages in countries
whose names we can't even pronounce
render weapons to tyrannic despots
so we can pretend we
don't have blood on our own hands
torture extrajudicial assassination
extraordinary rendition drones bombing
civilians in record numbers
all cards we've stowed up our sleeves
in a war that is designed to never end
fight terrorism with terrorism
revenge not justice
but if our army is abusing children
then who the **** are the bad guys

confront the ambivalence that
roars like machine gun fire
violence is never the answer
and i refuse to stand by and watch
as we wreak havoc upon this earth

our leaders are liars
our gods are frauds
we're going to have to save ourselves

the answer does not rest above
a utopic afterlife in the clouds is a farce
we've been led like sheep to the slaughter
obedience and reverence have crippled us
if we want heaven
we'll have to raise hell

stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters
in direct action cooperatives
nonviolent civil disobedience
insurrection against the State
anarchy is the answer

beat your swords to plowshares
and seek peace

i woke to a ceiling fan
humming above my head
a disjointed cadence obfuscated
by a couple loose screws that caused it to
shake and to shudder and
splutter its song

i couldn't fall back asleep

i went for a walk instead
watched a boy in oversized overalls
cuffed about his ankles
cuss and shake his head in
lament as he kicked a crumpled
aluminum can across sun-baked cement

a scrawny teenage girl smoked a roach
on her front porch step
she wore a scowl as i admired
the cigarette butts scattered across her lawn
she acknowledged me with bloodshot eyes
that seemed as though they'd seen too much

the St. John's River brushed the shoreline
furtive as a lover's butterfly kisses
and whispered sweet nothings
as a garbage barge drifted past
i could smell the rotten filth
rich folks had discarded and i
imagine i regarded that same
vessel with a different expression
than the homeless man who sat
on a park bench nearby feeding
the crusts of his sandwich to a
cluster of pigeons

on my way back the
skinny girl called out to me
she walked down from her balcony and
asked me if i wanted some ***
but the words
no, thank you  
caught in my throat
i couldn't miss the fresh scars on her wrists
or the pain in her eyes masked by
youthful defiance and
i turned from her wordless remembering
ignorance is bliss

i wish i could remember how to forget

happiness habitually tends toward apathy
permitting brainlessness to fester in the
throes of misanthropy while indefatigable
entropy saps the mind and heart
robbing the joyful of their shared humanity

emotion's heady debris linger in hapless
inanity while infatuation produces a stupor
unmatched by the strongest of spirits
reducing the compassionate to one-sided
and ambivalent caricatures of divinity

have we been deceived
force-fed untruth from birth
on celluloid silver screens
did we barter literature for
delusions of grandeur
in frivolous narratives manufactured
to distract from reality or detract
from the movement to abolish hateful
programs perpetuating poverty

or has cynicism left me jaded hating
that which is most precious in the human
experience because past horrors and
present woes cannot permit the possibility
of future redemption to overcome these
walls i've built around my dismembered soul

as is often the case i see the answer's far
from crystal clear it's amorphous and contorted
caught somewhere between two distant antitheses
which create a spectrum of relative ambiguity
amidst a reality neither certain nor secure

nevertheless i'll try to unearth the truth
whatever it may be and wherever it lies buried
harboring the knowledge in the back of my skull
that there may not even be such a thing
i'll salvage courage from
the wreckage of wistfulness
a wanderer waylaid in the chasm of gray matters

count each and every grain i
cherish them all the same
they're the only friends i have
across this endless plane of
granular particles kicked up
every so often by a storm
that shifts this desert from one
spectrum to the next like
filtering time through the sieve
of some infinite hourglass

i will drive this lumbering beast
across theses seas of sand
reclaim what they stole through duplicity
coax this hunk of junk to life
if need be to outrun the
lingering fear of inadequacy
i don't know god but i met the devil
i've been his captive for 7,000 days
a hostage of hellions obsessed
with a decadent religion of misanthropy

the shifting wind-swept dunes
my only markers on this winding road
a roguish rebel defying hegemony
manifest in maleficent misogyny
i'll strive to live not just survive in this
endless wasteland hope may yet arise

illusion festers at the
altar of apathy we
sacrifice our intellect
for luxury items
woe-filled slaves chained
to hypocrisy

if this is what grows in the
absence of thought—weeds
spread out to choke all semblance
of hope—sew my eyelids to my scalp
i'll sleep no more no nightmare
is more terrible than this
reality we must endure

