Our worlds were mixed
like a glove with
the perfect fit
until I fell away
into demons that weren’t
there only to satiate
and now that I have
broken free of their chains
I can accept the mendacious
nature of my past apologies;
now I can encapsulate
how dreamers sometimes
forget to breathe

So I’ll keep watching the way
you float in detachment
not only for you, but also
for me: it’s no longer child’s play,
there’s no more blinking
in regard to capturing
the ascension we need,
in regard to securing
your heart

Like water in my veins
answers are converging with
my bones-
I want to re-assess that fitment,
to be your missing part,
and hold onto our sacredness
until it is in togetherness
where we embrace
the ever pulling unknown

The pedestal has crushed
from underneath everyone’s feet,
I am now vacant of all elaborate hope
that allowed the pendulum to swing
a presence swept 100 miles away
into a stream of memory

left with such unrest
I will gorge on rumination,
fill my cup with self-neglect;
loathing in the winter breeze
I can only hope to endure
every moment into its next

My head pleads,
"you moved away,
but forgot to move on”
and despite the emptiness it creates
my heart still wants to say,
"goodbye, and so long”

You burn me like the sun,
blind until morning comes
that skin is tinged with blisters:
it’s an overwhelming glare that forges
composition with my eyes
until I’m dancing with the synthesis
of you and winter,
once more trapping us within the night,
where I rely on the false comfort
of your light

If we are stuck in this petulance,
I will dispel your volatile plans
with my unending distrust
while my mind strives to digress
into half formed math problems,
calculating an answer as to how
I let you pass by the line I drew up
while vying for our sanity to be wasted
so cycles can once more begin anew
owing to spring and it’s eternal bloom

Was it designed this way from the start?
Were there ever words kept to heart?
Do I cling to the safety of warmth?
Or listen and surrender
to this mountain
where passerby boast
about its peak as a safe haven,
absent of fear

So I tread alone
with a struggle of heavy breaths,
as the thought of settling for less
leaves me in scorn, once again,
I’ll redirect this energy into resolve
to keep a steady pace
where lines will be drawn
with a permanent pen
and I’ll learn to fan the flame
of this burning sky
that I call letting you in

Everyone has a dream
brewing inside their head,
wishing to quash
the day-to-day
that we all have to dread:
it’s hard not to feel stuck
inside of a revolving door,
hard to escape
consumerism
that wants to make us
think we are poor

At the end of each sunset
comes another rising moon
to some it’s just
a time for sleep,
others it is an unbearable
silence, a deafening clarity
that we are truly all alone
because nobody will ever
see the way our insides tick
and form into afterthoughts,
never to begin

Still, the clock is spinning,
our minds keep spilling
thoughts we appreciate,
others we regret-
the endless war of
waging through mental states
to endure physical reality again
as we get up in the morning
with another attempt
at facing the blinding light,
the arduous day-to-day,
leaving our dream behind
that only wants to
breakthrough, and come alive
within this means to an end

“Will I ever find my voice?”
The echoes bounce off buildings
collecting dust in a silent aftermath,
white noise is circulated through
indifference to what is defined
as treasure on my path

Searching from inside a trail of starlight
barely visible from lack of focus;
my wealth is discerned from
these quiet moments

So I must part ways with conversation,
and leave the skeptics
who glare their eyes
as if walking catastrophe is my niche,
the title of a book they read
page by page, words swirling in a mirage
about the never ending assumptions
of being careful, careless, or lost

A scripture of doubt is chiseled within:
"is this a vessel with any real destination?
Or has your meaning been defined
by a faulty lens,
spectacles that showcase nothing more
than a means to an end?
Or maybe you just have to stop caring
about who you might offend”

Chasing attention in stride,
everyone seems concerned with
empty things half the time
flourishing in every room at the center,
we speak out and judge
from perceptions that don’t matter,
pushing bad behavior like shills;
are we all climbing the same endless hill?

