Hollow knocking,
Skies that blur,
Calling for your attention,
Time to wake up.
A strange sense of peace upon you,
Where is your place in history?

Assess your existence,
Time grinds forwards,
Are you being left behind,
Or do you move with purpose?
Keep working,
Keep dreaming,
For the world will reward you,
Someday.

Sacrifice is glory,
Sweat your friend,
Stand back,
And see life for what it is,
Be silent,
Absorb the chance to be exceptional.
Now all that’s left,
Is to make a decision,
Look to where your path leads,
And know that the work makes sense.

Dear Reader,

I give you permission.

I give you permission
to scar the spine
of this book
from the countless
times you will
crack it open.  

I give you permission
to highlight
and underline
and doodle
and annotate
these pages
until they have
no room to breathe.

I give you permission
to accidentally
drop
wet
spill on-
backpack-shove
the cover.

I give you permission
to dog-ear the corners
when you've lost
your bookmark
(and your way).

I give you permission
to break in these words
with the same
calamitous,
neurotic,
frenzied
passion with which
I wrote them.

I give you permission
to make this
Poetry your home.

Everything you want to have,
Everything you want to be,
Lies across the bridge you see.

It's burning, it's freezing,
It's hard, there's suffering.

But until your legs are cut,
And your heart is out,
You'll keep on walking..

As everything you want to have,
Everything you want to be,
Lies across the bridge you see.

The day after She left me I broke
I decided it was time for a change
A change,
Something new to wake up to,
A new start as hopeful as it sounds.
They all say now is the best time to
Become a new me.

So I stole my neighbors tractor tire
**** it sure is heavy
Heavy, like the morning light on my
Eyes when I finally quit my job--
But I digress
I take the dilapidated tire to the edge
Of my suburban lot
(I hate this lot
Why she chose this lot I'll never know
Stupid ***** can take it all)--
I crawl into the tire
And with a single push

I'm off!

Ambition fills my empty shell
This loathsome corpse
Rolling endlessly away from his
Past
Past the neighbours
Past the dog that **** in my yard
If you could call it a yard
A yard is where kids play
And men pridefully mow
And women tan brown and laze
Like my neighbors wife half-past noon
While he works and lays his assistant
I stare promiscuous beams at her
Hoping she'll see me and know I too
Long for a real love

Maybe I could talk to her
Have an affair
Move away to a lovely town
With a yard
Along with little children who
Call me daddy and make mudpies
In our driveway

Maybe one day
But on this day
I roll
And roll
Roll
Into a new me
A real
Me
Into a new love
Onto a field of opportunity

Maybe one day
But on this day
I roll
Into a new me
Onto the train tracks

In unkempt sorrow, we often lie
with no hope ahead, we plan to die
as fear grows in strength, we suffer too
for we know not what we should do.

Hope may die in a sea of black,
but doubting its existence allows for attack,
cling to faith to fend this foe,
or else depression will be allowed to sough.

For as long as the sun may shine,
everything can change when given time.
Look to the future, and keep ambitions high
for there's no reason not to try.

We joke about killing ourselves,
childhood trauma,
our hopes and dreams,
and the love we feel—
as though thats all they are, jokes.

There's two ways this could go

I could hit it
bullseye.
word for word;
the immortal poem.
and waste the rest of it
cooped up
in a small wood cabin with nothing but a few
bagels and weary eyes

Or I could meet a nice woman
Brown hair
Sunset eyes
Warm heart
and waste the rest of it
cooped up
in a small wood cabin with nothing but a few
bagels and weary eyes

“You’ve been treating it like a summer home; vacant, drafty, neglected; and yet you expect it to be in top working order whenever you decide to honor it with your presence”, she scolds.

“But I must inhabit the bustling city, my first home, if I am to survive the marathons of days of disembodied vigilance.” I protest. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“You don’t get it,” she expectorates, eyes narrowing and finger wagging.
“I’m just the messenger, telling you something you already know.”

I try pleading.
“Why must you scream so loud? Can’t you give me more time?
Surely we can make a deal.”

“There are no shortcuts,”
she responds, firm yet kind.
“I should know. I’ve traveled all the way from the end of the line, up your nerves and into your synapses. You have no choice but to climb down from your high tower, through your neck, beyond your shoulders, past your liver, kidneys and hips, to fingers, legs, and toes. Be with them, or they will keep sending me after you, as your benevolent warden.”

I blink, pedaling fruitlessly through the couscous
holding back unwanted questions
yet anticipating a Scroogian epiphany

What am I willing to give up
to be rid of her?

Should I offer my ambition as hush money?

Or do the back taxes pour in faster than my legs can kick?