Perhaps there are 100,000 forms of darkness,
100,000 forms
of what they call depression.
I know one
or two of them.
There is no suffering scale, no way to compare
the suffering of one
human being,
or one illness
to another.

So we hold candlelight vigils
build totems to gather the universe and pull
back clarity around one another’s edges
But I can't burn sage inside me.
It may attract the bad you hide from. Or
is it the good that scares you?

The world beyond the bond
of hearts is a town
without pity.
A dull inhumanity of systems failing the people
we don’t look at.
In this way the brittle tethers of association are tested.

Hand in hand greeting the blackening sky, bearing
down like the face of a missing child’s parents,
staring at one another
knuckles clasp tight.
Your smile the remaining mirror at the end of the world.

If you were here, or I there
I’d be home right now. On the inside
we’re both waiting for one
another still.
Because I’m the same,
but not.

I am ruthlessly forgetful.
Names, birthdays, work schedules.
But I know the way your hair looks in motion.
The way your face looks
refracted through a cigarette ember.
How when your mood shifts,
the church in your eyes
becomes torn, battered, and bare.

If we could just give
another go-round.
It would be different,

Remember,
your best.
Where you are, might
be, may go.
When it used to feel so good.

While capable of achieving abstract thought of the highest order, the human brain tends to function best when compartmentalizing data into manageable pieces. For example, the state in which one resides is useful in a macro view of geolocation, but largely useless when it comes to ordering a pizza. As such, our species developed streets, postal codes, cardinal directions, and a whole host of determining factors to describe your home with enough clarity to ensure your disc of cheesy goodness arrives safe and sound.

By this same token, we break down and discuss music. For the most part, all humans can say that they enjoy music to some degree or another.  But for those whose passion extends beyond using the radio for background noise, there’s a point where the specificities of what we absorb aurally merges with part of our socio-cultural identity. Whether this is reflected in your sudden urge to wear strapped sandals and listen to Grateful Dead live bootlegs while slack-lining or constantly refreshing a subreddit so you know which warehouse space is hosting a tech-house set until dawn, the most passionate amongst us eventually become that which we absorb. These things become fractalized versions of ourselves. After all, someone who has never had their heart broken probably won’t appreciate Elliot Smith as much as the rest of us.

It is on the fringes of these musical personalities that we find *******. Combining the most aggressive tendencies of metal with the politics and personality of street punk, ******* is an amalgam of all things angry. Exhibiting a neb-tribalism not often seen in other subsets of music, ******* “kids” (Kids can be used to define ages ranging from 13 to 45 depending on context) understand that a sweaty basement filled with people pummeling one another will never become a societal norm. And they revel in the misanthropy.

However, this is not to say that ******* kids are fueled only by rage. From it’s inception in punk scene during the late 1970’s, the entire point of ******* has been to create a community dedicated to supporting one another during our darkest times. Sure that occasionally means punching your friend in the head, but that’s only because we haven’t figured out how to punch the geo-political turmoil of Earth in the head just yet.

Whether extolling the virtues of veganism, Straight Edge, ecocriticism, economic inequality, anti-racist and anti-racist movements, or simply just talking about how alone we can feel inside of our own heads, ******* at it’s best seeks to improve the space husk we’re all floating around on. By virtue of these lofty goals, ******* swiftly takes on a communal nature due to the common belief that we are all united against an existence which does not reflect us. Rob Lind said it best: “*******’s not much. But for some of us, it’s all we’ve got.”

Then one clear morning in December, my father died. And suddenly ******* was all I had left.

Obviously, I still had my siblings and friends. But after all, the ethos of ******* always managed to echo everything my father taught me to believe. Whether that be standing up for someone getting picked on because they’re different, refusing to place trust in authority, or rallying all the other lost souls and building your own society two steps to the left of the mainstream.

So, as an autopsy was being performed to ensure the skin, organs, and long bones of Robert Rathburn’s arms were harvested for donors, I stood in the alleyway of the Nile Theater listening to the bass reverberate through the asphalt as Iniquity, Beg For Life, Troubled, No Altars, and Iron Curtain played to a packed basement below.

Admittedly, this was a show I was supposed to be reviewing, and this piece was also due months ago. However, my time was instead spent shaking hands and hugging people I’ve spent the better part of 20 years building a small, fractured, but loving community with. At the end of the day, I suppose that’s all ******* has ever and should ever be about. Communally channeling the hurt and anger into fists and screams until it stings a little less and the emptiness of the world wanes ever so slightly.

For William and Meredith


For treatment of panic and anxiety disorders,
short-acting anxiolytics are generally recommended
to provide temporary bursts of clarity
but should be reassessed periodically for
usefulness and concerns regarding tolerance,
dependence,
and abuse.

Xanax releases dopamine into the brain
to function as a neurotransmitter to send signals
between nerve cells
including reward motivated behavior
and pathways known to reinforce addictive neuronal activity

Perhaps to build her,
you had to break yourself
amongst the glass of that summer day.
Leave her waiting for your hair to peek
around a weathered edge
toward a forgotten living room corner

You are still her Patron Saint.
A long shadow cast across a small ghost.

She still screams at the sky to stop raining
beats her fists down the path
to the house of death
unceasing, and changeless.
Prodding a dull,
familiar
wound.
One that leaves its mark,
with pain felt more
from memory
than from anything else.


Withdrawal and rebound symptoms commonly occur and
necessitate a gradual reduction
to minimize the effects of discontinuation.
Not all withdrawal effects are evidence
of true dependence or withdrawal.

Recurrence may suggest no more
than the drug having the expected effect
and that,
in the absence of the drug,
the symptom has returned to pretreatment levels.

In repose,
your short
night-time breathing
quarter-turned on the edge of the couch
until you faced my chest
and drifted peacefully.

Finding the right orientation
in coordinance to my prone form
took time, is all.
Fourth person in your family
to come around to the idea
of having an extra pair of legs
to walk y(our) dog
and tidy up
once you turn from my chest to face day.

Perhaps this is why,
my body locks itself away in the bathroom.
Subconsciously buying a little more time,
until your rotation finishes,
lands facing mine.

Because the trouble,
it seems,
is we (you and I)
have never said a thing,
we didn't mean.

Somewhere
a kitchen light still glows
on an immense orange cat
waiting to scour both dog bowls
for leftovers
that have yet to appear
after even a single meal.
Twilight throwing
lavender shadows
across the cramped
polaroid drenched kitchen
where you slow danced
to something acoustic
before saying your first goodbye
on a bare concrete balcony
studded with cigarette ash
and stars.