stretched out across this wasteland
we built temples to worship
finance bathed in our own arrogance
we fancied ourselves gods through
deicide and accepted the
inheritance that gave us such a throne

measure out the violence in Biblical
proportions spread like fire
to every corner of the globe
cover the map in a sea of
ash and smoke white phosphorous
raining from the sky like manna
on all the forgotten children
anguishing in third-world exile

we are the arbiters of our own demise
drunken bloated ignorant harbingers
reviled for our revelry of orgastic negativity
plunging the Earth into the sixth
extinction that surely spells
the end of our finite kind

some sentient race may yet witness
our only home caught in the
death-grip of its sole intellectual organism
as life ebbs from her lonely pale blue eyes
winking in and out of existence
from hundreds of lightyears far far away

no telling whether such a recollection
viewed through the chasm of space-time
might offer a mirror to some species
possessed of less self-destructive
tendencies devoid of suicidal mentalities
a warning sign to all the legions spread
across the galaxy:

do not follow in our footsteps

we left early
couldn't've been half-past
6 o'clock in the morning
the dawn gray left dew-dripped
melancholy on the foggy front lawn
beyond your mother's portable home
we drove down I-4 singing Anberlin's "A
Day Late" and took the back route down
A1A to the secret place where

the waves whispered languid lullabies
as heat rays traced your skin and harmonized
with the ancient anthems of the Atlantic
as it hummed its gentle cadences

beams of light filtered through sandy
tresses on that solitary beach in the
middle of April
lens flares immortalizing sly grins in ways
i thought only celluloid could deliver
yet you were corporeal and immediate
a fragment of an inch from me

film clumped in loose spools around us
wasted shots used and then discarded
we lay on our sides
exchanging joy in silence
and mirth in sideward glances

barefoot along the boardwalk
beneath the shadows of mangroves
trespassing in the backyards of the bourgeoisie
feet kicking toes dipping minnows nibbling
in the brackish Indian River

J.B.'s Fish Camp was slow
that time of year
we gave manatees fresh water
watched the dolphins' distant dance as
i debated whether or not  
i should try to hold your hand

you drank lukewarm beer as our star
sank over your sunburnt shoulders
and a blues musician played
somber tunes of lust and loss that
carried us away as we ate coconut shrimp
and the breeze blew in from the bay

you wore a baseball cap with
the Atlanta Braves' crimson A and
sported a matching jersey of your
little league softball team and though i may
not quite remember every little thing you said i
can't shake the way you caught
my eye and blushed before turning your head

boats drifted past and
the sun tucked itself to sleep
and you made me promise
to let you read every ****** poem i'd ever
breathe into existence

you said you'd value them more than gold
prize them always cherish the memories
even when you grew older but
the sun had already set
its absence left a chill in my bones

twenty-three trips around the sun
just another insignificant planet
crowding a broiling ball of
hydrogen gas in one
of some hundred
billion galaxies

it's hard
not to wilt
by comparison
not even a quarter of a
century and for all i know i could
very well be dead tomorrow buried
three days hence never to walk the earth again

i am an amalgam of every person i meet
each event in this tumultuous tragedy
modifies me just as i alter the
universe with ripple effects
expanding ever onward
out into the cosmic
embrace of the
abyss

squeezed
out like paste
stretched like string
theory across parchment
paper—thin and fragile as i
hope in vain for some semblance
of significance to be lent to me on loan
if i want it i'll have to make it all on my own

but i'm growing older with every passing
moment and i'm not so certain this is
the route i've chosen anymore
i'll still carve my name into
this Earth but not for me
i'll lay down my life not
for my legacy but
for my neighbor
for all those i'll
never get to
meet

not out
of some youthful
idealism or ardent
child-like naiveté but
for an idea that's bigger
and brighter and better than
myself: universal brotherhood
peace and love goodwill towards
all lifeforms with whom we share this
tiny blue dot that we call planet Earth

and while i know i will hardly make a
difference in the grand scheme
of things at least i can say i
died a lion never living
on my knees

instead
i tried to live
my life so *******
brilliantly that even
Death feared to take
me into the nothingness

twenty-three trips around the sun
almost a quarter of a century
i won't let them steal my
hope from me i refuse
to bow to apathy i
stand strong on
my own feet
and say i'm
free

human detritus deaf to empathy
misanthropes bound by apathy
just above the dotted line we
signed our own death warrants
guilty as charged
existential and intellectual suicide

we'd rather gouge out our eyes
bury our heads in the sand
than give a moment's pause to
consider our own arrogance
**** sapiens
we carved our legacy into the globe
and we will rest in the husk
of a massive unmarked grave
a solitary chunk of floating rock
adrift in outerspace

