relapse disguised
as everyday life

we don’t know what we’re doing
mainly because it doesn’t feel like
we’re doing anything at all

the guilt is
unnatural

strangely,
enough.

I see the light suddenly
breath caught, I wait expectedly
the sound comes and
shakes the world for
eternity

“who needs
love?”
some ask
sober from a long bout
of drunkenness
on the fine sprites
of the finer ***

“I can go on!
I will go on!
alone!
I shall!”

I know
I know
It’s not surprise
but riddle me
this:

why would you want
to?

forget logic
or sense
or thought
or doubt

we’re talking love!
the most powerful
lack of power known
to man

what else can make you tremble,
as your love’s voice on the telephone?
what else can make you wonder,
like the idea of even holding their hand?
what else can hurt,
worse than hear hearing her say
“no”?

we embrace it because we cannot
refute it

it is the mongol horde
and we are the simple
farmers

but this army does not come
seeking destruction,
though it does posses,
and often uses,
that power.
Instead, it seeks to create,
in you and in others,
a realization that the world
is more than dirt and gravity
and science

“there is more to be found,
so find it”
love says to you

and coming up from your stupor
you do not yell as you just had
and instead nod silently and begin
to run in no particular direction
at all

pray in a quiet, proud voice
for a better year this time

pray each day
when you look in the mirror
when you embrace your loves
when you get your grades back
when you drag yourself to work
when you get out of bed after
only two snoozes on the alarm
when you leave someone behind
when you take the first drink
when you lose it all at once
when you toe the edge of sanity
when you nearly give death
that kiss he’s always wanted

pray at this times
in a voice that does not tremble
and pray for the good times to
be long and the bad times to
be brief

pray loudly so that everyone
can hear you but do it without
your voice

pray by dancing and singing
pray by doing nothing today
pray by forcing the good habits in
and the bad habits out
pray by forgiving yourself
and knowing that you are
forgiven

pray at the altar
of yourself

for you are the father,
the son, and the holy
ghost who separately
make up everything
that are, can,
and will
be

and god is only as powerful
as the prayers he receives

look out the window
the air is full of tiny
wings

the wonder is in your
eyes but the mystery
is in your head

the noon-bugs make
the outside world a
hazy shadow

the window separates
you for better or worse

what now,
we wonder, staring
up at the stars that both
inspire us and contain
us so

what do we with our
lives in the face of all
these eventualities

each day seems to
tell us we can’t go
on

so what now,
we wonder, staring
up at all the possibilities
we were promised

thinking quietly,
*******, how we were
cheated

1 (alseep)

now tell me: how are you?
******

why is that?
I’m ******

how do you know this?
I can see myself
I am but a tower of ****
that walks like a man

how do you know this?
I can see

what other proof have you?
my life

what of it?
it has **** all over it

that says nothing about you
how so?

the bed is not a blanket
because the former
is smothered
in the latter.

there is no
choice.

but there is.

to be good enough.

then chose
become something new
one that is good enough for you

let’s begin,
repeat after me:

2 (dreams)

good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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good enough
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good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough

3 (back to bed)**

now tell me,
how have you been
doing?

good enough

say it again
good enough

again
good enough

again
good enough

again!
good enough!

again!
good enough!

once more
good enough

and again
good enough!

again
good enough

I don’t believe you!
good enough!

you are a liar!
no!

you are here to cheat me!
no!

you are here to cheat yourself
no!

you said no lies! no tricks!
there are no lies! no tricks!

liar!
no!

so tell me again!
good enough!

again!
good enough!

AGAIN!
GOOD ENOUGH!

liar! you’re pathetic!
me? you’re pathetic!

how?
you lie!

how?
you told me this would help!

how does that make me a liar!
I still feel like ****!

ah! but do you?
what?

do you still hate yourself?
what?

do you feel worthless?
what?

do you feel like a waste?
what?

for you have just told me
three-hundred and seventy-eight times
that you are not
so how are you?

good enough?
good enough.

good, now again.

got some cash
ready to go
let’s spend some money
on something for fun
and forget all the troubles
of this world
in depression

I wrote the most beautiful thing today
and now I’m going to cut this beard off
and forget it because it was not within
my rights in the first place

the worst part of any wound
is receiving it,
don’t let anybody
lie to you,
including
yourself.

