I'd like to say my ship is moving up and down with the raging waves,
Or even just crashing and splitting with wooden shrieks,
But it's been sinking far down into calmer waters that don't face the storms;
And now it's stopped
And there is nothing.

There is an empty space
Inside us
And no matter what we do,
No matter how glorious our achievements
Or how full our love
Or how deep our intelligence
Or how strong our bravery and willfulness,
The awareness of that empty space
Always returns,
eventually.
Some fight it off with happiness,
Some with success -
Which most of the time means status in money -
Some with devotion to family,
Some with simplicity of heart,
Some with indulgent misery,
Some with laughing nights at popular bars or clubs that hopefully end in *** -
Men tend to, at times of pride, feel further away from the empty space the higher their numbers get -
Some with violence or criminal lifestyles,
Some with blind addiction,
Some with righteousness or with God,
But we always go back
To that empty space.
If that’s how it is then I think
Why not?
If that’s the core of us
Why not learn to be calm in a place
Like that.
Whenever we return there after a long run
The terror is so overwhelming
That we think the only solution is to escape it.
But why not learn to live
With it?
I sit there
Day in and day out
And it’s ok.
Sometimes I’ll leave it alone there
For awhile when there is some excitement,
Something new,
Or when something is so sad
I could weep,
But I never go too far
For fear of fooling myself
With one of the many
Hopeful delusions
That claim to fill it forever.
Yes, I sit there
And wait
For something amazing
In a small world full of little that is
Amazing.

The moths all gather and dance around the bright lights
While the owls hoot mournfully somewhere in the distant dark,
And through it all
The flowers bloom.

For a long time I’ve had no women to love.
Now I have two
And they hate each other
Without knowing each other.
I go back and forth between the two.
It is how nearly all my time has been spent lately.
There’s not even as much *** as you might imagine.
It starts off with something like, “Where are you coming from?”
Or, “How has your night been?”
those types of questions loaded with assumptions.
I’m not a liar.
I always tell them.
Then I spend a few hours soothing their insecurities,
Letting them know how much they mean to me
And assuring them that this other thing
Doesn’t change that.
Then we get to the *******
Assuming I’m not drunk past the point of staying hard,
Which, by that time, I usually am.
It’s a pain in the ***.
Even when it’s just one girl
Love is a pain in the ***.
But like this, with all the jealousy,
It is much more complicated;
There is much less ***
And far more quelling.
It’s funny,
I go years without it without a problem,
Then I get it so much that I hardly have it at all.
Life’s full of little ironies like that.
I imagine they get the most difficult to deal with when you can’t laugh about them.
And I am laughing,
Manically.

Alright, you're white, throw a pawn on down the field.
Let our motionless armies slowly rage forward upon each other.
Let the weight of their steps bruise our minds.
Let the clash of sword and shield pierce our ears with their incessant harangue.
Let a hundred pieces fall and let half haunt as phantom death upon what still lives.
Let the ****** cries come from the depths we toss them in vie without rout, in our loveless relationship!
Every move is certain disaster!
Let the hours drag for years without rest. Let our perineal battle wear us down until we have lost **** near all.
Then I will let you toss the last spear, rip the last vessel from my heart, exultant,
with that awful face of yours.

I have an old dog
Who has been dying for sometime now.
He’s got a *** leg
And bad hips
So he needs to be helped up all the time.
He mostly just lays in the same spot and sleeps;
He does it so much that a pressure sore developed suddenly,
Then got infected.
Now he smells very badly
Because of the festering wound
And he wears gauze and wraps
Like a diaper around his back legs.
He stumbles around
And takes too long to do anything.
He gets confused,
In his age,
Over what was always simple
And is almost always in pain,
But you can see, in his eyes, that he still wants to live
And to be loved.
So we haven’t euthanized him
And we still love him
But our younger, healthier dog,
Only four,
Runs up to us and seems to smile
And she jumps around in excitement
And seems to laugh
And she is much easier to love
So she gets our loves attention more
While the old boy looks at us wistfully
Until we call him over with,
“Awww, come here bud.”
To get our sad sympathetic love
More than anything else.
How many of our old
Are left rotting somewhere
With barely enough life to live
Only to be seen on occasional visits?
It’s terrible.
They annoy us with their needs.
The young do too,
But far less.
We help the young with passion,
Not pity.
Even if you call both of these love
I know which one is preferred,
Because you get far less
With the latter.
Yes, when it comes to love
It is better to be young, happy, and entertaining
Because we do it
For ourselves.