Through the coffee steam your eyes were so clear they almost broke me in half.
I took a long selfish look as I told the side of your head about my mother.
You holding your gaze on my windshield
watching the wet lights blur one mile at a time.
Through the curls of your hair I heard you whisper that you didn’t want to leave.
Didn’t want to add your shoe size
to the prints leading away from the kid who’d see the inside of a coffin
long before he ever saw his family again.

I pulled over to force your hand through my sternum, pierced
each finger with a ragged heart tendril
built in the image of winter trees seeded far from the water line.
In this way, information is filtered.
Even with a cup tied to another cup by taut string,
you still don’t get a clear sound.

I shook my head, thinking of reasons to say your name. A taste like dusty paperbacks
flecked in cane sugar.
You got the boring name because your parents birthed you full of splendor,
knew you would never need the extra flourish of a conversation starting nametag.
The kind of person who deserves someone that will die of malnourishment if your plane ever goes down.

You’ve gotten soft old man,
You are no conqueror.
Will never drown out the roar in her 5 a.m.  mind,
can do nothing to comfort the black eyes
and longneck bottles left wandering her past,
with your piecemeal shards of charm and wit.

Part of your winter still clings to my dashboard and frosts my knuckles
each time my eyes close driving home, dreaming about painting red flags green.
Even after I watched the last drag curl out of your lungs,
you never tasted like smoke,
so I filled my lacerations with your nicotine
to hide inside your numbness,
while our bare skin rolled across sheets
looking for new cold
knowing this is not true sacrifice,
but perhaps my final squander.

A crisp spring afternoon,
curled face down on the kitchen floor
oxygen struggling to exit ribcage,
remind yourself to breathe,
to perform.

Find your phone,
tell him you think about killing yourself
a lot.
He tells you he has a weekend to plan.

I still think about how wrong it is
to expect language to work like TV.
To exist as something you have to see.

The more literal you are,
the more metaphorical people will think you are being.

When the identity of another
depends on an extension
of your own invisibility,
every minute is spent
catastrophizing. Counting the steps to an exit.
Knowing to find quiet and dark
when breaths begin to quicken,
but before vision goes cloudy clear.

The order of this sequence is subtle
but profound.

Involuntary entering of fight-
or-flight mode indicates
some type of trauma. An
inability to talk yourself down
from ledges placed beneath you,
independent of will.

Lungs, larynx,
and tongue corrode,
claiming aphonia as sanctuary.
While a darkened frame lies atop you,
as if you were everything.
But not to him.

I want to eat your hair
until it pools thick in my gut,
barreling black through my intestines.
Inhale your elbows, shoulders
every movement, noise,
the face you makes when calculating a tip. Moments laughter
comes so hard your face doesn't make a sound at all

Smoke still lingers in grocery store parking lots,
your puffy eyes hunting caffeine in the noonday sun.
No more a blunder on your part.
Simply a life of difficult days.

Half memories lie within these things.
A little girl who spent summers indoors
, for reasons I don’t recall.
Where her parents were, God only knows.
Venturing out beyond the sunset to drop
bottled notes into puddles and storm drains.

Staring with an amplitude that is making your organs rattle against each other.
I can feel you going on with your day.
It's the salute that hurts, a handshake you don't want to return
graves you planted yourself.

pick the wrong adventure in a conversation,
words move outside of time, today and yesterday
nostalgic for moments still happening,
as if looking back on it from a great distance

The uneventfulness of true struggle is quietly grotesque.
Like the death of a dog I know I should have loved better,
forgetting to witness anything save for the aftermath.

You can’t make fire feel afraid.
We were younger, and we are, and we will be again.

Considering the concept of getting ready
is to appreciate
mundane as ritual.
A prima appliqué of mud and essential oils
in a 6 inch
by 8 inch
circular backlit mirror.

Piece by piece
assemblage by both brush and
blade, moving intimacy beneath the
surface. Planting highlighted foot forward.

Astringent, cotton swabs, dissolving wipes, Naked 2 palette, tweezers, contact solution, foundation, liquid liner, pencil, pen, powder, and brush.

Trying,
trying to be an old self
and do the things you used to love,
Not just sitting in a big
pile of failures,
every day on that couch.

The ache of hurt. We idolize it,
twist it,
build it into something less ugly.
See love where there is none.
Worship the air and ask it to do the same.

After the highlight blend is complete,
there follows a pause of about a thousand years.
By the time you say what you mean,
I will be long gone.

On 28 March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones
and walked into the River Ouse,
which together with its main tributary,
the River Uck,
drain over 250 square miles of Sussex
via streams,
rivers
and various other dendritic tributaries.

While the water temperatures were surely harsh,
historical weather patterns suggest
relatively calm surface tension,
and relaxed yet steady currents,
allowing for swift submersion

Taking into account,
the chilled morning winds,
her quickened, shivering breaths
likely led to hyperventilation.

In turn delaying the breath-hold
break point, and allowing blackout to occur
without warning
due to hypocapnia.
While unconscious, water can more easily enter the lungs
to induce a wet drowning,
as it is no longer inhibited by laryngospasm
or coughing.

The Missouri River,
by contrast,
rises in western Montana,
flows east and south for 2,341 miles
before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri
taking drainage from parts of ten U.S. states
and two Canadian provinces
to form the fourth largest river
system on Earth.

At some locations throughout its course
the current surges so fiercely
that old-growth trees are felled,
steam ships are consumed beneath white caps,
and swaths have continued to go undeveloped well into the 21st century.

When lowered into water cooler than about 70 °F,
the diving reflex is triggered and protects the body
by putting it into energy saving mode
to maximize the possible time spent under water.

This reflex action is automatic
occurs in all humans,
and is likely a result of brain cooling similar
to the protective effects
of deep hypothermia.

Of those who die after submersion in freezing waters,
around 20% die within 2 minutes from cold shock.
Uncontrolled rapid breathing and gasping causing
water inhalation, panic,
massive increase in blood pressure and cardiac
strain leading to cardiac arrest.

As this occurs while submerged
rather than the hyperventilation seen in panic attacks,
crying, or shivering on land
any additional survivability that may be gained,
becomes almost immediately fatal.

In order to combat the effects of
instinctual survival mechanisms
once bare skin breaks iced surfaces
such as panicked clawing back to shore,
rescue attempts from passersby,
and even simple reconsideration,
cold water drownings,
despite representing only 2 percent of suicides,
reveal a visible trend regarding near mandatory use
of bricks,
stones,
or other weights,
in order to overcome
buoyancy,
the names of pets,
canceled brunch dates,
birthdays,
and the forced finality
of questions left unanswered
or perhaps answered too clearly.

“You should write about it.”

or

I Learned to Smile at Mirrors: A Demonstration


The city was oddly near barren.
Strides hit the dimming sidewalk in two-to-one ratio.
Money looming tall above our covered heads.

