I'm nervous.
Like really nervous.
Like shaking like a blender full of gravel nervous.
Like atheist in a foxhole nervous.
Why am I so nervous?
Because I have a nagging thought that soon I might just be the last-next-best-thing that ever happened to you,
Replaced by another, better next-best-thing that blows me out of the water.
Because you might decide I don't have what you really REALLY want.
Because at the end of the day, I'm still convinced that your attraction to me is the product of an elaborate facade.
So yeah. I'm nervous.
Like sweating fifty caliber bullets nervous.
Like ******* cinderblocks nervous.
Like chattering teeth cold sweats nervous.
Like dying young nervous.
Like being forgotten nervous.

And it makes me nervous that you put me on a pedestal
Because from where I stand, I didn't do anything to deserve this
I got drunk at a party and picked up a guitar and here we are almost a year later.

So I'm anxious
I'm distressed
I'm worried and jumpy
But most of all I'm nervous
Nervous because I think
You might one day figure out what I already know:
I'm not that great.
I'm lanky and goofy and kinda dumb sometimes
And I can be just as petty as everyone else
And I'm still pretty convinced you're colossally out of my league
So I'm nervous
Like shake-you-to-your-*******-core nervous

Like really nervous.

evening

Maria and Mr. Riner are sitting on my bed
******* like garlands, against the wall
the words stew inside and I can't seem to
pour them out
but we three fools, sit and scribble regardless
staring blankly at the drooling clock
(persistent, in our memories).
the whitewashed cinderblocks are testament
to the number of walls
the quantity of clocks
this series of chairs
and if we close out eyes we expect to
wake up in heaven
but it's just the same old hell.

she says, keep writing
(if you feel inclined)
and slides her back into mine
but I've got no more letters in these fists
(so I'll lie and think for a bit).

she says,
I've never been a 'she' before...


morning

my coat sits in a bundle near the door
I've been trying to find a way to hang it
but I'm having mixed results, in fact
all this month I've been trying to make attachments
to these white,
white,
cinder block walls
with all manner of adhesives.
but these nightly sessions
have been ******* with the humidity

and every morning something new is on the floor.


all I can do is put them back up again.
try and
be a little more constant
with these climate fluctuations.
try and

sleep a little more, sweat a little less.

she's in the
those pine
floorboards
that cry to you
when your
feet whisper
to the door,
she's in the
backdoor
hinges that
weep when you
clinch your jaw
hoping she stays
asleep

she knows
but she loves you
and she's tired
of being stepped
on and shut out

and soon you'll
find yourself
dragging
cinderblocks on
pine needles
leaving through
the front door.       MJB

I am there
Wishing that if I pressed my fingers to your lips
I could understand the broken Braille of your breath
When your throat locks in the noise

Gentle butterfly gut
Fanning flames over burning cinderblocks in your belly
I am there

When you wished the moon in a rearview mirror
Heading west
Wondering if you really could go far enough to see its dark side
When you wanted to turn back
I was there

When she drank razorblades
And Tylenol ink
Into a botched suicide note
I was there

This is the journey

When he wondered when he could hold somebody again
Like a waterbed full of blood
Without the motion sickness
I was there

Every moment y’all
Of your ***** sacred
I want to be there
So when you see that this place is so big
And you are so small
And our souls might be stardust and minerals
Burning blue so far away
At least you’re not alone

Your body is built for love
She said
Beer breathed and true
I smiled
I was there

Kiss me with your car parts
DUI this knee buckle
I want to be tried and arrested
Spit out and spanked
And I will still kneel before you
And praise all that is good in you
Because you are holy

Every moment of you is holy

I was there
Begging to be baptized by your presence
Because in a place so big
I don’t want to feel so alone anymore

I want to kiss you
I want to kiss you
Like you are better
Than everything you’ve ever done
You are

I was there
When the world inside your breastplate
Spun natural disaster
And sunshine
Anvil remorse
And sweet laughter
When I held you
Any of you
And our worlds
Vibrated a conversation only our souls could understand

I was there
And all we could speak was “LOVE”
All we could speak was “Us”

The movement of her body was entirely too loud

She is desert throat gasps
When the water is so good
She doesn’t stop for air

Can hear her comin’
Her rusty train wreck tremble
On loose tracks

Her collapse is a cinderblock rain
The crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her crumble is so much quieter than the crash

Her hands shake as she swipes her EBT card for the fifteenth time
She puts back the bacon this time
Throws down 5.50 for the Marlboros

