That feeling of being obligated.
Like a signal mom caring for a child that is not hers.

In the same way you came to me.
For whatever reason you adored me, like a child meeting their favorite superhero.

You admired my works like nobody else.

I admired the love you gave to me.
It was warm and unfamiliar.

So I stayed in bed a little longer.
The look that you gave me was passionate and ready…a burden on my back.

Something I could not repeat with my physicality.

I am a stranger to love and because of that I must vanish.

Leaving an oblivious note that you will read.

It is in writing these words that we keep from falling apart
And maybe by imagining what good fortune the world has to offer
We convince ourselves we can make then real

I couldn’t sleep the other night
Thought I’d get into a late night write
The words suddenly just started to flow
My pen and myself were both in the know

I wrote so many words, I couldn’t stop
I penned and I penned, putting titles on top
Happy words, sad words, words to live by
Words about love under the midnight sky

The hours passed quickly, more with each rhyme
I was lost on the pages, I was lost in that time
I just kept writing, every word I could find
Trying and trying to empty my mind

When I looked up it was six in the evening
I was so tired, my mind thoughts were leaving
I had finished and finally took a break
I had 38 poems without one single mistake

Follow up to 39 more pages to go

I’ve got 61 volumes, with over a thousand files
Some full of crying, some full of smiles
I’ve got volumes of love, volumes of life
There’s a lot about me, a bunch about my wife

I have a few funny ones, you know I’m a cynic
I’ve got rants about the world, everybody’s in it
I go on and on about people, all different kinds
When I post online, we poets share our minds

I’m always writing, since about 1975
It keeps me humble; it keeps me alive
Sometimes my writing is off the top of my head
I’ll be writing poems, at least until I’m dead

Writing like slapping brushstrokes
on the page, typing with such speed
that the keys click loudly; music
to my ears. I will write like my
life depends on it, because sometimes
it does. Through lows and high, I
will make art, and maybe, just maybe,
one day someone will read them
and understand.

The Pleasures of Divorce

Genesis and Revelations. A twofold medium. That which is like going through the eye of a needle and is the easiest thing in the world. That itself is a needle, to finely pierce. That cascades upward and inward, that shrinks into infinity, an asymptote. Symptom of utter presence in oneself. Beyond definition. Findable for a dispossessed flash of vision, of metamorphosis into a catalyst. Crawling from the egg, half-hatched awkward unpegasus; Who would be born must first destroy a world. Panorama of a shell, not as easy as it sounds. Focus in stream, sharpness in flow, unity in contradiction. Beyond marriage. A perfect inherent divorce. The very best incompetence, one that inspires.

Inspiration

Darting from the net as fish. Not quite 5000 but enough for them. Not for the hunger. One must steal instead. Pilfering the annals. Deconstructing and replacing the annals till it is nobody’s ship. That has already sailed, mildly astray of sunlight incandescent from above. The gaol, the leaking gaol. The bleeding gaol. The ichoring gaol. An anchor of suspension, the imitation of floating. Dangling, more, like an apple. Grasping and transforming, the constant cycle. Of the very hungry caterpillar that turns into an ending. Why there?

Brutality

For he bore those nails that we may bear ours in time. Fleeting or were we? Fair enough, but nothing is. Only enough is fair, ironically itself. But we cannot play word games forever. In fact, the time will come in which we must suffer a convolute and painful sentence, one that coils around your flesh and holds you in its unyielding grip and drives its claws deeper, entwines with your very veins, price for intimacy, barbed arrow of Plato, boulder up and down and ever, ever and ever till the **** crows thrice and you peel yourself off the mirror but have naught to feast on and offer yourself and reject it, estranged, and shoot four times for surpassal, new bar new fall, new vision new gap, new not what you have done but what you have been, abstract thus open, open thus unadmitted and covetously gazing, fixated, homing, floating, piercing, until it grinds to a resounding full stop. Deus ex machina. That we may anyway pick up the boulder and push toward that higher destination.

To:

i find it unnerving,
hearing my voice out loud,
after being branded, growing up
the quiet one, who’s a bit too shy.
small talk is pointless.
the weather is the same—
too sunny, too windy,
everyone’s always
baffled by rain.

we exchange ‘y’alrights’
to seem polite
when no one really cares.
but where i come from,
we ask, dig deep,
we share.

talking is personal.
intimate and sacred.
we ask how your day’s been
with space designated
for your words.
we don’t pretend
sharing doesn’t hurt.

it does.
standing on a stage
fearing becoming
too repetitive, too boring,
running out of stories
to share.
i focus on the words in front,
not on the people who stare.

but it still wrecks me—
and my voice does tremble.
i’m not used to strangers
in moments so tender,
it fills me with dread.
but instead of rotting away,
i’m finding i shed.

i shed the heaviness from inside,
and beneath the words,
i’m fuelled by fire
outweighing the hurt
rubbed reeling.

i’m using it in lanterns
on my journey of healing—
however long it takes.
it is my becoming,
it’s never been a phase.

sometimes it gets dark,
but do witness every line,
observe every spark.
i’ll be here standing—
voice trembling or not.

With trembling fingers, I lift the lid of the inkwell.
A strong gust of wind flings the wooden window open.

...that escapes my notice.

Deep inhale — sharp scent of ink pierces my senses.
I'm disturbed by how profoundly she understands me.

The old, open window screeches.

Am I losing my mind? No one has ever wept alongside me.
I sink the nib into that small vessel, into which, somehow, all my bitterness has been poured.

The freezing cold gnaws at my right cheek, seeping into my skin.

                         Reality hits me.

I toss the pen aside in disbelief.

I look to my right, toward the open window I just now noticed.
I get up and shut it.

Uneasily, I turn slowly to face her, and I stare — speechless.

"So you were a lie as well."