You aren't the first to walk these roads.
These lonely, gravel trails  covered in broken glass and nails.
Every time a rickety car breaks down and fails
it leaves it's wreck along the side of highway,
just watching the traffic pass them by.
They are monuments to every effort we have made and given up on.
They are why you MUST try.

Whether you live in a town or a city,
there are going to be some pretty ****** moments in life.
It takes a lot of strife to get a small amount of satisfaction
but the chain reaction
of doubts and down 'n' outs
is drowned out by the radio static and
I don't mean to sound dramatic but
I understand.

I just want you to know
you're not going to go on your own this time.
Every moment spent crying is time that could better spent trying.
If I told you I don't have these moments,
well, I'd be lying.
Because I've felt the color drain from my face
as I try to remember the last place I left my courage
because it's not at arm's reach this time.
Sneers and eyerolls draw spirals around me
like I'm at ground zero of an M.C Escher painting.

I can rephrase suffering so many ways.
But at this pace, I still can't outrun my own thoughts.
I find my courage at last
but there is no sticking place to ***** it to,
so I just say "***** it."
I can't say I knew it would end this way,
but if all this poem comes down to
is a whiny teenager trying to be edgy
than I guess I...

I never mean to be that guy,
But every time a friend uses another friend's Facebook,
The go-to gag will be a status saying "I'm gay," with
Eyeroll emoticons and LOLs promptly following.
Giggles and pointed fingers echo off the walls and
Into the ears of the suffering silent.

Those two words used as punchlines are the heirs,
The progeny of a past bathed in blood.
They are words weighted down by chains linked with laughs
And locked by the smiles and eyerolls.
The free ones revel in the fire baptismal they impress upon
Those left chained to the wall in the shadows.

Like children, they delight in the minor sting of the fireball that destroys those they mock.
Eyes sparkle and smiles flash at the fictional thrill that entertains them and murders the ones who dare to speak.
Their drums beat as the celebrate the chic
Game they get to play--playing Chicken with a train that isn't there
While others are strapped to the tracks by their shadows,
The darkside of the dance.

Songs and howls fill the skies and mix with the screams of the tortured to put the icing on
Their twisted fandango--a brilliant spectacle to distract from the cries for help;
A spectacle as brilliant as the screens of their phones as they type the jokes stained with sadness:
"I'm gay LOL haxored," with the laughs following
At the circus, while miles away a boy sobs into his sheets,
The cold stars his only company.

You hate my poems
You say they take me from you
that they're pointless
a waste of time
maybe you're right.
You read them,
just the words as they fall,
and say you get nothing
just syllables.
I have lost count
of the sighs and eyerolls,
the you have no talents,
they sit in a memory box
along with the times you've asked me to stop.
Stop.
Just like that.
Stop pouring myself onto paper,
Stop looking for beauty in darkness,
Stop healing.
You prefer me broken, fragile, dependant,
the girl you took from nowhere to god knows where
a once pretty, broken thing
to hang silently from your arm
while you talk proudly of the soul that you saved.
You fear that my writing will end us.
I fear that my stopping will end me.

In the most quiet voice possible while still being heard
Whisper to yourself a secret out loud, and with a smile.
Please, let it be your own, and not one you've kept for another.
Don't break a promise on my account.

Now, breathe. As if you weren't before-- good, like that.
Do you hear that now? Has the loudness returned to sound?
What was the secret? Not specifics, give me broad themes.
Did it involve a regret, something to have been done and not said?

Your secrets are mine, too. We share them now.
For what paupers we are we are rich in schemes.
Pathological lovers, and our smiles wider than opened meadows.
They might flood this town one day, turn it into a lake.

Did you forget to say, 'I love you'
You shake your head, your mouth quirks.
Eccentric lips kissed to heed a platitude.
Are you breaking up with me?

Why does hope feel restless and final,
does that feeling make sense the way I described?
Is it the contemporary nervousness known as anxiety?
Do you know a healthy person? Are they nice people?

Are you still with me? Willing to listen and reply,
Follow through on my few dictations with glee.
Now that I have your attention it's the last thing I want.
Everything I desire is meant to be unprompted.

If that's true then why did I leave my own surprise birthday?
Oh. Because it's an annual occurrence. There's nothing spontaneous in an anniversary.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse? How related are the two words?
It's legal to marry your first cousin where I'm from, but we don't talk about that.