"the fate of every successful species
is to wipe itself out"

can we harness the courage to turn away
from our vapid lives before it's too late
can we unplug our minds from the machine
extricate ourselves and learn to breathe
with lungs instilled through millennia of
evolution before we suffocate in ennui

humanity is on life-support
it's tempting to pull the plug
let Mother Nature reclaim her earth
from an entitled race of
self-destructive fools
coddled from childbirth but

there is a nascent impulse that
echoes in every heartbeat
living within our blood
to regard one another with the new eyes
science has built each of us
no longer can we trust self-styled
leaders of the free world
the impetus rests within the crux
of self-acceptance

anarchy is the litmus test

gossamers of golden silk
enriched with salt-water luster
sea-foam pebbles nestled between
warm sand freckles
gracing sunset skin

with a jolt
i wake and wish
silently to myself
for someone to just
put me out of my misery
there's no serenity in sleep
only an endless barrage of shifting
mirages half-glimpsed through
a looking-glass awaiting
my every whimsical
fear

consciousness is a hoax
a self-sustaining delusion
premised on confusing anecdotes
and misrepresented by inadequate
synecdoches that fail to convey
intended meaning

it is not difficult to trace the illustration
of truths that prove
at once illusory and immediate
deliberate attempts to assuage sentiment
before it returns in full force
terminate without consequence
since affection drowned in ambivalence

yet i somehow still
lack the cognizance to
be fully aware of my
own subconscious

i went for a drive today
the rain pitter-patterned as rubber
tires hydroplaned across the concrete and i
pressed play and sang to the mix tape

i couldn't see the moon or the stars or
you. i couldn't see more than 20 ft. in any
given direction. i listened to the cadence
as thunder crashed and thrashed H2O
across my dashboard

and for a moment there the whole
world froze, a hundred million raindrops
posed in suspension and i wondered if
this might be the way that i die—out too late
on a Wednesday night drive—and i thought
if i crashed and burned if the rain would douse
my charred corpse in time to leave a body
for them to put in the ground. would you
fly non-stop to Orlando just to see me lowered
down? what is the dollar
amount that's just too much? could i even say
i'd do the same for you?

then time resumed and rick-rocked me back
to reality and i felt a grim smile tug
me away from the brink as i passed an abandoned
church flooded out in the boonies. lightning flashed
above a lake in the distance and i realized i'd spent
almost 3 years god-free. so why was i
so worried about you?

have i been pulled apart in a 1,000 different directions
criss-crossed like stretch marks
a demon's clawed across my stomach?
i try every day to meet the eyes of
the man in the rear-view mirror but
i can't even remember their color anymore

these serotonin sentiments seem
to be sustained by sick fantasies
of misplaced affection  

dopamine deficiency disrupts delinquency
reminding me that
lackluster lusts are only passing passions

and we here are all unlucky passengers
harbingers of each other's suffering
stowaways on this interstellar starship
called planet Earth
where perception signifies
the faulty frailty of unreality
all the while
exchanging integrity for a fragrance of hope
that we might somehow terminate strife

tacit tactics can't alleviate anguish
only forestall future fractures behind
a flimsy facade of fortune-teller fairy tales
but we all know how the stories end
and no happy ever after exists
in this blissful ignorance you call a life

so when you stand at my grave and weep
when they lower me 6 ft. deep
know this promise is yours to keep

it's too late
now
i'm already gone

i’ve written countless 

poems you won’t ever read. i'm
melancholia.

don't dig up
old bones
leave the past
buried

with the wreckage
of desecrated memories
drowning in the swells of
the tempest

let them rest
in Mariana's Trench
deep in inky shadows
on the ocean floor

scattered across the galaxy
in the wreckage of a helium bomb
flung far into uncharted space
forever and ever
ad infinitum

i'd say
i'll see you in hell
but we both know all
too well that
hell is other
people

and all the devils are already here

flattery can't assuage catastrophe
this was doomed right from the start
only the good die young
a maxim ringing with deathless promise

some of us measure our lives
in trips around the sun
or in moments of bliss
when eternal happiness is
found in the hairsbreadth
between two milliseconds
but it's safe to say my
life is the sum
of all my lost parts

i've met some characters in my lifetime
had our fair share of sordid trials
and mischievous misadventures
epic enough memories to fill a storybook
that might rival the Illiad or Aeneid
but they all fade

       one
               by
                      one

we were all sadly misguided
they told us
that our friends are like the stars
that even if we can't see
they're still there
hiding in the empty spaces
where we used to find them

