There is nothing more concrete than rock bottom.
I've made a home there.
Shaved off enough sand
To fashion a bed and some pillows.
I can't tell if it's Stockholm syndrome
Or I just couldn't care enough anymore
To try and swim out.

Why bother leaving
When you've made your bed.

I wonder if she remembers
The show I put on
The table where she sat
The desert she didn't care for
All the love songs I sang
And sent her way.

The waitress told me
That girl definitely likes you.
I asked how she could tell.

You can tell by the way she stares
By the way she listens.
No girl spends her Saturday night
Watching some teenager play out his Empty dreams
For no reason.

Oh how strong a bridge may seem
Without even gazing below you
To make sure there's more than nothing
Keeping you afloat.

All things considered
I'm not too big a fan
Of the state I'm in.
Considering I always skip over
The denial part.
I've been at bat for too long
To not know when to take a pitch
Outside
And when to take one in the ribs.

I burn up easy
It's in my DNA.
I'm like Icarus's sun.

Or maybe
I'm more like Icarus's son
Hell bent on seeing hell
In front of me.
I don't believe anything unless
It's in front of me.
And I can taste it like food
And drink it like water.

I'm not Icarus
More like Sideshow Bob
Just helping the disaster move along.
Pushing the people I love into the fire.
Letting Daedalus turn his only son into a parable.

**** Art

What has it ever done for me?
Other than put whip-cream and cherries
On the parts of me that aren't working.

How long can I celebrate my flaws before I become them?
Before they swallow me hole.

Lighting candles in a paper house.
Acting surprised when it burns
So fast.

I used to go for walks.
I'd sit on a park bench by the water
And watch the waves come in
Like they're supposed to.
I guess I found comfort in their consistency.
My legs would freeze
My ears would burn
But I wouldn't leave until I thought
I felt what I needed to feel
I understood what I needed to know.

I don't go for walks anymore.
This town is too small
And I'm too scared
I'll see you
Shotgun
In a car that isn't mine.

I've tried to bite the bullet.
They don't taste like bullets anymore.

It's been said that sleep is for the weak.
I disagree.
Sleep is for those who have time.
I'm far too busy
Forcing myself to swim upstream,
Trying to fix people
That don't even know
Whats wrong.

There is not enough cement to build the bridge.
Let it fall.
Go to bed.

The rift at my feet
almost made me forgot
how beautiful it was
to watch the band play on.

I woke in a jolt when I realised
I left my high school yearbook out in the rain.
Cradling memories like newborn children.
Trying to blow life
Into broken lungs.

I found my old journal.
I didn't write in it a lot,
Only when I could think to do it.
Only when it felt necessary.
So I wrote about a lot of the same things.
Heartbreak mostly.
A 9th grader so terribly in love
Again.

Everything is remarkably depressing
At that age.
Or so my journal would have you believe.

Here are some excerpts I found noteworthy

November 19th, 2014.

"I just hope she finally decides my head is no safe resting place for any kind of love."

December 16th, 2014.

"I feel like death, and all I want is for her to hold my dead body until I feel like breathing again."



Heavy,
I know.


Believe me,
I know.



I'd be dishonest if I didn't mention
That there are a lot more of those.
And I'd be dishonest if I didn't mention
That I'm best friends with that girl now.
I laughed when I read these.
The pain read so real
Yet I don't remember what it feels like
To miss her like that.

Then I found another passage
From a year ago.
A riper wound.

September 23rd, 2016. (The day I found out she didn't love me, and might be dating my older, douchier cousin)

"I cried for the first time in awhile, but it doesn't feel as good as I remember."

And then I realize
I've been watching the same Ferris wheel
Go around
My whole life,
Just with different people
Playing the same role.
And it all feels the same.

If love was for sale
I'd empty my pockets.

I still pick the scab.
I'm still the same kid.

