The world around me is beautiful yet
I find it also exists as a force to be feared.
A plethora of the unknown and uncertain
Trace my every movement.
Where are you headed?
I gasp and grip for the nearest answer.
I’m unsure and I’m ripped to shreds.

Life itself is a mystery, an enigma never to be solved.
Surrounded by questions and hypotheticals,
Am I supposed to organize it alphabetical -ly
Breathe. Calm down - I hear in my periphery.
So I take a moment to finally let
It wash over me, to forget
Everything I ever knew -and to focus on the present.
Or the future I suppose, any moment other than now.
To find a place where contentment abounds somehow.

Light cannot exist without darkness.
So I accept the situation all around.
And fall desperately into unconsciousness.
To rejoice in the reprieve of thought.

Hope, ‘the thing with feathers’
I’m not so sure about that.
Hope feels misleading, or leading only into disappointment.
I feel frustrated, emotionally drained perhaps?
Maybe I’m cynical. That’s probably it.
It’s definitely a promising possibility.
I think hope acts as an anvil that crushes everyone
Praying for it to hang in the sky for a tad longer.

Hope is disillusioning.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t indulge every once in a while.
Hope is enlightening, addictive, whatever you want to call it.
But it’s undeniably beautiful, it ties you to the future.
It gives you aspirations. So here’s a list of hopes.

I hope I get to dance in the rain without a care of drenching my clothes.
Nature surrounding me with her soaking embrace, and thunderous applause.
With tiny drops of water slowly grazing my face, and
Maybe then I’ll finally know what harmony feels like.

I hope I get to reinvent my whole life and everything I know.
I hope I can fall into those nights where I barely remember my name but your arms are there to guide me home.
I hope I learn to face the light, and that it mends the brokenness of my soul.
I wish for nights where I discover a new version of myself by exploring foreign cities with people I’ve never met.
Where adrenaline is coursing through my veins,
And excitement greets me at every corner.
I hope I lose myself to find someone new.
To find the extraordinary within the mundane.
To appreciate the little things.
I want to live with purpose, to leave with meaning.
I hope I get to grow, that I get to change.
I hope I travel the world before it’s gone.
And to experience all that I can, through perspectives of empathy.
I want to impact others, to change the world,
But I suppose that can’t be done without changing myself first.

I hope I experience the feeling of being in love again.
The blinding euphoria of falling completely for what’s just a construct.
I want to find a place where I can be myself, without pretenses, without explanation.
I want to forgive, to laugh until I can’t breathe, to be brutally honest,
To be torn down to nothing and to have to begin again.

I hope I find peace of mind.
Because I know I’ve been searching for quite some time.
I hope I learn to let go.
I hope I learn to appreciate hope rather than ostracize it.
To open the curtains and to let the light come streaming in.
I hope I realize that it’s okay to not always know.
I hope I live my life before I go.

if tomorrow never comes
it must be the end of the world
and i know i won't be ready for afterlife

i won't say a final goodbye
but i know you're the kind of person
who likes defined edges and endings

so i'll settle for a compromise
when you say goodbye, i'll say goodbye
goodbye, that is, until next time

There was a smile in your eyes
a reflection
that was allowed to last about
three minutes and thirty-two seconds
before you said you needed
to swiffer the floors later
and then it was tucked away
under rolled up sleeves
that did dishes
and wiped counters
only to return
when contemplating how clean
everything would be
if what did the sweeping
were my hands and knees.

.              Part One               .

January
I wake up in a hungover haze that seems
Irrevocably unending. All the places I threw up,
That stiffness in my neck, the emptiness in my love;
There is too much to feel
So I feel numbness
And I feel remnants
Of ***** in my throat, only manifested fully
When my friends and I make fortune cookies,
Singing along to songs that we’re hearing for the first time
Amidst the chaos of exploding poinsettia plants and nascent tattoos,
All of which litter your mom’s otherwise bare counter.
I don’t make much mention, in my fortune cookies,
Of that girl who still leaves me hungover;
I fill them instead with cruel jokes
That send me cackling
Until my dehydrated headaches pass into

February
When I’m moonlit tipsy stumbling
Through a campus-wide coniferous forest in Washington State
With two strangers that I soberly think
Might be my future.
We arrive at the clear polluted waters
Of the Puget Sound, our boots all
Sinking into deep-mud as we walk past broken bits of shells
To low tide.
Even as the full moon sinks and I realize
That those two strangers can never be my future
(That Athens, Ohio is my future)
I still walk forward
Into the Puget Sound
Knowing that the water will stay with me
In my lungs, on my skin,
In my mind, and although I don’t tell a single person, I fear,
So rightly,
That the water from the Puget Sound,
Set to perpetually accumulate in my lungs,
Will one day come to drown me.
Even as I cry to my mom in our kitchen,
Relieved from that seemingly endless indecision
I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised
By the choice I’ve made, I’m not surprised
By the fears I still have, all that surprises me
About any of this
Is the immediacy with which
My conclusion’s future culmination begins, as I begin
And continue
While always feeling like I’m concluding,
An infinite

March
In spirals, spirals, spirals, leaving trails
In subconscious sands, someone paints
Blue spirals on my body, and when
I drive back to Lake Erie later,
To retrieve abandoned items and moments,
The road looks much different.
Less swirly, less threatening at first, and when we get there
We eat pineapple/onion pizza on my ****** cottage’s front porch,
Just barely shielded from the snow, and just barely
Shielded from one another. And even those
Slim shields between us begin to fall
When we stand on our melting Lake Erie.
Because the whole world
Calls to us.
The sky screams, the wind explodes,
The thin layer of water above ice rushes
Blissfully, almost hallucinogenically, towards you and towards I
And I am howling
Into the face of it all,
Fearing nothing—not even
The absence of that girl’s palm in mine
Or the water from the Puget Sound
Or the cold of the air
That is tearing at my scalp; that is tearing
At my whole being and

April
Is best described by a rampage
Home from a campsite
That I only ever saw
Drunkenly, in the dark, and under the pressure
Of Allan Ginsberg’s poetry and an ultimately failed ****.
On that rampage we steal tombstones,
We steal memories for ourselves,
And we steal crass glances
With crass jokes that sound sort of
Like the crass fortune cookies which somehow
Never went bad.
Someone notes during that drive
That the air is getting warmer
With regularity now,
And while I somehow can’t bring myself to cry when my cousin is shot to death,
I have to struggle to hold back tears
In our high school’s only classroom when you tell me
That you’re quitting that play we signed up for together.
I guess it’s cuz I’m concerned—
Cuz I’m deeply
Deeply
Deeply concerned—
That it’s a lack of dedication
To me, to what we do together, to everything
That will prevent my rampage from concluding quietly
Amidst the smells of Indian food and the soft light
In your future dorm room
Where I will hug you
And where I

