to turn into  the whole wide world, the one that I design,
the one with lights of glistening gold
and wonder undefined.
Is to ignore the very brutal truth, on one's own accord,
ignorant and powerful, a
mistake one can't afford.
So here I am, as usual, how deeply I deny,
that "everything isn't so bad"
I stumble in the lie.

..maybe one day i'll get to see, right through the guise of gold-
the one disguising my whole life
the one denial upholds

Goodbye tomorrow- stay away- I wish to be no more.
my heart contorted, my mind deflates as
my soul and spirit tore.

Freedom flings
Tyrant kings
Into their rightful place
A head on a plate
Democracy inflates
The morale of the people
Oligarchy deflates
The idea that we're equal

Spiteful dictators make their way through the system
And dominate the world while nobody listens
Distracting people with things that glisten
Disseminating hatred as their vision
Engendering fear is their mission
To buy or sell weapons
For more money or more power
Dropping bombs from their ivory tower
From extreme explosions we cower
Explosions of hatred then violence
Explosions hastened by silence
Explosions of fire we ferment
To burn the faces off our enemy
To avoid exercising our empathy
Creating a world filled by entropy
People say ******* like freedom isn't free
When the currency we pay for freedom
Is restriction
We dampen our fiery feelings
With prescriptions

Freedom is free
It's inherent
It can only be taken or given away
It is not a proper excuse to slay
Those that rightly disagree
With what you're imposing

Freedom is fleeing far far away
When people are molded by clay
Of those with the power to shape civilians
Of those with the power to bring billions
Of people to their knees
When freedom is our fee
To live in timid apathy

my heart deflates
at just the taste
of bitter hate
it comes in haste
and leaves no trace
of joy or faith
upon a face
I can't relate
to such a fate
to make a date
in karmas grace

Where buses still elapse with Time
Down straight Dame Street
The Trees are satellites that allow Children to look up
and let the pavement breath.

Earthen Columns that gate the Boombox Clubhouse tint
Flanked by the Yeoman Guards of Hollister
but forget to pay the same compliment
outside of American Apparel
Where Teenagers dream out fantasies
of lamp-lit, flash-shot
worship-worthy objectification
in a converted loft in the real New York
Their headphones spring streams of bright optimism
as they cradle knitted knee-high socks.

Take the curve round Trinity College
and laugh past the rumours
that it may soon float on Dow Jones
and dodge past the charity advertisers
Strutting over campbags of sleeping homeless
to Lemon Cafe for an overpriced Mocha
Which regardless deflates the sheen-covered hollowness
of green-comfy Starbucks

and learn the subtleties of speaking lightly
to dark-jaceketed Blonde girls
Whose eyes seem to sparkle "Yes, we have sipped
on Veuve Clicquot at reserved tables on Graduation nights
at Cafe En Seine"
-"Where Oscar Wilde might have drank"
- "..Had he been alive."

Then speculate on the best Festivals and whose
Films and Books are over-hyped and under-appreciated
and the after-College Gossip on who broke-up or stayed together
or who hooked up even though they shouldn't have
or regretted it

and who's doing a paid internship and who's moving abroad

and afterwards charmingly tease their superficial attitudes
as meanwhile they secretly take photos
to upload on Instagram
and later you'll fake-admonish them
for how they did this behind your back
while you were staring into the lake
in St. Stephen's Green.

When the moon no longer glazed the water
and had receded its contrast to the farthest grass
and you decide to take the last bus home.

Throughout
Caution Glints The Vowels
and Brands them too.

I can see myself
destroying
my own dignity,
popping it like
bubble-wrap
and watching as it
deflates
under my
forcible
fingertips.

"Though the mills
Of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience
He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Mill

The grueling weight
of happenstance,
A millstone for to grind,
It deflates the ego
And shows us
Where we're blind,
It renders flesh a ruin
Obliterates the mind,
We leave our idols desolate
Leave the ties that bind.

Under painful hardship
We release the very things
Which put us in the circumstance
And caused the suffering
We leave behind our craving
For wealth and diamond rings
Everything exalted
All exalted above God...

That means EVERYTHING

Whatever you adore
On this temporal earth
Whatever gives you pleasure
In which you find worth

These very things will shackle you!
You'll find out they're not free.
They are just the Golden Calf
Of base idolatry.

But the millstone slowly purges
Turning hour by hour
Turning the wheat kernels
Into useful flour.

And so I am refined
As I surely must
Put to naught my flesh
Make powder all my lusts
For I am as ashes

for I am as dust.*


SS  (C) 8/23/2017

Lying low on the beach of the lake,
small as a snake,
a naked leech.

