There they were,
all shining
clear
and see-through
plastic
the hole’s on top
like the Pantheon
in Rome
all open to the skies
the flies
the opaque yellows and pinks
mangoes and pineapples
with names like
rasbamango and applefluff
people walked accessorized
cups in hand
brains frozen
from the combination of low fat
probiotic,
bionic yoghurt and fruits
that could never, ever
have grown in Connemara.

It doesn’t matter why I was there, where the air is sterile and the sheets sting.
it doesn’t matter that I was hooked up to this thing that buzzed and beeped every time my heart leaped, like a man whose faith tells him:
God's hands are big enough to catch an airplane

or a world,

doesn’t matter that I was curled up like a fist protesting death,
or that every breath was either hard labor or hard time,
or that I’m either always too hot or too cold
it doesn’t matter because my hospital roommate wears star wars pajamas,
and he’s nine years old

His name is Louis

and I don’t have to ask what he’s got, the bald head with the skin and bones frame speaks volumes. The Gameboy and feather pillow booms like, they’re trying to make him feel at home ‘cuase he’s gonna be here a while

I manage a smile the first time I see him and it feels like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
so I hold my breath
cause I’m thinking any minute now he’s gonna call me on it
I hold my breath
cuase I’m scared of a fifty seven pound boy hooked to a machine, becuase he’s been watching me, and maybe I’ve got him pegged all wrong, like

maybe he’s bionic or some ****.
so I look away.

like I just made eye contact with a gang member who’s got a rap sheet the length of a lecture on dumb mistakes politicians have made. I look away like he’s gonna give me my life back he minute I’ve got something to trade, I **** near pull out my pack and say


Cigarette?

but my fear subsides in the moment I realize Louis is all about show and tell. he’s got everything from a shot gun shell to a crows foot and he can put them all in context like:

See, this is from a shooting range and

see, this is from a weird girl

I watch his hands curl around a cuff link and a tie tack and realize that every nick knack is a treasure and every treasure’s got a story and every time I think I can’t handle more he hits me with another story. says:

See, this is from my father. see, this is from my brother. see, this is from that weird girl. see this is from my mother. it took me two days to figure out that

that weird girl, is his sister.

took him about two hours today after she left for him to figure out he missed her.

they visit every day and stay well passed visiting hours. because for them that term doesn’t apply. but when they do leave Louis and I are left alone and he says the worst part about being sick is you get all the free ice cream you ask for. and he says the worst part about that is realizing that there’s

nothing more they can do for you. he says:

Ice Cream can’t make every thing ok.

and there’s no easy way of asking and I already know what he’s gonna say, but maybe he just needs to say it so I ask him any way. Are you scared? Louis doesn’t even lower his voice when he says

**** yeah.


I listen to a nine year old boy say the word ****, like he was a thirty year old man with a nose bleed being lowered into a shark tank, he’s got a right to it and if it takes this kid a curse word to help him get through it, I want to teach him to swear like the devil was sitting there taking notes with a pen and a pad but before I can forget that Louis is nine years old he says:

please don’t tell my dad.

he asks me if I believe in angels,

and before I realize I don’t have the heart to tell him, I tell him Not lately, and I just lay there waiting for him to hate me. but he doesn’t know how to, so he never does.

Louis loves like a man who lived in a time before god gave religion to men and left it to them to figure out what hate was.

He never greets me with silence. only smiles. and a patience I’ve never seen in someone who knows they’re dying. and I’m trying so hard not to remind him, I’ll be out of here in a couple of days, smoking cigarettes and taking my life for granted. and he’ll still be planted in this bed like a flower that refuses to grow, I’ve been with him for five days and all I really know is Louis loves to pull feathers out of his pillow, and watch them float to the ground, almost as if he was the philosopher inside of the scientist ready to say that its gravity that’s been getting us down. but the truth is

there’s not enough miracles to go around kid,

and there’s too many people petitioning god for the winning lotto ticket. and for every answered prayer there’s a cricket with arthritis, and the only reason we can’t find answers is the search party didn’t invite us, and Louis right now the crickets have arthritis

so there is no music.

