Sometimes I can't sleep.
Spidery shadows named Regret creep
Around myself, camouflaging with the night.
Nobody whispers sinful dark deeds into my ears;
No voices howl in echoing patterns.
It's just me.
And me alone.
Caught awake in the dead of the night.
It's kind of peculiar that they would call it that-
“The dead of the night”
Because it is actually quite alive.
As am I
For now.
What an interesting thought.
“Black like cigar ashes” thought.
Fornowfornowfornowfor-
Pills can taste like candy if you imagine hard enough.

Sad is a penny word.
A “too vague and distantly grey” word.
It’s edges don't shine.
They are cracked and dusted over
in silk space dust.
Depressed is a dollar word.
“Milk and honey on our throats” word.
It sizzles people's lips
everytime it dances in their mouths.
Everyone is depressed.
While they sit beside their open glass
windows and write tasteless poetry about
Depressed and how they feel it.
How it courses through and through their
juvenile veins.
Everyone is depressed.
But I think maybe I am just sad.
Sad like pain and tears that don’t fall.
Maybe I am Depressed.

I want to inject sweet tangerine sunsets into my veins
and let the warmth fill my body
To spin Saturn's rings around my pinky
and dance hopscotch behind reality
My lungs painted pastel
In cancer and soft robin egg blue
I want to see the colors of psychedelic
Sound waves that crash guitar solos onto beaches
Systematically
Mostly I just want to be happy.

I do not know where I am from.
One-hundred and forty-seven hours of contemplation,
Yet still I am stuck in a strange situation.
Am I from the gold corn stocks
that build a wall around me?
Their weeping silk threads caught around my fingers, and
that strange fresh dirt smell that always lingers
in the depths of my sweater.
Am I from the constellations painted on my cheeks?
Their upsetting color like paint
splattered on a canvas in uneven spirals;
claiming rule over my pale round face.
Am I from John Lennon?
His weeping Guitar and yellow sunshine
shining into me in sweet melodic tunes.
Am I from Atlantic, Iowa?
Home of the trojans and simple
minded people who are yet to accept
Individuality.
Am I from a hateful world where black and white
Is the only thing we ever see?
Where body parts are to pave the path of one's
Destination.
Am I from a nation,
whose officials pledge vacation,
while those in need sit hungry, brazen, on the streets?
Where the only thing they feel is the hate
they’ve been tasting?


No.

I am from drawing patterns on the fogged over
emerald-tinted window glass.
From the shiny grey floor of a retro skate rink.
From the laces of black converse shoes; torn and *****.
I am from laughing as loud as I can
at midnight, 1am, two thirty.
But most of all,
I am from soul.
And from the one hundred classic rock songs we always sung.
I am from youth and aspiration.
I am from smoke curling through my hair.
And I...
I am from the chalk dust,
settled rosy pink in my lungs.

It's euphoric.
The way his fingers trace the straight
metal strings laid tightly over
the sunset wood instrument.
It's almost as tall as him
or maybe it's taller.
I remember the way his eyes would close:
Body slowly, subtlety, swaying.

You looked beautiful.
Extremely beautiful in all of your wild glory
and small-town fame.
I guess it’s sort of strange that
In all honestly,
I hated you.
I still don't fully appreciate your presence.
But watching you from the back rows
Of a high school auditorium,
From your hands coming forth a
Euphoric noise that seemed to coruscate
Atop the bodies sitting stiff in the audience.
Time always slowed down when you
Played.
But not my breath.
You made my breath rigid.

Aesthetic cigarette smoke weaves through and through the air
Sinking into the threads of jean jackets
That already smell like night time chills and rain.
I hate smoking.
But
It looks pretty cool.