It is circumstance laced with denial:
we will get tired of being so busy
of spinning in mindless desire
and artificial normalcy,
tired of looking outside ourselves for
what will induce today’s new ecstasy

It’s easy to forget dry land
when you’ve always been at sea,
maybe there is still common ground
in living out our wildest dreams
and holding onto authentic truth:
don’t lose touch with this search for
the fountain of youth

I used to identify with this idea of self
but it’s become an empty canvas,
a memory of romanticizing help
from being attached to words and panic
like they are the resolution to this
normalization spell

Coming to terms has kept me awake,
knowing that perceptions are lies
and with this continued heavy weight
from seeking external answers
my eyes will forever stay open,
devoid of the internal ocean

Burnt out from each day
maybe I was meant for the night
if I’m still finding ways to shake,
still saying good morning to the stars
wondering what this all means
and where the answers are

But here is good enough
to contemplate
while we humans
peddle our ignorance,
shy from possibilities that are endless,
afraid of simplicity
that is timeless:
ignoring nowhere
when it is somewhere,
though we mustn’t bask in fear,
no one ever arrives late-
if suffering occurs from attachment
then letting go must be
the way to stay sane

Right?

I’m still seeking luck
with my head down
in the grass, maybe another
four-leaf clover
will show her the hope
in our beating hearts,
because the symmetry
that connected
what’s broken apart
runs deeper than
the stubbornness in-between
all the bullsh*t mistakes
that I keep making

Her scent somehow still
hangs in the air all around,
and instead of sharpening
my blade
it’s starting to dull out
until the rest of my body
aligns with my head
that is still looking in the grass
for that clover
that could be a symbol
of two lovers
who might last

Maybe it’s only me
holding onto something
that has already slipped
through my grasp:
like grains of sand,
time is shifting
and sifting through my hands-
it doesn’t seem fair
but if there is one thing
I have learned
it is that everything is fleeting,
luck runs out, and romance
becomes a story
forgotten in the past

I remember the grass,
my fingertips twirling between
the blades,
and the rays of heat
as they give life
to keep the past
in the present-
a dietary aid
to all,
with trees to provide
some shade

I had forgotten
because I hid inside
four walls that weren’t
just physical
but of the mind:
closed off to nature
and the care that
my loved ones deserved

Gradually,
the seeds have been sown
for I am outside again
learning about hard work
with hummingbirds
that mew in the wind
and bees buzzing
as they collect their due
from this life giving earth,
the one right underneath
that I always forget
to appreciate,
but will forever
find my way back
to her
and her healing ways

How does one love here
eternally,
when it is seemingly
ambiguous
with no happily ever after?
Evasive to perception,
yet somehow within us
only to be without,
never to stagnate
unless we fill our cups
with doubt

Ineffable, we’re all ****** up,
spiraling-
was this inevitable?
Lacking in honor;
devastation, She may instead
choose to watch the world burn,
we animals have
come unglued
from the fabric of
our own humanity-
lest we forget,
we are animals too

And we’ve disconnected
from the alchemy
beyond senses dull touch,
because access starts
from within
to be with out,
yet most of us sit around
reveling in drugs, lust,
and doubt

Compassion
lacks an identity,
it only exists to give
so what is it that set us
up this climb
of forced actualities
that are actually
meaningless?

We circulate an eternal
notion of control,
pacing concrete
and calling it purpose
instead of settling
into our dark abyss
and finding acceptance
underneath the
surface

Silence is golden
so I’ll watch you float away
in the lack of noise
you desperately need
after our lifetime of chaos
it is only fair
to let you ascend

If I’ll never find this love again
then I’ll hold it as close
as our Bellingham days
where I wish the breeze
and purple skies
would have let me
let you under my skin
oh, what we could have been

But wishing is fools gold
and the present reels in
so I will let myself
live out these moments
in a room that is candle-lit
until I can get a grip
on these distractions
and learn how to be
a friend or a husband-
even if it’s not you,
I still need to find my center
because it is my time
to ascend too

