Self ridicule, the antonym of a tool, but always kept handy.
Enduring desolation,
Inveterate stagnation.
Solitary despondence; the promise; this poison kills.
A fist versus brick and mortar, place your bets.
Roll loaded dice to prove-
And you don't need an ultimatum to know-
Cold, crazy or familiar, either way-
People in stone houses shouldn't throw glass.

The truth is so clear
you do not see it,
you see through it:
it is your eyes.
Lay the lines down.
Plug in to the mesh.
Nest the virtue of order-
that some things are true
is the sun under which
the World belongs.
Though it may never culminate
- as it turns -
we're here for the story.
Only some things are true.
This was never a poem.

An affecting caress of a hanging branch
thinks of you.
Dancing lights in the blue of sky
know your heart.
More than touch.
More than sight.
Worlds apart.

Conspire literally means
"breathe together",
like when a group is in a guided meditation.
"Now let the thought float away
like a bubble underwater.
Now do it with the next thought."
Or like when we lay together,
we synchronize our breaths
to be closer than we already are.
Or when we sing along at a concert,
we conspire.
We gathered at the hospital.
They took out your breathing tube,
and you breathed your last breath,
and I walked out into the rain,
and smoked a cigarette
alone.

Watch me now, I won't do this gracefully.
I'll prove that screaming in anger
is crying in pain.
I will show in every spray of
spit that passes my broken teeth
that tears are not all that drip down my face.
And the red in my face
is the ember that will char the pines for miles,
and if it burns down this house, so be it-
no accident that the fireplace will be what's left,
the hearth of this home will never be truer.
But it is those ashes that I'm grasping at;
when they are cold they will explain
what my heart knew
before the blood boiled over;
that there was nothing to save.
I swear the gods left my body then-
there was nothing to save.

Sunder splinters
caught under the nail
of the moment that
time spirals split in twain.
The merging of our timelines,
in vain.

Holes in your heart
are meant for blood,
the blood that feeds,
but also the blood that bleeds,
and it'll keep pulsing
even if it all bleeds out.
It's your burden to see that it's done,
Oh,
but this is a game that can't be won.
No,
the map is a textile
made of the guts of moths that eat textiles,
and it unfolds as quickly as it unravels,
you only get glimpses to guide your travels,
and the light you hold to show your steps
will blow out when the wind picks up,
and it will.
Hopefully you will know,
the hands of your mother,
but the blood of the ancestors
is yours- do what you will with that,
but understand it's seriousness.
We are born crying,
and cry whenever another dies,
and our tears are salty
like the ocean that bore the first life-
And it goes on like this.
Today will be hard,
again,
even if you just sit alone with your thoughts,
but if you can, try,
because you have one shot at this,
and they aren't coming to save you.
You might be able to do it on your own-
your beating heart, still-
but no one's coming to save you.
No one's coming to save you,
Save your self!

So many qualms
about so many tasks
that none of them would satisfy,
and ambitions,
in their vacuousness: begone!

So fatalism is cruel,
and you are what you think.
But about Waste and Want:
what can be done ?
I don't know...
I don't know!

. . .  I don't know, probably medication.

I awake to a rustle of leaves.
I find that I've my potential,
And I'm embarrassed to ask you
If I have grown past you.

Well I can spread seeds at the flick of my wrist
And I convert sunlight to sustenance-
Don't really need you...
Find your own soil to feed you.

With that
I uproot,
And I take the squirrel's nests with me.
It's hard to pull both feet out the grave, but
I've still got the stars to uplift me.
I've still got the stars...
They've still got my heart...

I'll
Bleed
Sweet
If I
**** well
Like,
And I want to.
Please carve your initials
In
My
Hips
Before you leave.
I tried to tell you, that
I'm
As
Simple as this.
But you
Got
Caught
All up in the
Webs the spiders weave
Between my arms...
My arms,
My arms,
My arms.

A crack and a tumbling of dirt,
You know dragging roots are so clumsy.
Don't touch me as I'm shambling past her,
This is
Something that I'd like to master.
My blue birds shake off as I move,
But
Slowly they're warming back up to me.
I think they're getting used to the motion,
I should
Stay steady, serve their devotion.

But:
I'll
Bleed
Sweet
If I
**** well
Like,
And I want to.
Please carve your initials
In
My
Hips
Before you leave.
I tried to tell you, that
I'm
As
Simple as this.
But you
Got
Caught
All up in the
Webs the spiders weave
Between my arms...
My arms,
My arms,
My arms.

I want you to twinge.
I want you to shake.
I want you to spin
in your grave
as fast as you can.
Please believe,
please believe:
I want you secure,
I don't want you safe.