There was a day I was working at a factory when a 25 foot concrete section of the ceiling fell on the walk in cooler where I worked. The managers reaction was to send us back in to get the product out. Whenever he went under the ceiling he stood in the doorway for a moment looking up at it, then ran to the next room. After an hour the production workers, those without protection of a walk in cooler, were sent back to work. We talked about it outside before they went back in. Almost everyone was laughing about it. "Wasn't that crazy?" "**** that was scary. Anything could've happened." "That could've hit one of us!" But laughing about it, then going back to work.

There are some days where I am the most boring person I’ve ever known.
I wake up sick, after drinking until late in the morning,
And all that goes through my brain is the amount of money
I lost gambling the night before;
Just the figures,
What I lost to whom,
Over and over again.
Then I lay around my moms house
Watching dumb videos on YouTube
Just to be doing something.
It is a horrible way to spend your time
And I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
For the last hour new thoughts have come into my head.
I’ve been thinking about when I should drink my first beer.
I know I should at least do something first,
Anything productive,
But I don’t.
I need to get new shoes,
Soap, shaving cream, and toothpaste
But I don’t.
I don’t even brush my teeth.
And I think about that,
And how the restaurant I work at has been closed for plumbing
For the last 4 days
And I’ll I’ve done is drink
And gamble.
I think about how this is no way to take care of myself -
I would never do this to someone else -
Yet here I am
And I don’t care.
So I pour myself a beer
And the taste in my mouth alone
Starts relieving the sickness in my gut
And adds a little levity to my brain,
Allowing me to write this.

What does it matter?
Pack a bag with a tent and a sleeping bag
Then sleep outside for a month.
Wake up with the traffic and go to the corner store for several beers.
Let the store owners learn your habits.
Go to the park and lay against a tree with your beers
Then drink till you fall asleep
And nap like a cat in the sun.
Gamble with your friends and take their money
Or give them you’re money
And do it until 730 in the morning
Shouting at each other with excitement and anger and laughs
And fun until someone can’t bet anymore.
Be irresponsible.
Smoke you’re cigarettes inside.
Have *** instead of going to work.
Who wants to be responsible all the time?
There’s a time for that.
There’s nothing wrong with letting loose and living as wild as you want to.
Just don’t be a fool and nothing’s the matter.
Indulge.
Indulging is a great thing.
Just don’t jump over the edge unless you’re attached to a bungee chord,
And if you do,
Just make sure you have someone to pull you back up
So you’re not left dangling there.

I took my morning shots of whisky and then got in a friends car and went to work at the factory. We pulled in on all the lose gravel with its familiar sound and I hopped out into the cold seeing my breath. A co-worker was outside smoking his vape before work, a healthy hippy type. I stopped by him for a moment as he looked at the sky and he said, "You see that? It'll never be like that again." The clouds were thick like they are after rain and the morning sun made them special as a few birds flew by and I said, "Yea it's wonderful out there like that, each day is new." Then I went inside and got to work packaging hummus.

I was close enough with a friend and his family to where his dad would beat my friend with me in the house. I had two friends like this, although I only heard it with one - with the other I saw he was scared of the wire hanger cause of his step dads baleful laugh.
He wouldn't do it in front of me. His dad would take him upstairs with an angry order after he got home, when my friend had played with me - basketball or climbing trees or whatever kid game we'd think up - before he finished his homework. I heard the screams, the crying, and the apologies from downstairs. Then my friend would come downstairs with teary eyes and a red face to tell me I had to go so he could do his homework. The dad must've had a bad day at work. He wanted his son to succeed and was probably worried for him, that he wouldn't end up as well off as him.

I am sick today,
So sick that I feel I haven’t been right in the head
For a long time.
All I had to eat yesterday was oatmeal
That made me want to *****.
Then I drank malt liquor.
I still had some of my 40oz
When I left my friends apartment
But I didn’t even want to finish it.
I took one last drink
And threw the bottle out my window
As I drove out the parking lot.
This morning I took my dog to the vet;
He’s just had surgery and needed a check up.
Shortly after I started driving
He fell awkwardly against the side of the car,
******* himself,
Rubbing it into himself and the car
In the process,
So I pulled over,
Lifted him out of it,
And laid him down on the opposite side of the car.
He looked at me the whole time,
Seeming confused,
Asking about his agony.
At the vet he needed to be carried in.
Inside, I laid him on the floor in front of me
Where he trembled in pain.
The news played
And the women laughed with each other
Like it was scripted
And like they didn’t
Know how to act.
Something was asking to leave my gut,
Either out of my *** or mouth
It didn’t care,
But there were no bathrooms
So I sat on the wood bench
Listening to small dogs yapping down the hallway
And the receptionist returning missed calls
With a rehearsed cadence, lilt, and message,
And started sweating.
I called in sick to work.
The wound reopened
And now he needs another surgery.
As the veterinarian explains this to me
He seems dejected
But still recommends further surgery.
I hope my mom will have heart enough to **** him
And not keep the kind of hope
That merely prolongs suffering.
I don’t want to hear more
Of anything in the world right now.
I want to sit on my couch
And wait out my sickness.
On the way home,
While stopped at a red light,
An old women rear ended me slightly,
Although enough to make the old boy
Try to stand up in a fright.
I look in the rear view mirror and she seems not to notice
So I pretend I didn’t either
And drive home
To clean up the ****
In my backseat.