the pain is only as bad
as the knife
is sharp
and
while
you think you’re never
going to forget,
you will.

faster than you’d think
you’ll start filling your head
with new thoughts
of the new adventures
you are having
and the new stories
you are writing
every day.

so don’t let pain get to you,
if you don’t die
then you will
get better
and the pain will pass soon,
it’ll pass quicker
then you could
believe.

enjoy what you have
when you have it
and when don’t have it anymore,
take a deep breath,
close you eyes,
and really let it
go.

it’s a whole lot easier than
you ‘d think.

let
it
go.

this
too
shall
pass

let
it
go

this
too
sha­ll
pass

let
it
go

this
too
shall
pass

le­t
it
go

this
too
shall
pass

­let
it
go
this
too
shall
pass

let it go

thi­s too shall pass

in the end,
the person who knows
you best
is you

if that is not true
then something’s wrong

trying to be someone else?

you can’t do it
they know themselves best
and you’ll never be able to
match that

trying to be something different?

you can’t do it
because you’ll always feel
wrong, always want things
the way they were

trying to be yourself?

you can do it
you just can’t try

no one can
force you

no one can
make you
change

no one really
understands
but that
doesn’t mean
they won’t
try

in this world we die and live
just like we are born
(alone)

and all this can tell you why
the person who knows you
best
is
you,

only
you

I am grim with reality

I seek something to blind me
but my hand trembles as I reach
for the bottle or the pen

I am awake to the world,
again.

goodnight, you beautiful world,
you beautiful corruption
of a once beautiful thing

goodnight, you beautiful thing,
with tears in my eyes
that should only come
from anger, I say good-
night to the world I let
descend into something
I cannot bare to face

you can be stopped two ways

by giving up
or dying

that’s it
get it?

you can do anything
if you don’t stop or
you’re not shot

funnily the first stops more people
than the second does

I cannot succeed
at the things I love

I cannot achieve
with the people I love

I cannot be
what I love

I cannot,
love.

it hurts
to move this
slow

where the demons catch up,
the doubts can shoot me down with
arrows of rusted truth,
and the fears
actually over run me and
begin to choke out my
sanity

it is painful
knowing what I can do
and what I can’t
do
and seeing myself die
in my third person perspective
of my logical
haven

so few get to see what I see now

so few know the pain

they are lucky

higher still than even the enlightened

I am not great
I am not grand

but I am memorable

too weird to forget
yet nobody truly knows
what I am

I walk with a confidence
that’s almost unsettling

I talk with a manner that
is both noble and lowly

I am not wise
I am not knowledgeable

but I am seeing

all-seeing,
almost,
it would
seem

through the shields people put up
through the veils the fearful extend

you may think nobody knows
but I know

and if I reach out
in my weird and
inexplicable way
you will never
forget

I cannot be reach though
I cannot be touched

not by you
not by him
not by her
not by me

yet I know the touch of others
and as I sit down here,
so grand in my non-grandeur,
I wish people would come
and force themselves on me
and teach me that magical connection
I so readily give them

into this world we know is wrong
into this place we hate to imagine
into this society we scarcely recognize
into this people we love to loath
into this culture dependent on lies

we are born
we are created
we are refined
we are loved
we are hated
we are juxtaposed
we are stereotyped
we are absorbed
we are abandoned

into this town we forgot
into this city we left
into this country we ignored
into this earth we killed

we are alpha
we are omega
we are the end
we are the beginning

into this, our lives,
we are the only factor
separating hell from
reality

there’s a moment
between
“it’ll go like this”
and
it does
that
you think to yourself
“or not”

like many other things,
it’s a curse as well as a juxtaposition
two pictures set next to one another
then realizing that they’re crooked
with your audience already flooding in

what can you do,
when the future prepared for
is not the future that jumps out?

