(In some semblance of order)

(1967 to 1975)

kittens
carpet burns
fear
WGN presents “One-Eyed Jacks” starring Marlon Brando
my grandmother’s basement
slaps from my mother
fear
kicks from my father
fear
Nerf basketball
10CC “I'm Not in Love”
fear

(1976 to 1980)

sunny, cool, fall days
the woods on Sundays
tall green grass
raised red seams on a baseball
fear
Tickle Pink wine
the smell of hashish
the buzz of high tension wires
Stroh's beer, pull tab tall boys
the woods at night
the breeze through the car window
her breath in my ear
fear

(1981 to 1988)

“Footloose” starring Kevin Bacon
Michelob Light in bottles
extra spicy guacamole
fear
“Members Only” black jacket
para mutual wagering
*******
4 seam fastball
fear
the garlic taste of Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO)
a 91 mph fastball
Feldene dissolved in Dimethyl Sulfoxide and applied to my skin via a tongue depressor
my 93.5 mph fastball
the roar of the crowd
fear
October
the swirling light and sound of a west Texas freight train at night in fog
Jesus Christ
fear

(1989 to 1999)

the anticipation of child #1
the birth of child #2
6 hours of uninterrupted sleep after child #3
an 8mm obstructed kidney stone
fear
morphine
fear
Vicodin
fear
sunny, cool, fall days
“The Road Less Traveled” by M Scott Peck
hydrocodone
fear
the woods in fall
thunder
******
fear
the woods in winter
the rumble of Niagara Falls
******
fear
Oxycontin
shame
******
fear
“Ruthless Trust” by Brennan Manning
the woods in spring
The Stanley Cup
fear

(2000 to 2004)

detox
nostalgia of my youth
photos of my children as children
hydrocodone
detox
fear
Jose Cuervo silver tequila
sunny, cool, spring days
Major League Baseball opening day
Jose Cuervo Gold tequila
fear
Chinaco Reposado tequila
the stench of pavement
Gran Patron tequila
the heat of pavement
Herradura Anejo tequila
detox
hydrocodone
fear
Marca Negra Mezcal
detox
AA meetings
Oxycontin
fear
Alice in Chains “Down in a Hole”
detox
nostalgia for opiates
fear

(2005 to 2007)

AA meetings
Camel 99's
her infidelity
fear
photos of my children as children
Camel 99's
the sweet, sweet voice of Martin Sexton
AA meetings
shame
regret
fear
Suboxone
regret
shame
fear

(2008 to 2010)

the tenderness of your touch
a king size memory foam mattress
the tenderness of your touch
Amerique Verte Absinthe
fear
discussions with the dead
the tenderness of your touch
Ray Lamontagne “Winter Birds”
the tenderness of your touch
ablution by Amerique Verte Absinthe
fear
visions of the dead
fear
visits from the dead

(2011 to 2014)

their forgiveness
AA meetings
Camel 99's
my inability to sleep
fear
www.hellopoetry.com
the tenderness of your touch
the tenderness of your touch
the tenderness of your touch
the tenderness of your touch
fear
Centenario Reposado tequila
regret
Tramadol in large amounts
regret
thoughts of you leaving me
thoughts of me being left alone
thoughts of you being left alone
regret

nothing
nothing
nothing

the words I have just written

darkness

fear

There is no floor
Below the water there is sand and dust
My feet disappear below the mist
And below that is a floor of nothing.

Lock and key, relative conductivity
Separation of anxieties
Generally elementary
Universal energy
Scientific inquiry
Empirical discovery

What a bunch of crap.

I bathe in fake white plastic
I swim in silent smiles
Dionysian warfare paintings
Classical textual narrating

Fitness, happiness, soporific movies
Genial tendencies, braced for ingenuity
Waiting for a paroxysm to bring forth neologisms
That test the boundaries of scientific truth
That recapture the errant minds of youth
We could make new buildings or lose a tooth

I hold the latter higher than that
I tilt the ladder there and back
Assiduous and wont, *** for tat
All a game, a joke at that
Your domain, provoked and trapped
Impressionistic spinal taps
On canvases of green and black
All from within cerebral shacks

Wind hammers palm trees on windowpanes
Wind tears down houses, rips apart planes
Wind doesn't move me, yet seems urbane
It's so jejune, it's all the same
I'm tired and lonely, powder remains
Pink like reagents in reactive flames
Quick like catalysts jumping inane
Frontal lobes retired my brain.

