Let’s talk about feelings - feelz.
Does anything else really matter?
Ok, sure - health - yeah, right up there.

Covid was my generation’s depression (literally).
Maybe not for everyone, there were places that ignored covid, I think.

We didn’t ignore it, not any of it, not at my parent’s house.
Do I sound bitter? I got fifteen long months of ‘social isolation.’
In most states, you can shoot someone and not get fifteen-months.

At one point, we sprayed Lysol on everything that came into the house. Except the cats.
Anyway, that lock-down mess was reason #1 why I skipped senior year of high school for college.

If you look-up ‘desperate’ in the right dictionary, they used my high-school junior-year photo to illustrate it.

University felt so far, so different from my covid, remote video, no-touch high school life that it was, in the most basic sense, like going to a foreign country.

It felt dreamy, in a jet-lagy, out of sync, science fiction, not part of real-life way. I landed in this wonderland where I didn’t know anyone, or where anything was and there was a different sense of fashion, of music, of freedom and I didn’t quite speak the language (not snack bar, buttery).

It was like there was a soundtrack, that’s how serious it was.

You know how, when you’re intoxicated, you can be half awake and still excited? I didn’t want to miss any of it, I’d rub my eyes to stay focused.

Everything was so stimulating - the sights, the sounds. I had this idea about writing - a fealty to the idea that I could capture the experience and share it with others.

Now, I think that idea was so 2021.

OK, before it’s too late - poetry time!

Now-a-days I feel like I’m in the know
hold on, I’ll I paint the celestial afterglow
uhh, this might take a while..
.
.
Songs for this:
Dreamin' by G. Love & Special Sauce
VIRGO'S GROOVE by Beyoncé

I try words, watch them

fall and caress them until --


they become solid.

I'd fall from hands a million times
So many occasions you've let me down
If knowing better I'd stay away
Keep giving me the runaround
And think I'm a glutton for punishment
When willing I am somehow charmed
Into the worst situations readily dive
So person you pretend to be is unharmed
Sees fireworks and calls name
Moment suspended in time
Everything is heaven in your presence
I would crush myself if it meant helping you climb
And sprinkle wishes on surface
It made you proud of me
And laughing stars lit up the skyline
Filled you with identities I couldn't flee
You were young when you tumbled headfirst
Defenseless to varying degrees of pain
Wouldn't even stray from my side
My heart what drove you insane
Laying on beautiful grass
There to wipe fine tears from my eyes
Roads visible from the windowsill
Been forced to inhale the dust that flies
Before you stepped from your spirit
I imagine you longed to be free
Just want to understand if I'm right
Sparkle assuming to silently agree
Like remnants of ground clinging to clothes
Eruption of dirt and desire
Gave birth to traveling attention
Upon future danced waiting to tire
Like edges aren't real if they aren't addressed
Our bodies make excuses
Just long to come first in your book
Heavy world plays games and uses
Hanging from cliffs by fingernails
Not the palms of your hands
To me is no permanent solution
A little lighter and minutes may understand
I yearn to be thing you need most
Pushed against wall so tight
Straining to support my body standing
Further from your sight
So life doesn't wear you out as much
For you straighten it's curves
You have to admit it takes strength
Deep breaths feel like what I deserve
And do little to change my circumstance
It is me who chose the easier route
Heights the obstacle blocking achievement
Be your back-up plan when in doubt
Because it is not what I had planned
It's giving up and caving in
Chance to come with new ideas
And willingness to hide within
Burn and do wrong in your haste to cover tracks
The universe shows your mistakes
Listening and looking for signs
I think life will relieve the aches
This is an inch from cataclysm
Chamber loaded in gun
My lips are wrapped around the barrel
Giving you opportunity to run
I hope you find what you are searching for
Sky where stare is fixed upon
For you I'm writing this
And I believe you are better off with me gone

My friend asks
me where I get
the fodder for
writing my poems.
I tell him, life.
He says that's too
simple.
He isn't satisfied.
I tell him that
sometimes, I sit at
my desk and open
the window above the
litterbox, and look
outside at the
orange daylilies and
wait.