no symphony of nature swelling to crescendos, as if we bent halo’s into melodies that could keep rhythm with the way our hearts beat.
so we must meet silence with the same level of noise that the parents of dying nine year old boys make when they take liberties in talking with heaven. we must shout until we shatter in our own vibrations then let our lives

echo, and grow
echo, and grow
echo, and grow

Grow distant.


grow distant enough to know that as far as our efforts go we don’t always get a reply. but I swear to whatever god I can find in the time I have left I’m gonna remember you kid. gonna tell your story as often as every story you told me, and every time I tell it I’ll say see,

there’s bravery in this world

there’s 6.5 billion people curled up like fists protesting death, but every breath we take has to be given back, a nine year old boy taught me that.

so hold your breath. the same way you’d hold a pen when writing thank you letters on your skin to every tree that gave you that breath to hold.
then let it go. as if you understand something about getting old and having to give back
let it go like a laugh attack in the middle of really good ***

the black eye will be worth it.

because what is your night worth without a story to tell, and why wield a word like worth if you’ve got nothing to sell. people drop pennies down a wishing well as if the cost of a desire is equal to that of a thought. but if you’ve got expectations expect others have bought your exact same dream for the price of the hard work, hang in, hold on mentality, like I accept any challenge so challenge me
like

I’ve brought a knife to this gun fight, but other night I mugged a mountain so bring that **** I’ve had practice.

Louis and I cracked this world wide open and found the prize inside because we never lied to ourselves, never told ourselves it would be easy or undemanding.
so we sing in our own vibration and dare angels to eavesdrop and stop midflight to pluck feathers from their wings and write demands on gods hands

take the time to catch you

so that even if god doesn’t, it wasn’t because we didn’t try.

I don’t often believe in angels, but on the day I left Louis pulled a feather from his pillow and said this is for you,

I half expected him to say

See, this is the first one I grew.

-Shane Koyczan

underneath me
my metal river flows still

these are my scars
and you will not take them
away

I used to long
for an eraser

now I will slash at anyone
who will slash at me

double strike them
remove the metal

but you can't remove
the memory.

Technology:
how I love you and loathe you
in the same breath

your phonic ears
listening out for
a babble of distress
from a childs vest
sleeping soundly
in the next room

your ten tentacle arms
purge my words
and shelter emotions
across vast distances
for long lost friends
to find comfort
in 140 characters

your innovations
are the respirator
the breathing lungs
the beating heart
the bionic limbs
that help without want
to walk again

if only you could
just once
guess my words
correctly
just once
is all I ask

I invited that girl
for a pint
not a riot
and the black berry
ripens in the east
is now an improvised
IED

Technology:
will you ever be perfect?
or will you always
be evolving

how will you know
that you have not
stepped back
to be overshadowed
by an ape

punching numbers
searching for Shots
and finding Pints
in the middle of
a dusty Riot

