I know she’s home when her car is a mile away
It’s so loud and I can hear the music playing before she parks
I can tell it’s her by the way she slams her door
She steps lightly up the flights of stairs unlike the rest
Even careful when she unlocks the door and pushes it open
Sometimes she has a hat on, but most times not
She calls my name and I come into the room
I patiently wait for her to throw her bag on the couch
And to peel her coat off with huffs of irritation
She kicks her boots off to the side before
A breath of relief escapes her lips.

Finally, she takes notice of me!
She sits down on the floor.
I chirp with enthusiasm to show her my appreciation
She’s gentle at first and then she gets too excited
So she grabs me and I immediately remember every day before
She does this every day, but somehow I forget this part
I cry in protest, but she only laughs
Continuing to pepper me with kisses.

And now my brother emerges
I’m plopped back down on the floor
I try to get her attention again, but she’s moved on
In defeat, I walk away and sit and glare
She never picks him up like she picks me up
Oh wait, she picked him up
After more kisses he’s put down too
She stretches and smiles at us.

“Who wants food?”

When they ask me why I stayed so long
I explain that because of you
I never ran out of things to write about.

Looking back,
I wonder whether all along
I was looking for a lover
or a writing prompt.

I am sad again, but I have no idea why.
Living keenly with an idea of what I want out of life.
My favorite season, autumn, is upon us.
And my writing is frequent and fulfilling.
So why am I sad again and why am I an orange juice, spilling?

I miss the days where drugs meant fun. Where ridicule was a pasttime.
Between best friends, and Windows didn't force updates.
The Internet was an escape around which Identity was ignored.
You were your username,
and you were too full to be bored.

I am sad again despite selling two poems to a couple patrons
during an open mic night I frequent.
I hadn't been much, chose instead to spend
my time writing and feeling sorry for myself.
Now that I'm out again and re-befriending familiar faces.
It almost feels like belonging is as lost as context between the spaces.
I'm stark raving sad and I've only just arrived.
One year finally after the middle-age of twenty five.
If I make it until January consider me your unlucky kin.
A day without morbidity, how long has it since last been?

Too long;
So long, too.

Dear Newborn,

Hi, hello.
Welcome.

I hope you’re enjoying your stay here on planet Earth.

I’m sure the drive in was a little difficult, a little painful,
perhaps a little ****** (or a lot ******),
like moving from the darkest cavern to the brightest….
well, place. Area. Location.

I can’t think of anything superbly bright right now.
Oh, oh, I know.

It’s like living your whole life floating
at the far reaches of outer space and then
catapulting directly into the sun.

Great analogy.

Regardless, welcome.

I said I hope you enjoy your stay,
the key word being hope, because, well,
you may not enjoy it.

In fact, it’s guaranteed that there are parts of life
that will be near-torturous,
that will make you wish you had never been brought
into this world.

But with that also comes moments of happiness
unlike anything you will ever experience, 
intense joy that makes you feel as though
you’re weightless once again,
floating out in space with no restraints,
no boundaries, just peace.

The good will be great,
and the bad will be horrible,
and sometimes the good will be good
and the bad will be just bad,
it all depends on the day.

A word of advice: treasure the time you have.

You won’t understand why this is important until you're older,
but do it anyway.

Life fades just as quickly as it is brought to fruition,
and there are people on this Earth you will want to treasure
like they are the finest gold ever to be panned out of any river.

There will be moments like this, too,
moments you wish would never fade,
and they will fade,
but never let them escape your memory,
and seek to make more of those moments every day,
even when happiness seems like an impossible dream.

Life is the most difficult journey you will ever go on,
but has the possibility of being the most rewarding, as well.

Allow the pain to be felt just as vibrantly as the happiness.

Never stifle your emotions.
Never limit others.
Never forget where you came from.
Never stop dreaming,
But never allow yourself to be tied down by those dreams, either.

Be free,
do what makes you happy,
be compassionate,
travel,
drink and make merry
(once you're legally allowed to, mind you),
and just be.

Exist to the great capacity you possibly can,
and die knowing you lived

Wishing you the greatest of luck,
A young dreamer

And we’re close in a way
That I couldn’t explain
With your comforting gaze
In the soft morning rain
And the water drips down
On my bare blinking lids
And you’re still there
When my eyes open again

Everyone longs for the sun
Or the sea
To be looking back at them
Through the space in between
But your darkness stares back
With a warmth deep inside
And I hope you hold true
As my fall intervenes

I’m partial to darkness
While the day still stands high
The contrast is simple
Against royal skies
With a comfort in place
And a turning of string
And you strike a sweet chord
With a soft song in mind

And the lyrics you hear
Of the sea and the sun
Don’t talk about feelings
That hit like a gun
When the starlight shines down
And you brighten to gold
You’re a bright brand new amber
And I am undone