                            if
                     only
                  it
         were
   true

our friends our families our loved ones
are all like stars
shining brightly in the dark for
what seems like eons
crystal calm before impending doom
each of us
a supernova exploding outwards
and scattering to the bitter ends of
this cold and lonesome universe

and there's a certain
melancholy in sweetness
a tepid blessing in a curse
an oath inscribed in every atom in  
everyone and everything—
nothing lasts forever
death is the only promise

the last time i feared dying
i was a twenty-year-old man
who'd just found out that
his best friend
was already dead

when i realized
god was a fraud
and this world was all
any of us
will ever have and
heaven is nothing
but a shadow of a sham
i promised myself i'd
never fear death again

i'd settled on the conclusion to
no longer live in
self-righteous delusion
rejecting collusion with the fork-tongues
whispering easy lies
fingers crossed

i traded my soul for a critical mind
and the Good Book for literature
art and science

and for the better part of
three years i lived by my own code
and apologized for nothing

but now i'm afraid to die again

it first happened on a moonlit night
we were both sweaty from days spent in lively theme parks and seedy concert halls
craft beer bars and quiet stardust cafés

a spirit of compassion
stretched
between you and i
like so many sinews
lashing ligaments
inseparable insufferable invaluable

and then it happened
beneath a careless canopy
sandpaper roof
grating tiles
pink flesh
soft insistent
fingers roaming
in out
hair
over under
clothes

common sense has been usurped by
human connection
emotional frailty

i do not want to die
i will fight against that
cold goodnight
i want to live in moments
like this
death can wait to attend me

i am weak i
can't loose the noose that ties
this millstone to the ***** in my chest
it drags my heart downwards
deeper into the abyss
which stares back at me with eyes
as vivid and intense
as a newborn galaxy
spewing clouds of hydrogen gas
in some endless
alternate universe

we are what
we pretend to be

caricatures of recycled
images and refashioned
motifs masquerading without
pretense of originality

carbon copies in dazzling relief
spun through cycles of roguish
vogue realities

you are what you Tweet

we've seen enlightenment dawn
and watched god die while
the planet relay-raced about
a decaying sun
drifting
children of the Digital Age

words are less than wind
they are fingertips tapping
luminous screens
spineless
lackluster and vain
beyond belief

we run our mouths
while the world burns
here's more Tinder for
the fire of distraction
GoFundMy upstart disaster

vegan hippie child of nature
punk anarchist activist
academic film enthusiast
novelist critic intellectual
psychologist pathologist anthropologist

will we practice a
discourse on delusion
or find solidarity with Sisyphus?

we are what
we pretend to be

close as
two molecules
inhabiting the
same cell

distant as the
chasm of
space-time
stretched out
from the Big
Bang to the
Modern Day and
beyond

it is meaningless circumstance
that's stranded us
in tandem
aloft on this rock
adrift in aimless

emptiness

no god presided
over your eternal fate
no endless author
provided the tragedies of
this less than perfect
existence but

all things considered
coincidence consistently lacks
the necessary evidence and
i'm practically convinced
at least
for the moment

that some semblance of
divinity lingers in both
you and i and in
this infinitesimally gargantuan
space between

us

i found them
while i was
digging
through old boxes
covered in dust
hidden
in the shadows
beneath my bed

i'd been searching for LPs
Lost in the Sound of
Separation on vinyl
record
its sentimental value
binding memories of
my favorite band
countless shows
a myriad of friends

it was there that i
found exactly what
it was i wasn't
looking for

who knows
maybe i hid them
because they
reminded me of things
best left forgotten

the blue sticky note
read in purple ink
"my favorite prints
for my favorite person.
thanks for believing
in my work."

