you spend so much
time
writing poems
in the form of
love letters
to memories
that you can't be
one hundred percent
sure
ever existed
in the first place

the thing about mistakes
is that nothing
feels
better than
when you're making
them
blissfully unaware
of unforeseen
consequences

it is easy to hoard
scars and hope
that the collection
would deter others
from wanting to provide
new ones
but eventually all that
scar tissue
binds up and
you stop being able
to move

we rely on poetry
in the same way
we relied on parables
to better explain the
universe within
our collective souls

Don't forget the past
but rather forgive
it because of the two
choices only one
stops
the bleeding
memories
that come forth to haunt
you in your dreams
and waking hours
and when you let go
of the pain and let it
fall below
you will be truly free
to remember the lessons
learned
without a need for
revenge

Feeling the inaccurate
heartbeat
rhythm and
indulging
in a moment
where the only
harmony
was that out our
own breathing
while everything else
trembled

I tend to stay
away from gods
and goddesses
because if there's anything
I've learned from
ancient texts,
it's that gods and goddesses
tend to leave piles
of bodies strewn
in their wake.

She's the kind of
woman who never
messages first,
wading through
endless attempts at contact
all left as "read"
and yet a line of
baggage holding hopefuls
wait to be used
as toys
for her ego

She liked to
decorate with
makeshift gravestones
and shrines
for those around her
who had died
but still walked
the earth
unaware

He spent the evening
talking with a poor Australian accent
to impress a strange girl
who couldn't decide
whether or not
she had a boyfriend
and on our way home
he told me about how
he liked to walk closer to the curb
in case he had to
valiantly
shove someone
out of the way
of a car
that had careened out of control
and hopped the curb
and he would martyr himself
to save those around him
if only because it would
save him from his
greatest fear
of dying and not
being known.

how often we
block the future
by scrambling to
pick up all of the stolen
seconds that we gave
to people we want only
to forget
all while we
are in a continuous
state of forgetting
that you can't un-live
moments
you can't un-****
somebody
and you can't
rewrite your own
string of moments
no matter how much
they make you
flinch

Someone should
call a doctor
as it seems
I have the
human condition.

He sat
writing
writing
writhing
slithering out
words from a
heart
half functioning
half patchwork
all bleeding
and trying to find
the best words to call
for the downfall of
the old ideals of love
and happiness
because if he didn't have it
then it didn't have value
and nobody knows how
burned you can get
when you crawl into
the center of the sun
for warmth

Perth,
where Heath Ledger came from,
was where she was from
and she was explaining to me
what Marmite was
and the other guy in the room
just kept playing his guitar
and singing
louder and louder
for an audience of
white bricks
that made up the walls
because jealously makes
you see eyes in
everything
and you don't know
if the performance will
be your last

Is it truly
that much of a
sin
to want to be allowed
to make one's
own mistakes?
Every scar
every burden on our souls
is another spark of flame
in which we are forged
and as iron as burn forward
beaten
but whole.

Poor in health,
high in spirits

Your age is
but the number
of times you've traveled
around the sun
hurtling at
nineteen miles per second
endlessly through the expanding
void
so don't tell me
that there's nothing
interesting about you
fellow space traveler
don't tell me there is nothing
remarkable about crashing
through the universe
while sitting in your armchair
you are an astronaut
capable of searing
the stars
Do not float.
Fly.

It's okay to be angry
it's okay to shout
to scream
to throw hooks
into the sky
to bring God down
to your kitchen table
and demand some
accountability
it's okay to allow blame
to land where it needs to
and to say
I refuse to apologize
for being hurt by you
I refuse to bear the responsibility
for your actions
and it is okay
to move forward
and heal

I like this place.
so many people
trying to deal with pain
and anger
and talking about
their joys
and so much of it
under the surface
because the profanity
filter is on by default.

They told me
to think more
positive thoughts
so I described the
movement from
a perfectly good day
to a severe depressive
low was as exhilarating
as being on an
out of control tire swing
attached to a tree that
was half dead
and they told me I needed
to take it more seriously
or leave.

It's a marvel
how often we'll
choose to share a
drink with
the devil himself
in lieu
of drinking
alone

I saw a flower
wilting beautifully
in a bed of
uncertainty
and I wondered if it
was afraid to face the sun
because it perhaps forgot
sunscreen
and in its attempts
at self preservation
it starved itself of what
it needed
--the sunshine.

Looking for patterns
in the blowing wind
and waiting for a sign
is a waste of time
for you are made of
star dust
and the wind is moved
only by you.

Which box do I check
when born an anomaly
a paradox
to a white supremacist
father
and a Mexican
mother
and not looking
much the part for either
half
since I don't speak Spanish
and don't like Nascar
I reside in a gray
area
like the empty space
between the boxes for
white
and
Hispanic
and I feel like an
outsider to both cultures.

He drew a graph
on the roll of paper
attached to the wall
that served as a grocery
list
and I didn't need a graph to
tell me to buy milk
and I asked him why
and one of his friends said
from the other room
"he does recreational calculus"
and in that moment I
seethed with rage
and I didn't know enough
calculus to figure out if the
graph was accurate
but being *******
and indignant
is easier than
differential equations.

That which doesn't
**** you
only gives you
one hell of a life
story to tell.

You've got a big heart
and you'll find someone
with a heart just as
big as yours
and who cares to the same
degree
that you do.
I'm one of those
who loves way too much
and it worked out for me alright
(after countless heartbreaks)
but the point here is that
someone out there will be
totally accepting of you
and will love talking to you
and will hang onto your every word
as poetry
and they will see the beautiful love
you have to offer
and I know it ***** right now
and it seems like you're spinning your wheels
in the mud
but I believe in you.

