.              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.

I'm a fan of Vontaze Burfict
Though he may not be perfect
For he gives players concussions
To continue the daily discussions
Of the power of his percussion
To receive a hall of fame induction
That is where his value is derived
So what do these penalties imply?
That the referees have a preconceived notion of him
And are preemptively looking to treat him grim
Which gives his team a lesser chance to win
Which makes the biased referees grin

We are a country that idolizes quarterbacks
Every other position we're quick to attack
We only care about who has the ball
And laughing at others when they fall
We worship that which is shiny
And view everything else as grimy
Quarterbacks become celebrities incredulously
While everyone else is treated impetuously

The NFL is like America
Politics makes it harder to watch
The Patriots are boring and plain
They win constantly
The Bengals are entertaining and rough around the edges
They show promise and potential that is never realized
In a nation
Of provocation
I'd rather proudly call myself a bengal
I know that seems an idealistic angle
But Cincinnati provides no coziness or protection
You must always avoid discriminate detection
Of those that call themselves patriots
That drive blue and white chariots
And penalize players unnecessarily
For African Americanning

We really fumbled the ball
Because of the ref's call
That treats us unequally
How they have fun evilly
They can arbitrarily treat whoever however
But a concussion will make them less clever

There is this voice that is within me
That wants to scream out preemptively
To prevent my fears from blindly justifying reason

A propensity in our nature
Or is it just nurtured,
Could it be that I’ve created these fears myself?

For why else would it be,
That this voice inside me,
Would scream out for these thoughts to stop?

I'd like to eat, but I'm sleepless
waking while seeing the sun rest
greeting again before I shut my eyes
to the day that I endlessly live.
I'd like to dream, but I'm dreamless
to demands of fear from my brain
where it sits in the head controlling
impulse then flooding just when it wants.

I'll **** your **** for a five or a ten
and here when you thought you'd
never find a silent friend.
I'm on the cheap should you need me,
for a tap on the fingertips.

I'd like to be where you all say no
to the presence of reverie
in the face of the guarantee
I'm preemptively broke
for the moment of falling down
where I wave and I bring you in
to home and a ******* meal

There you are again,
you old, reincarnated love.
Showing up in new faces
and handing me a token
of your affliction:
your half-empty glass,
a leaf ripped from its limb,
your one-way ticket to a place
I won’t be.

Here we are again,
walking down the street
under wet trees and lit balconies
as if we’re falling in love.  
You try to convince me you’ll
stay this time,
but I see the itch in your skin
to leave as soon as you realize
I recognize you.

And I do.
You’re a fiery first-kiss.
A five-day affair. Maybe this time six.
A reality check.

Light beams and a car horn
shake me awake.
A squeeze around the waist
indicates you’re still lying
beside me in bed.
I preemptively wince in pain.
Any minute now.

You pass through that door
like anyone would,
but I know what your
“See you soon,” means.

While smoking on my back porch,
I noticed a pale furry form out of the corner of my eye slowly rounding the corner of my house,
lumbering its way towards me,
unknowingly.

An oppossum (or is it "a oppossum," seeing as the O is silent?)

(I once had a nightmare about a(n) oppossum in which I had just woken up from a nightmare, (which is to say, I woke up from a nightmare within a nightmare,) then caught my breath as I lay in my bed, trying to calm down so that I could fall back to sleep. Only, before I could, and in the customary post-nightmare way of scanning the room for monsters before even attempting to go back to sleep, I noticed a pale furry form on my bedroom windowsill.

Freaked out by this, I stood straight up on my bed, brandishing the blanket as an impromptu defensive weapon.
The possum on the windowsill panicked at this sudden and unexpected commotion, and in reaction hissed something fierce and bared its fangs at me.

Then, moving in the kind of fast/slow motion way that only ever seems to happen in dreams, the thing leapt from my window to my bed and started biting into my ankle.
Deeply biting.
To the bone.
I felt my ankle flesh being torn away and my bed was quickly soaked with blood.
That's when I woke up for real,
with a scream lodged in my throat.)

(This nightmare had occured a few days after I'd witnessed one of my friends violently murdering an possum in his backyard a few nights prior.

A great big giant of a kid, this friend, with a massive head and an inclination towards violence (especially when he'd been drinking,) and he'd justified the Opusssum ****** preemptively as being for the sake of the safety of his daughter, who often plays in this backyard, or something along those lines.