Hydrocodone®
Lipitor®
Zithromax®
Zocor®

Zoloft®
Prozac®
Ambien®
­Fosamax®

Coumadin®
Klonopin®
Neurontin®
Naproxen®

Simvastatin
A­lbuterol
Glucophage
Metoprolol

I am hurting
on my knees
Can't afford
any of these!

when i met you,
i was drizzled dreaming
puddled potential
melted rebellion
under tulsa summer sky
you and i
had barely begun
i broke my arm
grinding rusted rails
new faces in the hall
feel like free hydrocodone
everyone here is so hip
and i'm so alone

so i'll kick push my way to your backyard
that first night there was acid tripping on your freshly painted walls
i didn't know anyone who had so many friends all at once
red cups in your backyard
i saw her tucked on your arm
and i had no reason to stare
we didn't know each other
except from the days
i watched you on stage
vinyl walls didn't confine you
months later, you were still on my mind
craving eye contact
there was always a subconscious
that imagined what our days would look like

caught up, we lost each other for a while
whirlwinds of lost emotion
and low self esteem
that make oklahoma tornados feel like breeze
i'm so sorry
that he spoiled every part of me that was worth keeping
white washed clean cut bleached feelings
he said
love
isn't a feeling
its a combination of chemicals
it's your choice to stay with me
losing my identity
inside of dark muffled pop punk concerts
i can't decipher my feelings under all of this low screaming
but
being with you, is as easy as breathing
you sound so different
than the music i wanted so badly to fall in love with
the other day you compared me to your guitar
and i felt more infinite than ever before
sessions on your un-soundproofed floors
i kept getting lost
i could watch you pick for days
entranced in everything
that comes as easy to you
as breathing
i didn't want to, but i kept leaving
and you were always there
with a red cup on your lawn
i started to dream
of being the girl tucked on your arm

that night at the bonfire
he faded away
i stayed awake for you
blurred kisses dizzy trips
but all of it still made sense
blacked out by the lake
told myself it was a mistake
disguised desire
trying to deny that you were the
only one worth waiting for
and i prayed to god you would wait for me
that you wouldn't lose faith
in my train wreck of a psyche
that you always managed
to help me forget about
just for the night,
when it came down to it
you bring more light to my eyes
than the warmth from my sheets
stained useless
from long nights and lost mornings
i couldnt explain why
you kept drifting into dreams

it was always you
i kept running back to

when we got together, i was puddled promises
i promise we were nothing but a chemical experiment
of different personalities
mixed together polar opposites
I'm sorry
you deserve so much better
but you were never my second choice
or a last resort
it just took a thunderstorm
to finally see the sunshine
you
are my moonshine,
everything i dreamt love should be like
i'll ride for miles in your honda odyssey
bonnie and clyde
we can be rebels to the third degree
ride down riverside like we always do
in the sunday sun
your hand in mind, keeping me young
we'll play music make up words as we go along
we write our own songs
to the chest beats and high tops
lost heart to heart
lets forget every one

you and me it's purple skies
and late school nights

one song plays in my mind
about your green eyes
and his eyes were blue
i guess i forgot the order
of the rainbow
because this entire time
it should have been you

when you leave for college,
you'll be
drizzled dreaming
melted potential
under the tulsa summer skies
countless high nights
low notes and full flights
and it's going to be so hard to let you go
and to let you chase your dreams
but i'll always be here
reminiscing the color green