Its body deflates as I bathe—
as I dive in the wave—
it bakes in the sand.

I rise to a sea of them, boiled,
spoiled black in the sun—
bloodless beasts.

But I’ve a few bottles of beers
to elicit some cheers
on my day at the beach.

It's the silence that always gets you.
The laughter is a drug and there is no worse a addict than the comedian
Behind the laughter is the insecure person you never see .

It's the empty rooms the miles between gigs it  always comes to that next fix.
Those few seconds when I can  be  everything I'm not the escape is the best release there has ever been.

And as you leave it behind the ego deflates and the isolation sets in were all children in tattered shells called adults .
So fragile the rock that seldom does embrace the sea .

Were all ****** up in are own separate ways.
Behind the laugh at times is the worst place you may ever realize you want to be.

"i'll love you until that balloon deflates"
a 3 am lie.
pining over old prom dates,
trying not to die.
don't act like we're first mates.
stop making me cry.
devours. he satiates.
i'm grasping air, i'm a shallow sigh.

I live vicariously
through anonymity.

The convex mirror
LCD flat-screen
deflates apprehension and
balloons confidence

I jump feet first
through the looking
glass slipper; which
will turn to pumpkin
just before dawn.

I am not Cinderella.

I am just another
Guy Fawkes impersonator
with “V” tattooed
on my heart-strings.

Just another harbinger
like the Plutonian bird
perched upon a pallid bust

sent to whisper:
“nevermore”

Having dispatched the sound rabble
with mostly love,
our already flaccid balloon
deflates with a final raspberry

a fitting fanfare to a term
that left its markers marked,

the shared mirth,
across eyes and hearts,
at a **** noise
proving once again:
we are why we’re here

I cannot explain all the pathetic measures
my eyes will take to avoid your gaze,
all the paths my legs will journey to avoid bumping into you on my way home.
All the ways I knead my hands to the bone and all the toothpick excuses skewering my tongue.
And I cannot explain the way your presence deflates something inside my chest.
I don't know what to do with all that empty space. It echoes.
I fill it with the thimble's worth of pride that I scrape together,
every meager flake of validation I pick from the floor. I shovel slopping handfuls of sawdust
to try and soak up some of the shadows
but everything dissolves in that oily void, green and hideous.
God, it echoes, and everyone hears it.
I muffle it with my radio silence.
I look at you and I see everything I hate about myself
under a microscope.
Every blemish, every scar, every gaping hole
that you lack.
Stop, look. Here. Wrong.
Hear?
I blind myself with radio silence.
I don’t know how to live with an eternal reminder that I am incomplete.
You, and the place you hollowed without even knowing it.
Green and monstrous.
It echoes and everyone hears it.
I love you, but I cannot explain my radio silence.

I give her my jacket knowing when she’s gone
It will still smell like her hugs

Putting my arm around her shoulders is more honest
Than when I raise my arm to the square

I don’t know where she is going in life
But I wouldn’t mind if it were the same place I was

The wind blows silently when she is speaking
Because even the flowers want to listen

If her smile were a disease, I would gladly infect myself
Especially if there were no vaccine

My chest is an air mattress when her head rests against it
I don’t mind when it deflates, brining her a little closer

Even in the winter I can smell fresh-cut grass
And it brings back memories I wish she were a part of

If I were made of mirror, when she looked at me
She might understand why I stare

...breathe in.
                      ...breathe out.
                                                  ...breathe in.

It seems so simple. If we want to live, we need to engage in these basic, life-sustaining movements. Breathe, eat, drink, sleep. We cloud our minds with fears about those moments in-between... in the spaces we aren't quite sure how to handle.

Our breathing loses its depth. Our hearts begin their panicked sprint and our hands rattle with uncertainty. As our minds clog with doubt and apprehension, we begin to back pedal. Do we really needed to follow each exhale with an inhale? Could I hold my breath a little longer and do a little more? Could I die a little bit to live a little more? How far can our bones and spirits bend before they snap? How much death can I pump through my veins before the cardiac arrest of an engine without oil spills the contents of my well-maintained façade on the front porch of death itself?

...breathe in.
                      ...breathe out.
                                                  ...breathe in.

The emptiness of a self-imposed shallow grave pierces the best laid defenses of gold, glory, and gluttony. Previously plump posturing deflates to reveal sunken chests and dreams. Ordered beats give way to palpitations pushing the walking dead to, "speak now or forever hold your peace."

...but calloused hands and white-washed souls hold nothing more than fermented fears. Like a deceitful craftsman, fearing the testing of his work by the flames, we long for the warmth of the fire but fear our long-cherished idols will crumble to irredeemable ash.

