I've never been addicted to anything but the thrill of living.
Well I guess there's cigarettes, but does that really count?

I think about the drugs.
They're documented, here in my journal.

I feel awful as I read this memoir, "Beautiful Boy"
His father really wants him to ******* stop.

The methadone.
"That's some Heavy ****, _. What were you thinking?"
I was thinking about the high of doing something /wrong/

I walk to temptation, light a match and walk away.
Never involved, just toying with the idea.

I've had a couple glasses of wine, not high...
writing about the darkness makes we want another glass.
Is the act of expressing these emotions playing with fire?
Better pour myself another glass.

The downtrodden, the broken, the fall from grace.
I'm just fascinated.

A damaged person is more whole to me than the impeccable.

I am impulsive, unafraid of mistakes, romantic.
I treat my life and my body like a canvas.
I do not lump things into categories of black and white.
I open up to strangers and see beauty in the obscure.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
I am no stranger to controversy.

// vacuous behavior in our world, and beneath it I believe there are people who are boiling to get out.//

People have been conditioned into eating, sleeping, *******, and buying their problems away.

I shouldn't be conditioned to feel weak about this vulnerability.
"To be fully standing in the light, one must cast a shadow"

BECAUSE it's in grappling with these dark moments, sharing & owning them/
that we are most liberated/

I accept and embrace this uncertainty

word travels & *** sells
             /stomping gravel lest I dwell/
fires burn & hearts ache
           /a dream yearned and willed awake/
a ponds ripple & a banshees scream
           /it looked simple, reality is obscene/
flesh twists & seasons change
          /a list of reasons to rearrange/    

flowers wilt & the sun sets
         /baby lullabies and cold sweats/
wood knocks & doors close
        /deadbolts lock and war grows/
secrets whisper & snow falls
        /dark drifters and phone calls/
chapters start & stories end
        /laughter, death and grow again/

when the drums pound
my heart beats
and these words leak like the ink
from pens that have dried
to the words that have died in youth
but echo faintly to my future.

-r0

The truth is that I never shook my shadow
Every day, it's trying to trick me into doing battle
Calling out 'faker', only get me rattled
Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle

Building your lenses, digging your trenches
Put me on the front line, leave me with a dumb mind
With no defenses but your defense is
If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless

Since this, I've grown up some different kind of fighter
And when the darkness comes, let it inside you
And your darkness is shining, my darkness is shining
Have faith in myself
Truth

I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon
Now which is the future you're choosing before you go dying?
I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining
Every little lie in this world comes from dividing

Say you're my lover, say you're my own, homie
Tilt my chin back, slit my throat
Take a bath in my blood, get to know me
All out of my secrets, all my enemies are turning into my teachers

Because light's blinding, no way dividing
What's yours or mine when everything's shining?
You darkness is shining, my darkness is shining
Have faith in ourselves
Truth

Yes, I'm only loving, only trying to only love
And, yes, and what I'm trying to do is only loving
Yes, I'm only loving, trying to only love
I swear to God, I'm only trying to be loving

Yes, I'm only lonely loving
Yes, I'm only feeling only loving, only loving
You say it ain't loving, ain't loving
Ain't loving, my loving

But I'm only loving, still only loving
Swear to god, I'm only loving
Trying to be loving, loving
Loving, loving, loving, loving

Yes I'm only loving, yes, trying to only love
I swear to god, I'm trying but I'm only loving
You say it ain't loving, ain't loving, ain't loving
Ain't loving, ain't loving my loving
But I'm only loving, loving, loving, loving the truth

Truth

-alexander

these lush cheeks speak
eyelash you fast
I hope you see past the technique.

r0

Roses are red, ***** are blue
Take back what I said
I'll just *******.

flood my brain with that drug
that fools me I'm in love

Would you Bleed for Me?
Lick it off my lips like you needed me?
Sit me on the couch with your fingers in my mouth,
you look so cool while you're reading me.