I go to bed each night
with your face
for reference
in my frame of mind
to discern musings of how
there is no shared
connection left
between the
dreams I have
of what could have been
over what came to pass

I mull over idealized trust
while settling into a pillow,
only to realize that it was
never anything more
than a beacon of lust

Enough
is enough,
I've had it up to here
with this ******* tragedy,
three years and counting,
filling the hollow spots
with a jagged cup
only to perpetuate
the savagery
of spilling
my own blood

When will ‘enough’
become a segue
to pass through valiantly
into new heights?
Where credence will
alleviate symptoms
of infinitely reaching for
a reason why I can't find
an alternate reality
outside of seeing your face
when I go to bed
each night

And after all this torture,
I think I might
put others on
a pedestal so high
that enough
could never be enough,
and after drowning in
my violent noise,
it seems that
in your silence
is where I will have to find
self-love

There is magic
strewn through the mind,
but instead
we stare at screens
believing in artificial light,
supporting distorted needs
only to give up
before we ever try

So I will become a one man army
charging into
silent darkness
asking the forbidden questions
allowed,
“why are we completely remiss?
So imbued in
tranquil doubt
to the point of mass
ignorance?”

“Is there underlying reason
why we are hollow?”
It is hard to retain meaning
in this war without
illuminated arrows,
guiding a way to the finish line
of our self-corrupted
sanities

A mushroom acts
as the only beacon,
showing mercy within chaos,
symbolizing an
unspoken promise
of serenity to be found
if we stop rejecting the world
and listen,
instead of sitting around
expecting everyone else
to make a difference

An inkling of
something authentic
laced in Psilocybin
decides to reminisce-
she stood there once again
brown eyed and secret filled,
a testament of time
and how it can’t heal the ill

Thought I was spent,
but it’s those days of my youth
when nothing needed
to make sense
where I traced the message
as it connects:
an answer undesirable,
still honesty none the less

Hope straightens its back
as I attempt to settle the past
and grasp at the present,
assuring that ego will learn
how to just let things happen

How to ride the
unknowable wave,
and sense these gentle
reminders
that there is no escape
because we are
simply messengers
conscious for reasons
understood
only when in symbiosis
with Mother Earth

Eight years of commitment
to file away-
I’ve never been good
at finishing tasks,
I fiddle my thumbs when asked
dramatizing a victimized
perception
to anyone who will listen
as if they aren’t suffering
in the dirt,
as if I'm special
when no one is special
because we are all perfection
reflected on earth

As a perfected being
it is my responsibility
to let you go,
to lay down the second arrow
and redirect this energy
into a meditative state,
yet my finger slips
on the bowstring
and the cushion stays
fluffed

Instantly my psyche
self-deprecates
and turbulent sensations
erupt, over time,
and how it was spent
leading up to this exact moment
but all that arises is
loneliness,
allowing the arrow
to fall into my chest

Telling myself over and over,
"alone doesn't have to mean
lonely,
just move forward"
until the double-edged sword
cuts this perceived loss
out of my gut
and humility bleeds through
as a reminder
that we only part to meet again,
whether in this life
or a different one

A highlight of consequence
for believing in
everlasting phenomenon,
and to show value in
unlearning resistance
to the push and pull
of ocean and moon
because acceptance
heals all pain,
but to cling only strikes odds
with gravity,
forcing the second arrow
loose

The day that we declared
each other as home
is a memory I now
have to try and hone
with every mental muscle
that I possess,
and turn it into treasure
labeled with a reminder
to keep forever
so I won’t forget

Now I want to hide away
in our old backyard woods
because this dull city
is that much more mundane
with your absence,
and all I can do is stare at the spot
where you last stood,
trying to accept once more
that life is impermanent

It’s hard not to wallow
in this murky water
that once was our cuddle puddle-
a mind goes where you let it
so I attempt to focus
on your brother instead,
he is a mess but will be alright
even though nothing is right
and we will never be the same

