I lie
and
I lie
and
I lie

I hide my behavior
to keep you safe.

I keep quiet
not to offend you.

I agree with you
to keep you happy.

I walk on eggshells
for you and
it’s never enough.

I lie
and
I lie
and
I lie

but when the truth
arrives at that
final moment;

jaws will drop
plates will shatter
dogs will growl

and
you’ll be long gone
after seeing what
a ghastly beast
I am

but for now

I lie
and
I lie
and
I lie

to keep us
together.

The room was dim, lit only by the haze of a street lamp filtering through half-drawn blinds, scattering lines like prison bars across the detritus of her life: unopened bills, cracked coffee mugs, and the perfumed ghosts of a dozen wilting roses collapsing under their own beauty. Knife to her neck—the thought slithered through her mind, unbidden, unformed, like smoke escaping a fire too distant to see. She pressed her fingers to her temple, hoping to divine meaning from the chaos of the moment, but the jigsaw of letters refused assembly, scattered as though by some cosmic gust.

Words were a storm. They rained in torrents, fragmented and incomprehensible, soaking her thoughts with omens she had no strength to interpret. The post-it notes—cheerful yellows and pinks—spoke a language of lies, each one slapped haphazardly to the walls, the fridge, the bathroom mirror: “You’re stronger than this,” “One day at a time,” “Smile, because it happened.” Their saccharine optimism grated against the grinding in her chest, the truth she could not ignore: she was falling, spinning into the gravity of some unseen event she could not stop, only anticipate.

Across town—or maybe just across the hall—he poured amber whiskey into a chipped glass, his movements sluggish, like a marionette whose strings had frayed. The top-shelf bottle mocked him; it wasn’t his whiskey, it wasn’t his glass, and yet here he was, owning it all with the hollow gravitas of a man who sold everything, including himself. The liquid swirled, catching the dim light like a memory trying to surface, but it went nowhere, dissolved into the haze of his thoughts.

The voices came next. They always did. They whispered in tones too low for words but loud enough to unsettle, to make him wonder whether the sound was inside or outside his skull. They took aim, their intent barbed and deliberate, yet the execution was silence—a silence that curled down his spine, as intimate as a lover’s breath but as cold as the shiver it left behind.

She saw it coming—whatever it was. She always did. The omen hung in the air between them, a phantom that moved between their lives, threading their disjointed existences together like a careless seamstress stitching a wound. And still, the knife stayed at her neck, its edge a promise, a prophecy, waiting for the final rose to collapse under its own weight.

words that hang like shutters
from broken hinges.

words that hover like nurses
after surgery.

words that splatter like
thin remorse.

I heave with sickness
when they arrive.

I spring with ebullience
when they leave the ** dunk
parts of my mind.

these words
these ******* words
that show up in Pontiacs,
in Plymouths, in Pintos

these nonsensical,
satirical,
antiquated words.

they charge at you
like a dead bovine
swinging from a meat hook.

they crawl towards you
like a silverfish
out of the sink drain.

they creep up on you
like an old ***
rattling a change cup.

why? I ask myself.

why does this happen?

I don’t want this kind of ailment;
give me
bee stings
or bedsores
or steam burns
but not these words,

these words that linger like shingles
across the ribcage of burning torment.

I pray without ceasing
towards a signified God.

I pray for simple sacrifice;

I want suicide rather than poetry.
I want a cow without milk.
I want a statue without structure.
I want a woman without grace.

I can feel the floodgates opening soon
and I think I’m going to puke my guts
out all over this page again.

all those doughy-eyed, snot-nosed, putty-cheeked, frog-mouthed, bull-headed, cowardice faces: they were born
without sorrow
until they hand over their lives
to someone they truly don’t know
and they do it with a smile
and a gleam in their eye
and then they get sandpapered down
and polished in something
they did not choose,
their freedoms get capsized and
they don’t know what they’ve done
or why they’ve done it.
they become enraged and frustrated
with themselves
but they do not know where
to project their anger.
they can’t do it at home.
they’re too afraid of what they might
lose: their own self-made agony
so they take it to work with them
or to the supermarket or to the restaurant
and aim at anyone over any little thing.
they can’t do it at home.
those poor deluded fools careening towards
the only elusive dream that matters: happiness.
some of them are regretting decisions,
some of them are stewing on mistakes,
some of them are plotting their escape
all that sacrifice, all that pap
all those easy words
whistling like stream;
“I love you.”
“I miss you.”
“I want you.”
“I need you.”
all of it: for nothing
all those droopy, sullen-glared, turkey-necked, warthog faces everywhere;
laying in cold beds, coddling empty blankets,
****** in sorrow, contemplating the error of their ways,
alone with themselves, alone with each other.