A chase had then ensued, with this kid holding a car-jack handle in his hand as a weapon. How it ended was like this:
After spotting his elusive quarry along the fence, he hurled the jack handle end-over-end directly at its head. It connected.

The result was gruesome;
The only species of marsupial native to North America lying on its side with its head caved in and pinkish brain matter coming out of its snout, but it was the leg that made the scene the most gruesome.

It twitched violently, as if it was still trying to run away, and the force with which this one leg twitched caused the whole body to shift with it, causing more brain stuff to slide out of its nose with each useless kick.

The look on its face was indescribable.

Transfixed as I was by it,
the death throes of this small animal whose only crime was crawling through the wrong yard at the wrong time,
I was quickly pulled out of it by a loud scream from a short distance behind me.

A scream from the mouth of a little girl who had also (unknowingly to the rest of us) witnessed the scene. The daughter of the man who had slayed the beast,
in order to protect her from it,
and yet here she was,
weeping uncontrollably.)

And so but when I saw this oppossum coming towards me tonight, getting uncomfortably close to my ankle, and before even really realizing what it was about it that had caused such a fright,
I turned and hightailed it in the other direction.

Looking over my shoulder as I did so,
I noticed that the oppossum had done the same.

Oh, so you want to be a writer?

You've fashioned yourself a little world independent of the rat race

You've steeped yourself in craft, in how to spin a phrase

You know that you could "speak truth to power" for days and days and days

Oh so you want to be a writer?

Oh that's nice, are you aware that it's all been said before?

Oh not with you because you're different? Oh how could I ignore

With such a compelling argument from someone who I've never heard

You've really got me hooked on your every single word

So if I listen will you tell me how I can live my life

or maybe give me another parable to make this all more bearable

Make a mantra that is wearable, or something incomparable

Just like all the ones I've read in my studies

Oh someone liked it? Oh I suppose it's probably derivative

Because you're working with themes, freethinking probably prohibited

See I'm the guy who'd say you're unoriginal for painting with red

Because all things are stemmed from other things, I want all frameworks dead

Why is there structure? You're repeating words on the end rhyme

Let me guess, at the end there's gonna be some clever end rhyme

to keep your verbiage in time, to spicen up the headlines?

to give it another direction defending pretending to benefit people by lending a second inflection preemptively bending in time to the beats of the hearts of the blended?

You're clever, you rhymed something multisyllabic, electric your voice, saying "**** the volt I am magic" not grounded to reality you've claimed to be Zeus's mortal form inhabited

Simmer down baby you're on a roll with yourself

I wonder how long you think it'll be before you break the mold

of pretentious defenders of needs and false interpretations of dreams

You had a dream about music, well I guess we can see what that means

"To dream about Disco suggests you need to be more sociable"

Have you ever stopped to think it might just mean "where did the coke go?"

"To dream that you are in a musical suggest you need to be careful with your emotions"

Because musicals are for sissies, ya da ya da grab the lotion

Stroking myself is my greatest profession

Because I'm learning about me, yes I'm writing this for me, and the only voice that I can have is authentically my confession

I can sell you an image and hope you can relate to that

You'll interpret the meaning, and I'll hide behind the praise while I sit back

I'll let you watch shadow puppets while I'm doing my dancing

I can build up my world, I can hold you entranced in

I'm breaking too many fourth walls to have a building to glance in

I want to give some expression, I need to show you what I hid

*Oh yeah, that's nice, are you making any money at this yet kid?