The one thing that will last
is your grace,
as you made sure
to let us know
how beautiful life is
even when it hurts:
we keep you in spirit and name
our sweet angel, the fierce,
Princess Cheetah Sage

Culture runs backwards:
strength is weakness,
soft is
empowerment-
dissuade yourself from
this rampant mindset
we've placed upon thrones,
instead find reserve to manifest
and bask in
this well of fluidity
that masculinity
can never hone

Heavy lies the crown,
it is hard
be free with the wind
like a fallen leaf
and you will catch
a safe ride home
from Mother Earth herself-
even though her tread
is unsteady,
she flows

Only when you are
certain
that there is
nowhere to be
except where you are,
will you find exemption
from the urge to shape
or control

The gut
is a compass,
let it guide you to
novelty,
and what lies beneath
the surface: that is where
adventure begins,
it takes one big leap
but you will let go
until there is nothing
left to rescind

Everything is different,
aggravated noise is swept
off into the distance
I wanted quiet, here it is,
and I still can't relax
as questions persist
over an everlasting cause
while answers dance
beyond the hanging clouds
of resistance,
showing that I make choices
but don't really know
what's missing

My life is a constant
reminder
of being trapped in a blind spot
from the bind of one’s own
imperceptive thoughts-
it’s a feat of escape
to consciously accept
what might be an earthquake
because I'm mental,
I'm down,
and I'm about to break
but this only makes it harder
to alleviate

It didn't matter when
I was young,
I could run faster then,
but inevitably
wherever you go
there you are

So I lose patience,
looking at the sign
telling me what I already know:
I'm stuck in misery's
afterglow
wondering why I
go out of my way
to make being alive so hard
by spending all of
my time alone,
hiding in the dark

The stars do not fall
with our might,
the universe has motivation
of its very own:
possession is a mirage
that takes hold
we die when we die
but there will always be
an endless light
being fed to the living below

Where a mother just gave birth
in a dreary hospital room
filled with loved ones and flowers
next-door to a man who died
alone, in the peak of June
on that same day
with the same replenishing light
reflecting in a perfect sky:
meaning is an illusion
that we create

Why make sense of things
that are better left on the shelf?
Answers are bittersweet
figments of "truth"
akin to religion
and its unfruitful ruse
for it is no secret that language
plays a fickle tune,
each voice with its own sacrilege
to project as a catalyst
unknowingly for the downfall
where we all lose

To a bullish sense of self
deemed more important
as people shout and yell,
it's unbeknownst to them
that self-righteous anger
is also best left
on the shelf

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 f*cked 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 take refuge;
inside of a haze,
fearing truth,
destroying self worth
only 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

Sink into the void I’ve found
that appears as pointless
and you’ll find
a requite of safety,
steady your breathing

Vacate needless self-help,
not all flaws
require examination
it is sensible to be empty,
steady your breathing

When trauma is
held onto as a lifeline
we cling to that identity,
halting time in its tracks
helplessly watching
as our essence begins to rot
in a cell that is
only condemning,
steady your breathing

Find comfort
through experience,
seek out the
universal center
and its unaffected
infinity,
steady your breathing

Nature has a heartbeat
we can synchronize with
by accepting her
relentless mortality,
steady your breathing

Death is inevitable,
a beautiful mess
it is the enemy yet
also a friend
depression is the cause,
sufferance is the effect
and reminders of
transience
are the master of anxiety,
steady your breathing

There is immortal freedom
hidden outside of
tunnel vision
compelling us with a
symphonic tune
to cherish being alive
and find adventure in the next-
to sing along with this chorus of
left and right /
beginning and end,
where it then gives way
to a verse
of chaos and symmetry /
repent and forgiving,
steady your breathing

Sounds perfecting
the mirage
stuck in our peripheral
of duality in tonal form,
so we can understand
that true wealth
is noticing the difference
between what we believe
and what is reality,
steady your breathing

What if all the chemicals
and screens
disappeared from the earth,
would you crawl
out of your skin
or rise to the task?
It is said that there is no cure
because answers
thrive only in silence
when one learns how to ask