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
dead friends
broken homes
dark rooms with
hardly any light
a child looking for love
the beach palms
skateboards and surfboards

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
shot in black
and white
refined in their
aesthetic but
only one photo actually
had you in it

three windows
light filtering through
closed blinds
an air vent in the bottom
right-hand corner

you stand in the center
and it is evident that
you are shirtless as you
look over your shoulder
at the camera suspended
in the room

what thoughts crossed your
mind when the shutter
shuddered shut

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
and if we’re being honest
there was a little of
me too

strange
isn’t it

how
memories
pique our moods like
mountains

bursting
through the
stratosphere
only to be sent
plummeting to the
depths of an

abyss
darker
and
deeper
than Marianas Trench
at the flip of a

switch

subtle triggers
found in the way
someone laughs
or when a co-worker
grins
out of the corner of
his or her
mouth

i see you
in the characters of the
literature and
films we used to critique
over coffee
hiding in the vestiges
of Daenerys Targaryen
or
Mélanie Laurent

you are France
an entire country
unto yourself

the smell of the sea
clings to your skin cells
in ways i
only wish
i could

you are in every
solitary
letter of Helvetica
whispering
softly
of things that
were
of things that
are
and of some things that
have not yet come to pass

you float
in the carcinogenic smoke
of cigarettes
a silhouette
corporeal particles
i exorcise
with equal parts
relief
and
regret

every night that i
paint the town
in neon colors
of vibrant life
i write your name
when i
vandalize
and fantasize
that you are
somehow with me
maybe floating happily
in the molecules
of aerosol
spreading across the
concrete

you’re in every song
by Brand New
like the residue of
dew drying on
the leaves
in the
mid-morning
light
lingering
even as
the sun calls you

home
the way i lingered
on your doorstep
to make sure that
you made it safely
back inside your
home

i’ve come to find that
i am equal parts
melancholy
and
blithe
and
i think that i
can finally say
i’m getting better

but
to borrow
a page
from Vonnegut
i’d be lying if
i said i didn’t still
catch
myself feeling
sorry
about the things that
no longer
matter

Dad drove down
to the liquor store
that morning
the same routine

bought two bottles of
the cheapest red wine
money could buy
to drink from cheap
plastic solo cups

he never drank
from blue cups
just the red ones
not sure if that even
matters

when Dad drinks
he goes to one of
two extremes 


either he’s grinning ear-to-ear over
something utterly 
mundane
or else 
he’s
spewing equal measures of
spittle and venom

but no matter what
his breath always
smells like death

when i was a kid
i didn’t really get it
why a man would drink
and do such stupid ****

of course
that was before
the world taught me
what it meant to suffer

you never really realize what
tragedy looks like
until you get home from school
on a Wednesday afternoon

to find your old man
wasted
crying
begging
you to tell him it’s
gonna be okay
that he’s gonna make
it another day

like watching
god become human

so i promised him

i swore that it’d 
be
okay 

but i had no idea

if it would ever 
be
okay 
again

my Dad lost his Dad 

that was why 
he drank so much

at least 

as far as i can tell 

that was the reason


why

i’ve never really asked
and besides

i doubt he’d ever 
admit it

least of all
to me

but as i get older and 

reflect 

i’m not sure there 
was
ever really a reason 


why

he got sober 

did the 12 step program 

hallelujah

thank you 

Jesus 

something like 
that 

and he hasn’t had 
a single sip 

since he sobbed 
in my arms 

that Wednesday afternoon

at least

as far as i know

all my life, i was told 
to be as timid 
as a sheep.
my black wool 
may have offended the 

snowy white facade of my

former friends and family, 

but at least i shared their form.

all this time,
i didn’t realize 

the lion prowling

outside the gates 
had
more honesty 
than the
crooked shepherd 

keeping watch 
over me.

and the false security 

these walls they built around me 

could never hold a light
to the 
life outside
this hideous city 

they dared to say was 

beautiful.

lured by dreams of eternity, 

i bought into the 
story of a god 

who loved me more than 

anyone or anything.

but i saw a fire burning beyond 

these walls of hypocrisy

and chose to 
carry it instead.

i sold my soul for a rational mind, 

recognizing infinity 

was nothing
but 
a pipe dream.

i’ll carry the fire 
of humanity

in my chest,

‘cause i don’t need 

a savior who’ll 
lead my soul to rest.

i reject the greener pastures
of 
an afterlife and
embrace the 
life that i 
was
taught 
to abhor.

and while i still get sad

from time to time, 

at least i can say that
i 
don’t hate who i am 
anymore.

i spent twenty years
yearning for 
a god
who isn’t even there 

to show me the 
slightest bit 

of affection

and didn’t realize that i’m 

better off alone since, 

after all,

that’s where i’ve always been.

so i’ll start 

side-stepping 
the road of
fear and faith 
for
the great unknown 
and
all the pain that it’s 
bound to bring.

