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.

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 cannot write for **** anymore.
i have lost my ability to compel.
to even express.
anything and everything i feel is hiding from me
in some part of my body ive never reached
because it knows what i will do if i catch it.
rip out its inside like squishing a blueberry.
just a quick meal until i am off to **** its friends.
i am no tortured artist, just trying to shield.
i cant wait to read this in a year and applaud
for subtle progress, but me and i my friend
are stuck in different muds.

**** 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.

" hey well, hope never dies!"



"yeah i know that's kinda been my problem recently"

i am twenty and driving through the dark.
not really driving, im shotgun
making up for lost time.
driving through the dark, too cold to crack the windows.
the music blaring, we sing along so loud.
i am twenty, singing loud to the radio,
making up for lost time.

i watch the other cars drive past us
going the opposite direction.
why aren't they going the same way we are?
chasing the dead trees on the black night highway.

i hope they are making up for lost time too.
i hope they are going to drink in a field
or kiss a crush at a house party.
something they should have done awhile ago.

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

i learnt a lot about
myself today.

i learnt a lot about
fear today.

fear of
missing out
mostly.

ive heard the term before
but never thought
it was something ive felt.

i went to my high school graduation
ceremony today.
only a year ago it was me.

that day wasnt for me anymore
and i stuck around
like a fly on the wall
asking if they remembered
when i was there too.

if people can be toxic
im glowing bright green.

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.

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.

A dictionary in a bag of bricks.
I watch it sink down the swamp.
Words only mean what we do with them after,
So I never feast until I know there's dessert coming.

I am the stone before the statue.
A block of possibility.
Waiting for guidance like a wiseman,
From anyone that can convince me we're not all mad for trying.

I am the stone before the statue.
Waiting to be carved.
Waiting to be told who I am.

i will never go to virginia.
because in my mind it loves me
and i love virginia.

and ive never been
and ill never go.

green on the eyes,
warm on the flesh.
how could i burden such a place
with my expectations
my preconceived notions
with no preconception.

i know nothing about virginia
it can be anything i want it to.
beauty incarnated in a long narrow field
empty as hell below.
a blank cheque just waiting for me to fall in love.
i wont let it fool me.

There are certain parts of misery
That never made sense to me.
I never caught on to the self harm thing,
I figured I already felt bad enough.
I never drank it away,
Because a hangover was just a reminder
That putting a coat on
Doesn't stop the snow.
DABDA doesn't make sense either.
How can you be angry
About something you haven't accepted yet?

I do now understand masochism.
I certainly don't practice it,
But I get it.

The thing with masochism
Is that you really have to love it.
You really have to let go.
My nerves are just nerves.
My skin is just skin.
My eyes just make drawings out of ****.
******* purple from the fourth wall
Letting the people eat a different truth.

My brain on a steady loop
Of Whose Line Is It Anyway reruns
Just waiting to invent the next thing
We all take for scripture.

no mountain too high they said
i rip the wood from the trees,
to build the road to Juneau
and bathe in the endorphin river

dry my ankles
and let them breathe the cold air
so the people know
im just a nobody

break my hands
to feel my legs again

break me down
so i can love again

the stitches in my thigh are
healing so now we can all shake hands
and watch the money
poor in. the bombs are not coming,
please come out from
under your desks, you are safe
now and if im being honest
the desks wouldn’t protect you
from the shrieks of a
war plane. they sound
like nothing you’ve
ever heard
a frequency you unlocked
just for this
particular pain. you can almost see
the sound pour into your ear drums
like a bartender mixing
the ***** and the cranberry.
it sounds like 6am
it sounds like the same song
over and over.

i pay with my skin to sit in this vulture nest.
i pay with my ears to hear these empty dreams
i pay with my time to throw it out on the sidewalk.
from the top floor of the pharmacy
where i learn how to write
from a writer who never made it.
blind leading the blind?
more like
the undead reviving the unborn.
theres no life here.

i am riddled with flaws
an oxymoron with legs
every word, and every fibre
contradicting
weaving through
every muscle,
every thought,
every emotion.

but through all the fat
a seed of belief
a sprout of confidence
untamed and unleashed.
a tiny tree in my brain
grew thirsty lips
and a big head.
writes a scripture with my name on it
fits a crown for my skull.
i have no choice but to listen
no one else wants to talk.

I'm tripping the breaker.
Soaking in the burn of the wires,
Tracing the line back to an old fuse box
With a broken switch
And a battered shell.
Grey with ambiguity and boredom
Seeping productivity like an oil spill,
Diluting the green.

Twenty one centuries.
And some pocket change
Just so we can all act
Like the pressure was worth the diamond.

i can smell
the liquor
through the phone
while
you
rip
up
all the stitches
you scrambled
to
sew
together.

i don't know why
i keep
wasting
my time.
on these
careless
pursuits.

i cant
tell who
is supposed
to win.

Give me a dollar
And I'll make something of it.
Give me your time
And I'll waste it.

Staring down the red pill and the blue pill.
Trying to decide between nothing and everything.
Making sure the Dread Pirate Roberts doesn't drink his own poison.