When cornered into the shade
humans are unable to cast shadows.
Our path was laid clear by store closings,
locked doors ushering us down toward neon outlined water
to stare across gleaming black
while the shadowed lions bray.

Cloth turns to quarters turns
to pink fortune turns
to bright reflections across irises
while years of the same story vibrate
across our fingers.

Gears paid in hope spin warm with the smiles of
those  come before.
Lamps once bright now flicker and crack,
and the ballroom dancers
don’t quite turn with the fervor of before.
Sometimes what seems a flaw is what makes the object most itself;
inconsistencies or strange logics
from somewhere different than where you wanted.

Certain hands grasped against throats are
comfort blankets to soothe the burning,
forcing skin and bones to remember that with selflessness
and love
the past will no longer obfuscate
paths where feet need to fall most.

No sparing rejoinders for improvements,
or constant encouragement in what is already done well.
Every mile and hour leading to those sea salted boards totally rearranged me.

Fought 11 hours and 771 miles of asphalt
to press my face in where I was worst.
The greatest gift one can receive:
not encouragement,
but total excoriation of the places
where I was once only limping.

Let the train cars tilt with our backs due West,
shoulders sagging with knowledge half-learned,
thrice remembered.

Two deer stand in the rearview
as my tires turn heatward.
Smiling as I realize your Country
grew to reflect your worth.
Not the other way around.

A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity,
used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind
can be expressed
as a multiple of the unit of measurement.

Length,
for example,
is a physical quantity.

Any value of a physical quantity is expressed
as a comparison to a unit of that quantity.

For example, the value of a physical quantity Z is expressed as the product of a unit [Z] and a numerical factor:

Z = n x [Z] = n[Z] So if we were to let Z be “2 antique sofas” then Z = 2[Z] = 2 antique sofas.

Fifteen hundred miles or so,
converts to roughly 7920000 feet
and 48 hours of land
across approximately 29 counties spread through 5 states

However,
in order to measure more abstract concepts,
different units of measurement are often adapted,
or hybridized, to fulfill ad-hoc need.

Coping,
for example,
is an abstract quantity
represented by

American Spirits:
(farenheit, inches, exhaled smoke as measured in cubic feet.)

Tears cried as designated driver
for termination
of unplanned pregnancy:
(miles, cost of service in U.S. Dollar, speed, tear volume in milliliters)

Furniture thrown:
Forces relevant to stable flight include a balance of
Propulsive ******. Lift,
created by the reaction
to an airflow
Drag, created by
aerodynamic friction
Weight,
created by gravity
Buoyancy, for lighter
than air flight

Holes in drywall:
(Inches in diameter and depth, potential bruises to be explained if the wall is ever further away than the human form in a darkened bedroom)

Unfortunately,
some concepts are still devoid of applicable units of measurement.

Take for example, the concept of Waiting.

As it has no defined beginning,
or end, and is malleable based on
external factors such as perceived value
and level of psychosocial dependency,
there appears to be no observable limit
regarding absolute human capacity capabilities.

"That one body may act upon another at a distance
through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else,
is to me so great an absurdity that,
I believe,

Every massive particle in the universe
attracts every other massive particle.
Force directly proportional to the product of their masses,
inversely proportional to the square of the
distance
between them.

Spherically-symmetrical masses attract and
are attracted as if all
their mass were concentrated
at their centers

There is no immediate prospect of identifying the mediator of gravity.
Attempts by physicists to identify the relationship between
gravitational force
and other known fundamental forces are not yet resolved.
Many attempts were made to understand the phenomena,
but there was nothing more that scientists could do at the time.

no man who has in philosophic matters
a competent faculty of thinking
could ever fall into it."

Time loops beneath my ankles.
35 minutes of being ten minutes early
has become a less than desirable pattern as of late

From the sidewalk I saw a bird forced to walk
by one wing’s drooping.
Stumbling along the asphalt, feather tips cocked in broken salute
and was filled with sadness of an incredible immensity.

My counselor,
Terran,
she was like that.

She had cancer living in her neck.
The immensity of which was incredible

When the doctors came to take it,
to break her into something worth living for,
part of her face left too.
She took to wearing scarves, bunched high on the right side.

Once she let me place my hand beneath the scarf. Her eyes
fixed on the brown bookshelf by the door,
I marveled at the nothingness.

Lightning bugs laid dead all over the island.
There had been an unseasonable snap of cold
previously unheard of in the area.
Blurred thoraxes coagulated near the cattails out back
in dark masses,
the length of a baby or so.

Unraveling your fingers across their dark husks,
I watched them ripen
like black bibles.
Tattered forewings wincing
in the half-
morning rain.

Fireflies produce a "cold light",
devoid of infrared or ultraviolet frequencies.
This chemically produced light is uninhibited by logic
or necessity,
occupying a lithe minnow pool
between science and beauty.

At night along certain river banks
fireflies exhibit near perfect phase synchronization of their light emissions,
exposing the framework behind every living thing.
This is the nature of our midnights
when no one else is left.

I met her in an alley
behind an alley
a sub-alley if you will
down the street from my apartment on Westwood
and 6th street. Unusually cool for spring, asphalt glowing green
beneath lamplights.

She was digging through piles of broken bottles,
discarded kitchenware, and palm fronds.
Her attention shifted suddenly, as if I were the prize.
Grasped my hand
her skin drawn taut exposing raw bone beneath
“Why? Why is it so far away?
truck drivers, the bed where I watched my father die
report cards, Here. why?”

“Sometimes things just aren’t as beautiful as they should be.”

We sat down on the curb,
amongst the grasshoppers
and did not speak for quite some time.

Last night I chanted your name into darkened
bathroom glass.
3 times, 9 times, 12.

Hearing nothing, I pressed heart and hands into the drywall,
scraped across rough timber studs
broken off nailheads
felt plaster cake across the backside of my eyelids
as the tops of feet slid over the faucet spigot.

In this manner it is laid visible that words only measure their
weight in context of observable actions.
How much skin are three words worth?
When does lack of sleep meet a limit when laid parallel to “best friend”
, and the connotations seeming safest?
What combination of variables finally bludgeons a heart
until it caves from overpopulated one way streets?

During showers, I understand that I don’t know how to be a friend.
I am an attic where things are stored. If you look
closely her face will appear in my windows,
safe amongst the cardboard and baby photos.

I woke up after midnight on three separate occasions
not from sleep. A sort
of dreaming. Your voice pulled taut against my pier.
So I build fires to shine your way back ashore.

Where we linger, smitten and unhurried.

You want to go back, you
Want to go back, you want
To go back, why don’t you
Come back, what good are you
Here.
You’re wasting.