So get off your ***,
I want you alert.
I'll feed you some meaning
if you're willing to work.
Don't put up a fuss,
put up a fight.
They'll have to take me out
feet first
if they plan to take me
tonight.
Spark up your eyes.
Blow out the lights.

Count yourself in.
Count it all down.
Drop all the dice.
Just walk away.
Find a new path,
run to it's end.
Do it so the story feels better to say.
Then flag down a star,
ask if I'm wrong, ask if I'm wrong.
It'll give you no answer, the same as this song


So get off your ***,
I want you alert.
I'll feed you some meaning
if you're willing to work.
Don't put up a fuss,
put up a fight.
They'll have to take me out
feet first
if they plan to take me
tonight.
Spark up your eyes.
Blow out the lights.

This fever won't break
its self.
I need--
I need
to break
away.
You are all ghosts,
slights of my psychosis,
but
it's not you.
I have to escape what I've become:
very little of my self.
I always cared what you thought of me
more than I cared what I thought--
very little of my self,
other than my hunger,
and it is that hunger,
dispassionate and weightless,
that has wounded me so.
So I must crawl into a cave,
somewhere across the continent,
to find myself to be -
tepid and sober, covered in scabs, cold-sweating -
awake, when I thought I never would be again,
if I had not left when I did.
(This is to say)
No goodbyes, you'll never see me again.

I
heed, first person,
the bones of surrender
burning in my eyes.
Agitated breathe
seeking
silt
in my lungs,
where saplings
will age into
a place for birds
to sing
"The sun is down, come home!"
for a day and a night,
before falling
like tears
fall.

Optimists and Pessimists remind
That the moon knows not it's own shadow,
Or to be kind to the desert sun.
                                                        
                                                    (Midnight, Noon, Midnight, Noon).
Light: an unstoppable force,
Dark: an immovable object.
                                                         ­                       (Twilight, Twilight).
Dead leaves turn into rot,
Seeds turn rot into leaves.
                                                         ­                        (Equinox, Equinox).
Check my watch,
Look at the sky-

(Leap year).

In the streets.
Hot asphalt any bad egg could fry on.
All fighting for their right
to daily, cheap, red meat.
A man with burning incense,
stuck in sidewalk cracks,
announces he is open for business,
selling shoes he mugged people for
the other night.
A young burn out smokes in the miasma of the alley
to avoid sharing with friends in the park.
A woman curses a puddle for simply
allowing it's self to be walked on.
A rogue justice, vigilante, gangster
grips security in their right jacket pocket.
A business man, working in sales since sixteen,
makes not vomiting- drunk on an empty stomach-
a high art.
A transgender elder faces the possibility
of a hate crime
with grit.

And me, another homeless body,
with all the curb appeal of
an out-dated, 10 inch TV-
and just like one:
(I could just vanish)
I could just vanish..

We **** to dissect.
To describe our utter despair over
the intrinsic lethality of
life, we take apart our minds
and separate the soul from the body
to see each, spread flat and smooth,
for the promise it is not.
We torture out of each other
a made up confession
that we have no tears behind our eyes over this
with a glance,
and squeeze the blood out of our fists
trying to hold composure when telling
our loved ones
"I love you",
but meaning
"Don't go. Ever."
And still we **** to dissect,
tipping back the bottle of complacency
to become stupid enough to believe
we are getting younger;
that time isn't tearing us apart
like we are
tearing ourselves apart
looking for a way out
inside our way into
life, our only life,
that is to say we **** to dissect
to grasp at what's killing us,
which is ourselves,
and everything,
and nothing at all...
And so the affliction of the gift of life
is it's termination,
the beginning designates  the end,
and the birth was not asked for,
the death unavoidable.
The time in between
is desperate,
and pure,
and must be held close.

Depression is like a marrow-less bone.
Depression is like being lost in the sewer,
stooped over just to fit.
I pick a direction and shamble,
and occasionally I'll find a manhole
too heavy to lift,
but I can stand there under it,
not making any progress,
but not hunched.
It's raining somewhere up there.
The water will rise.

And the light at the end of the tunnel
is on
the horizon.
I'll have trench foot by then,
but when I get there
it will be
The Moon herself.

