thirteen dead in Colorado
yeah that’s right
thirteen
or was it twelve?
maybe it was fourteen
have they even caught him yet?
I heard they just “identified” him
oh they did?
good
that’s good
lord what has the world come to?
mad men with shotguns
and semi-automatics
just walking into movie theatres
killing anyone and everyone
what’s the point?
what did those people
even do?

oh well,
you take care ok?
we’ll go see the film
later this weekend

all this ****
from my past
started coming
up

so I thought
**** it
I’ll just get it over
with

so I got my dad’s gun
and thought,
ok,
if I haven’t done it in a week
then I guess I’ll just put it back
and go on with things

short of it is,
two days later my dad
noticed that his .45 caliber
hand-gun  was missing
and instead of ya’know,
talking to me,
ya’know,
like a normal person,
he called the
cop

I got escorted off campus
by officer Williams
I thought everybody saw me
but I guess not

I spent a week in a mental hospital
that was a load of bull-crap
they said I had to be there three days
then the lady wasn’t there till Monday
then Tuesday
then they said I would be home Wednesday
and now I’m obviously talking to you
and I’ve only been home like two hours
and it’s Wednesday evening
load of bull-crap

so anyways,
I’m on these new pills
supposed to help with depression
and anxiety and stuff

I even missed Bin Laden being killed
that ******

there’s a ban on newspapers
and books in there
but I got special permission
and got a paper

hehe,
so yeah,
**** those guys

I don’t know,
I had all these texts
from random people when
I got out

like really random
like Sujin even texted me

I don’t know,
I’ll be in tomorrow,
I expect hugs
I miss hugs,
nobody’s hugged me all
week

ya’know they didn’t let me have music either?
yeah, I missed music,
yeah, this week really
******

I suppose if anybody hates me
they can sleep soundly at night
knowing that I’m being punished
for whatever crime they think
I’ve committed

I can’t find happiness anymore
not in my old tricks, not in my
new tricks. everything I’ve ever
known is uninteresting or, even
worse, disgusting

I am going to sleep until I do
not remember what waking is

I have lost, nothing, and yet I
feel like everything’s gone

why can’t love
be like the
movies?

a girl likes a guy
or
a guy likes a girl

the other doesn’t know yet
but he or she comes around
in the end

it’s so easy
yet so testing

you got to win them over
do something amazing
that doesn’t even involve them
but you got to do it
or you won’t get them

but you will

the audience smiles
the children cringe
and everyone leaves
thinking of the wonderful life
the new lovers have ahead of
them

but it’s all a sham
keeping us distracted
from all the ways
that those lovers
aren’t anything like
us

why can’t love
be like the
movies?

I ask a simple question
so simple
there is no simple
answer

I tell you one secret,
a most high security
and yet low collateral
thing,
and all of a sudden
all I can see
is me
sending that message
over and
over
and
over
and over

why?

why did I send it?

why couldn’t I keep it to myself?

why you?

why now?

logic has been defeated I think

my heart breathes victoriously
above my brain’s corpse

but then the picture gets hazy
the red of the heart
looks like the pink of the brain
and the juices running from the body
look more and more like blood from
that central *****

what does this mean?
what is it?
why?

why does it haunt me to let you back into my life?

why would I give you chance to ruin it again?

why not
enjoy
an ice-cream sandwich
on a beautiful
afternoon
in a city
by a
bay?

if depression is a pair of sunglasses
worn over the soul

then to remove them is the scariest task
for fear the world remains dark without
them

the car was hot with choking steam
coming off the confused tangled of
my mind, which was wrapped, all at
once, in feelings of loathing, mistrust,
doubt, apathy, and blind conviction.

windows steamed up and my broken
headlights half-heartedly lit the way
ahead, but I got home as the sun was
ducking behind the spindly pine legs
of its mother, the horizon, and I was
no longer fixated on the cacophony
within my brain.

the trees were bending and shaking
and my phone warned me that there
would be winds to cut the bone.

the first signs that
winter was coming,
it was November 1st.

the sharp winds ran through the trees
and through my ears, straight through,
across the hills and valleys of my mind
even into the deepest canyons where
moral men fear to delve, and there it
cleansed me of my disheveled madness.

for instead of many, there was now two:
those selves that jockeyed for principality
and the settled self that I would one day
become.

each day the winds bring me closer
to the latter of these two end points.
the howling sound merely the friction
of a transformation pushing a soul
beyond its limits.