He says he writes
from a small place above
his left ear.
It tickles at times, but
often it's painful.
I nod and make a
note to call my
doctor about the
headaches I've been having.

He reads his posey at
the coffee shops while
drinking espresso and
chatting with the other
young poets in sweaters.
I tell him that I used
to live under a bridge,
I read my poems to the
savage river and the
Mallard ducks, and the
drunk friends that
wandered in for a drink of
***** or a beer.
He says the little place above
his left ear is beginning to
hurt.

I walk him to the door and
tell him goodbye.
He asks if I will come
to the coffee shop to
hear him read his poetry.
"Sure", I say, smiling blankly.
After closing the door,
I sit and smile at the view from
my window.
I can smell the freshly cut
grass, and hear the
grinding whine of the
lawnmower.
A woman across  
the street is lying in
the sun.
She's wearing a turquoise
bikini and big sunglasses.
Just then, a slight hint
of coconut wafts into my room.
I get hard and pick up the pen.

Hobbled by the
sun, and laid
prostrate by
days of
degenerate
behavior.
Days of
nothingness,
and worse.
Only writing
could save me.

Poor and lonely.
No warm woman to
hold.
No *****.
No home.
But, I had my
writing.
It let the light in,
and buffered me from
the crowds of
scarecrows with sewn
on smiles.

Writing keeps me
immortal and kills
the pain.
It soothes the
mice lost in
the maze, and
brings the stray cat
home to a house where
he's safe.
Writing is the
pillow that keeps
my head up, and
my heart engaged.

Brilliant and breathless, bending
language like a gardenia wreath
hanging from the rafters
of a sun-drenched mouth
that could only be mine.

Bullish and breathless, tangling
ellipses, clinging to a simile’s hem until it
trips and rips the thread of thought.
I don’t mean this as a manner of speech–
I speak without manners.

Billowed and breathless, humming
out of its skin and into mine.
Meaning is a feathery, fallible thing,
twisting, writhing, vanishing;
tough to trust, prone to rust,
words swirling and spun,
sea-tossed and salt-stuck
on a foreign tongue.

Beaming and breathless, flirting
with the edge of a rockwall,
a siren call,
more lullaby than warning shot,
more hymn than howl, a voice
that could only be mine.

Belated and breathless, underlining
the good lines, never shaking the bad,
plucking at the precipice, never leaping,
clamoring to be heard but never speaking.
A lot of words, but no poem.
A lot of pinch, but no push.
Graceless and glitching,
mine alone.

To try to sing when all your rhythms are loneliness and decaying forests.

To try to speak when all your words are fragility and pungent mires.

To try to write when all your rhymes are complacency and murky waters.

To try to get those thoughts out when all your mind can shelter are words without rhyme or rhythm...

To try...

Bleeding to death by a thousand cuts makes my heart nuts with the run not coming and the next turn running I’ll be stunning when my body lays quiet I’ll not be sad I’ll be with dad knowing life was the mission for which I came I left in the hands of better men who came and went telling stories that got bent over time and history there’s not rhyme or mystery they knew things we don’t and they got wiped out.

Be the person you know you are and life up your heart knowing no start to the way life crushed Art make space in your life if you feel like it’s too hard change by testing your network they’ll either get to work or they won’t. The answer will be the truth and the permission to move on.

Let them go they drowning and you can swim wish them well and say oh well. I tried and you lied. To me. I loved you and you turned away from me. The path was made for me but yours was a way to change the humanity moved further in away from me closer to a stranger who’s estranged to the danger in the manger. The kids gone, 2 years ago you forgot you had one…

Dive into my thoughts like a well-written tale;
to understand the part, you'll forever portray.
Embrace me in your fiery passion,
in a moment so divine -imagining it in
reverie the following day

And caress me gently; sweeter than
any dream that's ever been seen
Our love, a dream so surreal;
In moments lost, we find our appeal.
Kiss me until, we both wake up from that dream.