In a world full of ugly people,
A city made of hideous faces,
A phone call means everything.
It means a voice, free from
Its crooked nose, its wrinkled skin,
And its gapped, stained, crooked teeth.
It means a connection.
With another, with yourself,
And with the ability to disconnect
At the push of a button.
I take out my scratched, chipped cellphone
With its cracked face,
And call Helen.
Her voice swims through the mud
Inside my skull when she answers,
Stirring and churning
Until I'm weak and dizzy.
"How 'bout you just come
On over now, Big Fella?"
And I do.
I turn off the squawking television,
Don a pair of food-stained pants,
Drag a comb through my
Overgrown hair,
And descend the stairs to my
Waiting Oldsmobile.
The turn of the key in the ignition
Only produces a hollow click,
One click two click three click six,
Then a partial start,
But the beast fails to come alive.
I get out to replace
The fried starter fuse,
Then do this dance four more times
Before the old ***** clears her throat
And starts to idle.
It's a short ride,
Pawtucket is small,
And my only companion
On these post-midnight streets
Is the white noise
Issuing from the broken radio.
I pass the house I grew out of,
The crumbling schools
That taught me the value
Of impartial numbness,
The cemetery my father used to visit
To perpetrate the lie
He lives;
The role of a child
And the permanence
Of parents.
I pass abandoned factories
And abandoned hope
And abandoned pets
And abandoned storefronts.
In a world of full of past relics,
In a city full of ghosts,
A crumbling façade means everything.
It means bricks freed from their mortar,
Separated from their history,
Left to be picked up and thrown through plate glass windows.
Buildings are never empty,
Just quiet.
I pass the CVS at Newport and Armistice,
With its twenty four hour pharmacy,  
Dispensing the one a.m. hydrocodone,
The one thirty a.m. dextroamphetamine,
The two a.m. oxycodone,
The two thirty a.m. alprazolam,
The three a.m. dextromethorphan,
The three thirty a.m. methylphenidate,
The four a.m. eszopiclone,
The four thirty a.m. benzodiazeprine,
The five a.m. phenylpropanolamine.
I drive past the clinic in the old senior center
With its six a.m. methadone ready to go
In pre measured cups.
Buildings can be quiet, but not empty.
Helen lives on the third floor of a three story house
Built sometime in the forties,
Forgotten sometime in the eighties.
The two bottom floors are vacant,
The windows are boarded,
The driveway is choked with weeds,
And two lounging cats don’t flinch
When I walk by them
On my way to the door in the rear of the building.
The door is always unlocked,
So I let myself in
And begin the rickety climb to the top.
The higher I go,
The louder Amy Winehouse’s voice gets.
“What kind of fuckery is this?”
Seems an adequate question.
There are ****** handprints on the railings,
The walls,
Drops polka dot the stairs.
I don’t bother knocking,
I never do.
She’s seated in a La-Z-Boy in the kitchen
Facing the door,
In a cloud of cigarette smoke.
In place of exchanged pleasantries
I say I need to use the bathroom
And she nods,
Eyes locked on mine.
I take a look at my sallow image
In the mirror,
With specks of toothpaste and hairspray
Pocking my face like acne.
The toilet bowl is still streaked
With the last man’s ****.
I ****, wash my hands,
And take another look at myself.
Helen is no longer in the chair,
But I know where to find her.
She’s sprawled on the bed,
With a new cigarette in her mouth,
The toys spread out on one side,
The tools on the other.
I tell her I’ll forgive her for stabbing me the other night
If I can get a freebee now.
She shakes her head once,
Exhales a cloud,
“Not gonna happen, Champ,”
And I take what I can get.

finally you came back to me;
for good we thought.

we'd walk out in the dark, and sprawling streets in
the empty mornings
and smoke packs of our favorite kinds, we had thought.

and there was one glorious weekend when we wore
long skirts and smoked
rollies on
the white painted balcony.
we stole six bottles of wine from
an unlocked cellar,
fully clothed in our
indian dresses,
underneath were our lacy bras
and silky underwear.

we walked the path barefoot
to the Nest, and we tattooed the dead and dying branches
with the sharp art of our burn marks,
and under the bridge where we
jumped into the frigid creek,
and let the sun shine through our hair while
a blond boy played his guitar.

we stayed up late,
jumping on the soft pink carpet of my room,
making small earthquakes in the quiet town,
screaming the songs
that beat to our own heart.

we crawled onto the red shingled roof
and inhaled the
thorn filled
atmosphere of
November,
smoking newports and marlboros faster than
Olympic champions.

we were naked but for our limp hair, hanging at our sides and
shivering skin,
“smoke me like a cigarette”
we softly sang, with the light of my room
slowly slinking into the night.

we took a drunken shower afterwards,
a bottle of chardonnay
reflecting the red light overhead,
the water rolling off our bodies,
ash falling from our hair.

