Today I took a walk down memory lane
With some people from my past.
Your name never came up
But your shadow haunted every
Turn in conversation and we did our best
To ignore it.
In fact we did our best to pretend
That your existence was not real,
But then someone mentioned,
"Hey remember that time we...."
And flashbacks of suppressed visions
Of things I had hoped to never see again
Simply because they're not important
To who I am now
Flooded my stream of consciousness
And I chose to think of you.
To think of that time in that place
Where we did that thing....
And the more I think about it
The fuzzier it becomes.
I can't quite picture
The people, the room, the music,
The embarrassment, the shame, the guilt,
The utter ridiculousness of it all.
And the harder I try to grasp at the edges
Of the fraying memory
To bring it back into something whole,
Something vivid and full,
The darker and slipperier it gets.
And suddenly it dawns on me
Why it was easy to forget in the first place:
It just doesn't matter.
Who you were, who I was,
What you did, what I did,
Just doesn't matter
So what's the point in remembering?
Today I took a walk down memory lane
But decided it was far more enjoyable
To make a u-turn and walk
Away from you again.

Serving up poetry like ***** and ginger ale
(with a ***-soaked crook and a big fat laugh),
the anti slow-soul-erosion antidote to...normality

way up ‘high’ on a ledge, overlooking the mountain range,
got my Stetson on, canteen full of ***** and ginger ale,
matches in my pocket, Chris Stapleton in my ears, and
a *** soaked blunt between my lips to get even hi-higher

a big fat laugh crosses my lips, creases my face, it’s time
to lean up against that big tree, light myself up, strategize,
how to get even higher, how to get down, how to do both
simultaneously, at the same time, without dying too slowly

the sunrise cheats, clods of plain ugly clouds covered it up,
i know it’s on account of me accumulating, stuff, bad poems,
delayed gratification of not confronting the situational, at the
cellular level, though the intersection with macro-international
clusters of men destructing their corner of the world surely
ain’t helping, but the drip into veins cools the paining’s ardor

the woman is edgy, debating if it’s that time, to give up, to snap
that towel across her face like a forgotten hotel wake up call request,
should-she take the truck and go visit her sister in Ashtabula
for a week of *******’ and staying longer, a couple of years more,
and me muse what i recall from living alone, and how it was easier
and so much harder that the shakes begin but that don’t stop,
but adjust the *****/ginger ale ratio, and things seem fuzzier
and for that I am eternally grateful for the miracle of potato
distillation

could do much more additive, but you don’t got the patience
like I do, so, forgive in advance and here’s hoping that maybe

someday you’ll learn this craft and the  extreme patience it
requires, how to savor a word, its conjunction with the one that
comes before and after, the combinations that make a verse, a stanza
sobering beautiful that it robs your breathtaking sensors, a scar minder to, for god sakes, ****! **** that trip to trite, give us something to shout about,

exhale on the moraine morass, that’s the other side of, yup, over
the rainbow that landed on the peak, cause a peek, is just the start of a trip downwards sloping doggy on my hands and knees and yeah, i’m drunker than I care to deny so I’ll head back down, or roll down, to find out what my next adventure will take, maybe I’ll chase after her,

and fall on her neck with sorries, sorrows, and kisses, besides,
now that I’m done, the sun decides to show a couple of cracks
and that’s some kind of of sign to wrap this sonata up and try a
new fugue, letting its contrapuntal composition tune cleanse me
and
save the day, and a corner of the world, hell it could even spread
like somethings good, successful  counter terrorism, zero shootings in New York and Chicago, forget, yeah, what they call that?  oh yeah,
peace on earth.

just maybe.

The coffee was too sweet as I mentally sketched a blueprint for each sentence I hope to speak. My tongue eagerly bounced between the most eloquent wordings to express thoughts that even you probably know are too complex for me.