...breathe in.
                      ...breathe out.
                                                 ...breathe in.

As the soot coats our weary lungs, a muted wave begins to lap at our roots.

...breathe in.
                      ...breathe out.
                                                 ...breathe in.

Joints creak back to exuberant life; the coarse rust giving way to polished jewel. Bread and wine flush the toxins and clear our eyes. Our searching hands at last placed in the rescuing wound we so long feared.

Wretched gives way to, "worthy."

...breathe in.
                      ...breathe out.
                                                 ...breathe in.

With every utterance that leaves my lips
Exist a thousand more my tongue have missed
Frustration causes problems compiling my statements
I try to recapitulate my day, but failure hides in my shadow
My mind leads me and I follow
Complex formulas and conundrums are riddle across my brain
Monday through Sunday overthinking regulates my plane
I soar through the sky in thought,
Though in reality I haven’t left yet
Though I consciously monitor my next step
Because I’m on plan E and I think F’s next
Entrapped by the scent of,
The woman that lies beside me
My soul watches her as she sleep
I lay awake thinking of the rising sun
The things to come with the next day
I’ve learned a lot mainly that patience pays
That vexation puts me in my place, kicks sand in my face
Obscures my way, to humble my spirit
Arrogance ravages my actions
But frustration deflates my ego
With every utterance that leaves my lips
Exist a thousand more my tongue have missed

When Sylvia Plath first met Ted Hughes, she bit his cheek so hard that blood oozed from his skin.
I want to believe I made an impression like that on you.
(Not the first time, when I was fourteen, because I was awkward with too much eyeliner and not enough ideas)
I marked you, on your bones, beneath skin where only I could see it.
(Beneath layers and layers and layers, so I could
fit comfortably. A parasite)
Sylvia and Ted married quickly,
but the idea of marriage terrifies me,
but I want to be with you forever,
(and yet I don’t)
Sylvia loved Ted.
and I love you. too much. so much.
(my chest deflates when I think about
empty beds)
please do not leave me, like Ted left Sylvia.

do not find muses, inspirations,
but since I am the writer, I need to find my muse.
(you are my only one)



I think Sylvia and Ted shared writings,
but I cannot show you most of my words,
for the truth would burn, and I wouldn’t know
how to put out the fire.
but Ted was a writer, you are not.
so I will be like Sylvia, writing about people I love,
until it consumes me
entirely.

"Though the mills
Of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience
He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Mill

The grueling weight
of happenstance,
A millstone for to grind,
It deflates the ego
And shows us
Where we're blind,
It renders flesh a ruin
Obliterates the mind,
We leave our idols desolate
Leave the ties that bind.

Under painful hardship
We release the very things
Which put us in the circumstance
And caused the suffering
We leave behind our craving
For wealth and diamond rings
Everything exalted
All exalted above God...

That means EVERYTHING

Whatever you adore
On this temporal earth
Whatever gives you pleasure
In which you find worth

These very things will shackle you!
You'll find out they're not free.
They are just the Golden Calf
Of base idolatry.

But the millstone slowly purges
Turning hour by hour
Turning the wheat kernels
Into useful flour.

And so I am refined
As I surely must
Put to naught my flesh
Make powder all my lusts
For I am as ashes

for I am as dust.


Write of Passage aka
SoulSurvivor
8/23/2017

your mom’s Honda

my thighs stick to one another
as you stick to me
the AC in your car imitates the moans we make
the windows that look like we just got out of a shower

it’s already hot enough in the backseat of your mom’s Honda
as we hold each other
my forehead against your chest
as the heat makes us lazy with lust

your chest expands and deflates
and i can hear your heartbeat slow to a normal rate
but after I’m sure you’re asleep
i gently get out of your arms, untangling myself

I want to be more than just your late night call
or your fuckbuddy
just another one of your girls you take into your mom’s Honda
and treat her like a queen the night of, and trash the next morning

this woman doesn’t want to sleep on uncomfortable and chunky seats
this woman deserves a man, not a boy
this woman deserves someone who treats her right
this woman wants someone who is not afraid to be loyal

and since you can’t provide that,
this woman is leaving
locking the door behind me
and opening the side of your mom’s Honda

the oil filler cap clicks between my fingers
and as i throw the cap behind me
my other hand flicking open a lighter, I ignite it with my anger
and I watch the skeleton of your car blaze with the sparks we felt

and that was the end of you and your mom’s Honda

Continuation without meaning, meaning
Lacking merit, chains whose warders have
Long since deserted
Fallen prey to common gestures

There is no editorial for these thoughts
Of sound mind and sight body we
Press on

