You aren't here
You aren't anywhere.
All you ever do in life
Is blow clouds through the air,
Wasting away through strife.
You know your wife hates it.
You know your children do.
You know that all our money goes
To your selfish habits and you
As your addiction grows

I love you though...
I just wish you'd end this phase-
The one that's spending all our cash
And shortening your days until
You're turned into dust and ash.

You're an absent father
(MY absent father..)
Only here when you need to be
Then you're gone for the end of this verse
And most in between
Either spaced out, asleep, or hearsed.

is it love
if you pull me aside
to a room
to be alone
and play your song
softly
on your phone
and ask me to help you
write a poem
and you show me
all the stupid
lovely
things
you can do
with your
watermelon
vapor.

vapor
in the air
as he breathed out
and i breathed in
the taste of watermelon
lingering on my tongue

A young woman stands on the sidewalk
in front of a vape shop.
Her long red hair is the dream
of desperate men
that flutters in the cool spring breeze.
She fiddles with her smartphone,
her thumb quickly scrolls screens
in an attempt to fight boredom.
She's waiting, waiting, waiting
for her next adventure,
but those skin tight yoga pants
and her filthy sneakers tell me
she has a long wait.

a Norwegian
fjord did
cut their
axel's hairpin
in the
row of
tundra that
Lapland was
their arcane
balloon on
Aegean shore
if Barents
Sea burgeoned
dialect herd
yelp in
Mike Pence
with accord.

Inhale
Exhale
The smoke fades the pst
Short hit
Long hit
Your lungs burn, your mind goes numb
Inhale
Exhale
The smoke fills the car
Short hit
Long hit
***** the past, that pain won't last
Smoke it up and burn the past
Bad habits have made me
Bad habits will break me
I will eventually learn
But for now I smoke to feel the burn

In a building recess
between a whiskey bar and a vape shop
an old man sat on a rolled blanket.
He held a simple sign on a torn sheet of cardboard
that read "HONGRY."
The old man's face contained hundreds of deep crevices,
a lifetime of memories permanently imprinted,
much like the etchings found on old vinyl records..

A young man in a while golf shirt
Stumbled out of the whiskey bar.
He stopped in front of the old *** to regain his balance.
"Get a job," he said in slurred contempt.
"Do something with your life."

The old man stared through the drunkard,
In total silence,
the old man's worn face filled the sidewalk with the music
of his wisdom, his pain, his experiences.
The drunkard stumbled along,
deaf to that solemn gift of truth.