Something tells me that you’re going to be magic someday.
That same something also told me that our intelligence is dying, fading deeply into an artificial existence,
swirly, milky, warm and familiar.
Oh! This cry reminds me of time spent inside of my mother’s womb, it’s the ******* essence of life, division creates one,
things come undone, wheels are spun and respun.
Oh, existence is exciting. De…
Spite what I say, I as a human have this exciting urge to believe in everything and nothing all at the same time, and yet feel completely content with the uncertainty immediately following. Why?
Why slide down the backbones of your friends instead of creating your own out of silly putty and *******? Because that’s all that’s REALLY going on here, right? Just a whole lot of utter and complete *******. We’re all just in search of something substantially and outrageously righteous to believe in.
Something profound, yet enticing. Never arrogant or stringy, stretchy, worn.
We live in mad days, a mad daze of terror, rage. Disgusting filth, mesmerizing measurements, fat men and their walrus struggle, THERE’S TOO MANY BABIES!
Everything’s real frothy, fluffy, CUSHY.
And this comfortable comfort aides me late past the second noon, where bubblegum and clownfish skies look so beautiful when you’re looking through smoky spectacles.
Let’s clasp hands and stroll down that crooked stretch of land far from electronic arms and bionic senior citizens, super as they may be.
don’t let anyone catch that regret in your voice, dear. This is just another rat-race, fast paced and now we’re stopped at some electronic gate while we travel down the Information Super Highway. ****’s wack, man.
What’s with all the can’ts and stops and yields? I say I can’t read fuzzy bear, so stop harassing my mood and demeter, you don’t see me checking out your gun.
STOP. WAIT! HALT!!
I’m going to threaten your life now, or at least I would if I could threaten any shredded living remains of a tale probably sadder than my own. Get going, you’re going to late for your Living in Denial workshop meeting that you attend every Sunday morning.
Don’t go throwing my sheep into the fire now, you never know what you might spark. And you don’t see me checking out your gun.
Just don’t hate me because I don’t follow your logic, it’s my world too man. See, you spark my petite taste for “sincere apologies” and throw another polished rock in my face. “Sorry” is no ******* excuse for greed.
You’re going to be pure, radiating magic someday. I can see it in your eyes, they’re asymmetrically wise. Now expand your voice like a strong Whitney ballad, hauntingly emotional and loud. LOUD.
So loud that your cousin Stanley can hear you all the way from his random mid-life crisis backpack excursion in the Swiss Alps.
Take my hand, friend, and in the park by the trees with the birds and the bees we’ll slowly fade into the grass, every atom meshing and combining, it’s science. Do you hear it? The pulsating of the massive brain, the all-knowing library?
Knowledge is flowing. We’ll get massively drunk and pass out in a cozy embryo sack full of words and goo (but don’t worry, we’ll be wearing raincoats).
Warm and surreal, we’re happy and we’ll wake up still drunk off of knowledge.

And then. We feel that stinging magic, and it’s bittersweet, glamorous and harsh. And just as euphoric as we were, we fall.
As with every high, there is a low
And you are a giant ticking grandfather clock counting each moment carefully and precisely, making sure to take note of the glow and grandness of it all. Everything.
Is ignorance bliss? Do you wish to be left in the dark?
Because, to be honest, I’m scared of the dark, and sometimes I need a little light.

I have no control,
I'm just a reflection of emotions deep below,
Feed me some antipsychotics,
Free me from my mind,
Bionic-

I got the sickest of Minds,
Come equipped with the quickest depictions that sicken your eyes,
Unassisted, don't be resistin' the fight,
Trip sixes leave you ******* to die,
Rap circles around you like a serpent constrictin your life,
Drag you through the mud and the muck before I kiss you goodbye like the crucifixion of Christ,
You don't know what's livin inside or what I put into these lines,
You might wanna diss me but it's almost forbidden to try,
**** on you ******* while I'm kissin the sky,
Diss all your writtens while you listen to mine,
A misfit, I'm twisted with an addiction to rhyme,
Watch you stiffen at the sight of me hissin at night,
Silence these voices I tried but my prescription ain't right,
My lungs are collapsin like somethins kickin my sides,
I'm not twitchin, I'm flinchin,
Pay attention, there's a difference,
Somethin wants to get in and take away my decisions,
Sometimes I wonder how the **** I got in this position,
I keep talkin to God even though he don't listen,
He's prob'ly ******* from all the sins I've committed,
Unspeakable actions let the demons in, scratchin,
I keep pleadin and askin but believe I'm the baddest,
Can't seem to keep it, reactin, but receivin the static,
Creepin in the dreams of an addict that needs to be handed,
It's reachin in me and its makin me panic, I'm takin it back and,
Retracin my tracks and erasin the past and,
Replace you with ashes and take the flame back I'm,
Burnin alive while rehearsing these lines,
You can feel it churnin inside, the turnin through time,
You're cursin my life,
Feel like bursting inside-

Feed me some antipsychotics,
Free me from my mind,
Bionic,
Walkin a fine line,
But I called it,
"Its night time,"
Don't worry, I'm on it-