I don't know
I
I have all of these
words
so many of them
and I just can't stop
speaking them
all of these words
like
a bad cough
I don't know
these words
they're so empty,
they're like
popcorn
so full
of nothing.
I hear myself,
a lot,
speaking
all of these words
and I see people's eyes
and I get a bad taste in my mouth
it’s like
I have all of these things to say
but really
I don't
I don't have anything to say
it's like
I'm testing how much people want to listen to me
no
these words are like bubbles
soap suds
and they keep foaming up in my mouth
gross

          she laughs

but something is wrong
it's like
I don't understand
that if I let some water come in
and wash it all out
I wont need those words anymore
I don't know

          she says,
          you're beautiful, and like beauty, words for it
          come and go,
          keep them while you can

          words

well
these are the talking words
and as much as I talk them
they never seem to go away
it's like
there's more of them everyday

          she says,
          so what?

they're annoying, that's what
mostly because I think they are
and I can’t stop thinking
about how annoying they are
I am unchanging
unmoving
I am like a leaf in a stream
But I am stuck on a twig
And I seem to move
no more than a rock

          she says,
          well then, I can be of no service.

i know
and that's why I hate these words
look at ‘em
look at how pitiful they are.

          she says,
          words are only what you make of them darling.

I guess.
it’s
these winters
they put me in a bind

          she says,
          why so?

I'm not sure
it's hard to say
but it's pretty clear
something does.

Today a dense fog drifted over my mind and
behind my pupils, my breath
swam through it as I passed blindly over the
moist cracks in the sidewalk. And
no matter how hard I focused, my
lungs still felt heavy and my heart
still raced, and my legs
couldn’t keep themselves
from stumbling on the thoughts that
flickered uncontrollably through my mind.
Today, I threw my hands at the
gates of never-never land
desperate to escape, even if I cannot see
the other side, even if these gates
are made of nothing but my own
fear.
I want to scream, ”I AM AN EMOTIONAL MAN,”
but there would be no one to hear me but
the squirrel, confusing the utility pole for a tree as I pass by.
Today, snippets of joy and confusion and
longing slip in front of my retinas like
water particles suspended in air.
I can feel the emptiness burn
like a fire within my core,
the void that I confuse for hunger.
Today, my eyes see nothing
but the tenderness that lays softly upon my heart,
the longing for
inner-peace that laces my every breath, and the
yes, maybe, someday, love, that
echoes in my every footstep.

Today, poetry means nothing
as the sun sets, the day
ends, metaphors pass on
the meaning of nothing, and the
meaninglessness of grasping, of
reaching, and trying to get one’s
fingers around it.
Today, the universe is
elusive, hard to put my
finger on, like trying to find
the significance of an old
story; it disappears and
reappears like a mirage even
though, all the while, my heart is
fluttering and aching, passion
dripping from it like saliva, as
I sit, calmly perplexed by this
inner turbulence.

Today, the sun sits at ease
while the clouds
play like children suspended in time,
carefree and visceral; the thought lifts
my feet as I step over the deadened grass.
Poetry and downtempo rhythms
carve into me as if I were
wood, and I melt into awe, transported
back in time a thousand years, where
wherefore is the question,
as it has always been, for millennia, and
To Be is wiped away like a fresh smudge.
Today, I meet a man with so much
hatred, he looks like any other
man on the street. And Today,
when I see him die, not ten minutes
later, when neon lights the streets
and women walk cross-legged in
the arms of their partners. I see him
walk off the stage and smile. Today,
I salute him as I glance briefly
at the newly darkened
sky. The times to come
may his likeness, his
visage, become the expression of
my own dreams, expanding like
a flowers last bloom
before the cold winter's night.

Today, I am finally free
of what used to be
dead vine around my ankles.
I remember
how I would walk
into the vision ahead,
hazy and blurry, like
the cold autum breeze
after the sun has set, like
the few damp leaves
melting as I step on them, softening
the edges of a dream, this dream
that is the present moment.
Today, I watch the eastern
horizon fade as the sun sets,
calmly, at my back. And I breath,
without hesitation, the air of peace,
the air of openness, the
air of someday-real-love. Today, I
smell the fireplaces
as the dog plants two
kisses on my cheek. And I look
up at the dark blue sky and, today;
Today, it's alright.

Today, the hot sun baked the orange leaves
like toast on the lush over-grown grass while
I meditated on indifference,
apathy amalgamated with acceptance, filling
my heart and chest with a confusion
about whether I should even care
whether it's worth my time
whether I even have the courage.
And as the ground beneath me rose and fell
cars passing me like stars, as I weaved my way
back into the darkness, I remembered
that more often than I ever admit
I was the peahen in Darwin's
big book, admiring those feathers;
the soft, light skin, the blue eyes,
the beautiful smile;
all hauntingly forbidden.
Because, when you've gone
so many days without water,
and the desert isn't getting any smaller,
perhaps it's just easier to lie down
and remember the orange leaves
on the green grass
beneath the empty trees.
Today, I remember, and die;
unable to forget how long
I've been dehydrated.

Today opened like a fresh wound.
And as fleas and spiders of malaise and
listlessness slinked near the ****,
I could feel
their tiny legs tickling my skin.
And even though
the wound was as temporary as a mirage,
it was still equally as debilitating.
And so I tripped feebly
through the day,
biding my time with an inner calm
that was really something more like
exhaustion.
But today, something a little,
tiny bit,
like love
stood like poles keeping me on my feet,
but it was more like longing,
like dreaming of winter
when the heat of summer
remains a solid, unwavering truth.
Today, I was a lost leaf tossing in the wind
to the whims of my heart's
incomprehensible, but easily repressible,
ache. And when it all came to a stop,
I could almost taste
the metal of the grate, as cold water
rushed against me,
and into the storm drain below.