I firmly grasped my the frigid mason jar, afraid that the same twilight that illuminated all the right parts of your face and highlighted your rogues strands of hair like golden thread would be enough to knock me from my seat. If I explained that, would it be romantic?

I pondered whether geeky comedy could be my niche. Decided against it. My hands grew colder from icy condensation and hesitation.

Every calculated consonant passing through your lips becomes fuzzier as i balance my focus so you don't notice how distracting you are. I struggle to pretend this is effortless for me, too.

I wished with each passing moment that I weren't one moment closer to death, one less moment sipping sugary coffee in your company.

I wished each passing moment elapsed quicker. my coffee is dwindling, the lump in my throat is a landform in of itself.

Though I'd rather babble about the universe and love, history and life, your small talk captivated me. Vowel after vowel. Of ambient noise, you could compose symphonies, your stare a screenplay, of simple Walmart trips, novels.

Of me, I'm but the fly on the wall in a fleeting moment of daylight in a rocky chair in a café in a day of your life upon which I couldn't even confess that I think about you more than the universe and history and life and coffee. Until you know that, I'll see you next time and we'll order the coffee black.

I miss the way your eyes used to sparkle
Glinting with starlight and summer
Dust swirls around your auburn locks
Uplifting rosy tendrils
Dancing around your head
like fire crackling and sparking embers
Igniting the view

Leaves turn crimson
Along with your heartbeat
Pumping blood through infinitesimal connection
Of veins and arteries
Running deep along with the roots
Sleeping dormant underneath beds of leaves
Yearning to resurface
Germinate beauty

Winds blow free
Whistling through the night
Chilling what's left of our bones
Provoking
trees to shed their only cover
Castaways left abandoned
Scattered over a once fertile ground
Harvested gems ****** dry
To meet their fate of crumpled defeat

Shadows grow thick
Hanging heavy in the air
They seem to be draped over things
And follow your footsteps wherever you tread
Looming over you throughout the night
Along with taunts and cackles of phantoms
Darkness is coming

crystallized rain a washing the world with blankets of ice
Creating dreamy snowscapes
A mystical wonderland
as if everything slows to a stop
It seems so ethereal
My mind loses feeling
giving way to a perpetual numbness
As we all fall asleep
dreaming of morning dew coating meadows
before ice brought the cold along with its tears

Light continues to dim
Letting a fuzzier coat of blue paint the sky
Silhouettes block out the warmth
The last remnants of sun
Fading away with the vibrancy and laughter of autumn
Leaving a meek replacement of what could have been

And a longing to break free of this frozen apathy
That glaciates our hearts

I tasted a lingering shot of ****** *****
on my tongue
before my mouth tasted
the rest of the night.
I pretended that I was
much drunker than I was
because I thought that would
make it easier,
less painful.
I gave myself a pep talk
and should've understood
that nothing wanted
needs convincing.
I've suppressed the act so much
in my subconscious
that I only remember it in flashes,
like a slow motion replay of a life-ending
car accident you'd see in a movie.
In some ways,
that scened ended me;
the world was fuzzier
than it had been the night before,
when I woke up no longer wearing
my agency.
The normalcy with which I picked myself up
from the dingy navy couch
was underwhelming
and haunting all at once.
I left with my dress and my shame clinging to me,
fearing not for myself
or how I had said no so many times before,
but instead that
giving it all still wasn't enough for you;
losing myself,
unraveling my soul wasn't worth
what I thought it would sell for.
All I saw was
the satisfaction that I had given that didn't satisfy you.

An emptied shell;
you took it all,
and I've been hollow ever since.

The room
sideways
Clutter
Dust
Carpet smells of *****
Eyes close
Room goes black
Pause
Eyes open
Light is dimmer now
Fuzzier
Naked
Curve of the shoulder
A question mark
Lost
Askew
Her body shuts down
Spit dribbles
Eyes dry
Breath Crawls
like a turtle
Blood pools around her head
A halo of purity
serenity
Time has come