Sorry, I'm back. To the whispered secrets again, yes.
But, alright, hold on, I think I have something here for myself.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse?
Do we lose choice if we're influenced, or ill? Only if you're cited a 5150.

Lost the thread, and mine, too. I'm sorry, this was meant to be for you.

Forgot what I was saying, can you repeat the last thing back to me?
No, before this and that, before I went quiet.
Right. Yeah. I remember now. I'm tired, get the **** out.
But don't leave me, please.

---------------

Morning, darling. Did you sleep well? Were your dreams strange?
Sorry to cut you off, I'd like nothing more than to listen, but I also have images,
the likes from which I cannot wake. Didn't Joyce make a similar remark,
No, his was about history. Am I a plagiarist for having ever read?

Neanderthalic poets were the best, I don't care for their new verses as much.

Brush the slept hair from your face because I saw it in a movie once.
Am I cliche for repetition? Pretentious for lowering myself in the lake
to see the creatures nipping at my toes? I didn't see anything down there.
It's too dark.

"Got a light?"
Scoffing a denial like I'm a better man. It's 2017, who even smokes anymore?
My thoughts are the myriad of flaws in my personality. Each one a used **** ******.
Adrenalinic joy pulsed into a tight fit devoid of any semblance of human contact.
That's my way of saying I hate myself, and the thoughts I think.
"Be happy. Smile more. Travel the world."
So I can be depressed in Egypt with more wrinkles in the old age I didn't want to reach?
This actress has phenomenal range. Who is she again? No, the brunette.

Who gives a **** about a blonde anymore?
I'd like to see her deliver some of my written lines, if you catch my drift.
No, I actually want her to play this character I've been writing.
Is my libido tarnished, or am I still recovering from an assault that only exists in my mind?

Stop talking, you're drowning out my favorite part.
Sorry, nevermind, we lost the station. Look, the state line.
White noise and static. I don't know the radio outside of town.
Why aren't we listening from our phones? I needed the nostalgia to feel bad about my choices.

Yes, it worked. It always does. Kissing cousins get found out,
and I wear my impulses as a tattoo sleeve. That is as scarred wounds on my forearms.
And thighs.
And once my neck, but it healed clean as an only slightly lighter shade of skin.
It took two weeks to heal. The grief from having to continually hide it kept me feeling fine.
Maybe I need to lie, more.
This isn't a picnic for me either. Implying picnics are worthwhile events and not cornerstones of an America that was painted into existence by Norman Rockwell.
The irony of hobos using the same red and white sheets to bundle their lives
as the ones used to create a slice of Americana cheaper than the cardboard cutout
apple pies at your local grocer. Is that even ironic?

**** the bourgeoise. Said a white teen.
Where dead end roads are called cul-de-sacs.
No, I won't judge this family further for your smug confirmation bias.
They are good people and you don't deserve them.
Who cares if dad is an accountant, or that mom is a criminal defense lawyer?
That daughter is addicted to the dopamine of comments and likes.
That son is a *** addict in training, and his next week's girlfriend will regret her nights spent.
Which one is worse? Let's dissect their lives.

They didn't choose their station. Or when it'd all turn to static and scratches.
"Change the station. Turn the dial."
To what? It's all white noise and radio signals, and it's being cut down through the air.
The density of space is frightening.
Did you know neutrinos don't interact with matter in the ways that a photon does?

Oh yeah, tell me about your dreams. I think I've calmed myself enough to nod my head,
with a crooked smile that barely shows my teeth. This is my listening expression.
It worked on our first date when I pretended to be interested in your major and we ****** after
bad garlic bread and cheaper wine. You weren't easy, neither was I.
But we had a fever together and needed to sweat out our impurities.

You told me to take the ****** off. Didn't even know I put one on.
What a minx you were, -- oh, right, your dream. So, what happened when you opened the door?
Oh. You woke up? But, wait, what was behind the door? Where did it lead? Was it locked?
Who directed you to the door, the concierge from that hotel we stayed at during our trip to--
Where was that again? Didn't that guy have a mustache, though? You said the one in your dream--
Yeah, right, of course, I'm sorry.