My therapist told me

that I need to just keep living

that I will find surrogate parent figures

that somebody will care about me

accept me unconditionally

and help me when I need help

But it ******* tortures me

that my dad is a ******* ******* narcissist

who gets off on being withholding

and my mom is a strong, independent woman

who refuses to stand up to him

and help her own ******* kids

this is not creative writing, or poetry or prose

this is not some late night rant

this is the ******* demon that follows me

this is the ghost that haunts my dreams

this is my ******* waking nightmare

I was born into a chaotic world

and my family didn’t do anything to stabilize it

so my world is constantly spinning out of control

and when it stops,

I can’t even bring myself to trust

the people who love me

or even the ground beneath my feet

because I feel it in my bones

it’s all gonna be ripped away

pulled out from under me

so there’s no hope for hoping

and I’m always in harm’s way

and maybe my therapist is ******* right

and with time things will get better

but right now I can’t sleep

and I want to ******* scream

and I want somebody to hold me

I don’t want to feel like I have to tread water

Constantly moving because if I collapse

or take a break for even a second

that’s it, I’m finished

I have to hold up the weight of my world

and it’s breaking my back

and breaking my heart

and breaking my spirit

And I have so many good friends

and they care about me

But I can hardly find it in me

to care back sometimes

because it hurts when people leave

And often as not, I do the leaving

preemptively, better to hurt than be hurt

but it’s not ******* better

You can tell me it’s gonna be ******* alright

You can tell me it get’s better

But I am still lying in my bed

I feel like I can’t keep this up

this pace, this nonstop pace

I am out of control

I need to get better

I need to find stability

and acceptance

and a place to rest

I have never felt at home

in 20 years, I have never had a home

Just because I have a roof and a mattress

doesn’t make me at home

I take my ******* pills

every **** night

to keep my emotions

from getting too high

or too low

but all I feel now is angry

and scared

that I will be this way

until the day that I die

Constantly searching

trying to find my way home

but it is nowhere to be found

and I feel the ***** rising in my throat

and the tears on my face

I don’t want to be real

I want to be a ******* sitcom character

or an extra in a movie

or somebody in a novel

I don’t want to have to be multi-faceted

Or complex

I just want a few simple things

And I always thought maslow’s hierachy of needs was *******

but maybe he was right and there are basic needs

that I need met

before I can have high self-esteem

but mostly **** that

I accept myself

the good bits and the bad bits

I love them all

even the messy ****

the mistakes I have made

which is a ******* lot

Can you say that?

I just want to be ok

And I want you to know that

I want to share my experiences

And I want to be able to tell people

how I went from here to somewhere better

and that it happens

I ******* hate open ended ****

this whole ******* experience

of living and being human

and nothing resolves

it is constantly changing and developing

well I guess that’s what you ******* get here too

Failure to flee,
Preemptively,
Has lead me to be,
Alone with 3.
6 little hands,
30 tiny toes,
1 broken heart,
4 hopeful souls.

‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the homeless, old man begging for change
On the green line station me and my friends get off at to buy coffee
He turns and looks at us
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the toothless, old man on that cold winter night
As we preemptively pull out our phones and look down at the ground
A defense mechanism
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the hobbling, old man as we pass him by
Without making eye contact or even a sympathetic nod
If only I had cash on me
‘I ain’t tired!’ repeats the mentally ill, old man while we descend
The stairs down onto the pavement and into Chinatown
The snow continues falling
‘I ain’t tired!’ echoes the starving, old man
His voice ringing in my ears long since we’d left ear shot
The only time I had the courage to glance at him
He was a mess of wires and bone and cloth and paint and white hair
Older than the city I had just begun to explore and call home
Permanently on that train station yelling
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’

What was it he said
while we sat on the bench


Saturn glimpsed down, considering proposal
but Mars reflected in his own vanity, said no preemptively.
Popsicle boy flicked his hair off his forehead and asked the sun why he was so bored.
"22 thousand civilian casualties in Iran and we don’t even give a ****. Thousands of homeless in this city alone. How is that possible?"
He pointed at a lightning bug.
"I can plant as many community gardens as I want, it still doesn’t make a difference!"

You come home from a busy day in the city.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all spent with “friends” happy to be in your company.
"How are you doing?"
"It's been so long."
"I'm glad you could meet!"
Things go swimmingly.
Conversations open with smiles, flow with laughter and gossip, and end with XOXO in live form.
"Let's do this again sometime."
"Hopefully I'll see you again soon."
"Take care."
You walk back home to your apartment, calling your best friend on the way, telling her about the movie you saw today so you don't feel so alone on the 12-block trek back to your apartment.
You feel sorry for everyone walking past you who didn't watch the latest indie dark comedy you watched yet because you're giving the entire plot line away.
The journey becomes blurred and finally you arrive at your door, and you hang up and get inside.
Your father is home, getting ready to go out and do whatever it is adults do on the Upper East Side at night.
He leaves and you spend hours texting your best friend, preemptively looking at wedding dresses online, listening as she devises her perfect “four-year marriage plan.”
You just recently broke up with your partner and have no plans.
You give another friend at home a call and rant about passion and justice and other big ideas muddling in your brain.
You send peripheral texts to the friends you saw earlier today, thanking them for their company and solidifying plans made in conversation.
To anyone observing these private moments, it is clear to see you are more than connected. You are more than cared about. You are more than loved.
Except you can’t even fathom such observations in your own mind.
And when you hang up the phone, when the goodnight messages are exchanged, when your father comes home, and the lights turn out, you feel alone.
Within these moments, you are a prisoner to your own fears and insecurities--your biggest fear being the Silence, which forces you to face them all.
Your face crumples.
You analyze every mistake, every regret, every misstep of the day.
You regret all the plans you made.
You don't need to convince yourself you're unlovable-- you believe it already.
Then you begin to think of all the friendships you ****** up on, the things people didn't say and the people that weren't there.
You imagine only negative space.
In sorrowful attempts to cheer yourself up, you repeat one of your mantras in your head.
"Nobody's perfect, we are all changing, nothing is constant"
Until unwanted arguments dispute these mantras on command, shooting down every ounce of light in your dark, muddied thoughts.