May
Finally
Let all the tears
Flow freely.
I guess it’s the unnecessary intensity
Of this collective celebratory anticipation
That preemptively reveals to me
That the moment of walking across a stage
To receive my high-school diploma
Won’t be quite as transformative as I’d hoped it might be,
And when I make out with that girl who still has me hungover
In the bed at my dad’s house where I lost my virginity
Almost exactly one year prior, I realize that in fact,
I’m still marching the same march, and
Both magic moments of idealized transformation in that bed
Were just as illusory.
Somehow though
Your no longer nascent tattoos have not yet faded
And I can’t help but worry,
(As sweat pours from my forehead and drenches these bedsheets;
As my finger nestles itself tiredly between the folds of her ******)
That I have, and in

June
When all my anticipation is realized,
People clap in the audience despite the fact
That it’s the same stream of sweat
That’s trickling down along my spine
To reach my ***.
I stare into the spotlight
For just a moment, amidst those stale applause
And in my squint, I think briefly
That none of it ******* mattered. I mean,
Despite this perspiration, I’m
Dehydrated. Hungover. I guess
Drinking more alcohol
Isn’t the best way to get over it, but I can think of nothing else,
So even when I acknowledge
That all my attempts have not even been half-assed,
But, like, one-quarter-assed
The only resolve I find is in distraction, in
******* my other ex-girlfriend instead
And not until that distant

July
When I’m ascending through Never Sink,
Does my head finally
Feel clear, yes,
In that glowing blue pit
Of bioluminescence,
I feel the whole world slow to a stop,
Embrace my body with its taproots
And whisper
Playfully and
In a child’s voice,
“You are the whole world” and I know that I
Am the whole world.
I breathe heavily, the only sound for miles around,
And for a moment I feel that the Puget Sound,
Along with everything else that is so ******,
Has fallen away.
For it is not my body
That is climbing on-rope through the stars and galaxies of this great sinkhole
But my mind,
But my soul,
Because Never Sink
Is not a landscape
But a mind-scape,
A soul-scape,
And it is one which is never dark
Thanks to the blue lights of soulful- (not bio-) luminescence—
A glow that is strong enough to see
Finally
A singularity
In the form of an unlocked lock,
Appearing with grace upon my driveway
After I return home
From ******* my other ex-girlfriend
For the last time.
It is only when I stop the car,
Open the door,
And hold that unlocked lock in my hand that I realize the extent to which
I am being
Un-defined.
The ethereal being in Never Sink’s soul-scape,
Alone in the blue grace of the night,
With nothing in my breath.
The thought is terrifying.
So in

August
On the night of my eighteenth birthday,
The girl I’m hung over and I
Send magical, sparkling lanterns into the sky
With a wish so brilliantly bright and simultaneous
That even I am able dismiss the slurring drunk words spoken next to us—
“Here’s hopin’ that you two get married some day”—
As superfluous.

.                Part Two               .

The winds above Lake Erie carry me,
Along with that lantern, into the foreignness
Which Never Sink foreshadowed.
But with the lantern as my very being
And the Puget Sound in my every breath,
Athens, Ohio does not become my soul-scape;
Even its gorgeous autumnal rolling hills
Are just land-scape, and I don’t know
Whether things would have been different
Had I not walked into that stranger’s party
For that terrible beer
On one of my first nights there, but regardless in

September
I walk up endless hills and stairs daily
To get around this hellhole where the only genuine people I’ve yet found
Were prepared to leave from day one, like I
Wasn’t. I wasn’t preparing for that at all, but the Puget Sound,
Lingers like phlegm in my lungs and distorts my regular refrain
Of “I can be happy here, I can be happy here,” keeping it
From ever loosing its hypothetical but eventually forcing it
To loose its conclusion:
I can be…
I can be…
I can be anything that I want to be and I am still here,
Sitting on the top terrace of this weird-assed biker bar with some girl
I just met, with some guy
Who seems cool, but in both cases
I drink one too many Blue Moon’s because I know
That neither of these people
Will ever loose their hypotheticals and will only ever
Loose their conclusions.
Gazing upwards towards the stars in the fading summer,
I try to ignore the physicality of all that’s around me,
But the alcohol churns in my stomach like violent waves, like in

October
How I rock like tides between the shores
Of two continents, of two
Acid trips.
One, on the floor of my dorm room, staring at my ceiling
In an attempt to make patterns
Out of patternless white paint, all the while holding hands
With that guy who seems cool, who has been dancing
In and out of hypothetical.
And the other acid trip with you,
Who somehow in the face of everything
Became one of my only certainties.
You, with whom I stood on Lake Erie
Howling into the wind in an unrealized epiphany.
An epiphany
That is now realized
Because the beers on that top terrace didn’t matter.
The white speckles on my dorm room ceiling during that first acid trip
Didn’t matter.
Hell, that girl I am in love with
Didn’t (doesn’t, can’t, won’t) matter.
What matters to me,
As I’m dressed in drag on Halloween,
Lying in your dorm room that smells of Indian food
With 120 dollars of drug money in my pocket,
Is what’s ultimately present. Right there.
Right here. But then, lying there, the time
Clicks over into

November
And at two in the morning it becomes
One in the morning.
I don’t know which of those hours wasn’t real
But when I hug you and cry in the soft light
It is a moment too brief.
It is a moment from which I am pulled straight
Into a hotel bed halfway to New York City,
Where I lie with that girl who I guess I’m in love with
And I’m kissing her, and I realize
That blue spirals still linger on my body, but when she groans,
So softly
That “we shouldn’t be doing this”
I pause before saying “I know,”
And in that pause, my pixelated, televised, and falsified image of reality
Briefly turns to fuzzy grey static, its finite infinity like the trance
Of meat on a rotisserie; I’m waiting
For this turkey to cook
In my friend’s mom’s home—funny
Because I’m still a vegetarian
Who sometimes likes to think of himself, in quest for definition,
As a vegan, but man
I’m beyond definition, I’m beyond anything,
I’m beyond even my darkest imaginings of myself, so when I get wasted
At a 2am that doesn’t click back on Thanksgiving morning,
I have a slice of that ******* turkey,
Cuz the vegan chili my friend and I made at school was good and all,
But I had to bike through freezing rain to get the peppers
And even though I’m starting to feel
Like I’ve found a few people who I can take in with permanence
Nothing feels more like permanence
Than this home-cooked meal
Of turkey and cranberries and sweet potatoes at a granite counter
Where, on January 1st when the ball dropped,
We all took shots, leaving me drunk, stumbling
And eventually
Hungover.
And of course in

