Time exists all at once.
It compresses, bends
squeezes
sprawls lithe across
familiar rhythms
but inevitably
unstoppably
will always land upon us.

An infinite cache
of insignificant moments
where we share the same songs
over and over
with every new face
hoping they'll eventually mean
what nostalgia has convinced us
to be an indefatigable truth.

We're all supporting characters
supporting
supporting characters.
Holed together in a cabin belonging to everyone
and no one,
losing life left unused.

Sometimes all there ever was,
was a single day.

She's standing on a platform
in the middle of
the middle of nowhere.
Watching trains crest the treeline,
the same way she stands in the shower
until just before the morning's heat runs out.

Human humility, gravelly
and low, suggests the balance
of power is blurrier
than established hierarchies.
So diffuse there's no longer distinction
between center and margin,
fore
ground and back
ground.
Sinuous instead of rigid,
****** instead of embalmed.
Skeletal tangles of our murky balladry
disintegrating to hellish echo
like birdsongs
wilting in the sunrise.

Heart is a risky fuel to burn,
but look how the flame holds tight
until the shadows chip away
just enough for her ungoverned
wilderness
to creep back quietly.

Finally seeing everything again,
like dark water through trees.
and falling in love with the idea of
never,
hardly even lasting forever.

Most nights
I slowpace
the floor;
first foot behind
second
back once
two forwards
stop
turn.
Again.
Tumbling my
own name over
and over.
A rock polisher
turning gold
back to burnished stone.

Eggs crack where truths
must emerge
like a nameless sound
resonating in your home
just soft enough to avoid
being named.

You want to listen
dream
smile
hurt.
Not stuck
in the photo of you
holding the same photo
of you

One copy as proof
you were ever here.
The second, a reminder you've
always been
every new
you.

I spent all night
on the dock of the man-made lake
turning my lucky
yellow stone
over and over
like words that died too early in the lungs.

I remembered waking to you crying
telling me how you felt trapped
and didn't mean to lash out
but were stuck between
not imagining a world
where I didn't exist,
and the feeling of extra air pouring
through an unoccupied passenger window.

Even the hardest love
can't outfight the infinite,
and my echoing voice will collapse
like young frost,
long before it reaches your cheek.

When you one day wake shouting,
at a shadow no longer mine
I hope you never forgive me.

Leave yourself nothing on either side
of this moment.
Steeping until it’s strength builds
so wildly
you forget everything that isn’t standing
right here.

Every edge of you
turning,
turning,
like handfuls of wet hair wrung over the kitchen sink.

The sound made darker
the darkness made
louder.
existing everywhere
at the end of time.

Growing up on a steady diet
of physical fear
and old Country songs
coalesces a taught wire
of rage and wallowing
forever lashed to a survival fetish
no one ever asked to be upheld.

Ubiquitous anger is just sorrow
aspiring to a loftier identity.
It hides amidst the panic
of what the wielder might do. Pushes away
when craving empathy
we don’t feel will be delivered,
If no one is ever
given a chance to show up,
it’s because
they’d have never done so anyhow.

So we start wars intending to die
but keep coming back
like the pain of teenage nihilism once you realize
everything you ever thought
was true
came to fruition.

There's a certain point, where
your hardships and pain
belong to no one else.
While you were busy locking your feet in place and
manipulating the same wet rag
wrapped around your heart,
living still needed to get done.

However we can still find that darkness
blocking the way down the hall
and hold it’s hand intensely.
Not placating to buy time,
but the real kind of empathy. The blistering high lonesome sound
of bones cracking with a smile
under the weight you were never
asked to shoulder.

When a dying man asks
if he’s going to be ok,
never say yes,
but be absolutely certain
to never tell the truth.