It's nights like these where suicide might sound like a good idea.

Then you wonder when the self-inflicted mind wounds will end, if ever. You wonder if you'll ever have the strength for light again. You wonder if you could ever experience joy again without pain. Most of all, you wonder what particular culmination of events led you to become this way.

The only thing that keeps you going is the hope that everything will slowly get better, and one day, things will be ok again just as easily as they went awry.

In the mean time, you watch your phone light up from notifications on the Selfie you posted on Instagram earlier, before you started crying. The likes give you just enough shallow reassurance that you are enough for some people--even if only aesthetically-- and this fact gives you just enough solace for you to finally close your eyes.

2:53 am.

How clean is clean
when the cleaning began
from the floor of a sunken ship?
Barnacles grace the walls in the place
of family, or a familiar face.

When filth is a given, and given
in projection to the overtly empathetic
as a matter of course, why implore?

Because you don't implore,
you explore as an entity
reaching for a meaning.

The question becomes,
do you fight, or do you invite
the coming cessation?

Even with a gun, and a view to ****,
the power the bullet affords
would surely fail to thrill you.
The best charlatans paint your hands red,
as you're sleeping in bed, preemptively.

Let the liars lie, let the builders connive.
Uninterrupted access to their own confines.
To Narcissus, the cool nod is colder than the knife.

Let the liars lie, let the builders connive.
When the company you keep requires the sacrifice
of your authenticity and your reality, just leave.

It'll never get good. It'll never get great.
It'll never be worth the investment.

he's the type of guy
who wears the same pair of jeans
for months at a time
wearing them down to frayed seams and cuffs
The type of guy
who shops at the Good Will
comfort over style
familiar with familiarity

She's the type of girl
who doesn't know where her clothes came from
She picked them all up at one time or another
The type of girl
who doesn't spend multiple morning hours
in front of a mirror
It's about what she puts into the world
her body's expendable

They are the type of couple
who preemptively **** away their arguments
because real conflict would surely break them
so they refuse to look at it
until it becomes so large and obtrusive
that it comes crashing down on them
like a breaker
and washes them away

Remember when,
the Amazon meant the rainforest,
remember when,
Birds were winged creatures that flew above us,

remember when,
our memory wasn’t something on our phone,
remember when,
memory was something in our minds?

Do you remember?

Do you remember,
when we were Light Beings,
not confined to physical bodies,
remember when being a being wasn’t so disgusting?

Remember when we lived,
without farting or pooping or bleeding or sneezing,
remember when we loved for the sake of love,
remember when we’d get together without needing a reason,

Do you remember?

Do you remember unconditional love,
I mean real unconditional love,
back when what we did actually seemed to matter,
before we gave up and stopped giving a fck,

before we threw in the white towel,
and sold our souls to buy in by trying to buy the right vowels,
remember when we had each other to believe in,
before we bought into the dreams they sell and we sold out?

Do you remember?

Do you remember when we lived freedom,
and it wasn’t just a dream we believed in,
do you remember when our little personal revolutions were evolutionary,
do you remember when we could trust everything we were seeing,

now the whole background seems like a green screen,
now the whole world seems like a crime scene,

in a Mandala of Samsara,
trying to break the cycle with Tantra Mantras,
and I wan’t to be Dr. Jekyll all harmless,
but sometimes I scare myself and become a monster,

but I guess that’s the price we pay to play The Game,
ah this life is expensive but liberation is priceless,
so I pay my dues and keep moving through,
making moves like there’s nothing to lose but this life I shine until lifeless,

taking trips without falling to destinations that are calling,
my name by ship car or plane trying to get it all but in the process forgetting everything,
so I preemptively apologize if we meet again,
and I admit that I easily forget and have to ask you to please remind me your name,

remember when,
the Amazon meant the rainforest,
remember when,
Birds were winged creatures that flew above us,

remember when,
our memory wasn’t something on our phone,
remember when,
memory was something in our minds?

