through the turbulent toss of a coin,
time drew its arrow back like a metro bus slowing to accept sparse, fresh picked passengers.
love, mind, and my soul swim together in a psychedelic pool of
the drowned sirens of old.
When night is cold, cold like the ship brimming through ice
ice Atlantic Ocean water
Eyes heavy, warmth of sleep, drifting through dreamscapes
she comes to me and runs her salt licked fingers through my hair.
And it doesn't hurt when she bites - well,
or maybe I succumb to it like all things
but when she pulls me down into the water, it all
becomes oh so clear.
I'm here to experience, like you
and for now, I suppose that really can be all there is to it.
This morning, I woke up in the bath
Hydrated, aware, no usual withdrawal
But I can't explain all this water on my floor and walls

turn of tides, torn to pieces, I pushed you away
the pull to you - unforgettable, magnetizing, ever present
How am I supposed to dream of looking you in the eyes
for this long?

simple words, simple fall of leaves, the seasons change as they do
you grow older, wiser and fonder.
I wish the stars would tell you, my heart still aches for you every day

the snow is so white bone cold where I am.
Will I ever grow out of you?

so long, Erica - my funny nick name for you
I've been numbing this feeling of loss
of you
with whatever I can - yet you're still there every ******* time

polarizing. green, mossy pools in the forest kind of ojos are what you have.
it scares me what I'd sacrifice
to feel your palms on my stomach
if I lock eyes with you ever again, I swear to every God on this Earth that you will be mine
again, if you will
have
me.

more seeking and sinking,
more drugs and binge drinking
it's in a sweat, clawing search to find a pretty pretense.
but one cannot evade getting lost in the mere cadence
of one with such pretty eyes.

Because I know it'll hurt - I face and bind my fate
I put my soul on show so you can freely desecrate
Because, who knows how long we have to keep going
the rapture is buzzing, ringing, and bringing
such a light white hazey dream filled clinging
to all the ways I've know to destroy and start again
to touch your soul and truly know you, to be kin
would satisfy such a deeper part.
But if anyone knows anything, it's that old habits die hard

Suffocating bursts of wind envelop me,
Like honey catching dove wings
Soft pulsing butter-fly flutter of my chest
bloomed into mute silence of love and loss of words,
and breath -

clamoring up a staircase of glass and spit,
I pondered all the contrived ways which love hurt me.
wading through the solemn sharp,
I sung a song of myself and drifted down the river of
you
My skirt plumed, drinking you all up, black sludge skipped the edges
you pulled me down, under, a pop of deflating lungs
And then - your cold dark infinite.

the only time I’d desire another infinite -
when
the walls begun humming, then whispering haunting damnations,
tethering me to this one..  
The graveyard dirt is bitter, it stings hot nips at my skin.
The suffering of love, I equivocate evasive ramblings with scar-munched knees as my lungs fill with something other than
you.

An act of defiance, a resilient tribute to autonomy.
something dredged me from the ground - thick earthy sweat smell of moss and mineral tying me to this neutral plane between life
and death.
I want to hurt for art, for Ophelia.
for a greater cause, for moments that remind me of humility
even for the force of beauty

I cannot hurt for you, for it is not worth it to me
a young and pretty thing, I who hold femininity
looped through my slim fingers
but this is something you can't choke out of me

sentimental effervescence,
nicotine
vyvanse
and walks with you are what make me feel that, bluster of
passion
for being.

I once stood in the middle of a cloud. It was after I'd connected
fingertips to the green
long, haphazard plants that grew on my bridge.
(Angel baby, my angel baby.)
It was mine, my bridge, because I became a part of it, melted into it,
the plants railed along my body and welcomed me, the sun kissed my skin, poor plants.
they'd
been there so long, so
lonely.
El and I, we were a sight for sore eyes, like that guy at the gas station in our home town who barely held the door open and cut through, fast. He NEEDED. his bush light and diiiiip.
We decided we were probably too bright a sight of youth, and that unimpressed him, poor jim.

I love being young. I love feeling powerful, and immortal.
When Connor died, on her birthday, just from trying to walk home, a place I've partied at so many times before

it reminded me that I'm not immortal. It reminded me that death does not spare you, just because of youth. It reminded me of other things, things I won't mention here. I hope she is resting well, she was so adored and if anything can be said, thinking of her freak accident death just makes me feel a great sense of heavy handed unfairness in this existence.

Sometimes I get terrified of death. I think it has so much power, and perhaps I'm envious. It can all go out, like a light.

Like if our minds were museums. I think Jandy Nelson coined a fantastic image with her character Noah. After he gets his **** kicked in, he fears death because he feels as if his mind is a museum, so much to
take in and find out and, experience?
So many sections of, wonder. yes, wonder.
The human experience.
I just don't want it to end.

I know a few things, though, and knowledge actually is power.
I know that, reading good poetry still makes my heart beat and my eyes at times, water up, even if I don't want that reaction to take place, or precedence.

I know I need to keep writing, so I can improve, to offer better sentences to the World, and also as a testament to my mind, the machinations and inner functions.

I know, that writing makes me feel alive. And when I experience something I feel is worthy of being written about, like my time on the bridge, I know that was time when I was truly experiencing something, well, remarkable. Clearly.