we woke up in the light of one another's
morning eyes,
with splitting heads and cracked grins,
we had more plans.

we laughed on the secret
flower hotel porch,
bringing out more of our wine bottles,
playing our music loudly,
unfiltered spirits
was slowly writing their tragedy on our
wilting lungs.

that night we stuffed our beds
and created sleeping bodies out of ***** clothing and
small pillows.
we ran into the fresh night,
trouble as a steel edge on our
summer filled laughter.

we danced to the music that filled our
murky brain,
stumbled into a smoke filled room and burned
our throats
*****.

we walked in the deserted hours
of four in the morning,
and stamped on the counters,
of some boys house,
voice hoarse from
singing Neutral Milk Hotel at the top of our
brimming lungs
and banging on guitars.

we broke ashtrays,
and hearts,
and we snuck back in
with orange-chai hookah fresh on our
dry lips,
when the sun was threatening to
rise.

we wandered around the sunken down
town
the next day,
unfilters again.

we smoked three packs in two days.
sixty cigarettes,
for the sixty days we've been apart.

my mother told me later that she could smell it on me
riding on my breath,
she could tell by our dry eyes
and bed made hair,
we were hungover.
we smelled like ashtrays,

Hydrocodone is no excuse for you to be
torn so violently apart from me,
everything is falling out of
place.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about using every day.
I have dreams about those little yellow pills,
they don't speak to me,
or appear any different than they are in reality,
I just dream about holding them in my hands.

I couldn't do it,
recreational drug use.
I never could
no matter how many times I told myself I wasn't addicted, the truth remained
that I was.
I would tell myself "what kind of ******* is a drug addict, you're not, you're fine."
But I wasn't.
And everyday I have to tell myself "no, you cannot take those pills because you will not be able to stop"
Some days it ends there,
others I get as far as dialing my dealer's number.
Most days it's in the middle.

Being an addict is about having habits;
wake up, take three, (don't eat breakfast, the high will fade faster). Take four once the feeling leaves your legs, and four more before you go to sleep, so you can sleep.
Rinse and repeat; rinse and repeat.

Sobriety is the same way;
wake up, convince your self you don't need it.
Rinse and repeat as needed.

She helps, but she can't replace my addiction.
Although she gets me high, I can't become addicted to her, her lips do not have opiates hidden within,
but they have something better.

I don't think about getting high when I'm with her.
The high I get from her kisses is not dissimilar to that of methodone,
only their is no crash.
The high I get from caressing her thighs shares a likeness with *******,
except it costs love, not cash.
The high I get from hearing her gasp my name as our love making intensifies is very similar to that of hydrocodone,

only much, much better.

Your gracious Light extends
You have Healed my brokenness
On You I can depend
You touched my pain with Loving Hands
Anointing hurts and woes
It's like a warm embrace and kiss
And Love that OVERFLOWS!
Thank you for what You have done
The Healing You have wrought
This kind of Restoration
Can't be obtained or bought
I need no Hydrocodone
I have no need for pills
I have my Balm of Gilead

And I ALWAYS WILL!


SoulSurvivor
(c) 3/10/2016

Every muscle in my body
Begs me to run
To chase your car
But then your taillights crest the hill
And disappear beyond

My mind lingers on you

Are you wearing your seatbelt?
Are you alert and emotionally sound?
After all
A distracted driver is just as dangerous
As a drunk driver

And no
I am not ok right now
Fear and feelings and Hydrocodone
Cloud my mind
Every time I watch you leave
Hurts more than the last

But this weekend was amazing
I had so much fun
Felt so loved
So safe

This weekend was not wasted
On painkillers and platitudes
This weekend was real
Tactile and truthful

My love is relentless
And I will pursue you
To the end of the earth.

I think I'm better.
At many things;
at being a drug user.
Hold up, you're saying, a better drug user?
How could you be better at using drugs?
Isn't the point for addicts to stop using?
Isn't that what makes them better?
Maybe.

I only buy my **** at the lowest of prices,
yet I always make sure it's good quality,
I won't buy it again if it's not.
//
I never use two days in a row,
or at least I try not to.
I don't use like I did anyway.
****, I hardly remember this last summer,
what with all the hydrocodone,
methamphetamine cut MDMA,
***, and alcohol.
I don't think I was sober for more than two days.

