I’ve been worrying about my laugh lately
It sounds different than it used to
Different than when I was a child
Or even a teenager
I worry because I don’t know what’s causing it
I worry it’s a bad thing
Maybe my emotions’ sounds
That is
The sounds they send out of me
From brain to nerve to muscle to lung
Maybe they’ve become dampened and filtered
Echoing down halls
Grown dark and narrow
Crooked and turning this way and that
Maybe a twist in my heart
Collapses the sound trying to squeeze through
Maybe you’re just hearing a prerecorded voicemail
Sent by automatic, polite sectors of my brain
To field what it recognized as a joke
Because the guy who normally handles that
Is holed up in a bed somewhere, sick and asleep
Or maybe
Just maybe
It’s the other way around
You’ve come running through my halls
Mapping out the twists and turns
Knocking down walls
Sweeping up clutter
And shaking me awake
To show me a world
Where I can laugh so hard
That tears come to my eyes
And people turn and stare

So you say you want to die?  
I suppose subjectivity can be heavy
Repetition, boredom and existential claustrophobia  
But you should at least see the world from the top of Pike's Peak first.
It can be your beginning
A catalyst for awe
The explosion that sets you aflame
After that you will begin to see it in everything
Even in something as mundane as a blade of grass
Then your life will be spent at the top of a mountain
Your head will always float in the clouds
Light as dandelion seeds in the wind
Deep as the whole of existence

When I was a child my mother gave me the best piece of advice I ever received
To love everything, even if I didn’t think it deserved to be loved
Because everything deserves to be loved
When I was a child was the only time I truly followed this advice
I thought of the most evil person in the world to a child living in the 90s
Saddam Hussein
And I sat there repeating to myself, I love you Saddam Hussein
I didn't just say it though
I really tried to feel it
I imagined Saddam as a child, with a mother, like myself
I imagined how she must have felt
Watching him sleep, watching him play, watching him laugh
I took that feeling and tried to stretch it out like an elastic blanket
And wrap the whole world in its warmth
To love everything
It seemed to work and I was happy

Now I’m 29 and I hate everything
I hate my job, I hate the media, I hate politicians,
I hate the bullshitters, I hate people too stupid to *******
Which is all just to say, I hate myself
But sitting here, alone, with a broken leg
I’m getting nostalgic
I imagine myself as a child, with a mother
I imagine how she must have felt
Watching me sleep, watching me play, watching me laugh
I wrap myself in that feeling
And it seems to work

In the modern void
Floats a vast and barren planet approaching
Absolute zero
Though once teeming with life and
Energized by starlight
Now it just orbits
Telling itself
---in an unconvincing tone---
That one day
The star will burst
(Stars sometimes do that)
The orbit will change
All will be ****** into a black hole
Dark and cozy and oblivion
Beyond absolute zero
Beyond any fiery passions
Beyond seemingly endless orbits
The black hole and the planet will sip tea made just so
With boiling water from sea level
Not steeped too long
Just the right amount of sugar
And a touch of love
Not too much love though
Just enough to escape the touch of gravity
For a time
Before waking from that daydream
Still orbiting around a dead star

Once when I was feeling generous
I bought my dog a bed from a catalog
Embroidered with his name
Stuffed with down
And a hint of cedar
It lies in a corner
In near mint condition
While he spends all his time
Rapturously
Chewing an old plastic bottle
I once accidentally dropped on the ground

I have been told I will always love you
My master named desire
Wants and wants and wants
Protection
Purpose
Endurance
And so we shall give him
In our fading land of make believe
Oh how grand and royal!
To pretend beyond the mortal coil
That forever is forever
That love endures
That we will no longer want and want and want
We will have, Always!
Dot dot dot