Do you remember?

∆ LaLux ∆

I kissed myself on the forehead
and told myself that I've had better days
that everything used to be...  ok...

I wish I could go back!
I would change so many things,
I would learn to control myself better...
I would not listen to those who controlled me

all things considered
it seems I've grown bitter
and these words they haunt me
all things considered
it seems I've grown iller
and my killer he taunts me

the writer inside,
"negligible pride
despite the crazy ride
on a track that cut off "-me

I wish I could go back
I would explain myself better
I would not resort to street medication quackery
I would read up on hereditary

I would brush my first set of teeth more
I would learn to sleep
I would prepare preemptively before a storm
I would promise, I would not keep
I would avoid ever taking the high road
I would avoid the very notion of forlorn

I would stick to what I knew
yet despite the way I grew
I became what i had hoped
achievement was my rue
and now I am torn

I would lie.
I would lie to everyone.

because they all did it to me
and it hurt, but they couldn't see
that no one cared
not even me
and herein lies
insult to injury
the ones that love you most
are the ones who hurt severely

and so
I kissed myself on the forehead
and then I saw clearly.

I never had a lover
Who didn't approach me
Without a knife poised behind his back.
Without teeth straight like razorblades.
I fell in love with the eyes...
I assume it's my eyes they fell in love with too.
Permanently dilated.
When I look in the mirror...
When I peer into my own soul,
I open the gates to Hell.
It's as if I can see into Hades,
With a fiery passion that burns holes in the atmosphere
Like greenhouse gasses.
Maybe lovers approach me
Because my demons call to them,
Begging them to send me home.
You speak in tongues
Like an exorcist
Trying to expel my demons.
I imagine I still haunt you,
And that night haunts me too.
You're the woman in the waiting room
Preemptively searching for answers,
Already aware
That results from the bloodwork
Won't ease her strain...
And I am the uneasy doctor
Trying to calm your nerves
Before I break the news
That nothing is as it should be
And never will be again.
I wish you had thought of us
Before I walked away
And you hesitated
So that you could ensure
You didn't miss -
Checking my back for my stab wounds
Which were merely lacerations.
In hopes I'd be another addition
To your killstreak...
But this isn't a video game
And if it were,
I'd be the juggernaut
And you'd be the camper.

The sun set
Out my window-
Its light bounced
Off your eye lashes,
Your *******,
And my warm blankets
Into my eyes

I thought I wore nothing but my watch
As we made love
And I saw you checking the time,
Just seeing
How long we had left

But I noticed later that

(“If a train came right now
Would you get out of the way?”
We were in the woods
Standing on this quiet railroad track
Where the birds chirped loudly,
Annoyingly unaware of the silence
We required.
We hadn't spoken
For several minutes
And I had been thinking about this
For a while
As we stood staring straight ahead
Both of us half hoping...

My answer came quickly:
“Yes.”

You turned and walked away
Unable to face
The most fundamental difference
Between us,
Laid out so blatantly.)

I had preemptively worn a moment
That day
As well.

I sit in a burgundy leather chair at work
Hoping that I don't get fired.
But I tried downloading an unauthorized program onto my computer
And a pop-up with the word *******
Flashed across the screen when I went to check the baseball scores.

Maybe I will forsake this whole ******* life
And run off into a hermitage
Heaping ashes on myself, prostrated before a cheap wax statue.
But on some level what I'm really doing
Is avoiding responsibility.

I'm dreading the drive home, to be honest
Because I know you will greet me with that fiery anger
That paradoxically gives me an *******
But also breaks my heart.

Maybe I can just walk in the door
***** preemptively sealed in a yellowed Mason jar,
And say,

"Just stay right where you are, Steve."
"We don't want any trouble..."

The ***, I thought. Pirates drink ***, I decided, because then the world rocks like a boat. My foot was tingling, like it was asleep, but I was just sitting on it, which seemed funny.

I managed to free my foot and the whole world seemed more comfortable.
Then a spider was on my face!
I swatted at it, but it was just my hair, which I managed, with dizzying effort, to tuck behind my ear.