I hear the Gods' creaking words
in my pillow every night,
and I make them my impression
of you, and what I think you would
want to say to me.
Maybe you are their voice,
maybe they are your voice
maybe I am your voice,
maybe you are my voice-
maybe it's just me.
I know, in a way, it is just me.
I roll over, and whisper that I am doing so,
so you can follow me to my other cheek,
even though that's dumb.
The rustle comes up to meet me
"Are ... you ... okay?"
A question I want to hear,
but don't want to answer.
"Secret...", my pillow crackles.
Makes sense, if I think on it.
Maybe it is just me,
and what I would say.
"Excuse..."
Sounds like what I would say,
though I don't know why.
Maybe you're why.
I know, in many ways, you are why.
I roll onto my back, with no warning,
to examine my ceiling.
"I love you", I project from my mind
and into the air.
"Sorry..." the ceiling fan hums back.
I feel the familiar tingle in my nose
of tears that won't be born,
and it turns into a yawn,
which I stifle in resentment.
I deserve to cry, I deserve that much.
Or maybe I get what I deserve, I don't know.
Actually, in a way, I do know.
I know that that's just the way things happen,
I know you are my reason,
I know that I am all I will ever have.
I know
you are why
it's just me.

doll parts
cat bones
"it's freezing out here"
broken light-bulbs
dusty tools
"when you're older"
rotting fruit
meat hooks
"I'll have to remember that"
quiet incisions
death by worms
"so bad it hurts"
clothes burnt to ash
broken windows
"waiting for the lightning to strike me"
knots upon knots
disused spider webs
"lost art"
drowned candles
paint, painted over
"a clean cut"
silver-lined clouds
loved and lost
"wouldn't do any good"
..

Some cold comfort
Wants it cold
Keeps it handy
For- shadows lengthen
For- dry hearts
For some keep sake
Remembers still water
Still water dies in the cold
Makes it honest
Wants it like bitter fruit
Because it's true
As a dying soul
In a mirror
Or still water
Rehearsing the truth
It comes more regular
And less honest
But less
Stinging
Cold

If you could only imagine
what you do not want to see,
there would be enough light for you
to see it.
Enough light, as you turn to it,
from your glowing face,
shift your weight a little bit
to take the first step,
take a deep breathe
stumble, fall,
but rise.
Your eyes
guide you
through.
You will see it,
and when you do,
there will be no words to express,
no syllables could ever sound out-
that the stars love you no less,
that you're not so bad, how you turned out-
but as close as they come,
I have heard once as true:
You are your love, loving through you.

I walk towards you.
Though I never want us to meet,
everywhere I go, I go towards you.
Though we are at odds,
we are meant for each other.
You
are my destination,
my North.
But what
am I
to you?
I wish I knew.

This is far from stumble.
This is weep and kneel,
but muted,
like squeezing information from a rock.
There's catching yourself failing
and when you actually failed.
You forgot,
forgot to write it down first,
then Forgot.
You have to sit with that,
cause it was-- **** was so good.
And when you wake up
tomorrow,
at 4 pm, sober, and read
this
you'll hopefully
have a headache
and know better.

Nothing worth it.
Nothing, worth it.

Square, plastic, bitter,
how is the void overwhelming?

I could be gone
too, you know.
No you would never know,
but you would wonder.
We all wonder.
I wonder

I can't scream here, that's the problem.
Actually, it's the crying,
I'm not right now.
I deserve to be inconsolable,
I don't feel honest otherwise,
and I'm not.
I'm not.

I want to see you,
and you're dead,
and all that implies.
I want to bleed,
for it's own sake.

I can't stop thinking
the thought
that it wasn't mean to
be like this.
We were meant to be,
but not like this.

That's it.
No revival,
no redemption,
no last line of hope,
just
so sad I'm angry.

Presence is inexorable.
How nature makes
three legged spiders,
made for a grave in the
dust of a window sill.
How civilization makes
light pollution.
Soon the Moon will be
the only Old God left.
How my hands are so empty...
And the subtext is--
Oh the things I wish I could cry for:
I know them like the back of my mind.

I'm drowning, and you tell me
to drink the sea.
I'm burning, and you ask me
to rise to the heavens.
I'm falling, and you tell me
to fly and be free.
I'm suicidal, and you ask me
to shave.

It feels like there isn't anything left for me,
maybe there never was,
but I have this biological imperative
to cling to the wreckage.
Oh, maybe there never was,
I was just born a few seconds too late
and everything has been off since then.
The real me is in a different present,
the one where we all belong,
and I am just one of the I's that must theoretically exist,
filling up the temporal expansion of the multiverse
with tragic nonsense
and blunders.
Cut off by the on-coming traffic of better times,
they won't let me merge in,
though I keep trying to get up to speed,
like I could get there, but then the lane ends-
cut off.
Cut off from everything that is truly bathed in the light,
saturated in color, clear in tone, just a little closer to the truth-
just close enough.
And, here, the stars are just holes in the lid of my jar,
and the ocean is just god's tears over his failed creation,
and the mountains are just the teeth that can never bite down,
and
and
yeh, maybe I wasn't meant for the real show,
I was meant for putting the saddest song I know on repeat,
and writing
this
****.