My mother had a Boise
Love affair,
The openness
Built to last. She owned the sediment specks
Tacked to soles, Steel
-belted radials. Teeth.

Arid weather crept inward
Across linoleum,
Densely woven carpet
Fibers, under doorways,
Over pads of her feet.
Drying each tiny hair within her nostrils.

Her second hand twin mattress
Clotted with too many blankets flanked
By stale nail holed sheet rock.
Paint bowed from damp wind
Trotting in from Spirit Lake
Once summer faded from the horizon.

Eventually she forced
All her wishes into dense brine,
Siphoning out sweetness
Preserving shadows to
Stave off dehydration
Until the wet season returned.

Come back, what good are you
Here. You want
To go back. Why don’t
You come back.

Day 1:
“Oh hey what’s up man, how’s your day been today?”

“Pretty solid, I was weirdly productive at work so that was nice. Just gonna get some rest now.”

“Wouldn’t you rather think about that time in 3rd grade when you beat up your classmate Patrick for no reason and told him to keep quiet while your teacher walked the line?”

“What? No. Why on Earth would I want that?”

“Just thought I’d ask. It’s been back here awhile.”

Day 2:
“Sup dude?”

“Kinda busy right now. Working a new deadlift PR. Can this wait?”

“Can you carry on a relationship that doesn’t end with a woman crying and your fists breaking your furniture?”

Day 3:
“Hey…”

“What are you gaining from this?”

“Me? Nothing, I’m just making sure you don’t forget.”

“What’s the point in remembering?”

“Everyone else has to. What makes you so special?”

Day 4:
“…….”

“I can hear your breathing.”

“……………”

“Just say whatever you want.”

“She’s been active on her social media accounts today.”

“I know.”

Day 5:
“Man, you’re lucky you’ve at least got a dog to hang out with you.”

“Yeah man, she keeps me going.”

“Did you lock the door?”

“Yeah I always do why?”

“Well her collar’s off at night so if she got out no one would ever find her.”

“She’s fine I promise you.”

“Well she’s small and has dark fur so hopefully car headlights are as confident as you are.”

Day 6:
“Good morning.”

“No. I’m dead serious. Today is not the day.”

“Whoa now, why the hostility?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m here for.”

“I saw a camo energy drink this morning and broke down sobbing at 7 am in the middle of a crowded gas station because I could physically feel her going on with her day no matter how hard I try to hold on.  I missed the way her hair tastes like sullen acoustic guitar songs and how she walks around in the mornings wearing only a bra as she gets ready for work. Modestly brazen. I can’t stop thinking about how my skin felt like it belonged to me for the first time the moment her body pressed against mine and she let the curve of her smile crash against my crooked face. Can’t stop missing the way she spun on her toes when she had a secret she wanted to share so what, what the **** could you possibly have to tell me? Let’s hear it big shot.”

“For a moment a self-inflicted gunshot wound looks like a halo in full bloom.”

Day 7:
“Please. I’m begging you. I can’t handle anymore right now. I need a break from this just for an hour.”

“Remember how she lotions her entire body after a shower with her wet hair ******* and you couldn’t stop being amazed at the fact that you’ve never seen anyone lotion their *** before?”

“Yeah, we both know I remember that.”

“Why couldn’t you just stop?”

“I don’t know. I tried to explain to her that my soul felt like whiskey smells every time I yelled at her and I hated myself for it. I was sick then and am getting the help I need, but the silence is more powerful than therapy.”

“I see the tip of the iceberg, and I worry about you.”

I never wanted your love,
just the taste of sinew and skin.
Anything to replace my mouth full of failure.

Losing confidence is more violent
than losing Love.
It was just good to have a place.

Time goes slow,
stands still,
then lies undetectable.

Becomes the stuttering child
who won't stop volunteering
to read first.

We missed the good parts,
and now there’s no Good left.

The thing about the word unhealthy is that it can only exist
in comparison to other, more appealing options.
In the absence of vegetables,
a diet consisting of processed sugars, caffeine,
and American Spirits raises no red flags.
Broken individuals seem to shine brightest
when they cannot be referenced against those possessing more admirable qualities.

You are the dent in a beautiful spine,
telomerase granting immortality to the cancer.

She is dive bar songs for everyone,
for her,
for this half-drunk moment,
but secretly for you, really.
Dusted in neon smoke your body can’t breathe
but still delicately pack into the corners of each lung,
knowing it can never be exhaled.

For someone so self-professed anxious,
She says lots of words that are not “yeah”.

She is a kiss that tastes like mornings spent reading The Bell Jar.
Long legs twisted into thick comforters, bare skin
close with the desperation of two people who have everything to lose.
Morning hair spread wide and thick. On your backs,
not wanting to move, wondering how
much time you have left. Doing
the math together.
The wrinkle following you through an empty apartment.

Here is proof, evidence.
A human alive; a body in operation.

When She crashes her smile into what’s left of your teeth
it feels like a jaw being broken by sunlight.
Closer to her than anyone,
without knowing a thing about the ashes in the corners of each eye.
Rings with an unsubtle sway from striped dress,
to the edge of your timid fingers.
I know how little a man can do with two hands.

Abandoned toys and worn out shoes have a past
, like the people who used them.

Don’t tell people the reason you have to leave parties early without saying goodbye,
why you stay so close to the exits, ready
to push away any innocent bystander who might be able to help you.
Don’t tell them She’s the voice mumbling
beyond the edge of your lamplight.  
Wondering what Hope means,
if the other end of the text message knows
and what it means to find out.

Some stories end with four shoes on a subway platform,
not caring if you’re stepping into the right train.
Others end in the fields
as the ants clean the bones.

Beaches are created when currents force sand
and various other sediments
across offshore rock formations,
resulting in erosion
and slumping along the edge of the landmass.

When monitoring the shoreline from an elevated point
at the correct angle,
one can readily observe the land rolling
back out beneath the waves
each evening.

In the mornings when the waves recoil,
strangers are generated with a frequency
of intermediate
to large cities.

Alive.
Human.
Could end up one,
and not the other.
Work cut out
to keep from abandoning both.
No point in making it if there’s nothing left
when you get there.

When survivors get caught smiling
we don’t believe them.
For they had something, now gone.
No matter how much loved, hated, or bickered.
All that’s left now is blood,
and sand.

Each day does not hurt the same,
but then not every day hurts different either.

The gruesome ballet continues on
and the weight really starts to drop off.
There’s all the makings for it to rain.
But it won’t.

“Certain breeds of chicken exhibit a behavior known as brooding.
When no Rooster is present they will diligently incubate eggs incapable of hatching,
forgoing food and water
despite the impossibility of newborn chicks.”