Everett, slid off the couch, in front of me, like an alligator off a sand bank. I hadn’t noticed him before. He worked his way over next to me, on all fours, like a lazy, wobbly panther.

“Everett,” I said, as if to establish the fact that that blurry shape was indeed Everett.
“ANN-Ais,” he replied, and chuckled like we’d exchanged punchlines. He was next to me now.
“You’re very,” he said, as if struggling for the next word, “PRetty,” he said, petting my arm like a cat.

Then, still on all fours, he lifted one hand and touched a finger to my right breast, as if it were a sleeping thing he was trying to wake. I watched him, detachedly. He looked distorted, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. His backside slumped down, like a lion that was full and ready to nap, and he rebalanced himself on his left elbow and licking his lips reached over again.

I gently, preemptively, pushed his reaching hand away, “Stop thAT,” I said, “yourrrrrr drrUNK.”
“YOU’RE, are TOO!” He said, in sloppy accusation, which made me laugh and then him too.

“Leave me alone,” I managed to say, pretty clearly. Prompting Everett to frown and give me a jerky, dismissive wave as he, the proud panther, began to look for other prey.

I looked around and saw my purse, on the table next to the chair that was holding me up. The strap was just within reach so I yanked on it and my purse thumped roughly onto the carpet next to me. My glass, which was next to it, threatened to tip over but settled itself upright.

I fished out my phone, while fighting a curtain of my hair that had decided to attack me when I reached for my purse. “Hey, Siri,” I slurred, “callllll CHarles.”
It rang once. “Yep,” he said.
“Come get me pleaZ,” I said, trying to get my hair and tongue separated.

Two minutes later Charles was there. He held out his hand, which I managed to take while somehow shouldering my purse. He pulled me to an unsteady stance, shook his head and scooped me, effortlessly, into a cradle carry. “Do you have everything?” He asked.

I nodded and said, “Thank you for inviting me, EVVVV!” While waving wildly as we left.
Once outside, he said, “14-year old's do NOT drink!” With a real edge in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in a tone of tired melancholia. I couldn’t help resting my face on his warm chest as he carried me to our house just next door to Everett’s.
“You’re GROUNDED for a MONTH.” He said in a growl.
Somehow, I managed to make it upstairs and into bed without encountering my parents.

In the morning, while I was busy feeling like death, Charles told my parents, “She’s grounded for a month.” I was. They didn’t ask why, and he didn’t offer to say.

I love Charles.

[A prose poem.]

I see you’ve got the ropes.
       Somehow you adapted. There, your green tea; you filled your thermos last night, preemptively. Your fingers have always been awkward too. You treat your hands as if they were chubby. And they hold the thermos with strength, like they hold everything-- except for your papers and your keyboard. You hold those differently.  
       Remember the balcony? You had too much wine, obviously. Your rolling on the floor from one end to the other turned legendary. But time rolls by, and so do tobacco leaves on papers, and you hate those two things.
       Listen, I’m not the same. I’m sorry. I now have posters on the walls of my room. And I still pick pieces off my lip, but I wear chapstick too. And I’ve started to drink coffee again, with sugar. I’ve made peace with mirrors. And I’ve also started to learn some french, Je m’excuse.
       What page number were we in? I’ve known you through some invincible years, but I’m starting to see the fray.
       You forgot to take the balcony along. You’ve got the hang of your schedule, where and how to tunnel your way to class; you get up as soon as our alarm goes off. No snooze. You sit down and vaguely remember the journals you wasted your soul in; all the conversations tinted with beer were drowned by fear, and fear by coping, and your coping is scaring me. The ropes are gripped tightly by your fingers, and I might know why.
       And I’m already mourning; I don’t need any more black clothes, any more sad entries. Know that I still love you-- that’s still the same. But, here, I am this. It hurts to know that is not okay, that at the bottom of our wine bottles there’ll be resentments, but I still love you all the same. I’d rather taste your rancour than bittersweet memories, wondering how I’d give you tulips, if you really want to be cremated.
       Maybe we’re tying knots on the veins of a good life– and what for?– the classic problem is, perhaps we’re still ‘too young.’ We lost the children we used to be, but we’re in that grey area between losing and finding something to find.  
       And I’m already missing you. And maybe there’s no point in begging, but,
I see you’ve got the ropes and I’m terrified.
Please,
stay with me.