December
I’m still
Hung over it all.
Part one, part two,
The futility of that division is so obvious now.
It’s the same poem, same sentence,
And when two not-so-new-anymore friends and I sit on a rooftop in Athens
With a bunch of still so-new I-guess-friends
Right before exam week,
Right before this emotionally excruciating semester comes to a close,
Right before I prepare to head home,
I realize that even though this place
Hasn’t quite become home yet,
My ‘home’ isn’t really at home now either.
I am without a bed in which I feel comfortable,
Without a body next to which my whole life makes sense,
And I am driving to go swing dancing—
An activity I can’t believe I’m still trying to like—
When I finally tell her that I’m in love with her:
Words that don’t matter despite
How much they do. Ultimately,
To me, to her, it’s just
A quick red-light phrase
And this poem is, without too many layers of resonance,
Not even addressed to her,
But to that girl with whom I stood on Lake Erie,
Howling into the wind,
Imagining part two but preparing
For part three, so
With that lantern still floating skyward, “here’s hopin’ that”—
                                         (No. No. No. Start over.)
Here’s hoping that
At midnight
On this New Year’s Eve,
When the ball drops and when we all take shots,
Perhaps around that same granite counter-top,
These clocks
Won’t click back again.
These spirals
Will fade.

The years have not been very kind to you. You look older than your 26 years, haggard, cracked. Your hair is close cut, but you're nearly bald now. You once said it was from stress, but I remembered the genes carry from a mother's father, and I almost ask, then remember you never knew your mother. The only grandfather you can remember was cruel and drunk, and poured whiskey on a beetle while your uncles laughed. Your eyes are still those of a frightened child, a well-like soul, lit with some insane fire. You're thinner than I remember, but still not thin enough to fit into your dress blues. Where are they now, I wonder? Probably in the house that never felt like home, sheathed in plastic, smelling of cigarette and marijuana smoke. You're smoking again. I watched you leaning against your old truck, talking to someone, flicking the **** into the grass. I entertain the idea of stopping to speak to you, some primal urge of a broken heart. The broken heart that isn't sure if it still loves you, or your memory, split and driven by the reminder that some things simply aren't meant to be, no matter what the books say.
My heart leaps to race again, like a frightened rabbit, unsure where to go, or what to do. Going back was never an option. I turn away.
At work I glance in the bathroom mirror, I am very pale. You don't frighten me, but there is some storm which has blow up, confused, convoluted with time and the gilding of memory. I remember you fondly, if that is any consolation.
I told someone how I loved you, and he asked, half mocking, if I would go and find you. It stung. He was jealous, maybe. He'd already given me flowers, though with promises of friendship, unlikely more. He and I don't speak much now, and it hurts. You and I, another story. We spoke once a year, twice maybe. Always ending with the same scabs tearing off, the same regrets, the same pleading from you, and the same apologies from me as to why it is so impossible for us to relight the drowned kindling that once kept us warm.
We walked such different paths. Life is unfair, that way. You surmounted Everest, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, only to arrive in a barren, muddy place, without the terrible desolate beauty they sometimes possess. You said I once calmed the storms in your soul. I've never forgotten that. It was always the wrong time, the stormy time, with you. Abandoning a ship you know will never truly make it to harbor, though it may bob and sink and drift for years before running aground, sails tattered, anchor lost.
If I did stop to speak to you, I don't know what I'd say. If it were a film I wouldn't need to say anything, I might run up and throw my arms around you before you could think, and kiss you, long and sweet. You would taste like smoke and coffee and rain. I would draw away, and say something about how I never go to kiss you goodbye. Which is true, I never really did. The last time I saw you, our hands didn't even touch. But this isn't a film. If I did stop, I wouldn't know what to say. You might not either. If I tried to kiss you, suddenly, I might scare you, set off the combat-tested reflex of self-defense, paranoia, panic. You would taste like coffee and tobacco, maybe ***. The pungent smell would be noticeable on your clothes as you pushed me away from you, cursing me, reminding me you told me never to speak to you again, unless it was to say I found some impossible way to return your dogged love. Your hands would be rough, dwarfing my small arms, your tall body dwarfing my small frame. I felt beautiful when I realized how small I was next to you. I still remember that night when you put me on your shoulders like a child, and carried me back to the car, as I bent down every so often to kiss you, wearing your hat. You'd cut your hand badly at work, but still insisted on holding mine.
I don't know what you'd do now. I don't know what I would do now. What should be done? I know I do not want to rekindle the drenched flame, but care is still lingering. I think of leaving a ten under your windshield wiper, hoping you'd buy yourself a meal. I consider writing the title of the song I wrote about you in the bill's margin. I wonder what you'd think now if you heard it. I can't remember if I ever sang for you. Probably not. We never got drunk together, and I've only ever sung in front of others slightly intoxicated.
But I'm drunk now. Drunk on rainy-day memory and what if's, and I realize I will never sing for you.

Here's a little story about one of my best friends, and I
We've gone through the lowest of the lows, to the ecstasy peak of highs

It all started during the second half of 12th grade
Immediately a beauty caught my eye, fixated my gaze
Her aura was not normal and I immediately needed to know her name.
It was in that film class, where we set the stage.

I tried to back away, even though it wasn't what I felt in my heart
There was just something about her that struck me right from the start
I knew in her life movie, I wanted to play a part.

Not a supporting actor, not a stagehand.

I wanted that lead role, and so I took a stand
We then embraced our connection, and took on life, hand in hand

There were clashes with the cast around us
Mental strains clogged the drains and caused too much fuss
But we knew enough to build off of what we had, trust.
That and a whole lotta love, thankful for every moment
That I was blessed with this star from above.

But we were young, high-strung, and intoxicated by our surroundings
When we shut it all out, removed all doubt,
Together on a cloud it was no less than astounding.
A future we were founding, shined brighter than sun beams
It's in those fields where life feels better than your dreams.

Existence was constantly testing us, arresting us in prisons that felt so grim
I was fighting a battle against hateful people, one I could not win.
Voices from outside led us astray, to sin
An alcoholic's logic, made me wanna get a bat and swing
But we sparked a new beginning when we dismissed other opinions.

She was my sunshine, and I let her know
We nurtured our beings, continued to grow
Anywhere she wanted me, I would surely go
We never stopped to look back, groovin' with the flow

We never meant any harm
but sometimes had to disarm each other
when the alarms were blaring.
There were occasions that were downright scary,
But peace was found in each others' eyes,
Staring into the depths of one another's soul
We physically held onto each other determined to never let go.
Despite the rain, shine, or snow
We've weathered all weather patterns
Our boat we continued to row

Merrily merrily, wait where are we?

2 hearts, minds, bodies, and souls
Our blissful union had been on a roll
But spending life on a bus, depressed, and sleep-deprived was surely taking it's toll
Got me drinking and thinking there'd be a tomorrow I wouldn't know.
Became resentful with a head full of dreadful hypotheticals
Unto none I could bestow.

