By Aaron Kasunic

Assembled from works by Ryan P. Kinney, J.M. Romig, and Sheena Zilla

I am in her arms
Having been told, “No”
And resigned to rejection so many times
So many times I told myself that this would never happen
As my lips touch hers
I laugh inside my head
“Is this really happening?”
This is really happening.

I called you art,
poetry,
even…honesty.

I hold my breathe
I can see him through the window
As I have seen him through the electronic window of my TV for years
As I get closer this feel less and less real
This is my hero
My God

She broke my heart.
I was a business tycoon,
A man of great wealth
I could have anyone I wanted,
but not her.
She didn’t know what she wanted. She needed guidance.
So I found her, and we both got what we really wanted.
I always get what I want…
…I don’t like this memory.

I won’t say the word regret,
because I don’t
I won’t say the word sorry
because I’m not.

I will say that with age comes perspective
and with perspective
comes introspection and –

The well of my youth is no longer a place I can drink from.

The destruction of the self is intolerable,
Everyone tells me
To destroy myself is acceptable,
Little round pills


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and J.M. Romig

The coy house thinks, “Should I let this man enter me?”
Although she pretends to resist at first
She soon relents,
The pressure giving way and her door granting passage

He pledges to give her hardwood floors
To put a swingset in her backyard
The finest dressings on her windows
Painting her face,
Decking her out
To show the world how much he loves her
Softly wooing, he promises her a family

She hopes this one will make good
As he begins his work,
She watches the swell in his young wife’s womb
And for a while, believes in life again

For the first time in years,
She breathes fresh air as they move in their boxes
The melding of their past and her future
An image so bright,
That she is almost blinded by the light
When one night,
The soon-to-be mother misses her first step

At the bottom of the stairs,
He finds his world in pieces
As the paramedics pack the body and cart it away
The door closes behind them
And the air grows stagnant

The only boxes he ever unpacks,
Contain spirits
To numb him from the haunting emptiness inside
The past becomes nothing, but a foot stool
Slowly crushed and deformed under his weight
Her rooms,
Built to house new memories, home cooked meals, and laughter
Now nothing, but
Stale beer, chips, and wasted life


Created from prompts at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

by Ryan P. Kinney and Dawn Richardson

Created from prompts by J.M. Romig, Dawn Richardson, and Ryan P. Kinney

She loves him like a fire,
Enveloping, holding, and caressing the wood,
While slowly consuming every part of him

Shaking off clothes like the leaves in autumn
Their bodies exposed,
Changing from a wan pallor
To a flushed crimson hue

Their bodies burn,
Breathe drifts like smoke into the skyline
The mountains **** their horizons

The dragon flies and dragonflies in the dusking night
The snow blanketed world deadens the sound of his beating heart
Her tide slowly recedes into him
The delicate wax of his heart melts under her fury
She swallows his cries

Babies sleep soundly


Created at the Winter Writing Workshop (Dec. 27, 2015),
HEYMAN! Productions

My Life is a Scratched CD (OR Blue Collar Lament- The Little Napper Remix)
Lines taken from poems by JM Romig (Ursa Somniculosa/CD Skipping Down Route 11) and Ryan Kinney (Blue Collar Lament)

It's long drive on this highway
The window creeks
- its jagged way down
I breathe in the new air for the first time in months
the CD starts skip-skip words
Hopping over - lines
Reminding me
Of finite fuel
repeat-
finite time
With work looming just hours away
repeat-
Death, just decades away

I spend most of my week
in the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
on repeat
in a semi-conscience trance
watching multi-million dollar machines work

repeat

in the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
is a constellation of dirt, chipped paint
and cobwebs
forming the shape
of a bear
lounging in a hammock

skip

They are more alive than I am.
Monday at 3 PM I click off my brain,
switch on automatic,
repeat
automatic
skip
- the countdown:-T-minus 40 hours.
Each minute that ticks by
in the dull monotony slowly steals my sanity,
bit by bit

Each minute closer to Friday
slower and slower,
until on Friday they seem to tick
backwards--

skip

I have coworkers
who insist that it's a monkey,
trapped in a net

Each day blurs into the other
making them indistinguishable.
Repeat-
My finite time
Monday,
the entirety of the previous week
on repeat-
T-minus 40 hours.

skip

they are wrong.
It's clearly a bear

In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
repeat-
Death - just decades away.
The dictator they put in charge of the asylum
barks out commands on cue,
just to remind everyone that they own you.

skip

The desperation for dollars
are the shackles that keep me here.

I often welcome sleepwalking:
I think of Emerson
On repeat-
Skip-
I think I feel like his transparent eyeball
repeat-
His eyeball-
I begin to understand
I begin to feel like I'm one with everything
skip-
everyone is love
repeat
love
every-Everyone is me
and you
skip-skip
-the impending coma

In the few instances the machines malfunction
I curse being awakened.
At least as a zombie, I don't feel
my mind rotting
repeat

the rotting constellation of dirt,
chipped paint and cobwebs:
Ursa Somniculosa
No matter where I am on the floor,
I can see him hanging there in his hammock

on the weekends I love life.
I shed the identity the uniform has forced upon me
and my true self emerges--
repeat
my finite fuel

In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
repeat
the desperation for dollars
I truly only live two days a week
repeat
my finite time
I'm dying the other five

skip-skip

I think of Ursa Somniculosa -
In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
enjoying his perpetual vacation
maybe sipping on a nice tall beer
soaking up the sun -

NOT being a trapped monkey
like all of us down here
on repeat

by Aaron Kasunic, Ryan P. Kinney, and J.M. Romig

How can I explain the error you make?
When you stand so vigilantly waiting to lunge into the abyss?
This pit full of fire and blood, it calls to you
Doesn’t it?

I have pointed the finger
Only to turn it on myself
I have held grudges and forgiven
I have trusted and misguided
I have been Judas and Jesus

I was immortal once
Believe me, you,
I was invincible

If this horrifies you,
Then you are right
It horrifies me too

We walk on moon rocks
In the weightless ways of childhood
Straining our legs and lungs
Suppressing the rebirth of the sun

We will be naked and bare
Ugly and beautiful
Out of control
And into the light

by Aaron Kasunic, Ryan P. Kinney, and J.M. Romig

How can I explain the error you make?
When you stand so vigilantly waiting to lunge into the abyss?
This pit full of fire and blood, it calls to you
Doesn’t it?

I have pointed the finger
Only to turn it on myself
I have held grudges and forgiven
I have trusted and misguided
I have been Judas and Jesus

I was immortal once
Believe me, you,
I was invincible

If this horrifies you,
Then you are right
It horrifies me too

We walk on moon rocks
In the weightless ways of childhood
Straining our legs and lungs
Suppressing the rebirth of the sun

We will be naked and bare
Ugly and beautiful
Out of control
And into the light

by Ryan P. Kinney

It was the end of monsters
The end of mothers
The end of haters
Of lovers
Of pain and suffering
Of bliss and ecstasy

Nothing to hide under the bed
No terror floating in your head
Just the buzzing and swarming of the insects

There was just the animalistic need to survive
And Gaia had decided
It was best for her survival
If we did not

The fall of man

Truth be told
We did it to ourselves