It seemed like you had been waiting for quite some time
like collapsed steam on cold coffee surface.

I watched you there
torn apart in the light
shadow fragments packing your edges
away like foreclosed tenants with an immaculately well maintained yard.

By turns violent and mundane,
open mouth smelling of monsoons
and hot morning skin. On the pillowcase
your fingertips bloomed like incandescent daffodils.

Nights posing as days stray forth
and return, with a casual politeness commonly reserved
for political debate spectatorship
and cocktail mixers.

Not quite grim.
Not fully present.
Standing alone in a gleaming room
begging for a sliver of crawling blackness
to tempt the curve of your hip back into my hand.

If there was time left,
I could have figured it out.

“I understand that you are sad and I am sorry.
I told you this would happen. I am
not having this conversation right now,
so I am sorry for that too.”

Human beings are capable of connecting their mouths, taking in
one another’s breaths for up to seventeen minutes
before they lose consciousness from depleting all available oxygen,
filling their lungs with carbon dioxide.

Lately, days have been without sound.
If love isn’t permanent
neither is its absence.
Movement in either direction tastes haunted

I’d have loved you best in reverse.
Led the black tar from your lungs, climbed back up that waterline to massage
the hate from your kidney. Sewn your clothes back on and
glided through that abandoned doorway to a living room
chair that would forever stay white.

Language is a peculiar thing,
when I say the word “tomorrow”, I have always meant you.
A wrinkle slinking across the carpet
when I’m strung out on caffeine and hope,
kitchen knife dotted with who knows whose skins.

Love means something different when all you want
is a bed to die in
and enough change to love a cold plastic cup
dancing through tattooed fingers,
like stained glass in a war zone.

There will be times
you need to go across black waters
heal at your own pace. So I will build the most beautiful boats,
launch you from the docks myself. Strew campfires across the shoreline.
A reminder there will always be a boat
and land to return to.

2
Nothing begins
nothing in.

If no valley
is a multiplicity,

Pull nothing similar
away for a moment,

“moment” gives the shapelessness
of a scattering
of occupied beds

Or it’s elephants
in retreat from flesh.

1

You’re courageous
you aren’t afraid to hate
your father
while he still breathes

though you never –
who does “never” distort? –
didn’t detest him

So they’ll divide him right here?
You always renounce the vacancy’s lack of distinction.

But you don’t, he never arrives
from written surrenders.

"I don't know what the words
he speaks to the walls
in hushed impatience mean.
A perimeter of experience
perfectly seamed
between the real
and unreal.
A portrait of the forest
with no leaves."

It goes like this:

Our noise
The wreckage of being alive
Will eventually grass over into something natural
and unadorned.

Taking our self-interest away.
Emptying decades of ego
drip by
drip.

Forgetting the birds in the trees,
how vast a neighborhood felt passing by school bus windows,
and the way dew beaded
in front the hospital when they said
“We’re out of options.”

Sorrow,
however human,
has always staunched itself just beyond each hallway’s end.

A vastness terrifying and grim.
Like the inedible gristle
from a cheap steak
forever rolling between gapped molars.

Eventually the coping mechanisms fade,
and we accept the bristling fact
it’s never going
to get better.

Bide time ruminating,
how our bodies careened off one another.
Something primally magical
about the curve of bones
concussed by freckles bloomed in desert sun.

And how time has left each appendage
standing suddenly disconsolate
and devoid of humanity.
The odd one out,
picked neither for shirts
nor skins.

You gradually get worse at self-preservation.
Faltering when remembering words
or what side of the bathroom door the handle is on.
Movement eventually follows, leaving you bed-bound.
Taking note, your immune system quietly packs it’s bags
and slinks out the back door slow
so you can wither to an unencumbered close.

I want my sloughed tissue brain
to struggle against a thin strand of humanity,
fighting the fade of your presence
harder than the fact I can no longer spell my sibling’s names.

Will yours remember me?
Or will it stay tied down elsewhere,
bruises being choked into it’s pliable facade.
A miasma of crop tops and denim skirts.

It will arrive,
certain
but unannounced.
The culmination of a life well-lived.
Feedback, white-noise, static,
silence.
Peace as stark as a womb.

Yet when I close my eyes now,
all I see is the gnashing of teeth.

When a crow dies,
they have been observed to
summon members of their species
and gather around the carcass
as well as cease eating for sometime
following the death.

These effects are most evident
in birds who spend their lives with
a single partner - like
geese or songbirds.
This can sometimes extend
to the remaining partner stopping eating,
then dying itself.

While easy to dismiss
as simply projecting
human consciousness,
and existential dread,
to the grim realities of nature,
there appears to be merit to ideas regarding mourning in wild animals.

As with similar behavior in
human families,
all mammals appear to have internal bonds
to some degree.

For example,
mother chimpanzees have been seen
to carry their dead children around
for weeks on their backs.
Refusing to eat,
or let anything touch their child.
Even as they become mummified by sunlight.

After death, our families
will wash us, just as
we did for the deceased before us.
Then let us lie for awhile, with the house
breathing around our stillness.
Houses are known to take some time
getting used to the idea of our not being around any longer.

It's been postulated,
that which we love lives inside us,
and vice-versa
until there is no longer a vessel
and all pair-bonds are forcibly ended.

I thought for a moment
about lying
telling them you're doing great,
about all your adventures
and dreams manifested.
Raising goats somewhere near bright water
in a quiet ordinariness
marred only by the occasional bite mark
on a perennial
grown too close to the fence line.

But I told the truth.
I have no idea
and would prefer it remain that way.

How do you measure the distance between satisfaction and settling?
At what speed does wishful thinking blur
beyond a second thought into clear,
emotional ink-work. Haunting, deceptive
, an individual burden laid bare to those loved past the point of return.

I am a novelist without a novel.
An insatiable bipedal need to place it all
on paper, before personal need begins to bend narrative
to match will.

Some days I try to explain myself but everything comes out wrong.
Her face just looks lost and sad.
She wants me to stop trying, but the smile glinting her eye just won’t let me do it.

I’m a coward and I should be shot.


I hate the sky. And I do
that which is parallel to the shrubwork
Bland. Alone on an armless bench.
“I love you” to a cold grey sky. No one has made me say it.
It means everything.

Names most worthy of rumination exist as gnawing, skittering things
scratching at the backside of our brows.
I don’t smile so much as express variations on a skeleton.
A parade of crushed faces in leaves grown auburn.

One morning our cat crawled beneath the porch to die. She
never liked to be touched much. No idea
she was full of tumors
until her sagging body was laid beneath the backyard sod.