Someone drowned in the nearby river
I figured I would join them after a night of abusing my liver
I immediately considered, how I felt during her moments of weakness by the cliffs
I'd've been so hurt emotionally it would seem as if internally I was pummeled by fists
I then put a pen within my grip, now connecting the dots, it led to this.

I once pushed her away, now it was her turn.
I tried holding on too tight constantly watching the bridge burn.
Impending doom filled the room inside my head
Sorrow was now the only one to lay in my bed
Zooming down a road I knew to be a dead end

When the time came, the perfect vision of our future shattered
I still kept fighting for love, but felt it didn't matter
The canvas was torn, the paint was all splattered.
I felt as if it were a sick joke,
Causing my inner demons laughter chasing a happily-ever-after

She would still call on me, whenever I was needed
Like temporary medicine even though I felt that I was bleeding.
Never heeding warnings from friends,
I felt like nothing more than a means to an end.

I lost the two that were closest, but they found each other.
In that fire I was but a scorned lover,
Cast them off my island,
While they didn't know where my life or mind went.
Lived life fast, one could say hell-bent
Then spent a lot of time, with another girl.
Decided this was gonna be my new world.
Although, it was doomed right from the start.
I was this girl's "soul mate"
but she couldn't hold my whole heart.
I tried forcing it, picturing another forever
I hurt us both, my mind is far too clever.
We were both too hurt from the past,
I knew it was a matter of time, it wasn't meant to last.
The concept of hurting someone, I just could not grasp,
2 and a half years sure went fast.

The original girl would sometimes pop in my dreams,
It was never angry but I didn't know what it could mean.
Shortly after the breakup came in girl number three,
We matched, the fun times with glee
Surely we were on a loving spree.

One night it changed, my whole being felt strange.
Inside was a feeling that I just could not tame.
I was at work stuck on a trip down memory lane
Fiery passion was the game
I knew deep inside I needed that again.
Hurt to another came down like rain,
Never intended despite how much I could explain.

I needed to let go of past pains and invite love to stay.

I messaged the girl that was once the brightest star in my solar system
We let our feelings out and again our spirits were in rhythm
It was a new beginning
Even contacted my old best friend n let him know how I missed him.
I again tried to hug her pains away and listened to every word she'd say
Common contact was slowly turning the nights into days
Replaying memories and the talks of forevers with old and new lovers.
We knew once again, that we always had, us.

Memories irreplaceable
I smile when I look out the windowsill
Reminiscing on the old thrills.

Nights spent watching sappy movies alone
while she lay with her head on my chest to the beat of my corazon.  
We once had sanctuary in each other, a home.
So many times I held her with optimism while she cried
Mascara marks on a hoodie of mine have stood the test of time
In her once upon a time was the only place I could confide
Arguments and water balloon fights.
Sneaking around to see each other always felt so right.
Halloweens and the moments in between,
Knowing the grass on the other side wasn't any more green.
Beds that were beyond places of rest,
Places where our cosmic beings could confess, love.
The best of rollercoasters had us addicted moreso than any drug.
I let tears fall in front of her once, regarding the loss of my dad
She held me oh so close and told me I'd be the best father anyone could have.
We've grown with time, and I'm happy to see her still rain down sunshine.
I'm happy that we once had each other as lovers,
and have each other as friends.
The past is past, but the stories will never end.

Why does it have to be this way?
Why do I have to spend years of my life in fear?

There is so much hate for something so natural.
Is it the misogyny?
That I, a woman, dare defy males the pleasure of having me?
Is it religious hate?
That I, a lesbian, dare defy God's image of mankind?
Is it the fetishization?
That who I love is more akin to a **** category than a real relationship?

It could be, or it could be other causes.
The fact is, it shouldn't matter.
We've all heard it, I'm born this way.
After a while, the same argument doesn't mean anything though.
I don't know how else to convey to these idiots I didn't choose this.
I didn't choose to lose my childhood best friends,
Or to be outed to my high school because I trusted the wrong person.
To live in fear that my parents would not accept me for who I am.
To have such a fear of myself, I sabotage any relationship I begin.

I know I should have pride,
and I do.
I just don't know if the good outweighs the bad yet.
All of the good are hypotheticals.
Thinking about my future wife, and house, and relationship dynamics.
I fantasize about a shapeless form that will one day be someone I love.
But for now, that is all it is, a fantasy.

I want it to be a reality,
I want my parents supporting and loving me to be a reality too.
I want to find the person I am brave enough to hold hands with,
in spite of the rage that it causes.
I just want to be happy.

it's a brown paper bag poetry kind of day --
one of those with multitudes of foggy fleeting
passive agressive hypotheticals

and I realize, that all I have to share
are half-assed transcriptions
of an intangible boredom
only born of a self-inflicted state of stagnation

this isn't a poem.
but my guess is that you're
indifferent anyway

my guess is that the words are
flowing through you
passing right through
no time to sink in

no, people like me
thoughts like mine
they're so tired
used up -- old news
no, we don't stick

you'll forget soon enough
what it is that brought you here
to this place
of tired hypotheticals

her words snap me back to reality,
away from supposition and hypotheticals,
into her arms where I feel safe.

blue eyes that pierce whatever darkness
i thought i had and lied to myself about,
eyes that see me for a who I am and who I want to be.

imagine walking down a darkened path,
content in the streetlights that guided
you home, and spotting something small
and kind. whatever it is you imagine,
it beckons you to hold it and when you do,
you smile, truly and impulsively.

that essence is a woman, and one i admire.
someone beatiful, kind, and funny,
including her incessant snoring on
already sleepless nights because a cat is begging for food but you feeling comfort
in their REM cycle. too little space
to be your own, but enough heart to bridge the gap.

imagine, then, that someone places
your hand on their lap when you drive,
but are equally willing to do the same,
in what feels like an equivalent exchange
of heart and sheer goofiness.

and tell yourself it doesn't feel right
that you were able to find home in them,
effortlessly and happily. you won't
and can't, and neither can i.

words can't express that she has been
friend, confidant, and a visual marvel,
and someone i envision as a pillar
of my bright existence.

e.g. máteùš

i admit, i could have added another acute e to the spelling,
but i thought: that would really be too crowded,
a bit like, from the depths of hades, there arose
a sentence, that, might, have, looked, like, this.
                   too much punctuation, a crowded space,
what was necessary was some fresh air, and an open field
  somewhere down the middle of the word.
             ah... noticing this... chemists write numbers associated
to elements and compounds *subscript...
     hence punctuation is like a chemistry script.
               diacritical involvement? that's like mathematical notation,
i.e.  write out                       x cubed, or y squared...
                   where do you place the 3 and the 2 with respect
to the algebraic hypotheticals? well, they go above,
   well: to the right corner of the hypotheticals;
              very much like diacritical marks; but of course,
this is language, so they are placed directly above the letter -
       but the comparison stands: both are punctuation statements,
chemistry of subscript notation of punctuation, inter-words -
mathematics of superscript notation of punctuation, intra-words.
    nietzsche once noted: polaks are the french of
                                            the slavs.