Always just seems to encompass so little now a days. like forced nevers that started out strong but ended up limping out the mouth. making every time after falling short of the finish line, crutchless and wounded. turning the next encounter to reruns that have burned itself into view of the latter. Passively predicting the loop but doing little to alter the fateless. because popcorn needs to eaten just as shows are made to be watched. we are all tuned to the same channel, just in different brightness settings. then given the option to search for the remote control that will remain absent. we're told that the search will bare  the fruit desired. and even though it is common knowledge now as to where the path leads and ends. for it was thine own ****** hand that placed the final stone. a ******* in the making. for the only other word to describe such behavior Is insanity. whether it is a question or a statement is beyond the threshold of what im willing to spend time thinking about. even though my thought process is rarely my own and i wouldnt really call us friends either. for if my thoughts betray me why would i give others a privileged that i am not qualified to give away. was there a day in my in my redacted childhood that wont raise its hand when i do roll call. one that warned me, trained me even to Not react but preemptively parry the blows that i would soon take full force. Pretending that its the smoke caressing and constricting the lungs and not the constant sucker punch to the only blind spot left. at this point, neglect works just as well as chasing an unattainable figment. that in my opinion. is far too real and even less tangible.

His name sounds foreign in my ears,
I can taste his accent on my tongue,
His skin, a bittersweet blend of my favorite coffee,
His clothes baggy as if he was hiding something.
These characteristics do not,
I repeat do not, make him a terrorist.
He is a terrorist because
He crashed into my twin towers when I let my guard down.
He left me burning to the ground,
And suddenly I was awake to the thought that
Life was not as beautiful as I mused.
The sun had stopped shining,
The world had stopped spinning
And all I could feel was pain.
He is my terrorist because
I cannot sleep in my own bed
I do not feel safe in my home.
I am on maximum security,
Tighten up my boarders,
Make sure no one gets in.
Not in my mind,
Not in my heart,
And NOT in my pants.
You see, I made a mistake:
I trusted him.
I didn’t believe he could do this.
I didn’t want to believe he could do this.
But now I’m unsure
If trust is even an option anymore.
Can I trust myself
Not to take too many pain pills
Trying to ease this unsettling feeling
crawling on my body?
Can I trust someone else?
To tell or not to tell,
That is the question,
Because unlike 9/11,
10/20 was breaking news on every channel.
It was kept hidden from the scrutinizing eyes
Who said I was asking for it
Who said we were "dating"
Who said that I wanted it.
Next on the 6 o’ clock news,
Local college freshman says
She wants to be *****,
Just looking for the right guy to do it,
When she’s drunk and alone
In the middle of the night.
She’ll leave the door unlocked
Because she forgot.
So if she doesn’t answer when you knock
Come on in.
She wants it.
And after you do what you do
I will wonder if life is even worth it
As I search for my pants in the dark.
And I will cry, more tears than I knew possible.
And I will pray,
Because like any good Catholic knows:
We pray when we need something,
And dear lord, I need answers.
Why?
Why did he think this was okay?
And what can I do to feel okay?
I don’t want to feel great,
Not even good,
I just want to feel okay
Again.
He is my terrorist
And I am ready to wage war.
Although I am afraid of how many casualties will be lost
Or how the average American views my war.
I know this is a war that needs to be fought.
And it needs to be fought sooner than later,
Because maybe I am preemptively saving
The next country from this
****** extremist

[A prose poem].

I see you've got the ropes.
        Somehow you adapted. There, your green tea; you filled your thermos last night, preemptively. Your fingers have always been awkward too. They incline to the chubby side, your fingers. And they hold the thermos with strength, like they hold everything– except for your papers and your keyboard. You don't grip those. You tap. Are you aware?
       Remember the balcony? You had too much wine, obviously. Your rolling on the floor from one end to the other turned legendary. But time rolls by, and so do tobacco leaves on papers, and you hate those two things.
       You took the balcony along. You've got the hang of your schedule, where and how to tunnel your way to class; you get up as soon as your alarm goes off. No snooze. The ropes are gripped tightly by your fingers, and I don't know why.

I miss you.

I think about you
every single day.

You’ve always been
one of the most
powerful
human beings
I have ever
known.

To be nurtured
by you
was to be saved
from drowning
preemptively.


To be loved
by you
was equivalent
to having a
corner-man
in a title
fight.

It was not soft,
but it was kind.

It was often angry,
but never intended
to be mean.