"You don't know what you have
until it's gone."
Is it right to say the Phoenix is
most it's self as ashes?
And
"It's darkest just before the dawn."
More like 1 am.
But things begin to end, then end to begin.
I think
you can only get a good look at the Sun
when it just arrived, or is about to leave.
When you get your first impression,
or when you still know both it and it's history.
When it is either intensive, extensive.
And the Sun of the East casts
shadows on the end of the day.
The Sun of the West shines
on the memory of that morning.
At noon you can hardly look up
so that you don't know the light too well.
The opposite reason, in the dark you must dream.
It is no flaw of the cosmos
that the Earth turns.
If there was always light
it would be forgotten.
The Sun made you,
the night says "Drink plenty of water."

It might be a life-time
before you know that
the spirits haunting you
ceaselessly scream
"We know each-other!"
By that time you will be
a moth with it's wings
stuck in the wax of a candle.
And when the great light burns down
it won't be long until
what you thought you knew last
were the stars
on this side of death.

The opposite of thinking is a breathing of the mind.

This is not mine.

The opposite of holding on is leaving slow.

This I don't know.

What are the words in the way of thought?

This I forgot.

In my dreams,
nights like these,
I always end up lost,
and I've given up on
whatever I was wandering for,
I just want to go home.
These days,
I spend all day at home,
wishing I had something to wander for.
Makes me wonder
if I'm a creature of beauty
in a life of pain,
or a creature of pain
in a life of beauty.
All I'm sure of is that,
serenity or fulfillment,
it's eluding.
Either way,
I'm in a row boat with no oars,
in the middle of the ocean,
and the horizon is my long-lost dream,
and my boat is the chair I
spend my waking life in,
and I am starving and sun burnt.
     -or-
I am my afflictive lack of dopamine
in the face of my most testing times,
like the challenge of
when I will put the bed sheets that have come off
back on the bed, or
whether I will dream a better dream tonight.
I hope it's vivid,
and prophetic
of a better tomorrow.

Starlight inspires
a warmth within me,
ancestral and familiar.
It's feels like a question,
that's not.
So,
suppose
you were.
My rib-cage is the haunt for this
wonder,
and my spirit is pulling from my body.
Where do you go, spirit?
If that is your real name-
what becomes?
I believe in those I love,
I can't help it.
There are others
that will believe in me,
I won't stop them.
But do I have the assurance to believe in myself?
Well, maybe you could tell me.
Maybe, by token of believing in you,
you would believe in me, for me.
We could make that deal,
if you came to my table-
the stars are so far away-
but you wouldn't, would you?
I just have to wonder,
like a child with no one to answer their questions
-makes me feel so trivial
in the face of the stars
so out-of-reach,
so mysterious,
so long-gone:
like you.
I want you to be real.
And somehow I whisper to the
unbelievable sky
"Give me a sign."

You say that
"finding yourself" is
a stupid phrase and idea,
that you are yourself,
and if you don't make
yourself as you go,
what are you doing?

I guess that makes sense.

But have you ever lost yourself?
Maybe not, just lost sight
of your reflection,
and when you see you in a shop window
you're startled with the reminder that
you are a vessel.

But what about that vessel?
Is that you or is the inside you?
Are they the same?
One?

What about the outside?
How much of what you experience
is you? Does it blur together?

And can you separate your experiences
from your judgements, expectations?

What if you don't know?

I know that I'm-
No.
I know that I believe-
I don't.

Questions
over
Questions.
No one to answer them.
No one but me.

And what am I doing?
Searching, searching for answers
in me.
Staring into a candle flame
that flails and lashes out,
swiping at answers,
my answers.

I blow it out
and go to bed
lost,
in a dream I haven't had yet.

I want to show you.
My works may not be holy,
but I don't want them to be,
I want them to fit easy in your hand.
There is honor in finding your own truth.
I want to speak it.
I want to write it down
and hide it in a library,
so that you might borrow
my truth in the usual way.
What do you think?
Maybe this word here.
Let me tell you something?
If you build up what you bet
when you first saw it
you would be great by
anyone's standards,
but you would be worried tired.
Be that as it may,
if you must break, and most do,
drink deep from the source,
and it might prove to you
that if you aren't afraid to die,
you shouldn't be afraid to live.