It's so gratifying to realize that
I don't care what you're up to
Post-deluge-of-Dilaudid. Or
Adder-all-outta-luck
Where the beige meets the blue, and
The cat's smelling flowers, and
We're squished in this chair, here,
But you don't give a ****.

This was supposed to be the
Maiden voyage of
The S.S. Dog-Staying-Home-Alone
But, instead, familiar
Anxious chills, and shaky
Hands, and aching bones...

Hell, Baltimore is burning, whilst
Nepal just falls apart.
Sun beams, young, and up-and-coming,
Never getting called to start.

Does the wind smell
So sickly, did it die?
With the rest of me?
Is this that "long-count to thirty?"
Am I being too wordy?

"Stop rhyming, we need to drink."

I’m from rearranged furniture
I’m from “asleep in the bathtub”
I’m from biting hands over
store-bought candy.

I’m from vinyl-white-siding,
No better at keeping in heat
Than keeping out punks,
Four guinea pigs named
“Gamber,”
And a spotted rabbit.

From searching for answers
At the bottom of a bottle,
And not stopping, to think “maybe,”
When the answers aren’t there.

I’m from thrown phones, and
Broken Home,
And diseases they have
Yet to cure.
From layoffs, to layovers, to
A car, that careened
Down the street that I lay in,
And broke the door off its frame,
Leaving an impression on
Unshakable wood.

A Golden Orb-Weaver
On a storm-door handle,
Painted purple and black,
And a blood-curdling scream.
From a run to the backyard
And irrational fears
And the accidental rhyme
Of your mask-haunted dreams

I’m from people who loved me,
Without knowing how,
And people who couldn’t,
Without saying why.

I’m from loving her, a
Little too hard, that when we finally
Broke, We both emerged.
Scarred, and scared.
Groundhogs, and rabbits, and
Cats that weren’t mine.
Being told, at times,
Simultaneous, that I’m
Less than, yet
“Above grade level.”

I’m from baring the blunt-force,
To numbing it all out.
I’m from jazz, chess, and
Tonic water. I’m from
The Wolftones classy sound.
I’m from turning up the
Music so loud, that when
The world covered its ears,
I tried my best
To listen
.
I’m deciding to recreate the world
As I see fit.

I’m going to do something important,
 special,
Before I die. 


I want to invent. An

Existence I feel more content, in.

There’s no wagon to fall off.

Just looming things,

And avoidance. 


I’m deserving of the option to keep

Calling it as I see it. 

Advocating character development,
And suppressing my own hamartia.

Experimenting with sobriety,
And the ending of days.
Fighting off the Great Greyness, unstoppable,
Laying down land-mines, and
Bear-traps, on the
Terrain of Winter.

*I’m going to turn the music up
Louder still,
Until protest, drowned out,
Is inseparable, from
Cheering.