But it's not like that anymore.
I don't get high on days I work,
I don't get ****** at school,
I don't drink on weekdays,
I don't pop Molly anymore.

I'm a better drug user.

the glow-in-the-dark stars on my wall
are brighter than
my ambitions,
vicodin washes down with
stone cold fear,
and mercury is in retrograde-
not that we felt the need to communicate.
tiny planets on a string,
we danced in the
orbit that we shared.
you had misgivings,
told me pluto
never made it around the sun,
not even once.
but earth created a moon
with her soulmate.
mercury doesn't return direct
until february 11th;
by then
paracetamol and hydrocodone
will have passed.
opiates and human beings
both sources of anxiety
but i don't mind
drowning in them both.

My life is poetry and yours is prose
I can mean things nobody knows
All hidden away in my sweet sharp mind
A thousand guesses are guessed just fine

But they read you better all straight and clear
There's no scheming with rhyme all messy and queer
Though I'm simple enough to decipher and see
For minds majorly lazy nor dullards ain't free

Away, I sit where old red roses bloom
Alone, burning minutes this afternoon
My tears are stuck behind my eyes
This bitter beauty beneath grime disguised

Fumbling around while fair skin bakes
The city is quiet now, make no mistake
I think awhile and then go to wander on
These roses belong to all and so to none

One cool jet of water tries to pass for a fountain
A man in short shorts strides by unaccounted
Laughing at how I’m besotted with my own malaise
I must remind myself that a poet’s task is to praise

But it’s terribly hard to make shields without sarcasm
And loopy concerns will throw wise men toward spasms
It’s almost better to float through hydrocodone dreams wide awake
Than to sing futilely of sand and flights and smiles felt not faked

For this insult to suffering can’t end quickly enough
And the Suessical rhythm leaves much to rebuff
Despite luxurious lucidity the inconsequence falls on
Until next year’s parade and hope of less scorching suns

Because I’m not like the roses I’m not like the water
I’m not like the dude whose shorts won’t go farther
Maybe you’ll realize finally after thrice the **** crows
That my life is poetry but yours is, darling, still prose.

Drunk
Drunk
Drunk
Here we go again
The sweet burn as the poison slithers down your throat
like a snake slowly creeping up to it’s prey
I walked away this time
I didn’t go too far
Only some alcohol and some hydrocodone
Where will I go from here?
I’m heavy on my feet and quick in my head
All I want is sleep
I can’t have it
I always have to take it

Your skin, translucent
Your shoulders are sharp
My little hands pulled out chunks of hair
when I tried to braid the frail pieces of breaking, brown strands
I hid them under your pillow to avoid your tears of frustration
Just another reason to say, “I’m so ugly, so gross, so ugly”

Black holes hollowing your cheeks
Red rose colored water lines
Blue green seaweed swimming through the skin over your cheeks
The deep darkness of the ocean swallowing your mind

Filling up your stomach with water
to make the scale read heavier for the doctors
Vomiting it up before the presence of hydration in your veins
could make you live an extra day

Your jeans went from a size double zero
to a baggy children’s size
Dinners out turned into a messy plate of cut up food
None of which was eaten

Ana gouged out your eyes and replaced them with ticking clocks
And walked your bony feet to the scale four times a day
What is left of your skin is painted in red and deep purple splotches
Breaking nails and yellow brittle teeth

Only Ana can speak the language you comprehend
But not even she could tell you, “you’re beautiful”
You only hear muffled underwater words of disgust
Swimming hazily in a sea of pretty girls made of bones
Breathing Hydrocodone to numb the hunger pains
Eating Xanax to bring them closer to death.

hydrocodone,
its like the ice broke and now i'm
in the depths of the murky swamp.

i am in a morning bleary eyed
slumber, still.

my head is pounding and i can barely move.

its the aftermath of all that euphoria, i suppose;
three little happy pills.

i need a cigarette.

yesterday we smoked 17,
and now we have nothing.

Doctors said,
"Kid, you've got problems.
Not to worry,
We can solve them.
Take this pill twice,
Every morning.
Here's two more for
When you crash. "

I was stupid,
What did I know?
Fresh in high school
Fourteen years old.
Life just seemed to
Pass me by,
Then I took one
And got high.