And I know, I 've got to stay here for a while. I have to be young for a little while, I know I have so much work to do still.

I don't know if I will find myself. I don't know if it will be soon.
******************­*****
Either I am going to find myself, or I am not going to.
If I find myself, I will either improve the state of it, or I will relapse into solidarity and thus, fail
to
thrive.
If I improve the state of myself, I will experience life on such a frequency that I won't feel like death has
any power. over me. at all.

If I feel like death doesn't have any power
over me,
then I am floating down a ignorant current of thought
like ophelia.
And my wistfulness and vigor for life, is my dress holding me up.
Perhaps someone will be under me, will let me ride on their shoulders, so I can
just float down the stream for a while. Blissful, singing, grabbing onto the orchids

and... Dead man's fingers? Wow, Shakespeare. That's almost as good as when in Henry IV, I believe the second part, when you had Northumberland make the joke concerning the news of his son's death,
"What of Hotspur? Coldspur?"
Or something along those lines.
Shakespeare and I have a bone to pick though, because I think he should have let Hotspur live a bit longer. He really captured the essence of effortless greatness that I want to.
And he died, too. From a *** kissing, indulgent,//// idiot fool, who I still have affection for, Dumb ******' Falstaff.
And(!) Hamlet even had a moment with the jester's skull, to be or not to be.
                       Lots of authors are obsessed with Death.
Capturing the unknown.
Sometimes I go on night walks, and I listen to fast, grimy, ******, blaring music in headphones.
I don't feel like a deer in the headlights, but I like true crime enough to know that some people see you as that.
I love true crime stories, but I don't necessarily want to star in one.
......Unless it's planned out, to a T. And the guy is attractive. And I get to leave, eventually. I'm cool with chillin, chained in the basement.
Imagine experiencing something so visceral.
Okay, that's enough from me. I truly should stop, invest my time in more fruitful pursuits, but I have this account, and intent to word ***** more and.....also internet access so. All of those things are at odds against me.
All of that to say, a lot of odds are against me.
if there are ones against me, that technically* is to say that there are
ones existing in my favor,
and I like that because there's got to be something that wants me to ******* do something more profound than
have kids and die in some town
I suppose I'm not a simple man.
sorry to let you down, Lynyrd skynyrd.
Brian still has a huge photo of you guys in the garage. It's a testament to some part of him, I believe. He's an enigma, my uncle-dad. He's lovely and introspective.
What a good note to end things on, Brian. (editor's note, I did not end up ending things here. Verbosity prevails, but this isn't a formatted poem, so, please take a ticket and see the first man at the red velvet booth.)
One time.... Brian was in a hunting blind. He saw this wild baby cat that his friend was nursing for a while in the prior weeks, so he made a kissy sound to him. The cat immediately recognized his voice, came to him, got up into the blind and legitimately INTO his hood.
There was alluring powders of snow on the ground, it was up north Michigan in the dead of winter, after all.
He wrapped his fuzz body around my uncle's head, and licked his cheek.
Sometimes, there are beautiful things that just happen.
Like The Hunter's wife, Anthony Doerr. That's a story that kinda just sits in my chest, always there. That's to say, that is good writing.

Okay, and one thing I know, is that I possess vibrant affection for writing that I suppose meets my standards for, "Good?"
My teachers say I am too loquacious in my papers. Use too many words.
It's something I want to challenge in my writing, so I think that tomorrow, I'll reread the hunter's wife. I'll put on some music that makes me think of the story, and I'll try to bust out a short poem.
I am, after all, proud of my writings on this platform. A lot of them carry a slice of myself, juvenile as they are, I am- in my writing.
But isolation occurring in current times produces in me a desire to strengthen this skill. So I can communicate something important, something beautiful.
I also do want to show the alphabet series to my therapist, because I want them to be like this, just long rambles. Some poetic interludes exist up there, now this is just chatter.
My therapist gave me a high five once, and feeling like he was proud of what I was saying encouraged me to want to communicate my feelings even better. Expansive vocabulary, self awareness and an ability to balance vulnerability with vague introspective self assessments seems to lead to good poetry.
I always loved Charles Bukowski, because he had gross themes of drunkenness, anger, discontentment, self defeating acceptance and, good god. don't even get me started on women.
But, I'll always love him. He used words in a way that made me feel something, my teenage self, a coming of age girl connecting with life philosophies of a grimy Californian... poetical drunk.
Seems like a simple formula,
at least to myself. Alcohol made Bukowski feel alive.
He felt so alive, he had to pour it into writing.
And after all,
all of this, to say,
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
From Charles himself:
"Time is meant to be wasted, love fails, and death is useless."
Something in me is deeply satisfied with explaining death as being useless.

and here I am, forced to put words to it.
So I'll try. I was in love with words,
once.
And that love turned into the love of how lyrics played out in songs,
a different medium for a gifted artist with a propensity to
push
their
vocals.
And lots of singers have gotten lots of tears from me.
But what does it all mean?
I need a sign from the universe, I need someone to just give me something, please, just a little
bit
more.
I am self aware enough to know that I craft my own cries for help.
Craft them through these poems, reaching out for someone.
And I hope if you hear me, you came from that which is
kismet.