She talks to herself
Angrily
Slams ever door she enters
Every door she exits

Her children think she is crazy

She is crazy

She is a body built
On passive aggression
And the threat of a shaky foundation
When the earthquake hits

Any day could be my last day you know

Her son turns up the tv
Her daughter plugs her headphones into her cd player

Do you all think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
And if you don’t stop sleep talking
Telling me you’re going to **** me
I am sending you to the hospital

The boy mutes the tv
Dries his eyes before they’re wet
He shakes his head
Begs her not to do that
Says he doesn’t know he’s doing it
Says he doesn’t want to **** her

She walks away
And he is left wondering

I remind him later
That we were not raised on truth
So it’s hard sometimes
To trust people

I put a lock on his door
Tell him to shut himself in at night

As for the mother
We don’t talk anymore

Like I said
She’s crazy
And I’ve got too much of that myself already

Somewhere a door is slamming
Somewhere cinderblocks are crumbling quiet
There is a sizzle like slowly cracking glass

I feel it crawl my spine
It crawls his

The girl misses it
Head buried in pop culture
Going deaf in trying to drown out
Her mother’s noise

Do you think I am talking just to hear myself talk?

As a poet I ask myself the same thing

Ask how far the apple can fall from the tree

If any one of us are lucky

It will be just far enough

Hot sun is blistering my shoulders
My dripping sweat stings the exposed mounds
Each breath burns my lungs
My feet are pulsing cinderblocks


She waves at me,
waves away the pain--
a wave of relief
sweeps me off my feet.

I'm throwing tantrums at the page I know that now.
I just want to see if they will stick
& what they will finally say
once I complete.
How many things can one word say
How many words can one page hold
How many girls can I **** in a lifetime
some or many
None.
Any.
Slip into my cinderblocks—pretty
New style,
smack Breaks tile,
Wait for the fuckboys to finish fillin up the fish tank, I'm at the bottom
feelin petty,
Suckin blue,
Countin out the seconds till I'm trapped beneath this filthy pool.
Thrash tantrum,
Flash forward,
Zoom zoom
I look up and wonder will the elephants come save me, but there's not one in the room,
nobody watchin
Im a goner,
and I've been one
ever since I started kicking in the water.

management and what YOU do with it
you'll noticed, i emphasized YOU

carve my likeness out of marble
cast it off shore, covered in barbed wire and
with cinderblocks attached by means of
a rope, let it sink weighed down but
unanchored and unsettled and disassociated and disappointed and concerned and confused and most of all but at last mention, alas

the sickness that i can
never seem to rid my orifices of


static usually but
for now frozen in endless motion
dead at first glance

It seems like the entire world knows
how to dance except for me.

There must be a metronome
that ticks the tempo
right out of the torso
of Mother Nature herself
but I cannot seem to tune in.
Everywhere around me
I can see a rhythm that refuses
to run through me like it somehow knows
that I am always going to be that one kid
left standing with my back against
the gym wall and the beat is just another club
that cannot afford to let any losers in.

I see the leaves—crisp hues of
yellow-bleeding-into-orange,
orange-bleeding-into-brown—
being directed by the air that they cut
as they learn to dance the American Waltz
left box, right box,
underarm turn,
hesitation step
spinning to the ground
and swell approaches the shore
carrying forward a small roar,
energy circling from deep to shallow,
waves shoaling, rising up,
moving along to the Foxtrot
feather step, three step,
natural turn,
hover cross
uncurling onto the shore.

But still, after all of these years,
I am here with shoulder blades pressed to cinderblocks
trying to tap into the meter while I tap my toe
inside of my shoe so the mountains will not shed rocks
like tears that come along with steady laughter.

If you ask me, blissfulness is completely overrated.
It's a feeling too close to excitement and being giddy,
Except it lasts way longer.
It can be a terrifying feeling.
You feel like you're flying.
And your feet don't feel like they're hitting the ground
When you walk down the street.
You're high.
And you're not in control.
And you can't imagine what life could be like
Without this wonderful sensation coursing through your veins.
And once the feeling is gone,
Your feet feel like cinderblocks on the pavement.
And all you want to do is sleep.
And colors seem less vibrant.
Jokes aren't as funny.
Hugs aren't as warm.
...No...I'd rather feel content.
I find it much more appealing to be
Not completely unhappy,
But not too happy either.
And to feel like myself.
And to be in control.