She brushes her hair before bed. Puts on this mask that smells of avocado.
Tastes nothing like it. Yes, I tried it. Twice. I've huffed kerosene with better flavour.
Oh, it's very bold, has legs. It'll swirl in your nasal cavity for days after you breathe it in,
if you breathe in deep enough. What's the point of getting a shallow high?
Now I think I'm getting somewhere, I desire depth.

Sorry, what were you saying?
Oh. You are leaving me? But the cheap Italian dinners we had.
I think you're overreacting, that doesn't sound right.
Okay, yeah, but. No, I mean-- well, no, there's-- No, but.
Fine.
I'm fine. I'm sorry.

Where did it go wrong? I should have known when she wanted me raw.
Nobody sane wants that from me. Maybe it was when I told her I hated her mother.
She hates that ***** too, the **** am I thinking? Clearly it was when I forgot
the tea she bought from the yearly festival in the hay maze.
We sought to get lost.

Maybe it wasn't a one thing, but the overall of these events.
Occurrences accumulate, and memories carry over into the next day.
Like when she woke first after our supposed one night stand,
and instead of quietly creeping from my bed, which I woke to expect
the lukewarmness of knowing there were two, instead she laid there and watched me sleep.
That bothered me to no end, because in my dreams I have no say in how I look.
What if my brows were comically arched, or expressed an emotion I wasn't feeling.
What if she saw the twitch I took a year during middle school to correct after I was teased.
I failed, a decade of quiet self-ridicule for a muscle that took it upon itself to act without thought--
"Did you know your cheek sometimes droops down as if you've suffered a stroke?"
No, I didn't know that, I've only lived with my face as long as I've known you so I appreciate your observations.
Still, I smiled, and pulled her closer without the thought of gravity.
Now she was letting me go.

We need to unify and get to the root of the problem.
There are four main forces in nature;
electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravitational.
The crux is the unity of conventional with quantum. We don't understand gravity
as it works in a world that relies on thought experiments and metaphor to be
perceived by the general public.
**** the Copenhagen interpretation.

So, she woke up and watched me sleep. She stayed with me in bed and we did nothing but
cure ourselves of sicknesses we had yet to ever diagnose. She asked me where I got my scars.
With the gleam of a subtle sadist she traced them with her fingertips, then her lips.
What a peculiar woman. Why did she ever agree to marry me?
Wait-- no, why is she leaving me is what I should be asking.
Is it the baldness? Doubtful, she's who told me to shave it off in college when it went premature.
She found other places to dig her fingers into me. She was resourceful.
Why is this in the past tense, she's left me, not died.

Why am I feeling surprise when I've anticipated her dislike for me since we shared a Cabernet
I mispronounced when ordering. Why do I only reflect on the one dinner when we had hundreds?
We still have that old bottle. I bought the whole **** thing at the time not knowing you could
purchase by the glass. Looking back I wonder if she took that as a sign, that I wanted her drunk
to ****. Or did she sense my mistake and instead embolden me with the scaffolding needed to
keep up the facade of my crumbling masculinity?

As we got older together we poured more expensive wines into that bottle. It was a whole ordeal.
Every single time, from one bottle to another poured down a slide, which at first we made from stock paper, but then she saw a funnel in the store. We called it our little slide of heaven,
and down came manna.
Even during dinners where we had friends over, their pretensions worse than mine,
we'd simulate an uncorking of a better wine with an app on our phones.
You can download a lot of different sounds.
Our old Cabernet was a twist off.
And we'd see the eyerolls, and pour them a finger less than the rest. Romance deserves alcohol.
And the romantic need it most.

We wrote our own vows. For our marriage, that is, and we renewed them every two years.
We agreed to do that years before the idea of marriage was anything more than a thing
we told ourselves to comfort each other in the idea that the future is anything worth pursuing.
*******, how did we ever make it out of ours 20s with the thoughts we shared?
You crooned to me, once, it was this night where we had walked down to the playground a short half mile from your apartment. I mean, sure, we went there a lot, but this night was different.
Even you agreed the wind blew in a direction that felt strange. We couldn't figure out why
our scarves were billowing in our faces-- do you remember how you tore yours from your neck?
And with all the punctuation of an engagement ring being thrown at the accused you threw
the scarf I bought for you after a three week deliberation on whether the fabric blend would make you itch or if the colour I chose would clash instead of match whatever it was you wore, and it got caught in the wind without the embrace of your beautiful neck and we watched in the dim quiet
of a streetlight glow as the scarf disappeared into the rest of whatever was that way during night.