                now... about that congestion, and a due comparison...
  it comes down to the relation between acute, grave and the caron.
     in french:        e.g. the word crème fraîche
          ah **** the antonym of the caron, the circumflex! that too.
       thus into the aesthetic...
                the grave e (è) in the word crème?
                   the aesthetic ugly would look like this crèm...
               because that's the function of the grave e - it's as if
to pull back the word to the beginning, or at least reigning in the m,
     so the second e is not even pronounced.
         now the word fraîche and the dynamic of the circumflex
iota (î).      it does something similar to the grave diacritical mark,
       simple optometry... it's a constrictive symbol,
                       a biblical comparison to Samson pulling
    two pillars so that a temple falls...
                      î
                fra    che
but once again, the french aesthetic, the e is once more redundant,
  but, good heavens, imagine simply writing         fraîch... ?!
      so the circumflex and the grave accents have their similarities.

now, the second word, máteùš:
          here we have a different dynamic,
        the reason i didn't write it as mátéùš -
                     for one, having two diacritical marks on letters, side by side
is already pushing it, but three? and the fact that one of the letters
   doesn't have a diacritical mark, namely t? well, that already excludes
the letter from the word, which would make the word morph
   into máéùš:         otherwise, the original would be noted in algebraic
form as                       x = letter without a diacritical mark
        v = letter with a diacritical mark,
                                                           ­                  i.e. xvxxvv,
but imagine the variation              xvxvvv.
    anyway... what's the difference between the circumflex and the caron?
the caron? it hides one particular letter with regard to s;
   in slavic, that letter would be z...          in germanic?     h.
how you'd say shish (kebab).
                             i was once accused of pronouncing the word kebab
in arficaan... i can already see an entry point of diacritical
marks into english... africaan?   acute accent on both e and a
   so i don't say the word with a macron on the a (ā)
                                             kebāb (kebaab), africān (aan) -
**** this digression...
     back to the story...   what happens in the word     máteùš
which is antonym to the french aesthetic? primarily the grave u (ù)...
   and its relationship to the caron s (š)...
    the grave u suggests to the s: put on a cloak, put on a fez
of magical properties, so that the z will not see you, standing next to me.
        so the s duly agrees...
               without the caron above the s? how would the word look?
     z would come along, and rip off both their diacritical marks
z: u! give me the grave!
ù: no!
z: oh ****** well yes!         (pluck)
    right now i have a torso.
       s! the caron!
š: ok ok, just don't steal my curves.       (pluck)
z: ah... both arms and legs.
      now all that's missing is a head...
      oi! fake iota! the overdot!
i: sure, whatever, i never needed it in the first place,
        this is me sitting down, i stand up, and it's as if it was never there - I.
                                (pluck)
ż: aaaaaaaah...        (āāāāh, alternatively, i.e. ā = a x2).
  
p.s. and yes, ż is an orthodox letter... e.g.?   żart.... joke.

We met at noon between picnic tables and humid Maryland heat.
Either you or the sun made me dizzy, as I talked and you nodded.
We were both distracted by the thought of air-conditioning.

We parted in August among mini-vans and goodbye kisses.
My eyes followed the license plate as you drove away, we agreed to sail catamarans the next chance we had.
We had both noted there was something in the water that summer, something purer than the water from the Chesapeake.

We rejoined in December under a Caribbean sun, not as humid as Maryland’s, surrounded by water purer than the Chesapeake.
There was still a buzz around us, like the air before a Maryland heat storm, to convince us the year of letters was not for naught.

We fell back to old habits on the Dutch side of Saint Martin.
We talked like the future was a choice and we had opted out.
We avoided words like regret and yesterday and repeated words like now, now, now and we spoke in hypotheticals.
We planned our house, or what it would be if we ever got boring enough to say words like tomorrow.

We stopped speaking in July after one thousand four hundred days of avoiding the next.
We should have known we were doomed to fail when “our song” was by Old ***** ******* and “our house” didn’t include a family room.
We should have known when our plans never involved the word tomorrow.

If I asked any of you, all of you,
for help

What would you do?

I'm falling like the rain
Spinning and colliding with everything.
It's all so lovely,
But it's the pungent smell of lust
That takes my breath away.

You wore a magnificent disguise
You were so beautiful
That I thought you would break the curse
Of my bruised and ****** heart
With every vein intact.

When we kissed,
It was electric
But I never asked you to go farther.
I didn't want to do the things
That you wanted to do
But "no" and "not here"
Were some letters strung together
That you could not identify.

After your strong will honed in on me
Threatened me
Violated me and then threw me away
I did not know what to make of it.

Shades of grey, that's what it was.
It was not black and white as I expected
Any type of ****** manipulation to be.

I just assumed that
If that happened to me
I would know it
Press charges
And tell someone.
Anyone.

Victim blaming would not affect me.
After all, I am a feminist, right?
But much to my surprise,
It took a brutal toll on my existence.

So many dangerous, pernicious things
Can sparkle beautifully.
They catch your eye
As if to trick you
And make you second guess yourself.
That's how they **** you in.

You always think in hypotheticals
That it will look clear as day.
Until it happens to you.

Elbows propped on tabletops,
we roll out our worlds, like a red carpet,
across the surface between us.
Mapping out our weeks
we speak in riddles
only able to be understood by
present company and others with
an acute appreciation for the absurd.

Round 1
We begin by bouncing pleasantries
mingled with snark and
littered with nonsense stories
across the space where our scotch glasses
drain lazily between us.

Round 2
Brings with it a new tone-
we begin to slip into hypotheticals
and start the dangerous
and all too familiar process of
looking over our own shoulders.
The past seems to sneak
into the pauses and reminiscing starts
to seem too surreal to be appealing.

Round 3
And we are forced to keep reluctant company
with the regret that now speckles the tabletop in front of me.
Our eyes retreat from each other
as our  mouths start forming
around our greatest inadequacies.
Fear of the future,
we're petrified by the present.
We are forgetting how to be hesitant
as coping mechanics drift and split.

Round 4
**** starts to get real.
You try to be ambivalent.
And I just get angry.

Round 5
I am entertaining the possibility
of weeping publically.
(It's an unfortunate emotional default setting)

Round 6
We find our way back
to the familiar.
Accessing the damage
we joke to save face
while working to wind the loose ends
back together again
to stash them from where they came.
(But nothing ever fits back into its box as easily after its been unpacked)

Each week we try to be
each other's comfort zone
to crawl inside
to rest awhile.
But tonight we're too exhausted
and too self-absorbed
and too similar to get it right.
We'll try again next week,
on the next high-top next Wednesday night.