Let's cause a little trouble.
Oh, you make me feel so weak.
I bet you kiss your knuckles.
Right before they touch my cheek.

But I've got my mind, made up this time.
Cause there's a menace in my bed.
Can you see his silhouette?

And I've got my mind, made up this time.
Go on and light a cigarette, set a fire in my head.
Set a fire in my head, tonight.

Would you lie for me?
Cross your sorry heart and hope to die for me?
Would you pin me to a wall?
Would you beg or would you crawl?
Stick a needle in your hungry eyes for me?

Don't forget me, don't forget me.
I wouldn't leave you if you'd let me.
Hmm, when you met me when you met me.
You told me you were gonna get me.

-HALSEY

I talked to a friend today for the first time since I've been back from Arizona. It was interesting. I tried to start off cool, calm, collected... all of those things you should be in public and with strangers-- but only in private among friends. Eventually he started asking the hard questions, as I knew he would. It's a simple formality that defuses so much stress for me. Listening to someone's problems is like making eye-contact with a homeless person. You still want to treat them like a human being, but you'll end up regretting it later.  



So he asked me how the relationship stands with my dad since summer. “Has it improved? Did you two talk?” “No, no.” I say. No, it hasn't improved at all. My father still feeds of his perpetual guilt as a muse and mentor in every sale he makes and AA meeting he attends. If you cut him open you'd find an empty bottle of Jameson. “That's alright,” I tell him. I don't chase him down anymore to have a heart to heart about the past, or his feelings, or his mistakes-- no, we're adults now. We use each other as a means to an end. This is the way males bond. Instead of getting angry at him when he's a ****, I just ignore his phone calls for five days until he's saturated in his guilt long enough to actually be proactive. When I call him back It's expected he'll send me money, even if it's unwarranted. It's so easy. I don't have to fight with him, and he gets to avoid looking at the loser in the mirror. Nobodies emotional needs are being met-- but, hey! At least we can spend the 100$ drinking long island ice tea at the layovers on the way back to my life away from hell. Thanks dad, really.  



“And how is your sister?” he asks. “Oh, she's loosing her mind,” I say. She asks me why I don't try harder for the family. She blames me for leaving and emotionally severing myself. “It's like you don't give a **** about anything but yourself,” she says. Well she really hit the nail on the head. I, apparently, am the patron saint of reassembling ravaged family units beyond repair and squaring the circle. I am fully aware of how angry she is that she can't do the same emotional distancing for herself. She wants so badly to grow out of that child that's still locked inside of herself begging for a functioning home. So there she is, Atlas, holding the weight of the world and I'm the one that put it on her shoulders. No one can advise her because we're all to blame, are her victimhood is a virulent strain infecting everyone but me.  



“And hows your mom?” he asks. “Oh, well she's just a silly goose, you know?” “Sillier than ever,” I say. Making her rounds to the ER quicker than she rebounded from deciding to leave her boyfriend and live off my sister in Seattle. “At least this time it's from the aftershocks of her attempted suicide and not the actual act of doing it, you know?” But there still runs the potentiality of getting that phone call-- “Hey, your mom's got a tube running into her heart.” It's a fun game of Russian Roulette we like to play in our family-- nobodies winning.  But she made the time to come to Flagstaff and spend some quality time with me for my birthday. Forked over a little bit of Xanex for me and my girlfriend, bought us *****, drank with us. “You know, what are moms for?” I say.  



I tell him, "My life is like a Modern Family episode directed by Quentin Tarantino."



It just makes a person a little rough around the edges, you know? And with insight comes a bit of cynicism. Like, yeah. I dissected and tore you apart yesterday-- but it's only because I love you. Your imperfections really make you shine. It's that feeling you get when you try to jam the wrong shape through one of those Fisher-Price toys-- it doesn't fit but you force it anyway.



But you're alright, you'll muddle through.