Some say it is the chlorophyll that keeps leaves
Green
I know it to be hope
I know, should hope grow tires and fail
To recognize her surroundings, leaves
Will drain to brown with
Worry

I challenge you, try to understand
Walk in the depressions left by the others
Feel their breath fueling your thoughts but
Keep them your own, always and
Forever your own, even as
Forever deflates and sags inward, a
Shadow of its former self

Reason, everything's about reason but to what
Ends, for what purpose and why?
A reason
Will not bring people together
A reason
Cannot solve a problem
A reason, a stupid ******* reason
Can't do much of anything at all

What is it for? What
Do we seek to justify somehow with this
Talk of talking we need
Three-dimensional speaking we need
Spheres of understanding not this
Circle we ride in silence without so much as a
Remark about the unchanging landscape

Fallacies will be present in all walks of life, hell
In every stone witnessed in all walks of life,
Hell,
Everywhere
And to dwell on them is to play the fool to
Succumb to defeat to rise above all we
Know and realize there is nothing else but
Cascading color waterfalls and this nub of
a pencil

Nothing crucial, no time for time when
It all is so vibrant, yet reflections adore
Our world because we invite them even
As we recognize the harm done, still welcome
Views built on the backs of the long dead and

Idealistic initial impressions of a
Flower before the wind steals it from the
Tangles of your hair and gifts pedals to
The breeze

When I think of you,
My Mind detaches my Heart from my Body.
It floats alone.
It teeters to the rhythm of the words you say.
It nests itself in the warmth between my legs,
When you say "I'm still hurt".
It elevates and rolls in front of me,
As if powered by hot air.
But it easily deflates like helium balloons,
To the point where it sits empty on the floor,
With its legs straight out in front,
Cracking its toes and rolling its ankles in confusion.
Sometimes my Heart stands on tip toes,
Reaches with fingertips extended,
Waiving at my Body,
Pleading for me to put it back in its place.  
But my Mind pays no mind to its advances.  
My Mind's ulterior motive is to divorce my heart,
To separate entirely.
To be completely distant entities.
They were once lovers,
Who've now found comfort in each other's pain.

A bag full of winds
Nothing ends or begins
I chose a direction
There is no correction
I just wander
Thoughts i ponder
I bathe myself in smells
I experience personal hells
I hear a child's cry
I see a woman die
I don’t know what i know
My wind does not blow
My bag deflates
I consider my fates
I realize all is fair in love and war
and its shaken me to the core
Love and war are in all things
With all the troubles they bring
I get back on my feet
I refuse to admit defeat
The sun still shines
On our impressionable minds

I watch humans fumbling to make a connection between the universe and our bodies, as if without their metaphors and poems likening birthmarks to galaxies, we would be two separate entities, a collection of particles that inhabit entirely detached spaces from one another. Truly, the connection is evident in far more than freckles that resemble specks of dust and planetary material; our skin is not just branded by our environment, but bloated by it.

We are made of mostly water.  We are oceans, our insides are swampy, and when we bleed, the sight is reminiscent of sunsets. There is a universe beneath our flesh, internally, like how we exist within the flesh of our universe.

I feel this connection most when I consider him. My body deflates into a cloudlike existence –soft, floating, pacified. His touch warms me, it calms me, it grounds me but in the sense that I am still free to kiss the stars, and my lips become soothing to them.

One of our final nights together, about midnight on Valentine’s Day, he took me to the beach and faced me in front of the ocean, stood me below a dome of astrology in the skies. Lucid blue from the constellations and water stretched for what seemed like days, all-encompassing me. But my eyes could not leave him, especially his mouth slipping into smiles, because somehow he appeared even more beautiful than the immensity of our earth enveloping me. He cradled me there, he lifted my dress, and still I felt warm against the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean in winter.

He is a dream, and he is an angel, and I believe he steals ornaments from the sky to gift to my heart so that I can feel as beautiful and as grand as all the universe combined.

I'm chewing on my thumb
and listening to ice
crackle and hiss
as it deflates.
"Melts."
Once,
you were an
artist swearing your
mistakes were your genius.
Now you are locked in
place and waiting for
some monster in
a fishtank to
manifest,
but you mailed
your change to some
shady place in Wisconsin
you saw in an advertisement
in a comic book from the
seventies, or eighties.
You've gone mad.
Everything else
suffers for it
and you
can't
see.