To speak in good taste:
My mouth is full,
but this food is delicious.
Since I prepared the meal,
could you wash the dishes?

It's on the tip of my tongue:
I know what I mean to say,
but consonants and vowels
are hard to place,
so give me some time.
This isn't a race.

It could always be worse:
Yes, it could be,
but spare the neurotic,
because hypotheticals,
are never exotic.

If there's a will,
there's a way:
Excuse the jaded ****,
who puts thought into thought,
and understands the
value of a buck.

But to speak freely,
and to lose my filter,
our differences are
commonplace.
I'm a flower
that withers.

And
at the end of the day,
who am I to say,
that my frustrations
differ from yours,
because we keep all of our truths
locked
behind closed doors.

Hypothetically if I fell in love,
 I'd love you the world over.
Hypothetically if you were mine,
You'd be my moon and my sun,
With a hold on my heart and my mind.

Hypothetically if I could only do one thing a day,
I'd sit at your side,
Laughing all the way.
Hypothetically if I had to chose,
There would not be a thought of any but you.

Hypothetically if you loved me,
Loved me like I love you.


Hypothetically if you could see me ...
The way that I see you.

Twenty
Four
Hours.

Over a year ago
My theatre teacher told me
And a group of my closest friends
To write down
Exactly what we would do if
We found out we only had
Twenty-four hours left
To live.

My original draft was very juvenile,
Full of dramatic kisses
And dying in my crush's arms.

It was beautiful
For a seventeen-year-old romantic.

I don't know if my teacher realized
That I would become slightly
Obsessed with
What I would do
If I had twenty-four hours to live.
But whether she realized or not,
Obsessed I became.

I wrote "24" or my hand each day
For weeks,
To remind me that I could be
Dead in twenty-four hours,
Or less.

I wrote at least fifty drafts
Of what I would do
If I found out at that moment
That I had twenty-four hours left.
I would write a new draft when I decided
That the previous draft was
Too out-dated.
I think the longest lasting draft
During my surge of
Twenty-four hour hypotheticals
Lasted one week.
One.

I was totally obsessed with daring greatly,
Doing the things I had longed to do
For weeks or months or years,
And suddenly I had the permission I needed
To do them:
Twenty-four hours to live.

My drafting came to an end when
My best friend
Handed me the best
Twenty-four hour outline
I had ever seen.

At the top read the disclosure:
And you get into heaven no matter what.

I couldn't surpass that list with any of my own ideas.
And my obsessment was already dimming.

A year and a half or more later,
I don't make drafts.
I'm not obsessed.
I'm not going to die.

But every once in a while
When I feel like I'm not living
Life
To it's fullest,
I write "24" on my hand for
A few days.
Just to remind myself,
That at any moment,
My twenty-four hours left to live
Could be up.

“What's wrong with you?” they say,
“Can't you calm down for just a moment,
Take a deep breath--
Slow down,
Get centered and
Relax.
Stop being so **** negative,
What's the worry,
What's the hurry?
You can't solve every problem,
Let it go--
Hey not so fast.
Maybe, yes just maybe
If you stopped being so **** frightened
Well then maybe for a moment
All those fears would dissipate,
If you just stopped your overthinking
Your hypotheticals,
Possibilities,
If you let life flow all around you
You'd have that peace you say you crave.”

But they are wrong.  

Anxiety isn't nervousness.
Anxiety isn't cowardice.
Anxiety is a call to those
Whose eyes are open to the fight.

It is a certain sensitivity
An alertness;
A war machine never idle
There’s a buzzing below the surface,
There is no calm before this storm.
It is the constant sentinel
Vigilant in clash with
Paralysis,
There is no honor,
No heroism in this struggle
Whose burden countermands reward.

It is not the soldier’s nature to relax.

It is an instinct,
It is concern for you, for me, for others,
It is a special steadfast mutiny
When
Psyche fights the soul.

You say it is a weakness.
You subject me to societal court martial,
Though you cavalierly create conflicts
You say I am afraid.
But those consummate in combat,
Introspective and insightful,
True veterans of life’s battles
Know,
It's fear defines the brave.

here they come amassing their potential greatness in the back of my mind
there they go a squanderin around
the bug spins twice for the amusement of the hypotheticals and sporadic leeches
the door slams shut before opening again forthe greatest of the releases
and the nonsensicals pour out just this once for perhaps the only andlast time
they march forth in order of smallest to largest. silliest to unprovoked
wearing ******* clown shoes and false faces
some with dollar signs still burning the palms of their hands
but most with 10,000 mile stares
do they still write for the universal, for the greatest spining reversal?
do they still speak in the most straightforward of riddles?
does anyone still read into them...
does the faucet still incessantly drip idealized water memories...
I can only see the *****, not the gradient
I can only feel the dew, not the grass
i can only taste the crab, not the shell
I can only hear the music, not thewords
facing divinity and scouring myself clean in the shame it forces
seeing the exact center of the venn diagram
and being blinded by the duality therein
*****
and links
234
simplicity is the most difficult thing to master
books don't write themselves
authurs can't design inspiration
liquids still sing

My beards gettin' long, just been snoozin' it
Friends tellin' me you ain't been out, you losin' it
and they probably right, but I'm just cruisin' it
But all this grief is selling

Where's my mental, it's leaving, but I'm shaking like shingles, all my boys got me, but they ain't even know the half of it, and they couldn't, errybody so shallow all I see when I look at 'em is 8-bit, but **** nobody cares, they just trippin, but at least I got the ladies strippin, what a personality I've acquired, isn't that fitting

I'm ready to throw
Trying not to swerve but she ain't driving to steady
It's falling apart, but she's on the horizon
She looks so **** fine from head to heart
It's easy to lose your head when you're at stop a light
And you gotta start all over, rip it all apart, and put it back together, fallin' apart
Stop the car, I gotta walk through all this (from the start)

Silence is feeling when she gone (Where you been?)
Can't get out, I'm paler then a ******* goblin (Around)
All I think is bullets when I got my head next to this pistol (You haven't been out in three weeks man, what happened to that girl you were talking to)
Can't seem to drop it all, but I guess we'll see when my wrist folds (I don't know man, she seeing somebody else)
Where's she at all I want to do is hold her ******* (You're a ghost man, you gotta forget about that *****)
Gets a little violent in here, hold my beer hot mess (Yeah I know man, I'll catch you around)
Going through all the hypotheticals, but that **** ain't alphabetical (****)
How am I supposed to know how to get over you when all you do is make me ******* sick confess

**** I guess I'll just **** the pain away, but it only kills it while I'm in her, but when I finish it stays here
I'm cold, *****, you were the only thing that warmed me
But I guess you were just the mold cause you formed me
I'm a salesman now, let me know where the pretty ******* at
I could sell you something, leaving you alone in the morning with fingers ready to point blame - blame it on my ben folds, fat stacks and fame
******* ain't even play the game, I just leave em in shame
You just a fake, and you linger, all the same, all the same
But you're sticking with me so I guess it's just something in my head

Call me pathological, I dare you you ******* dame
But all I know is your sticking, I can here it echo, I hear it, it's your name
Paradox, like a ***** wearin' crocks (that's what we call a **** block)
Maybe I'm the one who's the same, but you had to erase me just to find my true colors, ******* were a fighter
In between all the arguments and ***, and silent netflix, you were something more, but I was too busy being me to find that out, you were my cigarette, I was the lighter, I lit you up for a while, but in the end I just smoked you out
Look at your pencil, It's dull and calloused like you were when I left you, all I was to you was a blank piece of paper and you were the writer

My name means “gracious gift of God”, but this is not what I am.
My name does not mean “gracious gift of God” because I am not the product of one,
I am the product of many.
My name means “she sees,”
But there are glasses perched on my face with every intention of helping me see what is only a few feet away.

