i hunch my shoulders even though i'm trying to straighten my spine
i'm standing alone at this bus stop; the morning is darker and colder
than me, somehow. i clench my teeth against a bitter wind and
try not to think about the way i barely notice the chill cutting through me.
there's a death grip around my ribs - i struggle to inhale properly
but sometimes i find myself breathing just enough to make a small dent on the air

the combined weight of my phone in the left pocket of my skinny jeans
and my hand gripping my wallet in the right pocket
has my waistband slipping below my hips, jeans just-barely holding on,
and the precariousness of their position - half falling, half hanging -
has me thinking that they fit me better than they seem to.
i relate to them more than i've related to anybody in a long time.

the sun is only just rising at the edge of the eastern sky,
casting an eerie winter glow over this ice-bitten village.
i like these early mornings, my fellow villagers,
the few that are out and about as early as i am,
ambling sleepily to their sunrise starts
and even though i drank my morning coffee, i'm drunk on my lust for sleep.

i blink my bleary eyes and blatantly stare at the old couple
cautiously hobbling over slippery cobblestone,
walking sticks in their outer hands and inner palms clasped
together. the way they grip each other tightly tells me
they trust each other not to let the other fall;
the rings on their fingers tell me they fell for each other a long time ago
and i wonder how many times they pulled each other down over the years

as i catch sight of my bus approaching, slow behind a nervous driver
i'm left thinking about people, and college, and life
how everything seems simultaneously meaningful and meaningless,
all for something - yet, really, kind of all for nothing.
i could walk away and go home, settle into my bed and let sleep pull me under
away from my thoughts, naked and no longer bound by a binder,
comfortable in my skin the way i can never be in public

i don't. i step on the bus, and flash my bus pass at the driver
climb the stairs to sit in the front chairs by the windows
watch life pass by as the engine rumbles into motion.
i'm painfully aware of the way my ribs protest when i slouch in my seat
and my bed tempts me once more as i yawn into my weather-chapped hand.
i don't. college calls, friends await. perhaps it's all pointless
sometimes that's what my philosophy class teaches me
but i'd much rather live it out and see

And now
I’m not so sure.
The field I plowed
Seems to be dying with the coming freeze.
I can’t tell if those sprouts are still growing
And my inexperienced eyes can’t tell if there’s frost on their leaves,
Or new buds

I would ask you,
Seeing as you planted the seeds.
I only tilled the soil,
But your steely gaze is off-putting
And I can’t even see you through all this fog.
I maimed the ground beneath me,
And you showered me with praise.
Now it looks to be bouncing back and
I don’t know if I want it to.
All that hard work for nothing,
Or at least it seems that way.

I shouldn’t have helped you rake the earth.
I shouldn’t have cared for it so much in the first place,
But I sold my land to you
On good faith that I would be compensated
And now
I’m not so sure that I will be.
I can’t tell if I should’ve watered that land
Or if I should keep killing it with my ***.

I’ll rev you like a Porsche
Pressurize the clutch then
ease on the equipped brake
enrolling the steering wheel

On the highway as we sing
Tuning choruses eccentrically
apply the mascara and smile
put my flock on, swing like Bowie

Craze up in seismic grooves
Shift to a self expression culture
be so extreme that you glitter
I’ll desire your ambiguousness

Unarguably, I’ll hold your hand
An evolved zeitgeist in revolution
squeeze their prejudiced little heads
replicate, experiment your persona

Through beauty, you have spoiled me
And I run from life and death,
Hiding from foreign love.
Lest I pay for my sins,
******* in your bed,
Begging for the ropes to to cut through my acne - spotted skin.
Then in my bed,
With no arousal left to stain the sheets,
I let spill the tears,
From naive memories of the hands which touched me then.

Sonnets are post-modern confessional poetry,
And my love the subject of them all.
Like a sun,
Forgetting to light half of the moon,
Your unbuttoned shirt often slips my mind,
Slips into my mind during languid afternoons,
When I haven't quite digested my lunch,
Or your smile.

Can I leave?
But I am trapped,
The key in my pocket,
Rusting.

it’s quiet and i hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder
i hear nothing but the paper
burn as my inhale imitates the gust of
wind that guides the cold to shutter skin —
street lights sit above the lit, white-flowered flakes
as they dance to the ground as a group
that whisper soliloquies to the crimson
lobes that hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder,
a hazy fog covers the air before my face
as it sways from nostril to upper lip —
a sight down to an illuminating ash,
blinking to meet a lid to whited lash —
as the paper burns
the smokey sky is content
with silence and nothing more
than a look to the fields                             MJB

it’s 12 degrees outside
excluding the breeze, I hide
behind the rising smoke
of the cigarette just lit,
my fingers are falling off,
nails ripping to the marrow
a ****** stutter impairing speech,
a seizured grab to the fleeced pocket
leaves only the other hand to freeze,
such a sacrifice to something
old-me said I didn’t need,
I kick around snow
as my leather boots wear a
coat of white as I shiver
and inspire, throwing a black
coat over my lungs
“hey do you have a lighter?”
“yeah”
the ash sails down
and kisses the filter and a flick
collides the ember to exhale it’s final breath
to the frozen floor,                                                    
I step inside and
suddenly, I’m cold again.
                                                                               MJB

We sat aloft a dune
   peering over the ocean,
waves mesmerizing
  our inner turmoil,
grainy surf dimensions
    cut into psyche,
voices turned hazy
midst broiling sun
  washed back with
   salt water tears,
there was no lighthouse
  to guide the way
  nor save disparate crests  
no words reverberated the sound,
    just the floundering of
      gritty restless emotions
that once were blissed horizons
   before moon lost its balance
     to relentless torrential currents
      of neglectful destruction,
   drowning in ambiguous undertows