It took entire moments after we watched it go for either of us to speak. You crooned, like a kettle on a hob, or the hungry moans of a wolf scavenging the last remnants of life in the world, your regret for what you did. You apologized to me, and almost fell to your knees from passion
for your plea. Asking to be forgiven by me.
As if I cared about the money, or the colour. I only worried about your neck and decolletage.
It was cold, and a half mile is a long way to walk without a scarf when you expected to have one.

Instead of giving you mine we shared the one I wore.
Praise Solomon for the nuclear family, because to him divorce meant separation.
So we engineered a response to either of us being a have-not and we became socialists.
You didn't even have a toothbrush at my place, and the only thing we shared was an enjoyment
for ******* with people. Yet, wrapped as mummies in a romantic comedy we stumbled as nervous kids in a three-legged race back home.
Home. Where it was to us then. Your second floor, four bedroom apartment. Or my town house, whose rent was cheaper from a grad student's suicide the semester before.
I lived alone, because I'd tell gullible people stories of ghosts.
You helped me with the idea when I was afraid of having a roommate move in.
They left in tears. We laughed, and proceeded to **** on the floor where he died.
At least, I think it was a he. Is that sexist of me?

"Anybody can **** in a graveyard." I said for pillowtalk,
and that subtle sadism came back to your eyes, and it parted your lips.
But you never said a word.

How about the time.
Remember when?
Of course you do, you were the second billing in the same film as me.
But of course you've made a decision. Who am I to disagree?
Is this the part of the script where I fall to my knees?
Will it count if it's not done as earnestly as I actually feel?
Roleplay always excited me, but did you take my fetish too far by pretending to love me all this time?
I didn't want you to change.
But we grew older together. You barely aged, and I swear you got taller.
Idyllic and ideal, the small town feel of a front porch. And back yard.
Is your Eden elsewhere, Eve? Tell me and we'll leave. I swear to you we'll be okay.
That was something I told you anytime you were upset at something more serious than not.
Anytime you were actually in need, and not only wanting more attention.
It's weird how we come to sense the others in our lives. The conformity of time spent together.
Boarding schools make kids gay. I never knew you, did I?
Of course I did. If not, you're a remarkable actress. You should come to a casting session I'm holding.
In this fantasy I'm a ****** Hollywood producer with enough money to front confidence, and enough debt to break two knees. Meanwhile, in the time before I end up presumed missing and buried shallow in a desert somewhere, I go around and **** the fresh from Kansas teenage girls that get off the Greyhound around the corner from my house.
My ******* God. You're so ******* tight. Jesus ******* Christ.
Sometimes I'd use your actual name in the moment, too heated to remember my own direction.
Take two.
Three.
That's a wrap, we're finished for the day. Until dusk then, my love.

"Oh my god, hon. I was kidding." And she kissed my cheek.
"You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. Plus, the divorce laws in this state are ****.
I wouldn't get anything from you."
You smiled wide and stared at me in expectation.
"Yeah, of course, I knew that."
Why did I feel as if I had been drowned?
Why did that feeling keep me buoyant?
I'm sorry.

I always imagined
My future
My dreams
My Curses and Peace
My Falls and Wings
My tears both warm and cold
My smiles both cold and warm
My eyerolls and shrugs
My warm coffee and cold teas
I always imagined
Scenes of future and past
A river a rabbit and a tree
A carpet of grass and mewling river
An old yellow shrivelled leaf falling
Sun soaking my mind
I always imagined

The voice that speaks the language of my bones.
It tunes the strings of the orchestra my words
And so it plays a ballad so sweet , of my past memories and paths I have yet to foresee
In the paint of tears , of joy and despair , it paints  pictures that I must bear
No facades and veiled lies can scrub or mask the truth of this gallery of my own

This soul of mine an artist and a thief
To steal what I hold dear , what I so tediously have hidden
It unravels the string of shrugs , eyerolls and sarcasm
And publicises my diary of things I swore never to reveal

He wakes up every morning, wondering whether or not his world will spin out of control. His ears have what feels like water in them, but he says that he cannot swim. Every day you’re with him, you watch him carefully, hoping he will not stumble about, grasping at the air hopelessly as he crashes to the ground. You sit on the porch with him even though it’s too hot because “It’s one of the only things I can enjoy these days”. You glance at him every now and then, watching him as his closed eyelids flutter because he’s trying to make the world stand still. You watch him scrunch up his nose, one identical to his daughter’s, as he tries to listen to everything around him. He doesn’t hear the annoying Katydid bugs or cars driving by right in front of him. He can only hear his favorite song enough to realize it’s his favorite. Sometimes, unless you speak up, he cannot hear you. No matter how hard he listens. Some days are worse than others, but hardly any of the days are good. He’s been to so many men in the white doctor’s coats, and none of them have really shed helpful light. “Meniere's Disease” one of them finally said.  