Isis, the most powerful Egyptian Goddess lives right between Jessica and Brady.
Isis is the goddess of magic and nature, two things that I love dearly yet no one knows about.
She stays unknown, and hidden, like she does not want to be seen.
With great excuse as well, because Isis is the only accurate depiction of me within these 16 letters, 7 syllables, 3 words.
Because I am not bound by connected lines
With spaces in between that have a bigger picture,
I am not my name in the most formal way.
I am the way that my curls frizz when I’ve forgotten to treat it,
Or the way that my hand flickers and wavers over a paper
When I’m about to forget an idea.
I show myself as a simple person
But I am not just one person.
With every breath you take you remove a piece of yourself
And breathe in a piece of someone close to you.
For that reason, I am not myself, not wholly at least.

I am the way my mother cuts down people with their own words,
The way she brought me to numerous swimming classes and taught me to love the ocean,
Or maybe the way words roll off my fathers tongue like he was born with this knowledge.
Maybe I am the way my friends tell me only absolute truths,
Or the way they only think in hypotheticals.

But come to think of it now,
These have all mixed and pieced together to become a part of me.
So maybe
In the end
I really am myself.

(i’ve a habit
of hiding
inside parentheses.)

it’s two o’clock in the morning
and all i can think about
is the way
your eyelashes
fluttered
after you winked at me.

photographs feed my urgency
as i drown myself
in thrashing, foamy
rivers that
glisten with memories.
we held hands
with linked fingers.
(we both acknowledged it.
i
wasn’t joking.)

with broken hearts, we were
magnetized. only
brute force
and the physical presence
of sixteen pairs of eyes
pulled us apart.

a logical explanation
was given
for the tipi. you must know
by now
that i take rationale
at face value.

if you’re a book, you’re
wide open
but your pages are written
in invisible ink.

i need to know
what you
know.

(as of now, the
you&me;
i dream of
exists only
in hypotheticals.)

-------------------------------As seen on Taste.com*-----------------------------

Ingredients:
One will need a portion of the following:
1) 50g of self-imposed isolation (optional: w/ drawn curtains)
2) a tablespoon of misguided misanthropy (store brand does the trick)
3) a propensity for experiencing negative stigma
4) ethyl alcohol enough to form parasitic relationship (approx: half bottle of grey goose)
5) 1kg of pervasive fear of the unknown (found in Future aisle amongst acquaintanceships, unwelcome hypotheticals)
6) a 3/4 cup of ground self-loathing  + the root
7) lettuce
8) tomato
9) cucumber
10) onions
11) avocado

Method:
Step one: place self-imposed isolation in a slow cooker along with misguided misanthropy. Cook on low for 8 HOURS. This will make LONELINESS.

Step two: preheat oven to 200C fan-forced. take loneliness from  slow-cooker then douse in alcohol before placing in oven. it's meant to burn (you're meant to burn.)

Step three: bring a *** to boil and throw negative stigma in to cook until it softens.

Step four: cut pervasive fear of the unknown into strips and braise.

Step five: plate pervasive fear and negative stigma. this combination is the foundation.

Step six: chop vegetables and mix into standard garden salad, then plate (one may plate how they wish, presentation -- to you, at least, matters not, or little; here's the one who wears tracksuit pants to parties. your parents have to remind you to brush your hair). garnish with self-loathing, decorate plate with the root of self-loathing.

Step seven: plate loneliness. truest to the recipe if loneliness is focal point of the plate. if it's cooked properly it will bleed. so will you -- just give it time.

Happy cooking!!

carnal lightening reaped my brain in verves of
sickled fever, emotion sloughing clean
my tortured psyche.

and who was I to challenge
this narcotic self ablution –
yet, what of my resolve to linger
undisturbed
in bias mental disarray?

pathetic hypotheticals
engorged my blood
as nothing new.
the tension burning scars within this
manic unenlivened carcass
grew until

my hybrid self assaulted what was once
unfailed but often wrong integrity
as swifter than a scarlet blade
my conscience was absconded
to a heaven: peace, release, and ease.

had I commanded armies to retreat?
my palsied mind
was finally worth its ****** ground
and tissues thick with matters
fed on independence
lost among the strain.

I must remember where I left my genius.

So I've been finding myself thinking of you as I watch the clock
Tick
And tick
And tick
My goodnight buddy, 
Where have you gone?
I miss you the early morning we dont lay awake talking nonsense 
Speaking in hypotheticals 
We slowly gather each others intimacies  
You come to me at perfect times
Easing my lips to a smile
we engage in a joyful nothing
Until the next night that ends as dawn begins
that begins with you asking me to stay up again because you wish to fall asleep to my voice.
To my goodnight buddy 
I wish you sweet dreams.

i want to talk with someone
but i don't know how to say it
i want to talk just talk
not about specific life events or what i ate for dinner last night
please don't ask me about my family or my academics
ask me why my replies get short when you ask me how i am
tell me more than
well i'm glad you're still breathing
when that's my response to your short question
i know
that i can twist my words into appearing positive even when they're not
i know that my sarcasm doesn't always transcend beyond the computer's algorithms
i know that you don't know how to mitigate my suffering
and that's fine
really
it is
so we'll talk about you and your great life adventures
even though right now
i want to talk about the poem i just read by andrea gibson
i want to talk about my writing professor and her brilliant mind and how i've never been more motivated to get to class just so i could sit there and take in the simple grandeur
i want to talk about the night sky and i know it's overrated woohoo the stars and moon huzzah for the earth's night light but have you ever noticed
how when you stand out in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning,
the world down here is silent and flat but up there, the galaxies stretch and bend beyond the eye can see, the stars are all placed so perfectly
hapharzardly scattered about but in the right places
sometimes they're so dim, you know?
i will never stop aweing over the miracle of the sky nor will i ever not stand in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning on a rough night just to be reminded of the beauty that's still there within each and every one of us even though sometimes we can't see it
i want to talk about the dream i had last night
and the night before that and how i am scared to fall asleep because my mind is a ******* complex and ***** thing that can thread unimaginable hypotheticals through something that was supposed to be peaceful
i don't want to sleep
i want to talk
i want to talk with someone
because i'm tired of talking to myself
-
-rgp

write a poem about me,
all inked hypotheticals
and pretty words dressed up in rationality -

give it to her
and tell her she's beautiful,
that she writes like a dream,
and leave just enough spaces
in between your favorite metaphors
to string them up with a maybe,
a silhouette of me,
just enough space to wonder
if she's only bright in my shadow -

because darling, I want to know
what it feels like
on the other side
of sadness.