When her kid was eight months old
She put her in a baby swing and hid her in a closet
Down the hall at her parents place.
Then she went to the barn out back,
Which had a chain locked door that slid ten feet across,
And in there he was in the throes of a manic fit,
Walking in and out through the cold October night,
Eyes all pupil and mind untraceable.
He kept saying “I’ll **** you! I’ll ******* **** all of you!”
And eventually she realized she couldn’t calm him down
So she hid in a locked room inside the house
And waited for the cops to come.
When I asked her why she didn’t charge him
For attempted ****** and only gave him three months for domestic dispute
She said, so drunk it came out in a rage,
“Because I’m stupid and I’m loyal!
It’s one of those things where, after, you don’t know why you did it,
But had to at the time.
Soon I’ll be somewhere where the weathers always nice.
I can’t tell you where.
Witness protection and all that.
But now I’ve got a life ahead of me looking over my shoulder.”
“Well as long as he doesn’t know where you went he won’t be able to find you.”
She didn’t seem to hear me and continued on.
“I wrote him a letter.
I want him to sit with it.
Our daughters autistic cause of what he did
When I was eight months pregnant.
I have the diagnostics from three doctors.
I didn’t want to believe it.
His dad won’t tell him,
But I want him to see it.
I want him to see with it.
He deserves to sit with it.
That’s why I’m so ****** up right now.
I’m leaving Tuesday.
Jocelyn won’t be Jocelyn anymore.
We have to change our names.
Nothing will be the same anymore.”

On a cold night
I drive around
With my windows cracked
Smoking cigarettes
And tossing keystones
Out the window.
I drive around
The dead end neighborhoods
Tossing keystones
Out the window
Wondering why there’s nothing
Better to do.
Sure I could get laid
Cause a girl asked me over.
Sure I could go see a friend
And talk about how little
I want,
Or I could
try to laugh a little.
But tonight there’s no point
To any of that.
Driving around
In the cold
Getting drunk
Is the only thing
That makes any sense.
Soon I’ll head home
And go to sleep.
Tomorrow might be different
Like tonight might have been
If I cared about all those things
That seem to keep
Everyone else going.

A few years ago I loved a woman so helplessly
That I probably still do.
I’ve never known a woman with such a hard life,
But she tried to make the most of it
So the bugs wouldn’t crawl
Under her skin again.

Her first daughter was eight
And would talk to people
We couldn’t see.
She was awkward but intelligent
And would read science books for fun.
In her early years she’d cry in the cold
Held by her mother
Who held a cardboard sign
That asked for money.
Her second daughter was four
And was the most lovable child
Despite her manic energy
And endless tantrums.
She had a rosey smile
That wanted to love everyone
And be loved by everyone
And I imagine she will be betrayed
Quite a lot in her life.

Because of these two,
And because of herself,
Her small apartment was always *****.
Dishes piling out of the sink onto the counter,
Toys, dolls, markers, drawings, books, blankets, crumbs
All over the place surrounded by at least a hundred articles of clothing
On any given day.
Small flies would gather around the center of the room
And fly in a tight circle.
Everyday she would be cleaning
And it never looked much different.
Most of the time I spent with her
Was spent cleaning up the apartment.
The rest of the time was spent in bed.
Those were some of the best times of my life.

She was the most critical person
I have ever met
But never believed she was asking for much.
She expected people to always treat each other well
And would go broken hearted mad when they inevitably didn’t.

She felt the same way about me
As I did about myself at the time:
She loved me completely
But couldn’t appreciate any of it
For very long
Because it didn’t make sense
Why I’d destroyed myself.

I don’t know how’s she’s doing now,
But I’m sure she’s still fighting
The good fight
And losing horribly.

The saints spend everyday cleaning.
It never looks much different,
But they spend everyday cleaning.

People always seem so stable
When you drive by
And don’t know their names.
They are just people
With their eyes forward on the road.
I wonder how many of them
Are drunk as I am
On this 230 pm road
Thinking about why she left
And why she came back,
Knowing it will happen again
Because neither of us care enough.
Some of these people must be dealing
With madness.
Some of them must have life in them.
Some so much so that they are driving home,
Or somewhere far away,
Right now
To put a bullet in their brains.