You're picking at me
like scabs of my mistakes

Disappointing you
is easy;
and admittedly-
pleasing.

We're careening down the mountain
and you've cut the brakes.

Your medication give you the shakes
and I twitch in my sleep

Your love is cheap
and the wine is sweet
and I awake the next morning
with a migraine from both.

What a gracious host.


I'll try to make ends meet and
you'll half-heartedly sing me to sleep.

We'll do the whole **** thing
again on repeat
week after week.

and then all of a sudden
you meet someone
who shuts your mouth and
opens your eyes
and you just lay there on your side
and smile the dopiest smile.

you feel like singing and
screaming and perhaps
like you might explode
if the radiation
from the insides of his mind
that slices you from
six inches away
continues for much longer.

and if you do?
it won’t matter
because he will scoop you up
and kiss your pieces-
barely even noticing that
you are broken and

when he leaves
it is always
too soon

and the sheets smell like
the sweat after a long day
and you love it in all of its honesty
and the hard work that it eludes to.

His hands feel warm on your skin
even when they are too cold
and you have rolled
away with the quilt once again.

He’s respectful
and he’s got a big goofy laugh
that comes
from the recognition of a lingering sorrow
he is still
unwilling to share.

He will leave you
more tangled than your hair
in the morning
after it has spun itself
across the static surface
of sheets and skin.

He’s letting himself in and
you dream of him
even when he is beside you.

Your thoughts never tire
of retracing the steps you took together
and you will walk down familiar trails
hour by hour
when you mind needs a rest.

He is quite possibly the best,

the best


The best.

and you'll get to the rest.


c.e.m. 11.24.14

You're a good distraction-
like the channel without infomercials
at 2am.

During the day
you haven't time for me
and I'll waste away

and no one will ask about us.

Satan was swinging over me
the seduction of solitude
ever encroaching into my slippery thoughts.

I'm in a race to retrace back to what I forgot
but in a effort diluted by my distraction
I will surely rot
before I arrive to the place
where I might get off.

I missed the last stop with eyes
heavy with wine and sleep
and the poisonous concoctions
I so eagerly drink

Just a momentary quenching;
simply sated for the moment.

Chapped lips and a rattly voice
this is the brink of atonement.

There is a man on a stage
three feet from a crowd who gazes on
clearly enraged
though nonetheless engaged.

He is rabid with malice
and a darkness in his heart
tainted blood in his chalice

this coal will never spark.

c.e.m. 11.24.2014

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule- altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

silent is the mourning
when crying seems inadequate
for the hurt.

Empty eyes on empty days
Walking in the pouring rain
Life is heavy
Moving steady
Trudging forward when we're ready
Walking through this ever lasting fog

slosh of oars
ripples the night
of tremulous moons

the nightjar soars
on silver light
a sad tune croons!

tides up swell
lap the wood
in ceaseless kiss

moon grows pale
in deep brood
of broken wish

the misty haze
spells the core
spins a dream

mind in daze
forgets shore
drifts upstream!