I watch the same white car drive by my window
Every day.
Each time, a little muddier.
Life is the most vicious of circles.
A whole structure of bells and whistles
Too deep under concrete
For our already ****** hands to dig up.

Is it truly a deja vu
If you're really seeing it again?

I lick clean the cold plate they serve revenge on.

The Devil is real
I made it breakfast.

I do not have a happy song.

I just bathe in whatever it is
I decide to feel that day.

I sit at my window seat
and watch the train ride backwards
while the trees and hillsides shoot in front of me
as though each leaf and branch were being spawned
and that if I were to look behind me
there would be nothing to see.

A simulation
ran by an absentee landlord
who forgot he left the game running
who forgot he left the oven on.

Someone asks me how I'm doing
and I just say very sad because sometimes
I forget that I pretend to be a poet on the internet
and that I know better words to describe it other than very sad
but why bother when you come to the same conclusion.

I do not have a happy song.

I just bathe in whatever it is
I decide to feel that day.

I'm proud to say that I figured out
Where the corner piece is
That fills out that puzzle
Of a blood red farm, with a haystack,
And a glistening sun.
A life we only see in loathing.
A shelf too high
For our stubby arms
To reach.

A table covered with chase
And playing cards
Plays the gatekeeper
For stories I've never heard before.
Blank cheques and white space.
Room for error
Room for improvement.

Shallow gold doesn't exist
And its never worth much anyway.
Whats real lies far
Under the mud.
And if you find it
You dont let it go.

True pretentiousness,
is to write something inanely personal
and call it nothing.

A *** and coke
On a Sunday evening.
The perfect prize
For a vacation I'm paying for.

My first drink runs through me
Like blood does
But I still remember the dates
Like tattoos in my eyelids.
Images and memories I could never unsee.

A therapy session with an empty chair beside me.
Begging for somebody.
The headache wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I've been close enough
To see the rocks break
Under me.
And fall into the sea,
Scraping every branch
On the way down.
There's still lead on my lips
And blood on my clothes.

I'll check into the hotel
And leave my bags at the front desk
While I sit over the sink
And watch the cold water
Run down my hands.
Spewing out my fingers
Like a superpower.

And when the magic fades
I'll break all the china
To make sure they still make sound.

I'll try to checkout.
I want to checkout.
But before I do,
A movie I've never seen
Shows up on the TV
And I decide to stay awhile.

It's always the calm before the storm
But never after.
Restoring a home
Made from dampened wood
And bayonets
That look a lot like
Things you'd say.

Sitting passenger side
While your coworkers crack jokes
And for a second,
Nothing.
Just a chuckle,
A brief indulgence
Followed by a wave of anguish.
Call and response.
And you realize
That this is what moving on feels like.

Small town life is simple.
The downtown has no neon.
The streets are long and open.
Begging for the smell of thrashed rubber
And cigarette smoke.

Your mechanic knows your blood type
Your doctor knows your license plate.
Secrecy sounds more like something from a Bond film
Than a genuine principle.

A playground lies across from a cemetery
As though to say no one ever really dies,
Or that it was fun while it lasted.

I get mad behind the wheel sometimes.
I see ghosts instead of stop signs.
I see tombstones instead of churches.
But once in a blue moon
God sends me a voicemail,
And lets me know
That he's already tucked in the sheets.
That he's already fluffed the pillows.

I am a knight.

Not the dark from an evening sky.
Not a warrior wrapped in steel.
More like the chess piece.

My movements? Impractical.
My purpose? Undetermined.
And I'll probably die early.

How comforting.

My accomplice.
My comrade.
My kryptonite.

Make sure to bury me with my horse.
And contort our lifeless bodies into an L
So we can finally embrace what held us back.

She packs a parachute on every flight.
She keeps my number in her phone.

Just in case.

She knows theyre both there.
She prays she'll never need to use them.

some serial killers return to the scenes of their crimes;
i just buy train tickets
and fall asleep on the shoulders of strangers.
as though we were in love,
as though it were ordinary.

and when we wake up
we'll laugh it off
and she'll say sorry,
and that train rides just make her sleepy.
ill say that's okay,
i didn't really mind.