We are both lovers of the hypothetical,
The Sunday morning eggs and toast
as we watch the wind comb the trees from our apartment window.
Sometimes I wonder If we are living our hypothetical,
If the threads of our lives have come together
to form one tapestry  
or if I am one piece of your puzzle,
if one day my name will come unstuck
and fall from your lips.

But I am grateful to fall,
to have spent any fraction of time
With my name on your tongue,
And yours on mine.

./*because thinking about money is always a "near-miss"... this hierarchy of transvaluation... money and the philosopher's stone... compound the paradox... toying with nouns and adjective to imply almost anything... to compose an artifact that could turn a stone into gold... put money: which is now a f.i.a.t. *****-wonka... that money isn't even paper anymore... some major ****** blues... what's the point of thinking about money seriously... when... clearly... there's such a defire to not spend it... let alone earn it... to subsequently spend it... for a contest of "life" outside the realm of "existence" as defined by auxiliary strategy of: because the theatre allowed me to pass the time... mere mortal man... a month's worth of time: with pressing interludes... i dedicate to a juggling act between a charles dickens' novel and a milan kundera essay... "somehow" i listen to the adverts and i am inclined to be immune to them... since... if i only have enough for a bowl of rice... real or hypothetical scenario... or: i only want a bowl of rice... the advert is like a t.v.: a 20th century pièce de résistance... how can you make adverts for people: who are unable / unwilling to spend "money"... mough-knee... mow-mow? last time i heard my student loan is written off after... 15 years? and i am not supposed to pay a pound of it... if i... do not earn... over 15 thousand pounds a year... such the pleasures of thought: after a while.... you can almost forget a pleasure of spending money... let alone earning it... otherwise... such a fluidity goo section of life: when earning also implies: spending... on non-essentials... a concept of money akin to something essential like wielding a spear... or throwing a stone... but... tipping a waiter... because... it's somehow socially "convenient": the aesthetic of having to over-price a cooked meal in a public event... *

   by no extension of the "claim"...
it's impossible to claim a cognitive coherence:
a narrative... these days...
there's still barrage of lukewarm giggling
events though...

ad hoc: hammer / nail...

        and... a priori / a posteriori?

or rather: that there is an an hoc
hammer / nail...

             most certainly there's an a priori
hammer / nail...
          
the a posteriori hammer? a ******
tool...

       the a priori hammer:
                       is clearly defined by...
   the action of hammering something...
most probably to break it open...
rather than also stumble upon
nails... and subsequently
worked on planks of wood...

            the a priori hammer is:
           a "hammer"...
                it's only a stone...
  there is no handle there's only the head...
or that the head is flat...
which would pre-supposed nails...

then again... the a posteriori hammer:
can be the ad hoc hammer
but it can also be the a priori hammer
should such murderous thoughts
of hypotheticals tangle...

          lazily inhibited or otherwise making
a leisure of a coherence...
once upon a time there was the existential
thorough-through-and-through
of "concern"...
                 now this burdening:
  
cope via bearing -
             it is exhaustive to merely cope...
to fit the shoes of mediocre pretences...
the burden of coping is
somehow... not a concern:
along the way so many ad hoc propositions
lie inquisitively numbed...
a skull envy of brain mushroom juice...
a wholly adjective project
of...             "detail"...
      something a question of an ottoman romance...
at the height of their imperialism...
there was the victorian novel and a london:
ad hoc: for the purpose of the mythos
of jack the ripper...
an elder hyde... a dorian gray..

  jack the ripper is unlike a clear cut
media celebrity of the h'american way of:
beside thinking...
      the credentials of making a...
profiling spectacle...
    jack / jacob was never...
sentenced... alluded to... made into
a certainty...
      rummaging in victorian detail London...
a height of an empire...
readying for the decay...
               there's a scent of...
a trust in ottoman hair / bear oils...
then the stink of mastering
the unfathomable foe of one's own hair
using nothing but rain water...

this romance of history: as with all history:
a look toward a past is
always a look toward:
yes, there i was... rich and grievous with pride
akin to a Cicero...
the past... when one had the money...
is always a prized concern for staging
nostalgia coup d'etats...
                and such....

                        nothing in the currency
of... to have invested in a currency of a surname...
one must have been born with...
a concern to bereave an upstanding
via lady mort...
       it's not like i was...
the ******* son of... the Merovingian...
loiter further to loot...

             if i were the born satire of Mr. Kalashnikoff...
a hybrid non-essential sour...
and sorrow of a son...
the cooker oyster...
the... hardly pickled cucumber...

bunny-bon-weaver...
    come the tail like cotton candy and
the forever missing 1960s
nostalgia that: once upon a time...
a spacing... mirroring nostalgia for...
a past...

        no            no            no
this part... of "disappearing" into the sunset...
my hardly best exercise in
the use of language...
such an objective detail of "concerning"
grammar...
           it's beginning to last...
having this language... not as an indigenous
lifeline and rehab...
             to speak only one
language in this... globalist choir-practice
of inferno...
             it'z alzmozt amasing...
                     it was bound to reach
fever-pitch of: a "happeningz"...

                          i would like to veto...
but no... it's not a philosophy of an exercise of vote..
i simply... default...
                 to barricade fudge-packaging
factory dynamic of stealing: stool.

- the sanctity of the most tyrannical...
echo-whimpering...
       that it's forever the night...
                         that there's a shadow-body replica
to invest in... could a dream-world
architecture come into play...
a *** a wine a ***** cocktail...
alcohol is not a perfume base
or a piña colada "after-party"...

  repentant drunks and people:
who dwell on alcohol having some...
ulterior purpose...
beside... a numbing altruism...
teasing at a solipsism...
    
as of: forever "passing" as  "pass grade"...
this lobotomy encompass
this harvest of:
there's a cat sleeping in
a place where my head
should align itself to the purpose
of quickening lacklustre:

that there's greenwich and that that there's
a loon'don..
somehow there was "someone"
sensible dragging my carcass
to the foundation of salt...
for the possibility of:
that there's water too...
but a stone!
                      i want to find
a crease... and sand too!