When I get home,
no one will ask me, sweetly and genuinely,
“How was work today?”
I won’t tell anyone that it was rough,
I won’t cry into anyone’s chest.
No one will wrap their arms around me
and sing to scare my demons away.
No one will lay beside me,
As I drift off to sleep on the couch.
No one will tell me they love me,
no one will steal kisses on my forehead, long after I’ve started dreaming.
No one will make my house feel like home - and I don’t know if I can build a home without you.

When I get home,
no one will ask me, with alcohol soaked breath,
“Who else are you *******?”
I won’t have to argue,
I won’t shake and cower with fear.
No one will make me feel selfish
and say that I’m a ****** person.
No one will refuse to lay down beside me,
because it’s “all I ever do”.
No one will tell me I’m useless, lazy, and dumb,
no one will steal my free will, and drain every bit of energy from my body.
No one will make my house feel like a jail cell -
and I’ll have to build a new home within myself.

The elixir of freedom
disappears without a proper goodbye.
I am its puppet.
It pulls my strings
and I dance.

I converse without a care and
take in the sweet sights and sounds.
In this moment,
life is grandiose.

The world is beginning to spin
and focus becomes foreign.
I continue to dance,
but the strings become worn.

My mania enchants me
As I sit on the torn couch.
The chipped paint and flickering bulb
remind me of my reality.

My head slams and
I swear I could feel it bruise.
No one ever tells you
how badly it hurts to feel numb.

And as I fall to my knees
I dedicate this poem to the floor
who holds me when no one else will.

doesn't matter how i hold it,
liquor in my hand brings shame to the man

i've sat at hundreds of dinner tables,
watched the women politely drink their water,
nobody stops their husbands from making fools of themselves
and my father takes pride in never having asked to be picked up from a bar
there's so much more i expect in a good man than sobriety

i drink to forget, more often to mourn than celebrate
i am classless, i am not marriage material anymore

it's 1:15 in the morning, and i see brown curly hair
and heartbreak wearing it like a costume
approaching me

6'2" and probably a little younger than me
still, he gets to be the tower
even though i've been here longer

you can't hear wedding bells in a place this loud
i took a (tequila) shot in the dark, and kissed him like i meant it

no I can't write but I do it tonight to drown out these emotions that keep coming to light
trapped in my thoughts its always a fight
dark and confused locked out im always abused
not the accused but always the  liar
praying to god please lift me up higher
im not looking for drugs im not looking for ***
im just looking for hugs or someone to text
drowning in pain always feeling the shame
my emotions are nameless but always the same
stuck in my ways with nowhere to go
im ****** up a daze with nothing to show
please pull the trigger im ready to blow
one more down six more to know
i scream but its silent
i dream and its violent
no sleep here for this guy hes waving adios
sometimes i wish i could just be comatos
no more to feel no more to see
**** probably better if you ask me
almost near four she'll be home soon
numbing the pain creating a loom
she takes the hurt and makes it stop
so thankful i am to my knees i should drop
being alone isnt so tasteful
shaking at home its just so discraceful
fighting the urge and wanting to drink
instead i sit down and write as i think
not sure what i say or to who i know how
afterwards mentally i take a bow
letting it out in writing abroad
when she gets home i can sit down awed
feeling less and hoping more
i can do this i feel sure
just another day without a bottle
my mind going crazy near full throttle
soon it will end thanks to my wife
shes the reason i dont take my own life

Mama washes the clothes
And hangs them out to
Dry, she takes me by my
Hand and we dance beneath
The twelve o'clock sky.

Papa goes to out and
Doesn't come home until
Late, we're all snuggled in
Bed by the time Mama asks
Him why he hasn't ate.  

He's missing out on time with
The kids, Mama tells her sister
One dreary day.

I might just have to work more, she'll say.

Papa feels weak, thinks it's his job
To provide for a family that's
Just starting to fray.

Mama works and we ask
Why she won't come to play.

Papa tells me she's off to
Work, that it'll just be for
A little while.

But, days turn into weeks,
Weeks turn into months,
Months turn into years.
Instead of Mama, Daddy now
Wipes my tears.

They tell him that he's a poor
Excuse of a man
And that Mama is better
Off finding a real one.

Times have changed,
Families grow in different ways.
Sometimes things happen,
But I've learned that
Mama's and Papa's still
Love their children just the same.

Another night, and I'm drinking
It's the medicine I take
To dull this existential ache
It's only 63% proof
So not 100% effective
But its that or the alternative
So I'll accept it
Half a bottle down
It still hurts to exist
Maybe it always will
I'll stay medicated
Till I live, or die

You smoked your throat gone.

I'll sit in bed opening and closing my Opinel No. 8 and stare at an unread compilation of a then-alive poet's correspondence with a then-and-still-dead poet and wonder at the cover art, a fishing-line-thin threaded rope that could well be tied in a slipknot. Tendrils that look like loose straw scattered thirty different ways.

He said You can't **** your life away and there are many ways to do that. I'm stuck inside a small bedroom dreaming or hallucinating an open space, streams flowing from nowhere near and flat space so full of sky it is sin to call it empty. The world can be hot and fast;  I am bad at resting. I don't sleep well. I can float a river and not once hear it moving.

You drank and dissected your drinking so it could masquerade as something under your control. We all are guilty of this at some point. In some way or another. I am lucky to sit in my bedroom and write that the next two years of my life have well been mapped. I do not pout, there is no malice here. My head is close, fastened between my small shoulders. I share no heart with Yesenin.

You can't **** your life away he said he thought. These things change. *But you can!

“Overdose” - July 11, 2017

She lay on the cold concrete,
Dress lifted, head held down.
Her insides have gone numb
As innocence bleeds into the ground.

After it had been done,
He told her she better keep her mouth shut.
Told her it was “all her fault,”
Said she shouldn’t have dressed like a ****.

Then, she goes home,
Suffering all alone.
No one to listen, no one to care,
Nothing but the imprint of his menacing glare.

When will it end?
When will it end?

He stays awake at night,
Listening in on his father’s two o’clock rage.
Didn’t bother to wonder what it was this time,
Just another one of Daddy’s alcoholic haze.

In their brokenness,
The shadows don’t even come out anymore.
The walls surrounding are slowly crumbling
But it doesn’t surprise him anymore.

Love knows nothing but black eyes and bleeding hearts,
At least that’s what he’s come to know living in the dark.
The whispers say, “Escape while you still have the chance.”
If he did that, his mother’s blood would be on his hands.

When will it end?
When will it end?

In their brokenness,
The tears flow faster than they ever have before.
Something to take away the pain,
Something to end the internal war.

The flag of surrender sits on the table,
They’ll walk through the walls they built so high.
Maybe there’s a better home awaiting
In the wounded sky.

When will it end?
When will it end?

Every day, people suffer in silence
And we just watch them wither away.
We read their scars like words on paper
But never ask them what caused them pain.

Our fellow humans would rather die
Than “bother” us with what’s on their mind.
They would rather take away their life
Because we have closed our hearts to the outside.

So, I have a question for you, my friends.
This stigma that we haven’t yet changed,
*When will it end?