A movie became manifest
I left with an axe
Awkwardness
I ran
And thorns caught me in the ***

I am that black hole.

For others,
I wore that mask.
For you,
I thought could
shed for but a moment.


Then the door flung wide.
You fled,
and the void inside
became my whole
Instead

I unravel the mythology.
The narrative laid bare
as crude, exposed anatomy.

A relentless disavowal
of essence.

But discarded truths
Are pages torn
From something incomplete.

What I need
May be among
that parchment
I sent flying.

I'm trying,
as fast
as I can
to run out
of things
to say
so I can
go back
to being
a productive
American,
but that's
not likely
to happen.

and
though aware,
the absurdity overflows
to despair

my life
has only trained me
to feel at odds
with what's out there

I have figured it out.

The alchemical formula for love.

- 1 parts pain
- 2 parts fear
- And a whole lotta dopamine (to taste)

Why aren't you as scared as me?

Many things unseen are lurking in my periphery.

Your absence of belief does not reprieve of this insistency.

Whistling in the night, I walk toward the face I see

In shadows cast by flames so bright that darkness undertakes the

Harrowed, narrowed journey through esophagus and kidney.

A poison quaff of mother's liquor tastes, absorbed, incendiary

Avails but mine eyes to see that superflous villainy

And its cutting undercurrent of all things heavenly

With flames engulfing peeling back my superstitious fantasy

I'll wrap myself in fear again to mask my shunned reality

I can only walk like I'm dancing
I can only speak in poetry

otherwise
My body is rigid

otherwise
My tongue is frozen

maybe
Truth has never been my destination

maybe
Truth is just a flourish in my journey

Either way I'm dancing
and I'm talkin like I got somewhere to be.

I'm not doing
too good today.
I've been around
for far too long,

just taking my time,
doing nothing
at all.
Watching the sun
and the moon
revolve.

I don’t wanna look
where I don’t wanna go,
so I stand at the window,
looking in
my own home.

There’s my brains
on the wall,
and the floor.
Scoop em on up
and I'll try once more.

I’m
doing just fine
today—
I got my new
medication.

Sunshine singing
on the birds
in the rain,
sunshine calling
my name.

Toss me another fishy, human!
I'll do a trick for you!

But in those fishy depths
I've got some work to do.

Survival Thriving Dolphin Time
but some day I will meet you

'tween the mystic barrier
of H2O and O2.

(actually it's N2, O2, Ar, CO2)

...and as the dolphin descended
i could sense his withering glance...

Wait come back,
my dolphin friend!
I didn't mean to offend
my knowledge is at ocean level
whose makeup; chemical
is as foreign to me
as you are slip-per-y!
Ack...

I'm never gonna see that dolphin again...

the further i stretch
the more painful the retraction
and the more brittle the substrate
it feels too late for
discipline and temperance
to slow this roll
it needs to break

I forgot. I forgot.
There's a war.
There's all those things
I said and did,
but I still dig,
unironically, elevator music,
or the cheesiest 1950s tiki.
Half-Whitest Wannabe
Jazz Enthusiast
innocently appropriating
joy.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
There's a war.
There's an endless culture of consumption
of which i find myself embedded,
but I must head to joy,
whenever, wherever,
or find myself indulging
in murkier depths of idiot longing.
Please.

I need permission.

an absence of your presence
is another neural taboo
a place i won't go
i won't wonder where
arcs that electricity
i cut it at the nerve
ending in the place i don't look
but each thought dismissed
is not transcendent
it adds to the heap
i'm not prepared for
grief.

Sipping black bitterness to read more bad news I should spit it out!

Still, there's a coffee in my hand.

The film of shame atop my tiny pleasure does not compel my altruism to drop it.

Still, there's a coffee in my hand.

Is my consumerist loop inertia
to imbibe that which I know is wrong
So beguiling it has become
my greatest good?

Shut up and Enjoy
Shut up and Enjoy

Hedonistic nihilism
Fervent anti-capitalism
Humanistic utilitarianism
Democratic socialism

All better with a coffee in my hand.

Coffee coffee coffee
The bitter swill enlightening,
delighting my daily misery.