I am the same man
in a different bedroom
where the walls are painted a different color
and the furniture is different
and the items are different
and the style is different
and the mirrors are different
yet, I stand before them
and I look the same
and the bed is different, feels different
and the woman is different
and the *** is different,
and I stretch out on the bed
hands behind my head
elbows pointed outward
looking up at a different ceiling
where sometimes
there’s a ceiling fan
staring down at me
and I think about all my little women;
some were so sweet when others were so bitter
yet each one had changed my life in many different ways
either through experience or by mistake
but, like the ***, it’s all the same in the end:
finished.

the women are strong and beautiful
and relentless
the women can withstand pain
far greater than any man
113 pounds of meat walking the streets
they don’t need your muscles
they have their voice
and before you know it
you’re tossed out on the streets
or left alone with roaches
or thrown in a jail cell
or taken to court
or put in a madhouse
after they got inside your head
and tore you down psychologically
or played with your emotions like a puppet
and left you to the point of suicide while
they ride around town with younger men
113 pounds of meat walking the streets
the power they hold
the magic they perform
the voice they use
they can take you to heaven
or send you straight to hell
they can clean the **** stains
from your underwear
or have you sitting on the edge of a bed
in a hotel room, penniless, with the bottle
tilted towards the stucco ceiling,
wondering where it all went wrong
they don’t need your muscles
save them
for whoever or whatever
might be coming next.

We are all like wildflowers. We fall to the ground as seeds, some are swept away without a chance, while others begin to germinate and sprout after some time in utter darkness, enveloped with earth for what must feel like an eternity.

We begin to form ourselves into the ideal shape under ideal conditions, and even under conditions which would more than likely do us in, by the grace of the universe and process itself.

We gather up sunlight as the manifestation of motivation and courage, and we begin to satiate our spirits with unspoken gratitude, which spills over into joy and laughter, which we commit to our subconscious memory, and we let it build us up into stronger, more beautiful versions of our truest selves.

But this inertia and energy only lasts so long, until we are buffeted by the harsh winds of unfortunate events and circumstances, until we require rejuvenation from the universe and from the very depths of our subconscious once again. There is a waiting period for this to occur, which I would call depression. When we feel like it’s not worth the effort, when we feel like giving up or not pushing ourselves to our limits, or even when we feel like just not so much as enjoying the passing moment, we must gain strength from outside of ourselves at times when we feel we do not have what it takes to keep pushing.

The beauty and magnificence of life is ultimately contagious, and when we realize that bad times breed good times, we realize that good times ultimately spill over into inevitable bad times. The Yin and Yang is a good example of this. “As above, so below, as within, so without.”-The Emerald Tablets.

When we reach our peak, our flowering stage in life, we are so beautiful and full of radiance, and everyone around us thinks so too. That’s what I mean when I say the beauty and magnificence of life are ultimately contagious, but the same can be said for negativity, doubt, hatred, self loathing, fear, pessimism, and the false idea that life is only to be enjoyed by the rich, and that there’s no hope for the average individual. These thought patterns will hold you hostage, they will break you down, and they will make you virtually unable to process any sort of joy regarding this incredible experience we call life.

The only way to break the cycle of negative thoughts, is to take a step back and practice gratitude and awe for the absolutely insane process of our evolution, and our growth as a species, our growth as wildflowers, who are strewn about the countryside basking in the sunlight, swaying in the breeze like our very emotional states often do. We are a thing of untold majesty, the true personification of all that is, and when we finally say goodbye to our oldest and closest friend, Gaia herself, the planet, the life cycle, our temporary blip in the history of mankind, we can we can hear her laughing, giggling like a young girl at the antics of a playful kitten, telling us that this life had not gone to waste, and that our memories and energy will live on, and that all of us, no matter how seemingly insignificant, have made an indescribably positive impact on the world around us, and that the world was made infinitely better because we were here. We, the wildflowers, are here to give people joy, and to see the beauty in us, and ultimately all around us.