most will be toppled over in a daze
a few lucky ones will miss the beast
or perhaps even send it back whence it came
but again, most will be toppled
left in a daze for the amusement
of others

a lizard scurries up a white wall
as lightening flashed
miles away

the oldness of this city
means so little

as we approach the fort,
the furthest point
the great Spanish empire
ever reached,
I am stricken by the hollowness
of it all

the stone seems plastic
the palms an illusion

the bridge stretches across
the water, lights strewn
across its concrete length,
and the lightening still
flashes when the mood
strikes it

the water seems black,
shady, dull, brooding

it holds some deep secret
(but, for once, it is not my
reflection)

this night hurts

I wonder where I should go
with these feelings as I trudge
silently through the night

because my poetry is nothing
because my words are nothing
because my computer is nothing
because my friends are nothing
because my life is nothing
because my acts are nothing
because my mind is nothing
because my works are nothing
because my hand is nothing
because my creations are nothing
because my criticism is nothing
because my fantasies are nothing
because my applause is nothing
because my books are nothing
because my wisdom is nothing
because my thoughts are nothing
because my punishment is nothing
because my rewards are nothing
because my brain is nothing
because my limbs are nothing
because my body is nothing

because nothing is nothing
because everything is nothing
because everything is everything

because nothing is everything
because nothing is everyone
because nothing is every-
thing it was meant to be

because my existence is nothing
because my struggles are nothing
because my help is nothing
because my actions are nothing

because he said so,
I am nothing.

it’s not hard to say

it’s not even hard
to think about

it doesn’t make me sad
or mad
or any of those
other emotions
I’m supposed to be
feeling

it just is

simply as that

I’m getting the news out

first to my girlfriend,
then to my best friend,
then to those who know
me the very least

my mom will take care of family,
doctors, school, people who
“need to know”

but it’s my job to sit around with
it

it’s not hard yet

so far,
it’s pretty easy

it just is
like I said earlier
it just is

nothing to be said
or done or thought
about

and I think my poetry
isn’t going to be any
better

my life isn’t going to seem
any richer

my mind isn’t going to seem
lost or out of sorts

I think I’m still going to be Caleb

no more or less

others are going to have a
harder time than I will

I’m just going to sit around
and write more poetry, sipping
my diet coke like I always do
and quietly repeating to myself:

*oh well

I am driving

from the city
into the city

something is approaching

a hunk of tire
a phone call

too late, impact

I drive slowly, listening
I put down the phone, listening

then it hits me

I look over at him
I look over her

they can’t face me

out of anger
out of shame

I pull off

an unfamiliar place
an unfamiliar place

we are assessing the damages

the bumper is ******
everything is ******

I am waiting

in a gas station
by a restaurant

how bad?

it’ll be okay, he says
it’ll be okay, I say

we start down the road again

scraping
crying

pull off again

we rip off a metal binding
we tear apart our binding

driving, again, in silence

a low buzzing now
a steady sob

I’m sorry

I know, he says
I know, I say

the ride is long

ten hours
the last hours

it’ll be okay

he says
I lie

I know how it
feels to not
feel anymore

an emptiness that
fills you up,
consumes you,
burns inside of you
but only makes you

angrier,
sadder,
more confused

it’s like you’re the fish
and reality is beyond
the glass

there’s this big quiet

everything seems to
move in and out of
focus so fast

people’s words mumble
through the water
and seem foreign or
even alien

you look them in the eye
but they have nothing to look
back into

all you want to do
is sleep

fade into the
water

die

if you’re lucky,
someone will notice,
slap you across the face,
pull you out of the water,
and shove you down
the road again

if you’re like most,
you’ll keep walking

maybe even begin to
run or skip as you
go

but you’ll fall back into
the ocean

the world you once knew
seeming to flood,
moments float by,
days fade to weeks,
and you’ve long passed out
from lack of air

I know how it feels
to not feel at all

my miracle is that I have
never had to swim out of
that sea again

sometimes,
the only thing
to do
is to crawl into bed,
go to sleep,
and hope that,
in the morning,
all you’re failures
will be forgiven
and you can start back
on the road
ahead

sometimes,
this isn’t an
option

but when it is,
I suggest it

crawl back
-alone,
go rest your
eyes,
hope that,
-tomorrow,
you don’t hate
yourself
like you do
today
so
you can get back
to what you were
doing
and be who you
are meant to
be

a hope rises from the ashes
of the husk of my old self
I do not know if I will reach
out for it and grab it, as mine,
but I see the path I can walk
and am happy to know it’s
still there

it was good because
I could laugh off the small things
and smile when I was challenged
and grin at my enemies
and smirk at my loves

it was good because
I could be happy and not feel guilty
and enjoy myself without being sad
and dream of the future
and not need to fear it

it was good because
I could finally be alive
and only someone who’s lived
and then failed to live
can really appreciate
just how wonderful
that first day
of living
truly
was

a cold front
blows in from the west
with low, fat clouds
that bear
snow,
or wind,
or rain.