I've come to realize in this massively dissociative city  that I'm lonely and unhappy. Much in the same way magazine covers don't seem to reflect the image I'd really like to see in myself. I'm chasing the tail of a dream that died long before I had the time to develop an admiration for pets. I would like to take care of something, and in turn, something to take care of me. But I have created a life bent on self-efficiency and cold realism-- a life without dependency. I don't know whether this is due to nature, nurture, or belief… but it is my blunt and isolated reality. What am I doing? Who am I proving life to? I came out here to experience a dream beyond my imagination, but all I found was ****. The same **** I find everywhere else. The only constant is people like you. Those who understand and care for my well-being. My family and friends. I want so badly to feel at home again-- to be close to another person. Until then I am stringing myself up by my shoelaces and finding work where I can. Because the world I've found is one bent on financial security over passion, and the only passion I've felt is for those who care enough to see. But people here are blind to me.

I'm not
the substitute
for the smoke
you've been inhaling.

-r0

I come home and look at my room
like I would the stranger that I ******
and didn't leave a phone number to.

I see the blank walls and smell
the sent of stale paint and think
of a life more privileged.

I can't help it.
I live in a box.

I see the world of money
and fame,
I live it.

I stay up and bite my nails
to dust
like it's achievable.

It's ******* not,
and I don't want it.

But I do.

volumes fly as pages
catch wind novel
images and shapes
form in speechless
colored language
my dreams
speak.

love isn't a transaction.

I rarely get on Facebook anymore. But when I do, I'll change my profile picture or banner-- maybe post a witty status update, maybe not witty, just something to let people know I'm alive.

It's like repositioning the arms on a stationary mannequin to depict a different scene. Except lately I just don't care anymore. It's just that-- a mannequin. An object, an image, a lifeless entity with which I used to feel real-- a dusty mirror.

I see that the line between the idea of a person and the reality is being blurred and crossing over into something all-together different. It's as if people are starting to wake up and realize the objectivity of their reality. But that brings into question the basis for which we define reality.

We have become a, “Look but don't touch” society in which we click a button to show our appreciation as opposed to genuinely reciprocating human emotion and energy. It is extremely isolating and dangerous.

Packed subways and sidewalks have fallen eerily silent with faces illuminated by their cellphones. Most everyone wants to be heard, appreciated and recognized and social media has provided an outlet for that.

But there comes a point at which your platform becomes your prison and your voice your warden-- and everything you say is modified to be pleasing to the ear and 'likeable'.

But I like dislikes. And if you're not ******* anyone off-- you're probably not doing anything important, and if you're not outraged you're not paying attention.

I will tear you apart
break your arms
crush your skull
in-between my thoughts

you're no *******
match to my gasoline.

I am violent.
I am cruel.
I am evil.
I am black
Unknown

you don't know me.
You never will
You never did.

Steadfast in your experience
aged fossil
I am forged of fires
beyond that
of hells.

cutie patootie
fossil fuel.

Bloom into that miserable flower
you're bent on becoming.

I am so afriad
of becoming
You.

Hello World,

If you could ******* isolation
you would ***** fifty shades
of I wish I were as easily pleased
as you.

If I could be happy with simplicity
and the birds and the bees
and the SNL and cable
and the drone, drone, drone.

commercial break
I have no channels left
all flowing into the image
of the ******* I hold
to the past.

you will know me
as the disaster
who tried.

I will throne above
the artificial sunshine
coming through
the window of your
domestic screens.  

-r0

wake up and starve
my poison is stronger
I trip into ash
and fancy the city.

Drugs
***
Rock and Hole

moons fade to
rub my starstruck
eyes in the sun
and I am still

an empty palm
scratched on street signs.

{Some old writing from when I was younger. A piece about the past.}

Smoke bellows outward
in a plume from parted lips
and rolls off my arms in a loving caress.

As I lower my hand from my mouth
and gaze at the stars
I am brought into a catalyzing train of thought.

As the domino's of the past
experiences collapse in my mind
I reach a dusty black box
i put away long ago
in the innermost regions of my brain.

Upon looking at the box
I see in gold letters, "do not open"
On the surface. I inhale once more
a drag most satisfying.