Asylum white walls
Bear a single feather.
A work of art.

I am left all alone again.
Peace and tranquility.

Spoon feeding ******
That tastes more like maple syrup
And relief
Than anything I've ever known.

A year ago today, I sat on my bed.
Singing love for a girl who would never reciprocate.
She sure liked to say she would though.

Today however, a new leaf.
I sat and laughed with friends, over sushi.
A new city.
A new mind.
Jokes and banter float as high
As the I love you's
That came back around to bite
Like cheques that bounce.

You only really learn from pain
And I've learnt a lot
In such a short time.
But I always wake up
Before a bad dream gets too real
So I'm not that worried.

A car occupied by ghosts
Barreling down a busy highway.
I wipe the snow from my cuff.

I don't know what home is
But I am looking.

Sometimes walking against the wind is the only way to get home

Every morning I wake to bleeding fingers.
I sleep on a bed made from loose grenade pins.
Just reminders of a past life.
A former self.
Traits and abilities I haven't unlocked yet.

I will never be enough.

Even a glass full of water
Looks empty
From far enough away.

When I was eight years old I told my mom I’d play in the NBA.
And she believed me.
A year later, I was nearly dead.
A quick cough in January caged my lungs with such force
I could almost hear them fighting for breathing room.

I don’t remember much.

All that comes to mind is the panic
Like an animal that lives inside your skin,
That only awakens when he is least needed.

I came to with my mind split in half.
In reality I was on a stretcher, in a hospital.
In my mind, I was chained to a sheet of wood.
Floating in a pool.
Spread out like the vitruvian man.
I watched the water run through my fingers.
On second glance, I was not alone at the pool.
Men in all black stood around the edges
Staring like henchman do at helpless prey.
On third glance, I am in a stadium filled with cheering fans.
I could never really tell who they were cheering for.

One of the men shouts out, and I am drowning.
A godlike force pushes through the chain and I am engulfed.
No breath.
No sound.
Just blue and black
And the muffles of panic.
Only interrupted by a brief resurface
And the roar of an audience
Followed by blue and black.  

My mind began to converge,
And two worlds became one again.
As the water around me turned to tile,
My hands still felt wet from the pool.
The nurse asked me why I kept screaming to get out of the water.

I never learned how to swim.
I never played in the NBA.

When you find whatever it is you’re looking for
I hope you’ll remember who helped steer the ship
When your legs were too dull to play captain.

I do find it rather funny how quick one can forget
Something that felt oh so important.
The first day of school.
The score of a football game.
The sound of her voice.

Her melodies no longer play through my mind
My ears no longer perk up like a dog to the thought of her words.
I can’t hear her anymore.
And I can’t decide which side of the coin I’d rather be looking at.

An envelope with my name on it
Sits on my doorstep
Like a present from god.
Or the government.

Either way, my name rests painfully still
On a snow white slip.
Reminding me I am still alive.

The light of god in an old shoe.

An angel in a pool of milk.

A man with glass eyes sleeps on a tractor tire.
Longing for the creed in a burning bush,
and clutching a sandwich bag filled with lemonade
that he can never seem to throw far enough away.

Black walls in a clear room.
The contents of a snow globe litter the carpet.
Plastic snow and a single reindeer
Unsheathed.
With nothing but shards of glass
And a rams horn
Left to chip the paint.

a january's chill made her breath spring out like steam from a kettle.
she faltered through the crag
with only the ring of a church bell
and the caw of a raven to sway her mind from the numbing cold
that swallowed her ears, and cemented her eyes
in a fairy tale that could only pick the grey from the rainbow.
a band aid over a calloused hand, placed some lavender on my castle walls.
i would have brought roses, she said.
but i waited too long.
a lone dilatory tear hit stone and to her surprise the earth did not crumble.