the winter time
of cold winter
times is nearer
and nearer to
me

heat not harming
warm fires warming
blankets and jackets
feel good on the skin

cold front
in from the west
the past blows east
but the future
on the winds comes
always faster

it must’ve rained
those days Jesus was dead
nobody probably knew why
or even that it mattered
but when the sun finally shone
through the clouds on Easter
I’m sure someone
finally realized
that it was a big deal

ah, if I could love like
you

my whole life
would be so
different

ah, if I could love at
all

but even that’s a
struggle

my greatest
allies are always
my recently
defeated
foes

hello,
hello there.

it’s been a while for me
maybe not for you
but for me it’s been what?
my entire life?

I know you don’t care though
you don’t care about anything
and that’s good, I’d be *******
if you played favorites

how’s the universe?
I know my planets pretty messed up
but I’m sure you’ve seen worse,
probably seeing worse right now
but that’s ok.

It’s funny
I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten you
no one’s ever really believed in you
you know how I know?
they all do things
if they believed in all they say
you know,
about how’re you’re:
infinitely powerful (which you might be)
infinitely seeing (which you might be)
infinitely loving (which I know you’re not)
because if they really believed that
then they’d just lay down
and let you do the rest

so god,
it’s been a while,
there’s a lot I could say
but you’re not who
it needs to be said to

I guess I might ask one favor,
could you pass along my message,
somehow?

thanks,
good bye,
good bye god,
good luck being the
universe

a
simple
thing
of
how
to
look
is
often
most
necessary,
most
focused,
most
feared,
and
yet
nobody
knows
why
or
even
how
to
do­
it
right
(more
than
a
couple
of
times)

Boy sitting next to me
I see you
there
writing
drawn out lines
and a key in treble and
bass
what are you writing now?

I’ve heard of your work
never heard it
I don’t think that’s that
uncommon
But I say to you
don’t stop
keep writing!
for composer to my right
Creativity is
key

More so
than ever

I
walk
small
circles
round
and
round
and
round
like
nobody
is
watching
because
nobody
is

we
are
always
so
caught
up
thinking
that
there’s
somebody
always
judging
us
and
then
we
go
complain
that
we
are
alone

I
spin
I
run
in
small
circles
when
nobody’s
watching
which
is
almost
always

when
you
are
alone
you
are
alone

everyone
is
so
caught
up
in making
sure
nobody’s
watching
them
that
they’ll
rarely
notice
you

but
if
someone
does
notice
you
seize
the
moment

do
something
do
something
you’d
only
do
while
no
one
is
watching
because
in
reality
you
have
had
your
whole
life
to
practice
and
only
have
this
moment
to
prove
it
hasn’t
gone
to
waste

they’ve been calling
from Kentucky
a lot

maybe it’s because
my uncle is getting a divorce
or maybe
it’s because my dad
just had surgery
and they don’t know
that those aren’t
all that scary
back
in kentucky

I know when I got sick
they called and called
and sent blankets and bears
and when I went to visit
them afterwards they
hugged me very tightly
and seemed surprised
and relieved to see
me

guess we are all limited somehow

but they’re calling and calling
from Kentucky and maybe it’s
because of my uncle or maybe
it’s because of my dad or maybe
it’s because I have another surgery
in a little over a week

but I wish they would stop,
I can’t get any sleep

little black bugs,
behemoths in their
own right,
crawl across
the
surface
of my
carpet
and
ache for
just one
drink
of
my soft
flesh
before I
swat them
away
or
smash
them into
what-
ever
fate
awaits them
on the
other
side

in the thick of it all
love will always be the storm
that tears apart your houses
and drags your cities
back to sea.

no matter if you built levies
or walls ten hundred yards high,
the waters will hit hard enough
to flood the roads
and knock flat
the barriers

in the moment
when your tallest skyscraper
kneels down before the power
of the ocean, in all her grace,
you will always wonder
what could I have done
to forego this
destruction?

but when another storm comes
one that you could not see
one that you were truly
not prepared for
love will be your shelter

in ways that are both obvious
and mysterious all the same
she will come to you
in your moment
of final
prayer
and you will ask yourself
how else could I have diverted
this catastrophe?

