going home isn’t always
returning to a place.
sometimes
it is returning to yourself.

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

I am already dead,
just too lazy
and apathetic
to make it official.

I LIKE TO SAY YOUR NAME

I like to say
your name

when you're
not here

turn you
into sound

conjure you out of
thin air

so that you appear
before me

dressed in sound
only

memory sketching in
the rest of you

as if sound
was just an outline

and love
colours you in

adding the voice last
so I can hear you say.

"Hello you..!"
and there you are

as present
as present

can be.

I like to say
your name

when you're
not there.

"I'm an open book"
She says

Written in
code.