Freshman year,
In ROTC,
So on point, no one
Could beat me.
Then one day,
They caught my eye;
"You should probably
Meet this guy. "

Fifteen kids stuffed
In a closet,
Huddled around our
Technical sergeant,
In his hands,
Like shining diamonds,
"I've got stuff that you
Should try, man. "

Lortab, norco,
I'd heard stories.
Ritalin just didn't
Do much for me.
Tylenol 4 and xanax bars
Made me picture
Crashing  cars.

Everyone knew that
I had Addy, I drank beer,
And I smoked fatties.
They said,
"What do you want for go-pills?"
I said,
"I'll take ALL of THOSE pills. "

From that day,
My life was over.
Never again would I
Be sober.
Still I pulled through,
In the end,
With some help from
My 'new friends. '

Let's fast forward,
On to college,
Rich kids with their
Parents' wallets.
Track me down with
Midterm chills,
"Hey man, can I maybe
Score some pills? "

Hydrocodone, my
Best friend,
Stays with me until
The end.
Empty bliss that's
Like no other,
Gifted by my
Lovely mother.

Every month, I'd
Throw a party,
Young and stupid,
All invited.
Smoke some ****
And drink and chill,
Waiting for those
Luscious pills.

Talking smack and
Starting drama, waiting
Till we hear my mama,
Twist the **** and
Step inside,
Bongs and blunts were quick
To hide.

I said,  "chill, guys,
She's not stupid.
My mom's cool with how
I do ****;
Sure she likes to take my pills,
Still, she's brought me
All my thrills. "

"Twenty norco, fifteen xanax,
Pill for pill,
Understand that? "
Then she sat,
And smoked our joints,
"Oh my adorable
****** boys! "

Travis said,
"Dude, that's your MOM? "
I said,  "why, man?
Is there a problem? "
He said,  "nah, but ****,
She's cool! "
I said,
"Only since I've been in school. "

currently i feel like downing my 90 day supply of fluoxetine, the 30ish days of sleep meds i have left, all my moms pills, and the hydrocodone we have left, take a bath, and slice my skin till im nothing but cuts

Brutality been building up
Cutting through the marrow
Feels like pork, penny flavored
High tension cord, aroma savored
Laced with liquid hydrocodone
World fades to black as the cleaver falls
(As the cleaver falls)
As the cleaver falls!

Spoken like a true warrior, you scheme
Despise it, revised it like a million times, it
Hurts to think that if it were tangible
I would probably just **** it to death
Scared to let myself get a handle
On the last human feelings I have left

She was a no one, a ghost
Her family left her in her glory days
Tell me, would you even have known
If I chose to keep it hidden away?

White lines on roadsides
Up my ******* nose again
I could **** it twice
This feeling I feel in the end

Every **** time I feel the cleaver fall
It's the whole night over again
A twisted groundhog day forever
Been runnin' since the very first ******
It's been building up
The brutality
And I can finally feel the release
Of the fatality
I'm balancing
Between the oncoming
Traffic
They'll say it was tragic
But not for me
Because I wanted to ******* end it

A shallow grave beckoning
Her bones like excellency
The eel in the cold pit
Slippery like new cement
Slow descent
No incentive
To respect the dead
Feeling the bile rise
Letting it coat her insides
The smell like hospitals
After a travesty

If I could put it in to words
I would just **** it red
Or beat it until my knuckles bled
And I know that if I find some help
I would satisfy
The sickest parts of me
So who the **** is next?

Don't ask me for my number, kid.
Kiss your mama goodbye

i eat through the horoscopes and predictions for the new year like the words will cut through the raging fire that is my anxiety and lovelessness,

(i had bruises all along my jaw)

i regret that we never fell together, i regret the way you left me and the way i let you leave
the way i know you like the sound of the car pulling up in the drive way
and the taste of cappuccino, the warm glow of hydrocodone
the greybrown of tree skin

It started out with a small white pill
Into the mouth and down the throat
Who knew something so little could ****
The body dissipates into nostalgic rhythm

Down the throat into the mind
Fading into a darkness that can't be stopped
We dance with colors that make us blind
The brain sleeps while the body twitches

The empty orange bottle falls down
Tears follow as she sweats from the fear
She weeps in her pink and white gown
The stomach begins to turn and ache

The aches cause scratches on her skin
A pain only a fix will get rid of
Nothing can stop it, not even men
Her blood boils for her dealers rescue

Why does hydrocodone close your eyes?
Mama wake up.
The tabourine man knows you cannot die
All that was left was a body, and no soul.