after shutting for the final time
the next sight your eyes witness
will be singing birds and blue skies
and you will wonder how,
and eventually,
why?

this I cannot answer

perhaps this is love’s true poison
that she will not let you die
until she kills you herself
or perhaps
that is simply her price
or perhaps even
there is no reason
and love,
just as I,
know not why we do
the things we do
but we do them
with passion,
with commitment,
with love.

you miss a lot
when it’s happening
as you hurtle through
the wonderful moments
of your life

looking back
you can see how it all unfolded

the little glances and motions,
the afternoons spent in thrift stores,
the evenings spent in movie theatres,
the conversations till the sun came up,
the jokes shared, the laughs enjoyed,
the almost, nearly, so-close chances,
they all flew by the first time around.

she’d laugh at me now
because she always knew
but I was too dumb
or too nervous
to know

(but I knew,
deep down)

and it tell the truth to you
it’s been almost four years
since I first fell in love with her
and I never stopped, not for a day

not through the cancer,
not through Christina,
not through depression

she was my core,
she was my life,
she was something I knew
I would always have,
even if I didn’t
have her,



so even if I missed some things
while they were happening
I want her to know
that I wouldn’t have seen anything
if she had not opened my eyes
in the first place

and for that,
and many other things,
I will never miss anything
ever again.

listen now
to the thunder striking
the tree that will
fall over
onto
the power lines
that will light the house
on fire

and
listen now
for the emergency vehicles
screaming through the rain
to save the burning house
and fix the broken lines

listen now
to the hopeless,
endless,
struggle of
humanity  
and smile
with
excitement

a house of
cards will fold
on themselves
in the lightest
of breezes
or the harshest
of storms

fire walls of hatred words
green flames of jealous rage
sorrowfully now I walk alone
this day I hope never comes

to keep poems in
to get poems out

to keep my thoughts in
to get my thoughts out

to keep secrets in
to get secrets out

to keep myself in
to get myself out

out,
out like a dragon’s sigh,
the feelings,
the killing thoughts,
the ideas,
all gone
all dust upon the wind
all no more in me.

in,
in like an ocean’s breeze,
the emotions,
the happy thoughts
the memories,
all there
all water under the bridge
all in me, for now.

I sit silently,
in love,
as I always do
when I am such
perplexed

but never,
as I have found,
can I emerge from this
meditation
with grace
or obtain my goals
through my methods,
so recently dreamed
up

I’m all alone

…

what now?

do I cry?
do I yell?
do I get angry?
do I do something about it?


what is there to do?
what can I  do?
there’s nothing I can do
I don’t think

I may be drowning in all the people
around me
but I’m still more alone than ever

why is it that every time they come
I end up like this?

no more!
I say now
drunk on my own feelings of
remorse
but I will come back to them
drowning once again in a sea
I could’ve totally bypassed

I make a wish now

that something will happen
in them
in me
in the universe
in something
to make this endless cycle
cease

but I have accepted that it will not
come



good night world
I’ve been disappointed
and maybe it’ll all change

one day

but for now
I’m all alone
and I don’t know
what
to do
next

I have a fleeting thought,
just now,
sitting on the bumper of somebody’s car,
empty coke can beside me.

What if I just walked away?

Walked in any direction,
and kept
going?

just go

no thoughts.
no consequences.

just me,
my backpack,
and,
the thirty-five dollars
in my pocket.

It comes then
goes.

just as my
legs begin
to move,
it flees away
again

I sit on the ground now
I flinch as a car passes

looking at all the ways I could go
but still remaining still.

I grimace.

everything hurts
everything

it feels good

maybe I’ll sleep well
tonight

I want to write a poem
about being swept away in the ocean
except everyone else is being moved
and I am the tidal wave moving them

but I am not the tidal wave
and you will not move for
me

instead,
we are both being moved
and the wave is something
greater, hiding openly in
the shadows of our lives

there are no unmovable objects
but there are unstoppable forces

so I wrote a poem
about the tug/push/shove/drag of
           the ocean
about digging my feet into the sand
           and finding just enough purchase
about seeing how long I could hold on
about feeling myself weaken and give way
about falling, eventually, into the sea’s arms
           and floating away, lost on the world