I dream
a lot
and I
remember
most of them—
streets
lights
names and faces
of strangers
even emotions
speeches
dance
they came
like
renditions
sometimes
it feels
like they’re
a prophesy

there's always this one reason
that made us all a poet
and that lonesome experience
we never wanted

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

we measure happiness
with the difference
of how sad we've become

"it's all about preference"
no, it's not that you prefer coffee over beer
there's a fine line
between quietly sitting
and quietly seething;
there are days for coffee
and there are days when you just really feel stupid
sometimes it's funny

You’re gone
long before you were mine
Or is it?
I'm not even in the place to tell
I’ve drowned myself in these thoughts
In dreams I wished I would never wake
And I kept crawling back to a place
Where pain and bliss both reside
The night whispered to me, “It’s so close"
With a blanket left hanging
Chilling me to the bone
Alas, I opened my eyes and basked in the sun
The long night is gone
But the day I was hoping for
Never came

****
                     it's
        a draft