Waiting on a storm but its only rain , someone upstairs playing with my brain
We wait on the pain with our guard down struggling through the lesson it contains
Plywood cities with little toy trains
A newspaper stuck in the storm drain
A town crier bellowing the morning news
Matchbox delivery trucks ,
A mercurial dove cooing the blues
The Queens bowl of Corn Flakes with a silver
spoon , railroad tracks bound for the midnight moon
Hydrocodone Hannah and her morning town
Music deep inside with no audible sound* ...

I need to find somebody who can tear me away
From the car crime babies and switchblade days
The bark of the unemployment hounds
And the thud of the thick white skull on the ground
I won't die in the bony arms of the state
To be laid to rest in the wake of a faded town

If the raincoats come to steal my home
There's a big white house at the end of the road
I can see you wrapped in Egyptian thread
In a marble garden immune to the mess
If you leave this world in a rhinestone shroud
We could finally make your father proud

If I leave this world in a loaded daze
I can finally have and eat my cake

I wanna die like a rich boy, diving
In a hydrocodone dream
And you can die like a rich girl by me
Oh how the magazines will grieve
I'll die like a rich boy, bathing
In a milk bath I could drown
I wanna die like a rich boy
Even if we're as poor as we are now

I wanna die like a rich boy, drowning
in a lake that bears my name
And you can die like a rich girl by me
Flushed and radiant with fame
I wanna lie in state on the TV
In a golden cardboard crown
I wanna die like a rich boy even if we're
As poor as we are now

I've found you now so tear me away
From the feral street they lumped us in
I'll be Shakespeare's moonstruck king
We can lose our minds at the top of the hill
We burn cash and carry a decadent flame
Way into the night and beyond the grave

I need to find somebody who can tear me away
From the car crying babies and switchblade days
The bark of the unemployment hounds
And the thought of the thick, white skull on the ground
I won't die in the bony arms of the state
To be laid to rest in the wake of the faded town

And if the raincoats come to steal my home
There's a big white house at the end of the road
I can see you wrapped in Egyptian thread
In a marble garden, immune to the mess
If you leave this world in a rhinestone shroud
We could finally make your father proud
If I leave this world in a loaded daze
I can finally have and eat my cake

I want to die like a rich boy diving
In a hydrocodone dream
You can die like a rich girl by me
Oh how the magazines will read
I 'll die like a rich boy bathing
In a milk bath I could drown
Want to die like a rich boy
Even if we're as poor as we are now
I want to die like a rich boy drowning
In a lake that bears my name
You can die like a rich girl by me
Flushed and radiant with fame
I wanna lie asleep on the TV
In a golden cardboard crown
Want to die like a rich boy
Even if we're as poor as we are now

Well I found you now so tear me away
From the feral street they lumped us in
I'll be Shakespeare's moonstruck king
We can lose our minds at the top of the hill
We burn cash and carry a decadent flame
Way into the night and beyond the grave

Okay, let's start from the beginning and see what happens.
uh, I was born January 31st, 2000. That makes me an iGen or Gen Z.
What that has to do with who I am, I have no idea.
I've been told that my spirit animal is a Magpie.
It's unknown to me how that defines my personality
as I have never really let anyone enter into the threshold of my life,
for when I let them, they are there just to wipe their feet on my welcome mat and hurry off to someplace more important.

My list of hobbies include oversleeping, drinking more than eating, having philosophical existential conversations with the voices in my head, stargazing on the ground, and always reminding myself that I have overstayed my welcome. I love music when I cannot play an instrument, rewatching the same shows and animes because I know the endings and can skip to my favorite parts.

I love smoothies, blueberries, pomegranates, and black licorice. Like, a lot. I can't stand the existence of styrofoam, embarrassing comedy, and  country and rap music that has no meaning. I hate when media that portrays light of serious topics, the fact I will never fully believe in myself, and that bad things happen to the best of people, and I hate that I can't trust others.