Instead we accelerate
to consume noise
through wild fields of dopamine,
clawing with no poise:
we exploit weakness
for personal gain
until sincerity bleeds
from the picture
and there’s no room left in frame
for an honest work of art
because we’d rather
exhaust the canvas
with moments devoid of heart

Humility is a difficult lesson
most live in reverie
as hollow, floating silhouettes
desperate to equate value
with material progress
until one of two options remain:
convene with the
shaking breaths
or envision a hapless fate

Darkness, it looms
pleading to steer our
attention
to do nothing and sit with grace,
showing a natural way
to create harmony
while sifting through
time and space,
yet we continue to
sit upon ivory towers
ignoring balance
that only succeeds
with the fusion of light,
because in darkness
is the beginning of all life

The Starbucks was torn down
where my fantasies of us
were set apart from
tangibles that shattered
my existence-
its been five years since then
and I never wrote a metaphor
better to describe the mark
that was left on that day
or in the inevitability that
all things must change

Because I once painted
a dark haired girl
the color of my world,
it was art on its way to self-demise
overshadowed by
the comfort of
those nights that we would hide,
blending into our
chameleon moonlight,
she left me with many questions
but the answer to only one:
becoming empty enough to know
how not to love

This lesson was carved
into the stone
of that suburban parking lot,
a reflection of her
succinct goodbye
that collided with the surface of
every whisk to
breakfast and sunshine
she rejected in my room,
engulfing me in combusted lies
mixed with the scent of coffee
and fleeting perfume

I was left smoldered
on concrete
with the opus of
an imbalanced soul
that reduced me to nothing inside
except reluctant aches that
ravished in our severed ties,
and all I could do was sit there
basking in the rays
of the only time
we ever shared
morning light

I've trodded
this entire state
looking for simplicity
and a warm fireplace
but modern life
is arduous
and it delays

It has forgotten that
community blooms
where we sow patience,
fear only ceases
when we embrace it

So to seek outward
is a fool's errand,
and here I am, a fool like the rest,
thinking about one foot forward
and blaming sorrow
on lack of progress
when peace resides in each moment
where we finally resist
the push to be more
than a miracle
that shouldn't even exist

If that isn't enough
then nothing ever will be:
I've spent my life
giving up everything
and the more I let go, the more it hurts,
but at the same time, there is growth,
and in wake of
this understanding
was an emptiness that
made me feel whole

An obvious sign
that there is still nothing
to be afraid of
in the pull of the unknown

Within every burned forest
lies a newly sprouting seed,
irreparable on the surface
is a cycle that is forgiving-
albeit wild and relentless
it moves in ways that cannot
be comprehended

In the essence of
a bleak rain danced sky
is life striving to renew:
nature needs no hand
from humans to thrive,
the answer to all of our squirming
is to simply re-align

I am consumed by
negative spaces,
floating in between
death and the void,
looking for reason
that won't come
and there is no use
in running from darkness
when it's what brought us
here at birth
and the only thing
we part with in the dirt

If the way out is through,
why do they stay and
mock the despair
behind my eyelids?
They laugh as I search for
purpose that doesn't exist
in lieu of aliens that
I swear are real,
when reality has always been
my Achilles heel

It's a dance of avoiding gravity
until inevitability strikes
a heavy blow, that life is
random circumstance
siphoning into black holes,
a collection of moments
that we will forget to remember,
but how does one find peace
without answers?

Daylight starts peeking in
to see if I'm okay,
I disguise the sentiment
as irrelevant
when I could really use a break
from this carousel of fear
that only
wants me to want more
as if I am owed a life
that is somehow past due,
checked out by someone
who was less afraid
to step outside of their room

Sunlight omits
more concern over
reckless abandonment
as it greets my pacing force,
but there is no stopping
what was designed
without brakes,
carried by all the love and hate
that glorifies impulse to
sift through emptiness:
a sacrifice to this
blank screen
that consumes me with dread
over a deathless dream
stuck inside my head