i’ll stomach every 

single second of suffering 

without the vagrant hope of a 

second life in the heavens.

it’s funny how life can be so 

******* beautiful

if we keep in mind
just how 

finite 

it really is, 

how precious every 

moment has the potential to be.

at least i can say
i 
did my best to cherish 
the
Time that i’m alive,

rather than living with
the 
expectation of an afterlife, 

biding my time 
‘till i die.

when they put what’s left of me

into the ground, 

don’t look for me in the clouds—

i’ll be decomposing 

beneath your feet.


and, honestly, 

the thought of becoming

absolutely nothing 

is far more comforting
than the 
notion of worshipping that

murderer 

they preach about in church.

i have no god, i have no king.
i don't believe in fate or even destiny.

i’ve given up on 

certainty in things i cannot see

in lieu of questioning 

everyone and 

everything.

i’m secure in only one thing: 

and that’s me.

i’ve spent far too much time 

hiding from the things that i
was taught were 
evil.

i was told to trust
an 
ambiguity

for every single thing

and, thus far,
it’s been pretty

******* ineffective.

they told me that
believing in myself 

was an insult to my 

invisible creator.

so here’s a ******* to 

my mythological maker: 

i don’t need you. 

i don’t need anyone. 

i’ve got two feet 

planted firmly 

beneath me.

and though my family might be ashamed of me, 

i can say i’ve never been this happy.

the day that i turned my back on 

Christianity,

i realized i didn’t need 
anyone’s approval
to be 
myself.

i don’t live in fear anymore.

i don’t hate myself ‘cause i quit
searching for a love 

that was never even there 
to begin with.

i won’t follow the instructions
written in a book 
millennia ago
by 
misogynistic homophobes 
and

war criminals.

i’m better off standing up 
for what i believe

than i ever was 
in
some sanctuary

begging on my knees.

it’s 3:00am
again

i think
to myself
that seeing
my clock read

3:00am
as often as
i see it read
3:00pm

might suggest
that i really
ought to get
more sleep

it’s hard
though

when protesters
are shot in Egypt
when journalists
are detained with false pretense
when activists
seek shelter in embassies
when hackers
rot in prison cells
when whistleblowers
are put on trial

with all this
chaos and
injustice
i don’t understand
how anyone
in their right mind
could sleep in
peace

the light above
the snowy keys
shines bright, almost
harsh

i can feel the
pain
in her voice
it’s as tangible as

the way her fingers
slightly
almost imperceptibly
tremble
once so confident
now painfully unsure

melodies used to be so
simple, beauty singing through
the strings of a
1940’s piano built of

wood
iron
and ivory

but now caustically
discordant harmonies
of harmonies
are catalyzed by
our recent brush with
ugly memory

i say, “Grandma” when
i see the tear drop to
the surface of
those pristine
yet grievous
keys

it balances there, precipitously, beside
her wedding ring
as she tells me, “i think
that’ll be all for today, my sweet.”

though i’ve never smoked a cigarette
i’ve always loved the smell of tobacco.

it reminds me of shows in seedy concert halls
and the gum my father chewed to get sober

minty-fresh nicorette replacing the scent
of the wine that imbued his every breath.

i recall my grandpa, the way he sat on the porch, surrounded
by nana’s garden, listening to the songs of birds

the stub of his last cigarette, poised between frail fingers.
as it withered, he withered with it.

their walls stained yellow from the nicotine
like some vintage sepia photograph.

through synesthetic memories, i can taste the
way cigarette smoke wafted through the summer air when

my friends and i sat on our back porch, reminiscing,
nostalgia suffocating, tightening its grip like a vise about our windpipes.

i’ve never even smoked a cigarette
but they always remind me of who i used to be

before i lost what was left of my innocence.

when i was seven
i asked my mother if all dogs went to heaven
because i wanted to be sure that
i’d see old Buddy up in the clouds
once he’d passed on

she told me that i would
she said in fact
all dogs do go to heaven
but my mother had a
penchant for canines
so i secretly wondered
whether or not that was true

then i asked her if my friend Adam would be there too
since he was Jewish and Jews aren’t allowed
to go to heaven

for this had left me so confused
how could god
let dogs into heaven
but abandon all
my friends

she told me in no uncertain terms that
there was only one way
one truth and
one life
and that one way
one truth
one life came through Christ

which was funny
considering Jesus
was Jewish too