I can't have kids.
Now that I said it just please accept it.
I could lie to you and say I was in some sort of horrible accident that rendered me sterile.
I could lie and say his ***** is slower than fish swimming in a barrel.
I could lie and say we wish for such a miracle. but we don't.

at the end of the day my mind is rattling. in the morning it never wants to start. when I try to think about happiness then an arrow deflates my heart. nerves and worries are like sparrows nests in my head. i cry for those that lived, i cry for those that are dead, and i cry for myself because my mind has never tried producing enough chemicals to make me happy. it's not the run of the mill stuff, it's deep **** treading through and it is rough.

I see no reason to bring a kid into this place. If it were diabetes or heart problems people would respect my decision space. without children i feel no sadness. it's one less soul that doesn't have to see my mind's madness.

It’s a cerebral wanderlust
A trip through the Crown Chakra
Far lands casting deep rot iron ravines
Afoot sharp paper mountains

An endless dimly lit warehouse
A small party of long past relatives
Sit about and laugh
Just as a low laying tree branch appears
Through a small square
In an adobe wall

The faceless messenger arrives
With a piece of paper
That sings at stunning operatic levels
Then deflates to dust covered gardens
Growing laminated specters

Lace on her dress displays just so
Smile with eyes that pierce
Lips that pout
Curves that pulse fiercely
Dreams of boys rarely become real.

Here was one such being
In the moment of wanting
Delicate limbs with an amorous calling

He nervously approached her anxious
Then suddenly turns as words dissipate

This being of wonder recoils at his stance
Looking him foot to face
The eyes of two and souls meet
At this moment he can only feel heart beat

As her tongue curls to back of lip
She evokes to him greeting as only she could
Suddenly cooled, his body deflates
As she speaks with vile and venom

As so the boy learns
As many before
Facades seldom curtain ones beastly interior

It’s funny how when nothing matters the focus can wonder…

I thought so long about the world within a word,
I didn’t realize it was within it the whole time…

And the hole can be such an uneven thing;
swallowing up all (everything) that dares to get near,
or peer within,
without a fear...

And to just jump in without a care…

to turn back time and relive again,
or a consciousness that settles upon a thin lit mind
that tries and tries,
but can never look in,
for if it did it would go blind
to a reality
that never even treated it kindly
to begin with anyway.

So death creeps in,
from within…

But the gathering,
who's so far down
in the blackest of black layers,
finds it can’t go down any further.

It’s fabric has gathered such a mass
that no more thoughts can get passed the openings grasp
and so the whole begins to pop,
like a bubble whose air has stopped,
and deflates back out and in
with all the flaws that turned out not to be flaws at all,
for all the folds get stretched flat
and rejoins everything...

‘Everything?!

Hey!

That’s actually me.’

And so it goes on until another hole is found
to go down,
but not to worry you see…

*You are actually
also me.

Chest heaving and full,
air stretching your skin into a thin paper sheet.

A moment where you avoid your reflection,
until every piece of clothing is peeled off,
the cover cascading into silky wrinkles on the ice tile.

A moment when you finally meet your voided gaze.
eyes hardened,
decided, as your hands work through the memory.

A moment you dig into the thin paper until the fuel in your chest deflates,
red exudes and pools.

There is a moment when only pain matters,
the sting taking over and dulling your senses.
-A Moment like nothing else.

as humans we have
two legs to carry us
if we break one we can still hop around

two eyes so we can see
even if we damage one

two lungs
and we can still breath if one deflates

two ears so we can hear
even if you become deaf in one

then why do we not have two hearts
for when someone breaks our heart

As i open the door, the living room deflates. I force myself forward. Taking a seat somewhere between my strong will and constant search of comfort. You smell like stale popcorn and feel like an uneased sympathy pat on the back. I remember the excitement which once lived here in the space next to me.  Its memory almost evaporated into a musk that barely lingers. I remember the coos and awes and sounds of admiration now air bubbles trapped beneath frozen surface. Each moment passing, an empty exchange watching gravity ****** sand from my lifes hour glass. Leaving my soul to crave affection as you snore and i absorb the television screen.
The difference of distance, inches yet worlds away

Whenever I say something you ignore me
Whenever I do something you hurt me
Whenever I think something you yell at me
I have had enough
If you don’t like how I am then leave
I do things how I want
If you don’t approve
I don’t care
I do what I want
You say that you care
But actions speak louder than words
You of all people should know that
Your the one that drilled it in me
So quit yelling
Quit hitting
Quit hurting me
Even if you don’t see,
I need you to know
How much you hurt me
Every time you yell
Hit
Hurt
I just can’t take anymore
I’m sorry
But it’s true
Whenever you yell,
I flinch
Whenever you ignore me
My spirit deflates
Whenever you hit
I take it
But it HURTS that you would hurt me
And I don’t know what to do now