Returning with
A plastic bag and
Speckled with the rain
She hears the click
Of the door behind you
And you take off your coat

The patter of her feet
And she slides down the hall
In her favorite fuzzy socks
To greet you with a warm hug
And the smell of Vicks
That will never go away

And you don’t forget
To put water in the soup
(At least this time)
And the kettle whistles
And she mimics it from
The other room

The world is warm
In front of the television
With your favorite movie
Sending changing colors
Across your faces
And her mug of lemon tea

Peeling silver skin
And exposing yourself
To change
In blister punch holes
Is a fight in itself

And running is easy
And hiding is comfort
And tiled voices echo
Against porcelain
And bubbles

When its emerald eye glimmers in the shadow of the dusty shelf above
I pause,
I sense a presense.

It is not unlike me to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Give them names and nicknames and quirky character traits based on how their forms bend.

In the flickering lights of a broke wicken sanctuary though, I do not do it out of habit.

I feel it and stare it back down and see my own reflection in the cracked gems that once were a soul.

A gaudy skull.

The kind you see in home video Indiana Jones tributes,
with hats stolen from someone’s parents,
and jackets stolen from someone else’s elder siblings,
and ketchup for blood.

The kind your quirky local manic pixie dream girl uses to hold incense.

The kind I’m about to waste my money on because I’m an adult now and I can use my millennial minimum wage however I want.

I do not become aware of the possessed nature of my new buddy until I take it back home and hear it snicker in the middle of the night.

I know it is the skull, for my roommate is not one to snicker.

(He chuckles when he’s hiding an opinion and has a villainous laugh when it’s coming from a place of sincerity, but that’s beside the point)

I know it’s laughing at me.
I know this for a fact.

It takes me three more nights to call it out on it because I’ve never been confronted with the issue of standing up to a haunted antique I took home from a secondhand shop, possibly owned by satan’s offspring.
But I’m twenty-one years old and still experiencing some firsts, I suppose.

The gaudy skull is exceptionally snarky.
In a way none of my named plants ever were.
Not even Gerard.

He comes for me for the garbage on the floor and the dust on the windowsill on which he’s propped up, and then later for my poor taste in chore-doing music.

I never ask for its name because I know for a fact he’ll make a game out of it
and I am not in the mood for entertaining ghosts.

I come to realise it all on my own a couple of weeks later.
Once the snark starts to wear off,
and domesticity settles in,
and shared quiet becomes comforting,
despite the circumstances.

It is Judas.

I know this for a fact.

You do not understand the extent to which I am certain that it is Judas.
I have never been so aware of someone’s origins in my entire life.
I bought this creepy item and it is now in my room and I’m developing a weird attachment to it and maybe occasionally use it as a paper-weight and it is Judas.

I feel it in my heart and know it inside of my skull that might be standing on someone else’s touchscreen windowsill
two thousand years in the future,
jade stones for eyes even though I specifically requested amber,
but you get ****** over by bureaucracy even after death.

How do I know it is Judas?

Because I feel him stare at me like he wants to kiss me late at night and sense him plotting my betrayal early morning.

I know it is that, for a fact, because I’ve felt this exact sensation before.

My **** edgy room decor is Judas.

I try to get him to admit it himself by talking of past lovers and reading aloud the surprising number of Jesus metaphor poems I have in my room.
I hate Jesus metaphors, but I do it for that sweet sensation of seeing someone trying to dodge the inevitable once it’s coming at them like a mule through Rome piloted by the son of god.

I know he’ll cave eventually and tell me
and I know it’ll be the same caliber of glorious news as Jesus coming out of his own cave of burial,
resurrected and preaching winning.
I know I’ll win.

And I think to myself that maybe I am in the mood to entertain and just haven’t found the right outlet yet.
Maybe history’s most infamous apostle is It.
The original sinner and the original rebel.

(I’m aware it’s technically Cain, the jealousy-ridden son of Adam and Eve, but I only ever count the gays)

Judas and I have bonded.

And I can tell he’s on the verge of telling me his dark and twisted backstory. Again, I have felt this sensation before.

And when it happens, we can talk
about what it’s like being demonised by the one you love
and being the odd one out in your devotee friend group, even though you eat bread and drink wine and worship metaphor just like them.
And how patriarchal institutions distort history to pedal the same tired spiel of everything having a place and everything being there for a reason.

But we both know that isn’t true
because neither of us feel like part of god’s plan or created in anyone’s image.

And we can listen to sad music about wanting to kiss the wrong people together.

And that’s all I ever wanted from a friendship.

The Vessel
Something that allows me to release my past
And have the capacity for my uncertain future

The Vessel
Something that can transport me fast
While having my safety ensured

The Vessel
Something that drove past
All the obstacles that have been giving me pressure

The Vessel
Like a steady vehicle that has a vast
Space that can fit in my past, present and future