“to love someone
at their ugliest moment
is perhaps the only way
to know you’re crazy.”

“or in love.”

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

it’s too hot to sleep
the night air is not cool for once
and all day I felt tired,
dead at times,
and when I got home
all the lights were
off in the house

sometimes that’s how life is
******, ******, ****** up,
and today was one of those days
that proved it to me once again

but above all else
there was a deep
confusion in this

because…

of her

looking at her
talking to her
even thinking
just…

lifted me

above all this ****,
above sickness,
above doubt,
above everything
I think is wrong
and dark with the
world

she brings me up
and leaves me there;
only letting me come
back down when
the walls and the
world comes
between
us

no, I don’t speak
of just one girl

she’s been many different ones
with many different names
and many different forms

so don’t go looking
for meaning in this
I’m simply saying
that I know what love
is

and,
thank god,
for that.

the thing is:
I don’t want to know

things are already bad enough
I don’t really need the good parts
to be soiled forever by truth

I’d rather leave those happy, if,
false

they’re like
photographs carried in my mind
for when the days turn long
or the road turns dark

because sometimes
those happy times are
what you need to get
through it all

so don’t spoil them
don’t make me throw them
away

it may seem funny to you,
why’d I’d never want to know

but I do know
but I can’t be certain
and sometimes tricking yourself
is the only way to make it through
this life

twin coke bottles
stare down from atop
the tv cabinet
snug in the back
corner
that I look at too
often

tomorrow she’s coming back
but don’t take that to mean
something

I just realized I wasn’t doing anything
so I called her up
and asked her over
and tomorrow she’s coming
over

my poetry has been…
off
lately

people scream at me about punctuation
about their disagreements
and their confusions
and all I can do is stand there
wondering how to bring back to
them

yet
my heart has been on a cloud
thinking happy thoughts
dreaming happy dreams
wishing happy, hopeless wishes
and tomorrow she comes over
and I want to show her my
poetry

so now I wonder
at myself
and
at my art
and
the lines in the palms’ of my hands
do little more than laugh
at my conundrum

know,
that just like time,
life passes by
day by
day

when the sun rose this morning
I was sound asleep.

warm in my bed,
I was worry-free
and dream-free.

I was happy.

but I woke up
and there was rain
and no sun
and the sky was
grey.

it’s the first day of the year,
so what does this say about
every other one to come?

eh,
it doesn’t say anything

the plants are happy
so why shouldn’t I be?

so I take that in mind
and march into the new
year

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

a week of pain,
terror,
and fear
has yet to make
me write a
poem

last time,
I couldn’t stop

everything inspired me
everything made me
write

but now,
nothing

I sit here,
uninterested and
unfascinated
with
everything

dealing with the pain fine
and needing no outlet

an island of perfection
in a sea of needless life

I am tired
and must continue
to heal

do you think this
is
about
you?

do you?

do you?

do you?
do you?
do you?

because it is

you know it is

and I know it is
and they know it is
and you know it is
but most importantly
I know it is but I
refuse to accept
it

this isn’t addressed to
anyone

put a little faith in life
put a little faith in all
the forces that be

obviously
something cares about us
something thinks we deserve
to keep toddling forward

so if you think you've done
something to make these
forces turn against us:

I think you should reconsider
just how long the ****-up we
call human history really is

a curved knife lays on the table
as a fire crackles
and the wood-smells
fill our mind

the cold looks into our home
with disinterest

you lay
stretched out in the bed
a woolen blanket wrapped
around your form
and
I cannot see your
face

I see this scene
as clearly as I see these
words flow from my
fingers
but I cannot
see your face

maybe there’s reason
for this

I look at the log walls,
the books stacked on the
book shelf made of raw
timber,
the pattern in your quilt,
your face

but I cannot see it,
I cannot remember it

I wonder constantly
when this picture shall
be complete

we each tried,
and some succeed,
but failure always
surrounded us and
tales of catastrophe
were always on our ears

and for a brief moment,
at the height of it, when
the fear almost made us
stop trying any more

and that was scariest
part of all.