we tripped up the stairs
when we were kids
not knowing it was a metaphor
for what was to come
together, we huddled over laughing
when we reached the top
since the stumbles
left bruises on our knees
but never on our souls
unlike the steps we climb now
that take us to floors
we never meant to go to
and though I have seen you fall
so many times, my brother
each time you rise
with a grace that triumphs
your exhausted eyelids and
burned brain, remnants of
the tabooed chemicals
we made pinky-promises
never to do
none of it touched
the sincerity behind
your crooked smile
the boy that walked me home from school
when our mom was too busy
is still in those baby brown eyes
that wave at me
even over the telephone
to be honest, my brother
you give me more hope
than any self-help book
through the struggle, sorrow, and Celexa
never surrendering
to the stairs of life
and just like children
you hold out your hand
to help me up
though my knees are too sore
my heart too battered
one day I will join you
on the second floor

How do i lay this into you?
Eye with eyes and ears for naught,
yet i can not stop wondering.
The sun will never rise in the west.

Passed myself again to yearn.
I empty the cesspit and polished the edges, "good sir!"
Oh, i want to fill your treasure troves to the eye with ****.
Empty my throat for promises; tongue forked to pussyfoot the bits at the zenith of your bone plates.

Out my throat a night-crawler pirouettes.
Up the spiral on waves ridden only by an igno-rant; terrified.
to say sorry for the plague.
Oh yes he OWES YOU!
Owes you only the pock and rust.

A blindness covers me like a blanket.
The sights, sounds and smells that
once brought such joy and reassurance,
are haunting now.
The perfume, the hair, the pillow.
A light breeze, a quaint look.
You still put a smile on my face,
but it’s different now, tainted perhaps.
Conversations and dreams of the future,
relegated to mere passing comment.
Poorly timed and unfairly executed.
The tracks which once brought us together,
and carried us apart, are longer now than ever.
I still see you at night with eyes pressed tightly shut,
but by the morning you’ve gone.
It’s hard waking up knowing what you’re missing.
The strongest yet most painful feeling,
fades with the fields and blue skies.
Forgetting the most beautiful sunrise you have ever seen,
Is humoured by a tiring cliché.
But I’ve never been a fisherman.

You know those waits before a movie comes out or something like that. And you're waiting and waiting and it seems like forever. Treasure those moments, let them sink in because as soon as the movie comes out and you finally see it, you've  come to the end. Afterwards (only if it's a truly amazing) it feels like something is missing, it feels like there's a huge stone in your stomach, weighing you down. It feels like a bottomless pit has formed.  And you cant help but think "I can't  wait till its over, till I've stopped feeling this bad." And you will get over it eventually. Those times feel horrible and you'll look back thinking about how much you've missed waiting...

All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.

I don’t want to have to rhyme all the
time.
***** this.

“Ah”, you say. “The makings of modern
poetry.”

A hundred ways to think of it, and not
one of them true.

You know what?
*******.

pause

sweat collects in hollows between sound
and vertebrae
salt crusting over against the wall, skin.

i roll words and worlds between my cheeks
dusty marbles under the tongue rattling in
the empty spaces
not right and
too hard
too cold.

i spit them out and look
away before they land.

I lie awake

Shaking your chemicals
out of my system

like a lovesick
fiend