I exhale and gaze at the black box.

As I stare at the stars I am happy in this moment.
All tragedy's and shortcomings,
problems and obstructions
in my path seem to breath themselves calmly out of existence,
as I once did.

I am happy in this moment.

The horizon does not end
for those crafted of the infinite,
and the sun never sets in a perpetuating sky.

I create myself instead of searching.
For reality is not repeating itself,
rather it's extending toward nothing
and everything at once.

It is one and all.

It is black and white
and it follows no pattern or circumference. 

I inhale once more.
grind the embers of my cigarette into the surface of the box,
and exhale.

Dwelling not on anything
but the short life I have left to live
with each breath.

I watch the embers die out,

and leave.

Here is the line I draw in the sand.
Here are the words you spoke to me.
Here is the complete detachment of care and empathy you've shown. Here is documentation that I'm going to be alright.
There-
is the place for you in my heart.

Why do you focus on the worst in us?

These are my lips still untouched
by how much I thought you loved me.
This was the motivation I used to show you my world.
These are the walls that saw everything, here and there.
These are your letters collecting dust.
This is me staring at the place where you were supposed to be still standing.

How could you let me go?

Here is my realization.
There is your pride.
Here is the phone that won't be ringing.
Here is your realization.
There is a year gone.
Here is one of those other fish in the sea.
This is how quick I can rip that band-aid off.

Where are you running to?

This is the image of me.
The lack of my being in your life.
There- is the fading reminder of who I used to be.
This is how strongly I loved and believed you.
The only (  ) who did what ( ) did. There-- (  ) was.


This is the love that still stands.
The love that forgives and never forgets a second.
The place in our hearts that can't be filled by anyone else.
The love that knows no limit.

Here is the clock ticking, recording it all.

Here is how quickly I can rip that clock off the wall.

-r0

[I appreciate all of the people who have recently taken an interest in my writing since my poem was featured on the front page!]

"It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at best knows in the end
the triumph of high achievement,
and who at worst,
if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,

so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory or defeat."
-Roosevelt

shivering moss
of deep green
I am a ghost
lost in a waltz

haunted moons
shroud me faint
open graves
my crumbling face

nowhere
moist earth
and ice air
take rusted scissors
to this angels echo

-r0

the  future  is  coming*

I'm often reminded of this when
the other students in my class
ask me what my major is.

“Liberal Studies,” I say.

The follow up question is always the same cookie-cutter inquiry.

                        “So you want to be a teacher?”

                                                      “No, not really” I say.

                                        At this juncture the person who is blandly     asking the questions begins to express
genuine interest in what I might do next
in the “real-world,”
spiked with a fear of the unknown.

“So what do you want to do then?”

I've come to realize that this is the point where most of my passing conversations with peers are brought to an abrupt end.

“I don't know.” I say.

And there it is, out in the open, lying on the floor-- the ******* future. I search their eyes and find panic,
                                                    then doubt,
                                                                ­ followed by pity.

I have officially shared too much information.
Figures. Honesty  creeps  people  out.

We part ways with, “Oh, that's great” or “I'll see you around!” and march forward to that inevitable, tantalizing ***** that is the future.

I've found that when I express a modicum
of trust in the world,
                                            it is often met with an alarming dread
                                           and concern for my prolonged well-being.

I am without a plan, so naturally-- there's a problem.


That if I don't have my calendar
              marked up through to the second coming of Christ,
                    at some point all of my limbs may simultaneously fall off.
Or I may simply cease to exist
           and all the joys of life will slip through my fingers
                                                       as I descend into my faithless pit
                                                                ­   of poor-planning.

I'd like it if everyone could just breathe--
get your cell-phones and computers in class,
and live in this moment.

Because yesterday is today
                         and today is tomorrow,
                                      and there is no future more important than now.

Until then and philosophy aside,
I guess I'll keep careening on the edge of reality
with my thumb up my ***
because god forbid
you become anything
          like me.


                                                           ­   -r0