“I won't drink the tap water, its poison here”
and when she declared that,
I couldn't decipher if she meant here
as in Northside, or here as in America.

We ate sushi at 2am in the city
I was trying not to show my drunkenness
but I was stumbling into an accent
my grandparents carried with them

tucked in the backs of their mouths,
now peering out of mine.
testing the hydrogen
in the beer
in the back of my throat.

I need sleep,
I'm hungover
This poem can wait.

My mind seems to move itself,
spinning somewhat
while I remain stationed
to soft and tattered cushions

At times, not sure who's moving
Mind or body
like parking next to someone
who's leaving the lot

for a moment
you're caught in the standstill
Where nothing really stands,
Still.

I need sleep
My head feels fuzzy
This poems not great.

Its much later now,
the world seems
more capacious somehow
When my eyes are fully open.

The last of my confounding
half light musings
dissipate like tendrils,
mist in the rising sun  

and I, I am left behind
in the residue,
The hardened truth
that cannot move.

“This water is poison”
Her words echo through my day
and I wonder if this poison
will ever evaporate from our veins.

C.e.M. 12.15.2016

across the room your footsteps click
when you see my eyes roll back
just know you did this
as my vision goes black

this room has a wonderful indigo atmosphere
you and i are burning scarlet red
the jealous grass withers brown here
the mornings we just lay in bed

can almost taste it on my tongue
the sweetness of your morning voice
nostalgia for when we were young
and didn't have a choice

such a sweet treat to my ear
and you're laughing into the curve of my neck
"a dance to our song, dear"
Enjoy the Silence at the discotheque

touching you is coming home to me
drawing in close when night is too cold
when the lights in your eyes reflect the city
we make promises, we'll never get old

there can't be another feeling like this
you're from another world it seems
where there are six
for you and i exclusively

Do I have to love anybody?
Like I mean in particular
Do I have to pick and choose one soul to love for X amount of years until they die or I die or one of us becomes "dead" to each other?
Do I have to pick and choose
Or can I love everyone?
Can I love the idea of people
The idea of being alive
The idea that we are working everyday for a brighter future
The idea that we won't stop fighting as long as there's somebody left to save
Almost every girl I have ever had a thing for
Is in a happy relationship now
And I'm thankful for that
Can I love the sun?
Even though I say I hate how it gets in my eyes and makes everything too **** hot or too **** bright
Can I love the moon?
Even if I barely take any moments to appreciate it
At night all my blinds are shut tight because of silly paranoia I know is silly
But can I still love the moon?
I have love for a million boxcars thundering down train tracks and a million semi's whose occupants will make it home just in time for the weekend
I love Gordon Downie and his infinite courage and strength
I love the spirit of Catalonia that comforts me when I start to get sick of the world around me
Today I can't think of anyone I hold too much animosity towards to say I love them in some regard
And if this is wrong
And I can only love one thing out of all the things in creation
Then I'll love "us"
All 7 billion
Of us

I'm sure St. Valentine was coerced
He doesn't seem like a box of chocolates and flowers kind of guy
I'm sure somebody bought him out

with mountains on your shoulders
and daggers in your mouth
roses where your heart is and
wanderlust spilling out

keep me close to the sunshine
let me scream from the peak
we always knew it would happen
so go ahead and speak

there is so much waiting

I'm so strung out by the thought of it,
Dug down into the dirt from it,
Pulled out from my comfort zone and thrown into the sun, getting more and more dried up by the minute, as if my body even has any tears left in it,
I can't run from it,
I can't hide from it,
I can't even fight it because how am I supposed to fight it if I can't even look it in its face

It looks like I haven't slept for days because I haven't slept for days,
Tumbling down the slippery ***** of being comfortable in the uncomfortable,
I've been so upset for so long that it feels weird to not be,
It feels weird to be okay,
I don't like it, so I stick to feeling blue instead of anything else because it's just what I know best

Yeah fine whatever I'll get the help I need when I need to, for now I'll just ****** **** myself one minute at a time, hopefully the clock will stop and let me breathe for a ******* second,
I told myself that if I stopped I would die so I just started spinning and spinning until everything became so blurry I could hardly tell what I was doing and it feels like now I can't stop,
If anything I've learned that if anyone is underground long enough that means that they're dead,
Please just ******* help me, grab a shovel and start digging,
I can't do this by myself,
Even though I know I'm suffering,
I'll cry every chance I get


The only reason I started drinking was because my ex girlfriend's therapist told her that it's bad to keep things bottled up,
I never stopped, not because I love the taste of it, just because it feels better on the way back up,
It lets me know I'm not alone,
My sour stomach or my rotting bones, it doesn't matter,
I love to feel like I'm alive even if I'll forget

I retrace my memories and soak them in the pool of veins from which they came,
One of these has to make sense now,
There's gotta be something here that warned us of this,
I've been looking for a while and I guess I was wrong the entire time

I should've known from the start that this was a bloodbath and there was nowhere to run from this,
That conflict was the point of it all and we would be absolutely nothing without it

If we keep making bad art in hopes that it turns good we will never be artists,
Art is ugly and so are we

I am god and so are you

You made a home in my bones
You made a home in my bones*

You crawled into my bones and you made a home and now you won't leave,
You don't even pay rent,
All you're good for is picking me up and throwing off of my feet,
*******, I'm tired of it

I'm tired of being awake when I should be asleep,
I'm tired of covering up for you because we both know that you can't speak,
You're too weak to fend for yourself,
So you latch onto me and feed until I can't tell the difference between being free and wanting to feel free,
Until I can't tell the land from the seas,
My head, that is, drowning, because you tied this anchor to my feet,
And I'm getting tired of swimming,
I miss the trees and the sand of the beach

I miss waking up and actually wanting to do things,
I miss eating pancakes whenever I felt like it but now I don't feel like it at all,
I don't even want to eat,
I miss listening to music for the hell of it,
Now I can't even listen to music without feeling a tear roll down my cheek,
After the dirt got the best of me I'd climb onto my roof and pretend I was a bird,
I just wanted to feel something

I was so ******* scared of saying something about it but now I feel so powerful I can hardly speak,
All of this, it's not just a dream,
I am alive and I am proud of knowing that I made it this far,
All there is up to reach,
Because I've been at the very bottom for as long as I can remember and ******* I'm tired of it,
I think it's time for you to leave

What? Are you scared that I'm talking to you directly?
I'm telling you right now that you no longer have that power over me,
Just go pack all of those bags and do your best to stay the hell away from me

I'm sorry for screaming but I'm just so excited to finally be myself, the thought is crazy to me,
Like, I've gotten so far in the past few years to give it all up without battling,
I can hear the coffin door rattling,
I can see the sun through the clouds now, it feels like this sadness is shattering

I'm tired of it, I can say it over and over,
I'm tired of it,
I'm tired of it,
I'm tired of it,
I can feel my lungs again, I'm breathing,
I thought I'd never see the day where someone would ask me if anything was wrong and I'd reply with "hardly",

I can smell the flowers again,
I can see the vibrant colors of the petals like it's my first time on LSD,
I can look up without a care in the world again, I thought I'd never say that, it's always been so foreign to me,
But what's happening is beautiful, this sense of empowerment that seems to rip through the cloudiness of it all every now and then to show its face to me, how it's so lovely to realize that I am more than what my demons seem to be

This is beautiful,
I am beautiful

I am alive and I am proud of it

~Dedicated to the memory of the brave men and women of the Spanish Republican Militias, who bravely fought in the name of true freedom and a better world for all people~

Are we good enough to see the sun rise tomorrow?
Are we good enough to ever be free?
Can we forgive those who we think crossed us?
Can we ever convince ourselves that some people are worth protecting?
Will I remember to pray to God when I need to?
Maybe for me the revolution has to be personal
I was always more of an Allen Ginsberg than a Che Guevara
I worry that if I don't look like I'm fighting I'll never be taken seriously
They need to see me bleed to know I'm serious
But even when I was younger I acted different than everyone I knew
And I always get to the parties late
And I always have to leave early
My revolution is within me
The barricades are around my heart
This is a bad strategy and I'm getting nowhere fast
My life is passing me by as I count the days until a war entirely in my head
Are we good enough to live in a better world?
Well I sure as hell know we aren't perfect
But Joe Strummer thought we were good enough
And Woody Guthrie thought we were good enough
And Peter Kropotkin thought we were good enough
And maybe that's going to have to be good enough

If you have no windows
No windows will get broken
But then again
How will you let the sun come in?

If writing poetry is like giving blood
That would explain why I'm so dizzy half the time
And why I haven't written anything worth saying since December
I have been listening to the same songs
Over
And over
And over again
I stopped asking myself if my life's worth living and started asking if I'm even living
I keep getting angry to the point my nerves have worn down to nothing
And let me tell you
There are few feelings worse than feeling helpless when you know you shouldn't
Feeling helpless when you've got plenty more privileges than the next person in line
Should I allow myself to feel this way when my life was never in danger and I still live at home?
Just another egalitarian with empty hands
Plagiarizing my manifestos from the lips of people I've never met
Beating my feet on the ground or fist on my chest thinking anyone gives enough of a **** to know what song is stuck in my head today or yesterday or for all eternity
Every love song or song of peace or song of quiet is gone
All that's left are songs for battle
But the more I sing the words the more I question if they mean anything to me or if they will last beyond my life
Maybe we could build a better world if I wasn't such a coward
Maybe we could all be free if I wasn't such a hypocrite
Maybe I'm being to ******* myself but nights like these I can't allow myself to be too comfortable or it could mean death

You sent me a message the other day
It had been two years since we really spoke honestly
Two years and many angry poems about it all
It was really good to hear from you
You're younger than me, but you know much more about being an adult than I do
You know a lot more about being an honest person than I do
But today I tried to do better
Not for your sake (or my memory of you)
But for my own