It’s a terrible feeling really,
to bear witness to love’s presence.
Hear it. Feel it.
Hands lashed to the asphalt as the smiles rain upon your back.
On those days my spine sags past breaking,
I will beg for more weight.
Perhaps then I can begin to wear your wounds.

Your face broke like glass that night.
I held it together for you,
skin trickling through my fingers.
The sum of all your
hopes, errors, and ever-will-be’s

Birthday cakes, lease signings, Halloweens,
the man who will one day silence the noise.
These moments deserve you, like so many
others not yet ready to cry for you.  

Listen and come back
to me. You can’t have
her. We need her.
Come back. Come
back. I won’t let you have her.

When isolated,
the imagination expands to fill space
until contact with reality
has been removed entirely.
It’s about faith in a way.
A man lost in the imprisonment
of false moments to the point
even in fevered visions
no supporting characters are particularly
scared or surprised.

In his mind he’s not lying,
for in his head it happened.
A dog chasing it’s own tail.
going faster and faster in an obsessive
and personal way
too primal to be defined.
In this way all things are ordained.
A superhero whose only
power is being able to see 40 seconds into the future,
unable to change a thing.

Notwithstanding,
he can still feel passion.
Genuine
and fierce as
any normal person would feel.
Toxic.
Delusional.
Choosing love
over people
rather than seeing love
in people.

An innate understanding
of what people want and
how to divert attention
from the possibility anything
could ever be wrong with his worldview,
simply because he’s fettered so tightly to
love as heavy work,
he truly believes a theoretical tomorrow
outweighs the trauma of today.

When he speaks
half his face
cracks away in a strange smile
like cinders
peeling from a fuselage
while flying over nighttime water.

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.

Time as a concept
becomes especially troubling
once it makes itself known.
Now you’re against the clock.
All progress a single
stuttered step
from falling apart.
Brutalist landscapes
masquerading as a bioluminescent,
science-fiction sentient beings.

Unfortunately the clock,
is ticking.
Hours go by the past
increases the future
recedes. Possibilities
decreasing regrets
mounting.
Do you understand?

When it all burns,
as I assure you it will,
every empty office lobby
and husk of window looking down
from tender jagged tenement towers
will pour rivulets of ash across
broken bricked sidewalks
like crawling fingers of lace.

Only the mosquitos will remain unchanged.
Spilling deftly from the same canals as each
and every brood
to have ever come before.
Nipping the skin of those left behind,
to sing the names of the dead
into the corn seeds scattered hopefully
in cold air.

Driving home
I swerved to avoid a dead cat
lying in the road.

It was raining,
but my speed was low
and no other cars were around.

While it did not change the outcome,
it was the right thing to do.

Once, after money had changed hands
and guarantees were given,
I found myself in a high desert gulch
choking a dog to death
with a leash pulled through a fence.

Gasping and afraid,
still full of love.

Having never before
hurt something beautiful,
screaming apologies
at an empty backseat kennel
was new to me.

If it were human,
mail would still arrive at the doorstep
while he laid among the river
rocks and cactus.

But I can't go to the better place
everyone says we go.
Drag it back home
make things right again.

Perhaps this is why,
years later
I finally found peace
the moment hands wrapped my throat

In the daylight
far from where people were
she pulls a feather from the sand
brushes it clean.
The same way she did as a child,
collecting feathers —
the way a clump of dust
collects more dust
by static electricity.
Rushing home at the end of each day
to spread them wide across the kitchen table
and listen to their incantations
writhing in the air.

A damp matchbook rests on top of the sand.
She flips it open without looking,
runs her thumb down the cardboard,
and finds one match still intact.
She stares ahead,
wonders if the texture on her fingertip will flake it apart,
leave her hands smelling
and feeling
like fire for the rest of the night,
or if the cold ocean water has already
washed away that part of the match —
the part that smells
and feels like
fire.

A photograph,
washed up on the same beach,
is too faded to interpret.
Two blurred forms stand very
very close in the foreground.
The background is dim,
but not dark.
Maybe it's evening.
It's not night.
Or it might be night,
but in a well-lit place,
like a city or a gas station.
I suppose it matters little
as it’s still a beautiful photograph.

Beautiful like the way
a quiet walk with the dog
is only broken by the occasional mumble
or hum.
It doesn't matter
if you speak clearly.
The dog's only listening to your tone
and your hand behind it’s ear,
and it’s memory of all your time together.
and thinking about how all people need
is enough to pretend
we're home.

There’s something to be said
for the nostalgic banality
of fading industries,

standing in line to buy stamps,
request blank checks,
or updating vehicle registrations.

Reminders that we seldom truly know
what nothing feels like.

Thumbprints on the underside of reality
two steps left of the center line,
and if you look back, it disappears completely.

the same way sleeping through the night
became a chore after realizing
the most peculiar part about
you silhouetted in my doorway,
is that it’s
you.
Silhouetted in my doorway.

Across the cheap Ikea pine,
that comfortable laugh doomed me.

Like a worn-in afghan,
and the smell of wax papered spice cabinets.
It made me grateful beyond reason.

But still, the linoleum peels, and tube lights
flicker pop
back to dark.

So I savor the minute
spent lacing each eyelet of my faded hiking boots.
Making sure the door is locked twice before I leave,
trying not to wonder
where it is you go at night.

“If you ever make your way
I would love to be your guide.”
“Something will land soon
so maybe we can,
thanks for still knowing me.”
“Thank you for still knowing me.
It still shocks me that you’ve managed
to stick around with me
being how I am.”

“I’ve been thinking.”
"About?”
“Why you care. But
don’t go into it.”

“I don’t suppose
I ever had
a choice in the matter”

“This was the time you hated me. still could be.”
“I just need to stop talking”

“What caused it?”
“Living where I do
this dismal place
I hate where I’m at now”

“Last night,
I figured I should do it
Tell you I’m sorry for what made you leave
I hope you stay this time.”

“Want to know what I think about when I’m stressed at work?”
“What’s that?”
“When I came back
and you knocked on the door.
And I felt safe.”

“Seeing your name makes me smile.”
“I really have missed you.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back,
“You have no idea how scared I was.”
“You are always good to me. I’m the one who is bad.”
“I don’t like it when you say mean things toward yourself.”
“Well in this case it’s true.”
“I really hope we can see each other”
“I like spending my birthday with you.”

“I never wanted to leave, I just felt I should.”
“Why?
It’s got to be more than just the logistics of distance.”
“I went to a dark place.
I haven’t been actually happy here in a long time.”
“You’ve always got a happy place to return to.”

“I’d have liked to talk in person
but on the chance
I don’t wake up some day, I just wanted to say that I love you.”
“I love you and miss you too. I always will.”
“I hope so.”
“You exist and I somehow met you.
I’ll be forever thankful.”