I'm scared of four things: heights, medicine, myself -especially behind closed doors-, and being happy. I've learned not to be afraid of the unknown, because life without uncertainty, is also uncertain so why try to avoid it? Being afraid is wanting to travel the galaxy but never leaving your doorstep.

I'd say I’m a hopeless romantic that doesn't know how to be romantic. Moreover, I am waiting to fall in love. I am not exactly waiting to be in love as that comes with hardships, disagreements, breakups, the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, but that's just me being pessimistic, knowing that no one will want to love me in that way.  

I genuinely believe I will never find love as I fear happiness. I fear the other shoe dropping, the plot twist that comes with my series of unfortunate events, and I suppose that is why I ruin every  relationship I've been in. I sabotage every possibility by not saying enough, by lying about myself, taking actions too far and turning myself into my inner demons in order to avoid the pity and shame by being the scapegoat.

But I’m waiting for the fall, the moment I look into a girl's eyes and be completely vulnerable, knowing that she is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. To understand the secret of happiness on a park bench with Sean Maguire.

I suppose that's why I am terrified of heights, but still wish to go skydiving. Not for reasons most people do it. But for the Fate of it, to see the world from a distance and for that moment to relinquish all my inhibitions and just... live, per chance to be. That's why its called falling I suppose, because when you fall, everything you are thinking of vanishes and it is just that moment of falling with nothing you can do. To have the die cast. No scrambling for any purchase or refuge to save you. Or that's how I imagine it.

I'd say I'm a sucker for a girl with a cute smile, curly hair, and a laugh that makes me weak-kneed. I don't know what love is exactly but would love to give it a shot, to end up loving something more than myself, which with all things being, it’s not that much to begin with. I am oblivious to any kind of flirtation that doesn't have the specific words "I'm into you" in it, and I have no clue how to ask a girl out on a date because the girls I have crushes on don't even know I exist.

I'm an audiophile, meaning I like sounds, like a nice breeze though a grove, the roar of a waterfall and even silence, but I can't handle the sound of people. I'm a self-diagnosed sociopath because I've watched death walk away without shedding a tear. I am broken beyond fragments and avoid therapists with my life. I believe I will never find love because you first have to love yourself enough.

I am nobody's "person". I'm the student at the back of the class with the only time their name is spoken of is roll call. I get surprised by notifications, compliments, and the sound of my name telegraphing through the air. For this, I have trust issues, because hearing my name on the top of another's tongue is a symbol of necessity, a god-like power of convenience. And I know that if I disappeared tomorrow, very few to none would miss me as I explore into the unknown and I know I would then have more friends there than I do now.

I have the number 1-800-273-8255 imprinted on my hippocampus and the constant urge to explore sky at terminal velocity. I'm a botched suicide attempt wrapped in scars of doubt, insecurity and self hate, crippled from speaking by a nation who raised me by the terms equal to that of "grow a pair", "get over it", and "men don't cry"

I have a fear of being healthy from medicine, from the memory of a handful of pills, the euphoria to have all pain stripped away, the memory of being the ghost in just another machine, the definition of the words "Let Go." said by 7 demons canonized as opioids, being found by the man in black I met at the cross roads of rock bottom and a 17 story ledge asking where my father's hydrocodone went. And I, wanting to, with every tear stained fault lines, with every choked cry, with every false answer to the question "Are you okay?", to tell the truth rather than blaming my brother's drug addict friends needing their high.

I have a mentality fueled by spite and because of it, a versatile perspective. I know the moment I feel happy, the other shoe will drop. Just let me show you the collar choking my neck and the leash carried by hope, hanging me in a tree in front of a lynch mob of flowers bouquets and second dates. I never wish upon others of the things I've seen for they would lack the tolerance void of compassion and happenstance, to know how to try your best always, yet never be good enough in their own eyes.  

Hi. My name is Jon, not spelled with a H.
I love listening windows down to loud music, exploring odd thrift shops, laughing until my lungs hurt, and watching sunsets.
I don't talk about myself as much as I should and I don't like my own smile. I lie without knowing the truth and have light speed thoughts, but never enough courage to voice 'em.
I like being alone, but I don't like being lonely.
I believe that there is a God out there and I know he/she/they/it is rooting for me because nobody is going to live my life for me, so I might as well live it for myself.