There was a time he didn’t need a cane. A time he never asked you to repeat the words you had said. That man was full of joy and hope, escaping his depression since his daughter had been born. He weathered incredible things and wore his loving smile well. His daughter has always been his priority and his entire world. He’d spend days upon days teaching her right from wrong, which sandwiches are best, how to smile in the prettiest way, and how to have a kind heart like her dad. “Don’t you let anyone make that pretty smile disappear” he’d always say, and so she never did. He taught her everything he thought a young girl should know: boys are icky, you always dress to hide your skin, remember that you’re pretty. Always smile at people, even the ones you do not know or like. Don’t ever hate, because that’s not right. He cherished her and the little amounts of time they spent together before she went home to her momma.  



His little girl isn’t so little anymore and he’s having a hard time with that. If it weren’t for the spinning, the falling, and the ringing in his ears, he might not care as much. It’s like everything is being taken from him and he has no say in what goes. He told his daughter, who hates the Katydid bugs, to never hate them or to not say it aloud. He could not hear them at all and probably never would again. “Hearing loss has increased in the right ear. It’s twice as bad as it was the last time you were here.” He never loved barely hearing the doctors say that. “There’s no cure, but this medicine might help make it tolerable.” The medicines never did.



“I won’t go to work because I need to be in the state with you and our daughter.” He said this to his wife, ex-wife. They’ve been divorced since the daughter was 4. He stayed home and watched after his growing daughter, as she was too young for school and momma brought home a very decent paycheck. He stayed at home because it seemed right, because he wanted to. He enjoyed his time off.



He’s unemployed now. He found a new wife with a kind heart and warm laugh. She works, he does not. He feels guilty about the responsibility all falling on her, but he can’t do much. His boss told him to not return to his job. If he fell and bumped his head, he wasn’t under their insurance. But he doesn’t like to talk about that.  



He loves to go fishing. “Go fishing every chance you get, it’s good for you!” is what he always said to anybody that cared to listen. He would fish until there were no fish left to be caught. He’d walk the riverbanks and wade out into the cool water so as if to fully submerge himself in the experience. His eyes would glisten in a way that told everyone at the breakfast table just how excited he was to reel in that bass. It was 22 inches long. He’d display little hints of a smile as his father would then share a fishing story of his own. His fish was always bigger. Everyone would laugh around the table while they ate breakfast, and all was well. The girls would exchange eyerolls and smiles all the same when fishing was the topic Sunday after Sunday. They all loved talking about it, no matter how repetitive.



He doesn’t go fishing much anymore. He can’t keep his balance on the slippery rocks that he has to climb. “That’s where the good fish are.” he’d say time and time again. He can’t hear the warning of a storm when he’s sitting on the lake in his metal boat. He can’t even hardly see to thread his hook onto the line because “My arms aren’t quite long enough,” and his sight was fading. Unrelated to his disease, but a setback all the same. Things were being taken from him; he has no say in what goes.  



He wakes up every morning, hoping for an alarm clock’s ringing instead of the ringing in is ears. He stirs in bed, wondering whether his world will spin out of control. He wakes up and stumbles out of bed, hoping and praying that his hearing is all he loses that day. Hoping that his balance, his family, and his smile can stay strong. There’s one thing he can’t stand from all of this. He’s losing everything and he has no control, no say, in what goes.

there's no good
in loving you

there's no use
in looking back

I think I'm over
I'm pass that

you were my favorite spiral
so lost

I remember checking the time
making sure you were awake

the pain of missing you
of loving you

lots of eyerolls
from my friends

now you're an embarrassing
memory

you were right
I'll find someone else

I can find another replica of you
if I tried

you're not so special now

intrusive thoughts of you
you're no good