Your heart was
always a forge,
a furnace,
the surface of
the sun.

The fire
is still
alive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

Lost
maybe finding a way before too long
through the fog locking knives into skin
for the sins swept in on my heart
though more likely gone till the lies fall in
with the death of the loved ones who shun
time again, again and again, genuine feeling
Feeling the closing in walls
preemptively seeping through palms
while we wait for the squeezing,
enthralled

Pressure from vision and images talking in silent rhymes
hiding in Heidegger with numbers null up to nineteen
Life now becomes what their lives all became

Penance
Pay it
Play with
decay surrounding as if all is alright
smiling and laughing, swallowing and choking through night
dead in the morning

Sunday I couldn’t leave my bed
I was heartbroken, preemptively.

Yesterday I told you I loved you
And you said that’s okay.

Contraptions enrapture
The thoughts in my head
Like the Black Widow Feds
Spin the global-wide web
Making beds
To be lied in
Belying the eyeless appliance’s
All-seeing
Spy-lids
With die kids
And ISIS’
World hunger virus
Deciding divisive devices disguised
As the iris’
Optimal optical scans
Are just scams
And we buy it
Like contraband-widths
We demand
They supply it
Reliant on intel cartel
Data pirates
Bespectacled specters
Of property private
Sectors stealing secrets
And quieting riots
To keep us compliant,
Complacent
And safe and secure
Our freedom-
Information
In their bidding war
With the state’s machinations
Harmonic convergence
To merge us as one
Motherboarderless
Servant
A mirthless,
Subservient
Permanent
Nervousness
Bliss on the verge
Of transcendence
To micro-chips
Cold, calculating,
Brain-drain
Pain-impervious
Hard-wired smiles
Like customer services
As all the while
They got us on file
If someone malfunctions
It’s to the junk pile
Of planned obsolete
Made in China deceit
Soon enough
The new stuff
Is complete
And released
To the public
Consumption
Effete, then deleted
The outdated being’s
Illogical reasoning
No longer needed
Not fiscally viable
When product placements
Make preferences pliable
No more investing in
Such unreliable
Feeling-based flesh-
Eating parasites,
Troglodytes
Nature’s blight,
Human rights
Merely an oversight
To the Lord Profits
Most prescient prophetic
Detective’s objective
A future perspective
On forced-course corrective
Behaviors unfavored
In apes
Less aggressive
And traits more impressive
To more uninventive
And more inattentive
Assembly line minds
From their vines
Disconnected
Preemptively programmed
To heed the directive
Effectively rendering
Life contraceptive
Selectively-breeding
Exceeding perfected
Like fascists on acids’
Exclusive collective
The watchers still watching us
Acting defective
Then tactfully cashing in
On more expensive
Preventative measures
To end such a pensive,
Depressive death-sentence
Condemned to a prison
Super vision’s
Sentience

Today,
I am anxious and worried.
I am unsettled and “on edge,”
I am terrified because I feel “it” coming.
I am on the cusp of another anxiety attack.
I am about to weather another cold, dark and dismal depressive storm.

I work.
I cook,
I clean,
and while I sometimes forget to do the dishes or dry the laundry —
while I forget to eat —
I have managed to purge my home,
rearrange the closet,
and clean the bathrooms.
It’s like I’m prepping and nesting.
I’m preemptively taking care of my space.
But I know I can’t keep up this pace.
I can’t outrun it and
I cannot stop it and,
the truth is,
that scares me.
I scare me.
Especially now.
Especially during this storm.

I find myself struggling to catch my breath.
I feel numb and lonely.
I stay in bed more,
but sleep less.
I question my faith,
my value,
my worth.
I cry over stupid ****,
like burnt out lightbulbs and unanswered texts.
I cry over important ****,
like love and money.
And I cry because I am crying.
I become reclusive
because this weather makes it easy to isolate myself.
I look for any and all the excuses I can—
the excuses I long for —
the excuses I need to cancel plans and just hide beneath the covers.
I am a chemically and emotionally imbalanced mess.
But what can I do to stop it?
How can I save myself?
I can’t.
I can run
and work
and take my medication,
but I cannot do one **** thing to stop this storm,
nor can I avoid it.
All I can do is hold on and wait for “it” to hit.
All I can do is hold on and try:
try to brace myself and trudge through,
try to keep myself accountable and afloat.
All I can do is breathe and weather yet another storm.