“I’m really really thankful
I didn’t have to bury you.”
“I need to thank you for
helping me through it.”

“Please outlive me.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
“Then promise to never forget me.”
“I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.”

“What happened? I’m ready to hear.”
“I got depressed
isolated
started getting attention locally, I went with it because
you didn’t deserve it.”

“Why didn’t
we
talk.”

“I don’t know.”
“Did you forget me?“
"I didn’t forget.
Not once.”

“I was thinking about myself.”
“It’s hard to believe you loved me.”
“But I did love you. I still do.”

“I make problems for myself,
when it gets too real I run.
I know
that doesn’t give
answers and I’m so sorry.
I’m not like you.
If you need me to stay away just tell me.”

“No. Even in my darkest hell, I never stopped loving you.”
“I don’t care how bad
it seems. I never stopped
loving you either.”

“I wish I could make food for you.”
“I’d cook for you too babe. I make a mean fajita. I miss you a lot.”
“ARE YOU SAYING YOU’RE GOING TO COOK MY CAT?!”
“I would never do such a thing! That’s out of context!”
“Haha, But really I’d love to cook for you or have you cook for me. I miss you too. So much.”
“Come home.”
“I will. I promise babe.”

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.

We laid there without words
reminding ourselves there is no such thing as nothing.
Laying there we clawed for sounds,
waited for them to crawl from our heads. Useless mouths open and sagging.

I don’t want excuses.
You don’t want apologetics.
Stifle your excuses.
I’ll smother my apologetics.

Tiny, dark room didn’t have a window
neither of us could see a trail
on which to tiptoe
away. Congealed air packed into our lungs, we struggled to exhale.

Distant beats, stumbling all the more closer
Your heart distant and coming closer.

After the storm
I found a mummified bird
stuck deep in a fallen nest,
a flare of color punching through layers of grey.
His fight had been long done.
Lost a thousand years ago,
laid to rest right here
since time’s beginning.

His future, as with all others
teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold.
At no point will there be an option for after-the-war.
No serotonin jackpot
lying in secret like an amputated limb in the sand.

Only hour upon hour
of conversations
that feel like silence
stumbling over one another
to cover the chasm remaining
from the beautiful realization
you’ll never escape such a boundlessly
ugly place.

But you,
you looked like you came out of the sun.
All I could see was your silhouette
staring right into me
without squinting.
Scratched skin warm to the touch.
A reflexive half-remembered sentence
providing respite
amidst a world
softening to vapor.

Spinning
slowly
tussled and wild
like black yarn
in absolute silence.
Four simple words
proving I wasn't insane.
I can see it.

Note: Due to formatting issues, I'm unable to provide the correct version of this poem. It was created using text messages, then striking information in the manner of redacted documents. However, that option is not able to be shown on this site. In order to get around this, I'm providing the non-redacted messages for reference. This is not so much a poem, as it is an experimentation with the dissection of language. As a result, part 2 (and That's Worth The Way We Are) has had the post-redaction words removed and placed in a more traditional structure. For the real version, feel free to reach out to me.  - Rollie

“If you ever make your way to Chicago I would love to be your tour guide.”
“I’m sure a tour or something will land there soon enough, so maybe we can go. Also, I stopped at Bell Rd. Dutch and it gave me flashbacks to first driving way out here to hang out with you. So thanks for still knowing me.”
“Thank you for still knowing me. It still shocks me that you’ve managed to stick around with me being how I am.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“About what?”
“Why you care about me. But you don’t have to go into it.”
“That’s actually something I don’t ever mind talking about. I suppose if you want me to be succinct, then it’s because deep down I don’t think I ever had a choice in the matter.”

“I was worried this one for sure was the time you had decided you hated me. I suppose it still could be ha.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m just stupid and need to stop getting into depressive episodes and stop talking to everyone I know.”
“What caused the depressive episodes? If it’s ok that I ask that is.”
“Living where I do and having things I cared for in this dismal place go to ****. I hate where I’m at now, but at least have my dogs and Fajita.”

“I dreamt about this last night, so I figured I should do it in real life too. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for whatever I did that made you leave again most recently. I hope you stay back this time, and if I’m ******* up please tell me so I can remedy it.”
“It’s nothing you did. It’s 100% me.”

“Want to know what I think about when I’m stressed at work?”
“What’s that?”
“When I came back to Arizona, and you knocked on the door. I was so nervous to open it. But then when I did, you were there. And you just hugged me. And I felt safe.”

“Want to know something?”
“Yes I do.”

“Seeing your name pop up on my social media and text alerts. It really makes me smile.”

“I really have missed you.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back to my life this time. You have no idea how scared I was.”
“I’m sorry I put you through that dear. You are always good to me. I’m the one who is bad.”
“I don’t like it when you call yourself bad or say mean things toward yourself.”
“Well in this case it’s true.”
“Well you were worth the wait. I really hope we can see each other in person at some point soon.”
“I’m hoping March. I like spending my birthday with you.”

“I have a question.”
“What’s that?"
“What made you come back to my life?”

“I never wanted to leave, I just felt I should.”
“Why though? Like what made it happen? It’s got to be more than just the logistics of distance.

“It’s all on me and the way my brain works. I don’t know what happened. I just know I went to a dark place. I haven’t been actually happy here in a long time.”
“Well then I’ll make sure you’ve always got a happy place to return to here.”

“I’d have liked to talk about some things in person instead, but on the off chance I don’t wake up some day, I just wanted to say that I really do miss you and I love you as well. Sorry for everything.”
“I love you and miss you too. I always will.”
“I hope so.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin a thing. You exist and I somehow met you. That alone is a miracle I’ll be forever thankful for.”

“I’m really really thankful that when things were at their worst, it never went too far and I didn’t have to bury you. I couldn’t have done it. So thank you for being so strong.”


“You don’t need to thank me for that. I need to thank you for being there for me and helping me through it so I didn’t get to that point.”
“Do me a favor and please outlive me.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
“Then promise to never forget me.”
“I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.”

“I always tell my friends how much I want to go back to Arizona because it feels like Home and it’s where I’m happiest.”

