#prosetry
I'm walking for a coffee rush, enough that
a surge of caffeine will blow this wall
off this writer's block and all these dammed-up
thoughts will spill and issue forth-unimpeded.
I bought coffee,read some poetry-some bad poems
some good, surveyed the area for other customers
a man with a boa constrictor scarf
and a woman glued to her computer, job searching
while her Pomeranian roams the cafe.
This is my habit, I buy coffee, read poems, talk
to strangers at a coffee shop, somehow it works.
This coffee buzz doesn't quite stimulate me
enough, the threshold is short of the spark
and the spark refuses to ignite.
I ask for another coffee. The barista accepts.
I take the coffee and sit
down and read before taking off to see a movie.
As I sit back to my spot.
The barista is taping me on their phone,
laughing with a regular customer.
They assume I'm crazy, because I walked
a mile from the cold in what appears to be
a fur trapper costume from the 1800s.
I easily shrug off their laughter, other people laughing
at you only confirms that you're alive.
I walk 2000 feet to the theater. I am a resolved man, no
one's laughter can deter me. I think to myself,
"the greatest struggle for me as an individual is to
forget that other people exist, and realize that, I as an
individual am- I have to convince myself of my own
solipsism, that I have a right to be who I am, how
I present myself, that is my responsibility and my tragedy,
both my madness and my health.
I walk into the theater vibrating
with coffee jitters-am I in the right mind,
the right state to sit through a whole movie
by myself? The movie is great, I feel like I understand
more than I should, some part feels more raw than
the others-I should watch it again. It's message: America is living
beyond its means, some people profit, others
slide past unpunished, the common citizen bears the burden
of Wall Street's obsessive gambling problem.
A familiar story to me, does anyone
intend to pay their debts in America-do I?
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 6:06 PM UTC
i’m so disgusting— grease-stained, paint-stained, dust and decay. the label said dry-clean only but you put me on a rinse-and-dry cycle and called it a day. i’m all cleaned up but nothing fits the same. is this what they call salvation? scrub the sins from our sooty souls, leave them in the sun to shrink, shrivel like snails burned by salt. take it back, give it back, give me back; i’m spotless but it feels so wrong.
how do i repay you? credit? cash? my intestines looped like garlands in my arms, my heart like a pulsing jewel in my palm? i can’t afford an arm and a leg so that would have to do. your service has left me in shrunken skin; when i burst at the seams it’ll be my guts that splatter on the floor. look, it’s not like paying you back would be hard (it still hurts still hurts).
you tried to fix me but now i’m worse than worthless. no one wants someone they can’t show the world. it’s your fault, your fault (i’m still to blame). you made me this way, i begged for it in the first place. this wasn’t supposed to be a ******* diy. read the label next time, *******
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 11:01 AM UTC
I was always told that I was star potential. If only people could see what I have bottled up inside of me, I could be famous. I'd be world renowned. I'd be a star. But I was his whole galaxy and now that he's gone, I don't feel like a star. To go from a universe to a star is so abrupt. One day you're someone's everything and the next you're no one's anything. I want to be a galaxy again. I wish someone could see stars in my eyes and taste cosmic dust on my tongue. To see a universe in a single person. I wish I could know what it's like. To look at someone and see everything, right there. But I know that everyone is someone's everything. Every person is someone's universe. Their planets, their sun, their moon, their stars. I am my own universe. I am the sun, the moon, the stars, the comets, the asteroids, the dust of what is to be. I am the future, the present, the past. I am my own everything. So I'll wait. I won't settle for someone who doesn't make the world turn, who doesn't have stars in their eyes, whose tongue doesn't taste like the cosmos. I'm waiting for my other galaxy ☾ ☼ ☆
♛all the powers in the universe are already mine. I just can't see them♛
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 9:33 AM UTC
eggshell on eggshell
together we are building a fort
towards futures on teetering edges
searching for places brighter than
anything we have ever known.
i am looking at you with eyes
that have been withered by smoke,
jaded and misguided, i fear the day
i think i've found my home because
knowing is the first step to the end
of anything beautiful.
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
we are all rocks. we are built up over many years, influenced by our surroundings as we weather and erode as part of the conditions we are subjected to - the trials that we are put through. we are compressed by the weight of heavy loads. we will be weighed down by our heavy hearts, and crushed by forces of the universe that are bigger than us. we are made up of many sediments, fragments of other rocks. the influence of others. we are the composition of everyone whom we've met, and their impact on our lives. some people leave larger pieces of sediment, while some are smaller than a tiny grain of sand. but they make us who we are today. and we never die. we live on for millions of years, you and me - these rocks are the physical imprints of our spiritual souls on the earth, because everyone affects something in one way or the other. we may not believe it, but believe this: we have the power to change the world - just by being here. we are a part of the bigger picture, a series of rocks that make up part of human history. wherever you go, you will have made your mark. be it just a tiny dent in the soil, or a boulder that fell from a mountain - realise that things would be different if you had not been what you are and gone where you've been.
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
I have an unusual friend. A small man with charms of a gentle redneck. He holds court in his garage for his acquaintances, those free or at large. His demeanour is rustic, but his wisdom self-taught. His name is Byron ( I know, it's too good to be true), not lordly, but Byron likes the girls and light brew. Byron says, “I'll kick your *** every time we play golf. Not yet. His voice is chasmic and often influenced by distractions. And then on a cold, witch-tit, heathcliffe driving winter's day, with the wood stove well-fired, a rascally friend opens the door, and Byron yells, “Shut the door. Do you think wood grows on trees.” On leaving the same day he advises me, “Don't slip on the ice. It's frozen.” I didn't tell you Byron has one eye. Better yet, a patch on the other. He looks more like post Frodo ignoring the “Don't run with scissors" warning from Mother Baggins, than he does Lord B. I dropped my pipe once on his garage floor. A special pipe. It's my bowling pipe. I don't smoke tobacco. Byron thinks it clever to call me at work and tell my secretary he and I are bowling after school. Byron mixes metaphors. So, my pipe has dropped. Byron says, “ Let me help. Three eyes are better than two.” His cleverness can backfire. I tried to be sensitive, but there was neither an honourable or dishonourable way out. Byron hung an oak wood sign near his stove. He makes his own stain, and rubs it evenly in circles with his wife's old nylons. “It's great for the *********** he'll quip. The two ***** of the sign are joined with leather straps and stainless steel studded to the wood. The letters painted within the stencilled lines are a dark, rich mixture. The joke. “Lift flap in case of fire.” Normally one lifts the flap. “Not now stupit. In case of fire.” I discreetly pointed out the t.The sign quietly disappeared and was never mentioned again. He'll never kick my ***
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC