I tried to write a poem today
But I wrote nothing
Because I feel nothing
Nothing's on my mind

Winona Ryder looks so young
Driving a cab smoking a cigarette
I don't watch movies with plots anymore
Coffee and Cigarettes and Slacker
All random episodes
Hundreds of people I'll forget by the morning
But it isn't like I'll remember if I met them
Or that they'll remember me
We're all stuck in this night on earth

And as the train drove past I rolled down my windows to listen
I was driving the opposite direction
And maybe there's a poem in that
Maybe I'm delusional at this point
And out this newly open window I sing
Of "all my cocktails be Molotov"
But I don't mean it
I don't mean what I say anymore

Maybe things were beautiful then
Maybe they should be now
Maybe they really are and I can't see it
But what prescription makes the people smile back?

My life is a series of random events
No plot no explanation no chaser
Knee **** reactions to every 24 hours and tomorrow I'm a new character somewhere else

I finally wrote a poem today
But it wasn't any good
But I don't feel bad about it
Because I feel nothing
And nothing's on my mind

Only a matter of time
Is what I muttered to myself
For the better part of a week now
But that day has come
That day has come
And no one knows but me
And you
But you really knew all along
Didn't you?
Holidays tend to spell the end for me
And the writing on the walls is the same color as the warning lights I ignored for months
No one knows but us
No one knows but us
And only I know what these nights can do to me
Blasting Dead Kennedys to write this poem
Carve my doubts and solace into walls
I warned the both of us
but we were too young and proud to listen
We were warned
And tonight
If the devil goes down to Georgia
He will take Sherman with him
But the hand of war is here
And I can only keep it out of my heart for so long
State lines are prison walls
Only if you want them to be
An incarceration in my mind
Solitary confinement in my head
My heart beats like a gavel
Darling I'm here for life

I'm always talking in circles,
I always think until I can't sleep,
I'm always breaking myself on other people just to feel something,
This hurts more than everything but I'm starting to like the pain

I love to hate love and I'm destroying myself in these pages now,
Maybe if I tear myself apart no one else will get the chance to,
I love to feel full,
I think I'm making myself empty just so I have the chance to feel full,
Maybe I'm sick and this is all just a sorry excuse

Either way I'm a ****** up head in a sea of debt swimming to a shore that will never exist and I'm slowly realizing this,
I understand that I someday will die by this and afterwards they will cry for me,
Show no pity, I never wanted it,
Just light a cigarette and lay it on my grave,
Even the dead need their vices

I make myself decide over a bullet and a jacket,
If I take the jacket I'll get shot but I'll die warm,
If I take the bullet I'll be safe but I'll die freezing,
I'd rather be the sun than the moon,
I'd rather be bright and loved than cold and alone,
I'm dependent on the thought of dependency,
My body aches because it will never be independent,
Really I smoke cigarettes because it's nice to feel wanted,
Smoke in my lungs feels better than smoke in my heart,
Tar in my chest feels better than tar in my head,
I'm sorry

Rigor mortis,
This is predestined combustion,
This is feeling lustful,
This is feeling reckless when the Devil's at your doorstep,
This is getting eight hours of sleep seven days a week and still feeling restless,
This is the train that's gonna lead you out of this but this is the train ticket you wish you had,
This is forever,
This is the dead dandelion in the summer,
This is the wisp you blow into the ears of gods to make a wish,
This is feeling hopeful among the hopeless and forgetting what hope is,
Rigor mortis

This is forever, whether or not the sun shines

This is forever, whether or not the bandages are ripped off

This is forever, regardless

Somewhere now cars dance on the highway
All of my heroes long asleep under dirt or drifting around with the dust
I sit on the floor of my room
Drinking water that has sat on my desk for a day
Beside me sits "Ode to Common Things" by Pablo Neruda
My room is filling to the brim with common things
Like clothes I either never wear or wear too much
Books never read
Chalk and safety pins

Lately the inability to write has left me feeling a lot of dread
My inability to write comes from my inability to know what to say which comes from feeling really really far down that no ones really listening or caring
My time is split between library aisles, folk punk music, wild poet friends, the Spanish Civil War and talking to a girl who lives in Georgia
I'm here looking into mirrors only to see a different person each day
So I take pictures of each stranger and put them on the Internet for friends to decipher
But I won't be getting any answers tonight
I fall asleep under enough covers for now
I fall asleep in the silent nights of December

They lick their lips to the sight of my downfall,
The sinner, the saint,
The meaning's the same,
We can't get away from meaningless things and we spend our days just wasting away

Make love,
******* take drugs,
******* hate love,
For all we know we're gonna die young, so let's get ****** up until we're all numb

The venom is watching your every move and it is licking its lips just waiting to get a taste of your bloodstream,
Headstrong paradox,
Chatterbox chatterbox,
You love to talk **** yet you hate to live it,
I'd hate to see the way your neck pivots when those vulture eyes give your weary veins a place to rest,
Lie with them and die like the rest, get a glimpse of what ever after looks like,
We're all sick here, get used to it

If the devil's in the details then consider me satanic, I make my way into every crack and crease and turn your nights into days,
Angels weep for us,
The demons sweep us up and dump us out into the cold and empty roads and tell us to fend for ourselves,
So we spend more time driving aimlessly with the radio waves set on heaven than we do with our friends and family

When she died she took bits and pieces of us,
They're stuck on spiderwebs and bad intentions and they're not ever coming back,
We're not ever coming back,
But we love this,
We live for this,
We would be nothing without this,
I'd sell my soul if it were worth anything, trust me,
I kept myself away but I'm starting to like the pain

I met God and He shook his head at me,
I met the Devil and He handed me a bouquet of flowers,
Maybe I can grow my own garden of Eden using them and maybe this time we'll keep the apples out of it

Until the day comes when I feel I belong,
I'll keep singing the serpent's song,
I'll keep singing along,
I'll keep the covenant ****** and I'll set my pages on fire,
I'll keep pretending this matters and that I'm not just wasting away,
It's hard not to feel any other way

I take deep breaths inches away from the pillow
I take deep breaths to center myself
I am here
I am now
But have I forgotten who I am?
   Am I the boy who went to New York on a weekend trip and visited MacDougal street and Washington Square park and didn't see a single folk singer?
   Who ate a date cookie in Chinatown and a cannoli and little Italy because it felt right and good at the time
   Am I the Woody Guthrie Pete Seeger wannabe who asked the audience to sing along to a song they didn't know and no one sang but you didn't care because the words were yours yet you didn't write them?
   Who freshman year read On The Road and Howl and told himself he would be a poet and saw beauty in the world and thought about all the people with beating hearts
   Who sophomore year got his heart smashed against the pavement but decided not to blame himself for convenience sake and is still reeling from his poor choices
   Who took a trip with friends to the Ohio river and held rocks in his pocket because he was prepared to fight his way out if he had to
   who fed his own delusion that he would ever fight his way out
    who lied to himself that he had the spine to fight
   Am I the one who read Siddhartha and vowed to be better and looked toward a golden and eternal time where the words would be simple
   Who cried at Ginsberg who cried at Wolfe and who cried at the Bible because he knew what things were holy
   Who drank tea to center himself who ran to keep himself in shape who had a good time because the world was full of love

Or am I nothing more than what I am now
Breathing inches away from my pillow
Breathing to center myself
So I can be here
So I can be now

I am awake at midnight every night picking feathers from the wings of all the angels I have stolen,
I am being unhinged by the minute,
I am let loose, I am livid,
I am the Christ conscious abandoned,
I am losing time and I am losing friends

The ends of the earth are making a home in my garden and the molten flowers are seeping into my veins and will soon make me combust so I need to say what I need to say and make it quick before I run out of time

"We can no longer go on like this"
She is screaming at him and he is hearing nothing besides the rustling of the wind at his window

I am speeding down the highway with three cigarettes smoked one after the other and turning up my radio so loud that God is speaking to me through heaven's  radio waves

WE WILL GET THERE AND WE WILL SUFFER,
WE WILL GET THERE AND WE WILL SUFFER

Sulfur and cyanide and angel dust and complexes,
I am a ******* lunatic and I am being strung out over coffee tables and bathroom stalls,
I am a thread being pulled into hell,
I am unraveling before the ones who came before me and I am giving them hell,
I am finally understanding the difference between letting go and holding too close,
My bones yearn for something stronger than themselves,
I am absolutely destroying myself but I would not want this any other way, I can promise you that

A poet writes about wanting to escape to a world that's less crowded than his head,
A painter paints visions of a world he wishes he could own but will never get the chance to

Bukowski wrote about people finally looking like flowers at last but never was able to see the beauty in himself,
Van Gogh painted flowers that are now in museums but he used that same paint to try to poison himself

I am staying up until the sun comes out because I am no longer comfortable in the daylight

I am not killing myself, but I am suffering

This is a way of coping

This is a way of coping

It is like a ****** of crows flying to a corpse to eat their dinner,
They feast on sadness and heartbreak and they need to get their money's worth while they still can, I get that,
What hurts the most is that it is inevitable that they will come,
Regardless of anything, the crows will come and they will pick apart the bones as if the bones never belonged to anyone or anything before they arrived,
It's a cruel world and I guess things just have to be this way

"You just don't have to be so ******* soft about everything!"
He's screaming at her for the fifth time this week because she's decided that being alone is a hell of a lot scarier than being with someone who hurts you, even if they hurt you a lot

It is not my fault that I am like this,
It is not my fault that I am not hefty enough to hold this weight,
It is not my fault that fires start in my bones and heat my mind up so much that it starts to overheat and stop working,
It is not my fault that I stopped working,
It is not my fault that I cannot forgive myself for the things I did not do

A ****** of crows fly together and create a black cloud of desperation,
It's been a few weeks since I haven't seen any clouds and I've gotten drunk more times than I can count and I've smoked more cigarettes than there are trees,
I'm so sorry but they are gutting me from head to toe, the crows, the crows are eating everything I've made for myself up to this point like it's some kind of ******* waste,
Like everything I've made of myself from then until now, wiped out like it never happened,
Progress completely lost,
All sense of accomplishment gone,
This always happens

I'm sick and tired of telling myself that it isn't okay to tell myself that I love myself,
I'm hanging on here by the skin of my teeth and the tar in my lungs and it's lonely here, it's really, really lonely here

I say sorry a lot, but I'm not sorry about this, this, I'm so ******* sick of this,
I want this to go away,
I want them to go away,
The crows,
I want them to go away

I'm getting through this whether I want to or not, with or without anyone's help, I just have to keep reminding myself that these crows will never pick all of the meat away but they sure as hell will get as much as they can while they still have the chance

I should do the same

I remember when I was a poet
Crafting honest stanzas from a fire in my soul
Now I'm just a ***
Casting words into the ocean hoping to get a bite

I remember when I was a folk singer
Carl Sandburg-type, singing about long dusty roads and hard traveling and weeping willow trees
Now the guitar sits most days in my closet and all I ever end up singing is a cry for freedom

I remember when I was a hipster
I bought hats and loved obscure bands and couldn't wait to grow up
But now

I don't know who I am anymore
Siddhartha taught me that life is transient but I was never told I would get to a point where I don't know what I have become
I was once a lover
Late night texts and whispered words and quiet appreciation
I was once an artist
I used to be a dreamer
I had ideas that didn't weigh me down
But I realize that they lacked weight because they lacked substance
They were pretty and felt good but they wouldn't do anyone any good
I still pray every night because I still believe someone is listening
I still believe in life after death even if it sometimes scares the **** out of me
I remember dying metaphorically and waking up literally 7 or 70 times
I have gotten mad, sad, quiet, scared, elated, and everything a person can get
I am a new man
But I still listen to Bob Dylan
I am a new man
I've shot a gun before and I'll sure as hell do it again
I am a new man
I have never cried at a funeral but not from lack of trying
I am a new man
I make the same mistakes as before and sometimes I'm not sorry
I'm a new man
But I still blow a kiss to Ginsberg if I get a chance
I'm a new man
And I will take it easy
But sure as hell I'm going to take it

What can I add that isn't already there?
What have I said that really needed to be?
What drove me to write poetry outside of Steinbeck, Ginsberg, and you, Thomas
I have seen endless rivers
I have had my fill of stones leaves and unfound doors
My roots are of a shallow depth
My branches do not reach as yours did
My inspiration is a well run dry
My words are saliva on sidewalk
Is there a fate for me in California?
Is there a place more kind than home?
Is there a life for those who seek angels made of stone?
Thomas you saw an America I never could
You reached great heights I may never touch
But Thomas your legacy rests in my heart
I will never forget you
Angel child of Asheville
Wild man of words and words
Pages and pages
Thomas the river will always welcome you home

I haven't written in weeks
And when I did before the words read empty
As they tend to do
Again I find myself sitting alone
A table for one facing the wall
Lost in the sea of a college campus
Hundreds of miles away LRADs blast away  protesters protecting sacred land
Stock prices unthinking and unfeeling
Are obsessed over by men in suits who won't have to worry about if they get to eat tonight
On my arms I carve the words I learned in a women's studies class freshman year
"The personal is political"
Personally I am desolate
Disillusioned with anything I've ever had to say
Unable to bring myself to say more
Politically I am livid
In my veins are the Sacco and Vanzetti electricity
So I spit
Look to the ground
and walk
With a look of righteous anger
And I read
Collected works of Huey Newton and an article about Marxism and Class

When the personal and the political meet I feel hopeless
Disoriented and disillusioned
Not two halves at war but two puzzle pieces desperately trying to fit
I think of a heaven after I die
While advocating for a heaven on earth for everyone
I want to stand and fight
While I feel uncomfortable speaking up in class
I don't believe there is freedom in a free market
But what do I really know about it anyways?
Freedom and hope and art and love
Words that swim around in my head
They lack solidity
I can't grasp them
The meaning drips out of my ears as if they were bleeding
I can't fall asleep at night because I keep coughing
I think about Woody Guthrie
Singing about the powers of the working class and dreaming of what America could one day become
I think of his better world and I can console myself with the ringing of guitar in my ears
I think about Pat
Looking for times worth living in whatever car or house he lives in
Breaking windows to redemption if not freedom and holding on with all that's left
I think about myself
One year of poetry under my belt
Still struggling with what I want to say
Centuries of politics in my head
Still struggling with who I want to be
Personal and political are more than just words to me