There is no hand I would least rather die at
Than my own.

i wish i had no face.
that way i could always have an excuse.

hey do you want to come out with us? were going to get some drinks.

"no i cant, sorry" ill say, gesturing knowingly towards the ether where my eyes, nose and mouth should be.

its the perfect alibi.
ill stand out so much
i might actually fit in.
sure it may take awhile
but people always adjust to things
even the abnormal
even if what they have to adjust to is technically nothing.
just skin over bone, no expression or words.

instead i just feel like an actor
like another life form.
like everyone can see it but me.

im too afraid to admit
that i have no one else to blame.

i wish i had no face

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 can't wait until i fit into these boots.
my ankles sprouting forward, into adulthood.
it never occurred to me
that i might have to buy my daughter a pet
so she can watch it die.
there's nothing scarier in this world
than falling in love with anything you know wont last.
the hardest lessons are the ones
we know we have to teach ourselves.
i dont know how to thank you lord
because i dont know if youre there.

there was an ice storm today.
so i ordered food.
if mother nature said **** it
than i do too.
maybe if
i had cooked,
instead.
i might have
gotten something done.

a congregation for the lonely
is all this place can ever be.
dead hearts and broken people
spending too much on rent,
like an eclipsing sky line
could fill the holes we've dug.

well, everyone lives there.
of course they do
where else would we go?
we come with nothing
so that anything we have
is nailed to the floor.

if you want a true lesson
in disappointment
move to a small town
and watch the power go out.

this like many things
is nothing like the movies.

If you follow all the sirens
and the red flags
you'll see what the news papers would call a man
but not really.
just a boy with a beard
pretending he knows how to put things back together
pushing the people he loves towards alcoholism
like it was all he was good for


//


I used to think love triumphed over all
But I'm starting to doubt the sincerity
of love
and all its trimmings.

Why do we romanticize love
It's not ever the fever dream we hype it up to be.
It's vulnerability in it's purest form
It's done more harm than good.

I'm selling my stocks on love

I'm done pretending I understand how the world works.
I'm done celebrating before I cross the finish line.
I'm done believing in something that I'm not sure is real.

I'm selling my stocks on love.

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.

I kept the corsage in the fridge,
Which is why it felt so cold to the touch.
I just wanted to keep it alive
Unlike most things I hold.

I don't know CPR
But I do know how to leave well alone.
A white flower glued to a sequence band
Two things so awfully out of place;
Felt painfully familiar to me on that day.

You wore a red dress
Which speaks more
Than any metaphor I could have written.

I read a lot of books.
I should have seen the signs.

my writing class is above the pharmacy.
an old elevator
still rising
when the doors open.

nothing poetic happened to me today
so why am i here

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.

My Aunt Hazel smokes so much
She watched the curtains burn red.

She looks and sounds like Patty and Selma.
A pitbulls bark for a swoon
That rises like the tide
At any who dare
To swing words like swords.

No smooth edges on Aunt Hazel
A dash of whisky might
Bring out the tiger within the lion.
A lion with oddly questionable views on hot-button topics,
spoken with irrational confidence.

A beautifully real caricature of an east coast mother.
So deeply entwined in the comfort of small town fallacy
And big time conspiracy theory.
Although, those two might go hand in hand.

But

She makes gowns for a living.
Her skin withered like an old catchers mitt.
Strong is the storm that knocks on the glass
But every crack in the wall always ends up filled by her hands.

The silent whales of watching your oldest boy
Thank you for everything
While he rips the tendons off his belly
That connected two forces from ever being apart
And wondering how she could bear it again
And again.  

I envy the ease of such loving hate.
To wield venom
And dedicate your life
To helping love.

My Aunt Hazel smokes so much
You'd think she didn't know what love was.
And that if it were real
It must be at the end of a cigarette.

My Aunt Hazel smokes so much
She watched the curtains burn red
And smoked the pack through.

if the world were ever fair
they'd let me build a tree house
to lose my mind in.

and my pretend children
might build a counterweight
to pull the sun down.
betroth it in front of me
to keep the wolves away
at the gates, far from the crops
they tell me ive harvested.

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 wanted to call this poem

"if this is fate than put a gun in my mouth"

feels a bit excessive
even for me.

and im the most extra ***** ive ever met.

i rarely have **** to say when i write.
ive rewritten the same feeling a thousand times.
i only know so many synonyms for heartbreak
and im running out.

the star of all this angsty literature
is far away for the moment.
across the country.
but ill be home soon
to watch her graduate (im still a kid and so is she)

i went very far away from home for a lot of reasons.
admittedly, she was one of them.
when i met her
she told me she'd never be able to afford to leave.

well good news.

next year she'll be an hour away.

i think i live in a chinese finger trap
or the ******* matrix.
the harder i pull
the faster the walls cave in.
the **** i try and leave behind
gets to where im going before i do.

i believe in love too much to ever **** it.
even if that means i have to watch it die slow in my hands
and listen to it shriek out in pain.

id rather die than give up on love
and from what i remember
thats what we call hamartia.

i could fall in love with a sword through my heart
if it was nice enough to me.
and maybe if she were holding it,
it wouldnt even hurt.