She wakes up every morning
with a frown on her face
as he stumbles from his bed
and into a chair that
he will never get out of-
there is tension in the air
as she downs another
exclaiming, "bottoms up"
when it makes her glass world
shatter
at the rise of a cup

All he can do is watch the pieces
as they become pronounced
while the shift of retreating cats
induces a pitter-patter
and more pictures fade out;
the happy memories
now stained
from her cigarette smoke
to ensure they'll die together,
yet somehow alone

He is cursed with a disease
that has rendered him pitiful
but alcohol doesn't care,
she drinks another swig,
becoming more cyclical
and deems the man’s hindrance
as sinful

Stuttering, he can't escape
a liquid she's drowned him with
by pouring it into her own veins-
maybe it's better this way,
to watch the walls as they cave in

What else can he do
as he slowly degrades
from Parkinson's?

Vices hold me in a grip
living is a ****** up game,
I mash buttons
until I bend and flip
breakdown, take another hit:
I’ve relinquished
my prime of life
wishing it was
someone else’s fault
that I’m stranded on this island,
this is why I succumb to
vices

It started as a wild ride
that turned into the spins
a religion of motion sickness,
wanting to stop
but always caving in:
it spirals through my mind
filling damage to the brim
emotions are meant
to process here,
now they only
dissipate in chagrin,
as rueful ignorance catapults
this living hell to
greater heights
without having to lift a finger:
my self-inflicted violence,
a byproduct of
vices

Left with no
rationale to care,
only a small bend in time
where the spindle
came undone;
it's here I revel in
self-despair,
as a loser who
always failed to listen,
a captain without a vision
ready to drown in
cognitive dissonance
because it’s easier
to believe a lie
than to accept how life is:
where are my
vices?

The tightness in my chest
conveys that I need to disconnect
sit alone,
on a remote landscape,
hoping the sound of rustling leaves
will sync with these shakes
and ease my deathless torment

As some quiet finally sets in,
introspection begins to surface
and it gets me wondering if
these thoughts of mine
intertwine with the pain that I keep
to manifest a life of anger
and delusion
draping me in shades of guilt,
forever climbing up this hill

Closing my eyes paved the way
for understanding unrivaled:
an ineffable cause
to sit with nothingness,
I spilled into a void
and suddenly
stopped drowning in sadness,
finding humor in the unknown
when a feminine hand reached out
with love,
telling me to let go
and she shared with me
everything I wanted to know;

“There is no path to save yourself,
only transcendence:
answers can be begged for
but until you let go of precedence
and learn to listen for each breath
the tightness will never settle
within your chest”

Tired of the itch,
tired of the chase
looking for what I don’t have
while the world
goes down in flames,
making excuses about
how it’s ingrained,
when all it really takes
is discipline
mixed with a little bit of
pace

Still,
I hover in the wind,
let me float back through
the wild fields of dopamine
where we all still take refuge
inside of a haze,
fearing truth,
destroying self-worth
to secure
temporary comfort

My energy
is frozen in time,
it siphons into everyone I touch
with each heavy hearted step,
forging the very culture
I am certain
is the reason life is so hard
because I’ve seen the depths
of my own broken parts
and still hear a voice
in the back of my head
ring out:

“If reality
is set in stone by
how you perceive,
and you can see
the endlessness of it all,
then why do you set store by
any so-called beliefs?
Isn’t that just
habit underneath?”

I envisioned her being erased
as I slipped under
this frozen lake
that will cleanse me of
our brokenness
by turning my bones into icicles,
clarifying the sum
of how I became
shrouded in midnight blues
and the bluntness
shakes my last gulp loose
until the earth is still,
leaving me a cliché
as I glisten with the moon

My thoughts flicker into a dream
where we finally understood
without being mean,
where our love had
no consequence
and we did things for each other
not only because we should,
until a nightmare arises
of living torn apart
in realization that I
never appreciated her
when she was in my arms

Now I'm sorting through decay
into a dimension of
fading memory
and things speed up
as my mind begins to race,
but was it ever my mind to behold?
Are we just visions projected
through those that personify us?

The concept of missing another
has left, where is here?
Her face dissolves,
and my last thought
conjured
is a question of why
there was no emphasis
on other people or resolve
before I got lost in self-destruction,
looking for the sound
of her laughter

What remains
is unending fear
as this aura travels
elsewhere
and a body absently
sinks
to the bottom of Moses Lake;
goodbye dear

You look like the kind of person
that I could share silence with
and I’ve been made a fool
from reveling in this idealized mess
ever since the day that
we never met

Only saw a face,
as it shifted through shadows
at your kinetic pace,
masked in a smile from
this wistful summer glare,
and intricate details that
long to match your
auburn hair

Neurons started firing,
daydreams cascade and blend,
my infatuation
twists and bends
into a proclamation of art
that recycles upon waking up:
my continuation
of getting lost in
whoever / wherever
you are

Summer slips away
while I hide in my room
wasting time falling down
wondering if I’ll ever share
this wealth of love
I hoard on my mound
with someone besides myself:
a tragedy, curled up on the rug,
jaded by the compassion
that has been given up
and I can't get enough

I pinch in further to zoom
on the microcosm of my life
and see that it’s cropped
into a frame
without resolve or
anyone to blame-
a picture of me
with the blinds drawn,
frozen in a still shot,
hiding from the moon,
and it has me believing that
I might die alone
from lack of sleep
as I howl and brood

Morning breaks through
requesting me with warmth
and calling out to
wake me before noon-
I hear but don't listen,
instead I'll bask in this gloom,
listless

That surely must produce
some worthwhile art
in the end
even if something will always
feel like it is
missing