i've had 6 sleepless nights since the last time we talked
if you even care
it's 6 am and i've been up all night filling the void with netflix sitcoms
now i'm sitting here writing about you while drinking coffee
i saw you last night, making eye contact with me across the sea of old faces
and all i can think about is getting ****-faced just to forget you
when you told me that you missed me the last time we communicated, what did you mean?
i feel like you missed me begging for your attention
which is understandable
please stop trying to forget that i get you more than those blonde transparent items you hang out with
i'm here for you and always will be
no matter how hard you try to keep me away
something pulls me back to you
but recently
i haven't wanted to come back to you
i thought i was over the butterflies
the ******* butterflies
that i used to get when my phone lit up and it was you

you know,
i read all our messages from the first time we started talking
the other morning
it was 3:03 am
and for some reason i wanted to
call you
maybe make up an excuse to get you to come over
but i'm over it
obviously
it's not like this poem is about you or anything
it's not like the hole in my heart has your name etched in it or anything
it's not like i took the burden off your back that day in march at that bonfire or anything
the world doesn't orbit around you
but for some reason
i orbit around your hazel eyes and cute-*** smirk

Cheated and defeated –
                  my mistakes, themselves, repeated . . .
A monster made of gluttony;
                  I’ve no option but to feed it.

I saw the writing on the walls,
           But, my feeble eyes had failed to read it.
Still... I’m not convinced that this warning,
        Was chosen by my eyes, not to be heeded.

Perhaps my head was the catalyst
           A byproduct of an acid trip;
           Had split this world in two.
Some for me, and some for you.
Maybe . . . this warning wasn’t meant for me.
Maybe . . . it’s for the second half of two.

“Ye kind-hearted shall not go forth”
                              … is what I believe it said,
But I can’t be too certain.  
                              After all, I’ve lost my head.
Which brings up some emotions -
                               Or maybe, they’re allusions?
But, I can’t tell through the hallucinations
                If these are real or illusory movements.

So the fish hook pulled me deeper . . .  
                       All the while, stretching skin.

                       I knew not about the rabbit hole
                       to which I just dove in.

It seemed a lot more like an alley when I first took a glance,
Once I took a second step, I guess I chose to dance.

               Oh, what a performance it’s been!  
                And we haven’t yet hit intermission!
                 Although, I’m not sure when that is…
                            As I seem to have lost my vision.

The Queen of Hearts shouted,
                              “Off with his head!”
But without a brain to notice,
      I couldn’t hear what she had said.
She said it before the guillotine dropped…
So was my brain already gone
                      When my head hit the block?

I’m not sure where to find the pieces.
                     I didn't know I fell apart.
                     I didn’t know
I was a headless servant
                    To the heartless
                    Queen of Hearts.

Now, without a head,
                   I’m trying to piece it back together.
And I’m worried that this rabbit hole
           just may have me trapped here forever.

So, I’ll trace my steps backward, to try to find my "forward."
But as I set my pace faster, I find I'm moving slower.
Things turn upside down, when you’re this far down . . .
And the carousel just spins – around and around.

Gaining speed, with increasing malice
I hopped right on
        And chose a different path than Alice.

Here we arrive again at choice, but was it one at all?
This is when I found the Hatter – where the bounds of logic fall.
He asked me why I was there.
             He said, “My boy, have you gone mad?”
And as I searched for reason,
                                          I concluded that I had.

Standing on the ceiling,
            we both watched the world, twirling.
Sipping from our cups,
            between the stirs of sterling.
We chatted over tea, and while I was now content with spinning . . .
My content grew simultaneous
with the Cheshire Cat’s grinning.
He looked at me and said,
                                      “Upside down, yet, you seem alright?”
I responded with a “Hm…”
                                        and my spinning turned to flight.

I flew from the table and
       As I questioned if I was stable,
I grasped for the air.
       And for the first time . . .
                                          I was able.

Apart from the question, I now knew that I was mad,
Because I gripped a fist of air,
                             knowing full-well it can’t be grabbed.
I swung through the air…
                                    maybe I flew . . . I’m not sure.
But as I passed over ground, I surveyed it for Her.
I looked for Alice as my guide,
                              but someone took her place:
The "heartless" Queen of Hearts
                                     and her over-sized face.
Was it the face? Or just the head?
                            What’s ahead without a face?
It seems I lost the bounds of logic
                                    upon my fall from grace.

Was I flying?
Or was I falling?
It seems that orbit was my calling . . .
Where, as high as I fly,
   the paradox of orbit keeps me falling.
Maybe I’ll stay out here, where it’s quiet by the stars
And there’s no signs to read;
               no catalysts for scars.  
But did I ever escape?
                Am I still in the hole?
I found among these fragments
          the completion to my soul.

Somewhere between falling and flying,
              I told the truth while I was lying
And found my equilibrium
               between the living and the dying.

I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world;
And for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it.  Yet I'll hammer it out.*
             -Shakespeare, Richard II, Act V.I

The world I fathom rhetorically orbits
around the whirr of a dust-peppered
triad of turbine limbs
inbreeding infinitely as electricity's
treaty permits
into a smorgasbord whirl of
processed plastic white

A remedial sun I compose
to counter outside's oven bulb
in the world I do not fathom

Heat's ****** of humidity
is not lost on me
with no canonized sense
even to establish it with

And even my own remedial sun
restricts a reality-knighting touch
with its ozone cage pried open
in unseen haste - a victim
of college's fugitive waltz
encased in the jazz fusion dance hall
of the world I cannot fathom

Is there a dual left-footed
interpretive dance of a carbon dimension
outside of reality's steaming kitchen
to fathom me?

Caught lying down
The violet kiss
The twilight's wisp
At April's end
Resonates in lungs
Here is to calling emotions
Here in the green grass and the wind
Here is to culling memories
It's no lake, though,
It's too late, now
Chest pull, brain float
Alone in the motionless ocean, so cold
We turn black, earth and I, partners of stars caught staring up
What man made slow bleeds from the world as I sing
Wary, weightless, spinning in white flecked purple, in orbit or free fall
Orbiting free fall

I found elation, but can't find connection
I could have grown mushrooms on touchdown
I traded memory for medicine

Twilight, violet, orbit, all words I've used before and always, tightly, weave into the living picture painted years and years on all alone on reset honing torment to the self as if as if perpetuating involuntary EVA will translate to a skill that will well elevate me from the cave, the only connection, that I've built by locking up all my insides in taking pills that I fell back on for happiness and to get a rattled head settled to the ground rather stripped me of what history I lived and put my weary body in the open for all the universe's bitter energies to infinitely catch me floating lying down.

It's all I could ever do to read this
informative wall scrawl, idle
eyes hiding from peripheral refuse
scripting lines in lines in lines
the lines
engulf and then recede at light speed
inverted to white on black as the last night's
last bright stars erased over our expanse and
while I continue to dig, I await some conclusion or loop
wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
while I continue to wait, I dig at conclusion or loophole to return
I find only my positive proof to the absolute
Did we move?
I never did