“Can I ask something?”
“Of course.”
“What happened? Like with everything? I’m ready to hear it and think it would help me sleep.”
“I got in my own head and started feeling extremely depressed so I isolated myself and when I started getting attention locally, I went with it because I was weak and stupid. I was ****** to you and you didn’t deserve it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or at least talk about it? We could have talked through things.”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Do you know how hard it is to watch from afar?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Did you forget me? Why did you come back?“
"I didn’t forget you. Not once. I was selfish and gave in to the easier option.”
“Then that means you had to have done everything you did while still thinking about me. That’s dark to look at.”
“I was thinking about myself because I’m selfish and awful.”
“Do you understand why it’s hard for me to believe you loved me?”
“I do understand why you feel that way. I’m so sorry. But I did love you. I still do. It was problems with myself. Nothing you did.”
“What problems were those?”
“I’m dodgy and afraid of commitment and make problems for myself. Like things are going amazingly well, so some part of my brain is like
“Hey **** this up.”.”
“It doesn’t seem like you’re afraid of it though.”
“I think I’m not, but when it gets too real I run. I honestly don’t know why I’m like this and I know me saying that doesn’t give you answers and I’m so sorry. I think I’m just a weak human. I’m not strong like you. If you need me to stay away just tell me.”
“No. That’s not what I wanted. Even in my darkest hell, I never stopped loving you.”
“I don’t care how bad it seems. I never stopped loving you either.”

“I wish I could make food for you.”
“I’d cook for you too babe. I make a mean fajita. I miss you a lot.”
"ARE YOU SAYING YOU’RE GOING TO COOK MY CAT?!”
“I would never do such a thing! That’s out of context!”
“Haha, But really I’d love to cook for you or have you cook for me. I miss you too. So much.”
“Come home.”
“I will. I promise babe.”

When understanding the fact
there may no longer
be future days
it's the little things
which burn with the ugliest truth.

Like not knowing what cabinet
the olive oil
and peppercorns are in
or how much laundry detergent is left.

Gasping yourself awake
at the sound of barking dogs
still haunting edges of every doorjamb.

Too many nights wasted at coffee shops
burnt hands pulling shots,
across ***** Formica counters.

Talking to boys about their discount tattoos,
and bands that will never be relevant.

They tell me how they’ll change the world,
bring the females along with them
to smash the every glass ceiling.

Within the hour I’ll be rug burned in a dimly lit room
Nicotine tongue telling me it doesn’t normally do this,
but I’ve already come this far.
Fight, or give in,
you’ll still be a dozen miles from home.

A blue eyed story with a faded face,
and a name they never seem to ask for.

I wanted
to stand in a rush hour turn lane
and kiss you until we both tasted enamel.
Air thick and sweet with the hot scent of living,
knowing we’re dying.

Unfortunately, that particular situation is an impossibility.
An impasse if you will.
My inherent fear of cars,
coupled with a distrust
of horses,
would prevent me from standing in any road
during any point
in the evolution of travel.

So I stay inside.
Listen to another night of the neighbors having ***.
Seeing if this week’s guest star will be
whiskey damp apologies
or just more broken glassware.

Maybe I’ll get naked and play with guns.
Wonder if
my palette is refined
enough to taste new
spit on your smile.

I don’t suppose I could.
There’s no frame of reference.

Lens spray in your glove box suggests he wears glasses,
but very little else.
A glasses delivery system sliding his cigarette stained
hand up your dress in the theater.

Was it because I didn’t care
how much weight you lost
or how many people had been inside you?
Didn’t mind how the backs of your ribs
jutted through your skin into
the lacework of your blouse?

whisper in my ear and tell me you hate me.

better. It never
gets better. It never gets
better. It never

People are beautifully statuesque
parodies and tragedies
of one another.
A great democracy of limbic creatures blinking
out of awareness and back,
pretending to sleep
while the world totters ever onward.

Creased post cards,
miniature elephant figurines
thrift store rings
and dried grocery store flowers.
A beautiful whirling loop
of meaningless
meaningless keepsakes
to soften the imposing sorrow
like warm breath
on a sleeping face.

Each night without fail
their city centers hum a concrete anthem
for a future which will never come.
A constant distant song
louder on the coast somehow
where the cold billows
amongst the barbwire
and bootprints.

I wish I wrote nature poems
or ****** haikus
ballads of ex-love
ex-tenderness
and foolishly resurfacing loss.
A novel of breath and wind,
endlessly interrogating readers
as to how many times
they can meet a new person
in the same floorplan as
so many others.

Instead I go hunting for mysteries
to prove the impossible really exists.
Listen intently to flowers calling out
from across a landscape of endless barren daylight
both primordial
and futurist.

Always in a hurry to toss aside sensuality in favor
of more volatile forces
bubbling over from the intrinsic cosmic voyeurism
that only comes from staring too long
into one’s deepest self.

Take an entire Sunday afternoon
touch every object in my home
one by one
realizing they’re all I possess,
as they’ve always been,
but are no longer familiar enough to considered
anything approaching owned.

Pontificate on raw human impulsiveness
and inconsequentialism growing
more difficult to control with each repetition.
Dropping the same ring down
the same storm drain to be washed
over in the same downpour.

The Marlboro Man In The Mirror
and his oxycontin sweetheart
reflected in the bloodshot stars
bouncing off your wilting smile.

But mostly,
I do a whole lot of talking
without saying a thing at all.
Soon enough
a moment
is the best I’ll do,
but right now
I’m going to tear off pieces of my face
and dance for you
between the full moon slivers
of this humid August night.

And then one day you weren’t
at least not like before,
but I still was.

When you bury a scream amidst
the shattering of things, it
scabs over
festers.
It is and
always will be.

But you’re not was.
I saw you sift through smiling hands tossed
towards a sea where you never
could be,
were,
but now are. So you must be is.
And you must be my was.

I’m still that same black hole
accelerating so fiercely nothing can escape.
An event horizon propelled by physical fear
until every time I look away,
each new face turns into was.

The antithesis of each are,
is was,
but still can’t remove is. So was
must be are.

We are centuries of darkness
turned to a thousand trips down the hall
while the silence adjusts
slowly
to us.

Beside a dying fire
it’s easy to love the place
you’ve always been leaving.
Utopia built in the isolation
of dense high elevation slumber.

Cry proudly
among embers accenting a darkness
newly invited.
You’ll know it’s working
when everything feels wrong.

There is no safe passage
through primitive worlds
something sacred inside you changes
the moment you realize other silhouettes
are crashing
detached and filthy
through the moonbeams
bursting indifferently
from high heavens

Suffering
the chronic kind
does not idle long
in it's codeine lurch.
It wages
sustained
low-level constant assault
with a mercilessness no other can hear
until the mind adapts
or hemorrhages entirely.

Bodies are temples we burn to the ground
wrists lashed
to time lapsed flowers
fingers still grasping
blankly for an out.
Claiming to
feel nothing except
the feeling
of nothing.
Saying that we don't, when
we do
rolling it between tongue and tooth
until it tastes almost true.

Wind flailing heavy
in the midday heat
shimmers like outstretched hands
lining immemorial hills
not seeing you through,
but cascading through tree limbs
as the mortars fall short,
greeted first with silence
and ringing
before the screaming begins.