Disbelief
is not reflection
nor reaction
It is the natural state

Divine bolts and
Watchers from above
Below flaming chariots
And squealing torment

Before I met you
Fear and wonder
Were not absent in me

But now even those
I temper with doubt

Yet disbelieve
and all
  I know
   is this

     A champion of reason
       is alone in the abyss

I shut myself away again
Enrapt in the trapping of
whats, forgots and don't have.
The emergence is anticipated.
Soon a butterfly. Or pupated nymph.
The new me!
Emergent emergency!
Trapped in the smoke
with nowhere to go.
No one to be.
Don't read
Kafka Nietzsche or Dostoyevsky

May the edges of my intellect only be eroded by the efforts of oceans. A fortress of stone enduring endless waves but never breaking. Only successive shedding so imperceptible that time before forgets its form.

Sunyata i will never be
Though the path is clear before me...

You wouldn't like this body without its
conscious integrity.

I try to believe in nothing.
My teeny toe is dipped in nihilism.
But nothing, I struggle to attain.

To be a sponge, a vessel of
absorption
An empty state of being,  but still
grasping at the feeling

That someone will fill me with desire.

-----

Am I nihilistic, or just burnt out?
Neural pathways terminate in "X".
Do not pass. All roads lead to pain.
Oh, you've let me down again.

Pain isn't nothing.
I should heed its alarm.
But believing is something
I fear more than ego-death.

I will dance in brightness.
Though diffused and overcast,
With scattered rays I fight this
Shadow from my past.

Why'd you say those words to me?
               "You'll never be h__*y."
I believe that it's true,
but I wouldn't say those words to you.

I've fixed on fixation fulfilling your divination
well!
Happy is as happy do
now i have some words for you!

When you look you never find.
Love is fleeting, never blind.
All good things come to an end.
Have a taste of your own medicine!

I fell right down the stairs.
With a tumbling joy.
And laughed at the bottom.

My anxiety is furrowed
Too cowardly to stray from the neural trenches I have dug
Dopamine, what have you done!?


Emptiness...
There's nothing like that non-existent void I've never seen.

I'll never be the man I've never--been.

Brain, what am I now?

Sparks. Noise. Entropy.
An engine burning. Dying. Disrepaired.
But a flame still wants to dream!

Emptiness?!
Maybe it's not for me!
Forget who you are or should be!
Be. Be. Be. Be. Be. Be Be be

Did you know how much of everything you lack?

Did you know that lonely people are more likely to die?

Did you know that context is entirely subjective?

Did you know that suffering on an innumerable scale is happening, at this very moment, on this very planet, right under our very noses?

Did you know that it's all your fault?

Did you know that no man is an island?

Did you know that family is everything?

Did you know.

Did you know that every joy you feel is a reaction against a cloying despair?

...

Yes  I did but do I?  No.

A poison seed is furtive in neglected soil.

From scorched earth it emerges with the aroma of cunning veracity.

But no truth will grow.

It happened matter of factly
Exactly as proclaimed to be

Before I had the time to see
I chose the path they chose for me.

Now...
I'm their worst enemy.

I shall watch them all fall.

My spire has no guardian.
My soul no judgement.

Glory is a peak to crumble.

Your face is familiar to me.
This light before has played along your contours.
This air has molded to your voice.

Your shadows are reflections,
And your echoes are embedded
In my stone.
In our stone.

Why is the bottom always there?
Climb or jump, or flee in terror.

It rises with me and within,
and compels me to ascend.

Forty years, the tower rise—
Just a plaque that says, “Here lies...

Human, tyrant, coward, sleeper.
Only fear is digging deeper.

...another ideal to be fulfilled.
There is no vessel without intent.
I'm pretty sure a lake holds water.

Ah with each new thing i see
a fresh surcease of novelty
Passion led me to the end...
again again again again

sleep and dream of sugar plum dumplings and dripping ******* dangling to suckle with your pursed mouth in a perfect “euuuooo”.

what troubles you, o perfect man? cause man you are, and man, you are a ****, and also the president.

Hey!
I did not mean to startle
       you so clearly armed.

I only wished to say,
“Hey! Hello. Don’t shoot me.
                Do you think it will rain today?"