I believe that the beauty
I see in you will
envelop you and
and that big heart of yours
and you will find a home
in which that heart shall
just be.

Sitting here at
10:09 on a Monday
sipping peppermint
tea
and all I can think of
is how much longer
my poems would
be if I wrote them
in a drunken rage
and I say longer
and not better
because drunk words
are sober thoughts
and all I write
is what I'm thinking
at the moment
and call it
Poetry

I told a friend
that my gallbladder
had stopped working
and he said
May Allah bless you
with good health
and I thanked him
but can't stop thinking
about the time God
wiped out humanity
for not listening
to Him
and I hope that I've
been listening well
enough
to at least
survive the surgery

If you have something to say,
say it with conviction
believe in the words coming
from your mouth
because once they're out
they don't go back in
and no mouth to mouth
will resuscitate
a bridge that's in flames
and as long as you
meant every last word
every last volley
shot over the walls
built from years of
friendship
then no blame can be sent
your way
but do not be alarmed
when they come back around,
a little crispy around the edges
all shrieking like demons
faces black and sooty
and eyes red from the smoke
that rose from the fires
that only tears could put out
and they've got a hot coal
in their hand that they
don't feel and they
want to see you burn.

All that makes our demons
scary is who they're
throwing fire at.

There's too much
noise sometimes
and all I can think
about is my friends
rambling in corners
scrawling Confucius
across Facebook walls
trying only to be heard
and taken seriously
through the wisdom
of people long dead
in lieu of facing the
instant rejection of
developing a unique
personality in a sea
of cynical personas
where it's better to
have never loved
than to admit that
you are human.

"I've got a good one
working
my dear,"
I said a bit louder
than a whisper,
"I can feel it rolling around
in there."
"A poem?" She asked
and it was beautiful
and it was perfect
and then the poem was
gone.
and I couldn't find the words
so I looked around the library
to see what words would
spark
and the sign on the copier
bellowed
NO PENNIES!!!!!
which is fun for a title
and a sign on the wall
wanted to introduce me
to Muslims on the 26th
but at the end of it all
I was surrounded by endless words
while at a loss
for my own.

Instead of trying
to stigmatize
perhaps you should
prioritize
and realize that
everyone flinches from
pain and for some people
life hurts so ******* much
that flinching out of existence
seems to be the only option
and instead of trying
to minimize
perhaps you should be trying
to sympathize
and it doesn't matter
if nobody was there
for you during the
bad times
that you pretend didn't
happen
because withholding
your compassion from
those who need it most
is the worst sort of death
you can inflict
and there's no
justifying it.

Instead of wasting
your time looking
for princes
and princesses
endlessly stalking the
shadows of castles
you should focus
your effort on being
a *******
dragon.

Breathe fire from
your soul, kid.

Waking up
to the taste of blood
and a shooting pain
in my side
which is now the norm
and I dont know what's
coming next since
I hadn't planned
to have made it this
far
but
things are going pretty well.

Some things in my life
will never be transferred
to poetry
because they were
only pain
and nothing more.

Don't write home about
me
I can never live up to
the expectations
put forth in abstract
poetry.
How do you expect me
to be a waterfall
when I can barely
get out of bed some
mornings?
I don't move mountains.
I am not a mountain.
I am not what you need
me to be.
I am only that which
will enable me to survive.

She was the kind of woman
who would light
candles
only to blow them out
because she knew that the
wafting smoke
made her look mysterious
and I
a fool
who likes concepts
more than dealing with people
allowed myself to be enveloped
until the secondhand smoke
made it hard to breathe
and I couldn't see anything
anymore
and all I could hear
was the flick flick
of a lighter that
had run out of fuel.

I can't tell you
much
about love and poets
and how well that'll
work out
but they'll sure as ****
write about
it.

We took turns
placing headphones
on each other and
plugging them into
our hearts in hopes
that we would be able
to hear all the things
we should have said

She is a beam
of light
whose radiance
strikes my eyes
and wakes me up
in the morning
and being awake next to her
is much more exciting
than being ensconced
in my dreams.

I wore tie dye
to the funeral
because it was what
your family requested
and a sibling of mine cried
to me later about how
she felt out of place
with all the misfits
in tie dye
and her in her
impossibly chic
getup with all her
friends
as though a funeral
is the place to make
a fashion statement

Sorry about your loss!
#newme
#sensitive

As though she'd been
inconvenienced
by the family's preferences
to remember their daughter
by her favorite patterns
and funerals were really just
events you could save
imaginary tickets from
and frame them in a beautiful collage
next to all your beautiful outfits
and memories of how you and
your friends got dressed up
so nice
and looked out of place
at a funeral
where you didn't give
a **** about the
person who
had
died

I remember this
time I was walking
down a hallway during
my schooldays
and fumbling with
what was currency
among students
--chewing gum
and I had paid
a dollar fifty
for this pack of cinnamon
gum
so when a person
with whom I’d spoken
twice
came up to me and said
“yo, zach, gimme some
of that gum”
I said
“Hell no.”
and he asked why.
“Because I don’t like you!”
and the collective shouts
of ooh’s and ****’s
made me feel as though
I had done something
both great and bad
and the reality was I didn’t mind
the guy at all I just didn’t want
to continue having the discussion
but I wondered if I hurt his feelings
and if the cinnamon gum was worth
the endless re-tellings of me being rude
to a perfect stranger
and a little part of my
soul crumbled that day
all cinnamon and fresh

I want
My Way
playing,
the Sinatra version
so that when
each one of those
******* goes home
he’ll be remembering
“And now the end is near
and so I face my final curtain”

hello,
why yes,
it is late
or rather
early at this point
no I haven’t
been drinking
I’m just writing poetry
yes, I realize that
that sounds exactly
like an activity for a drunk
person but I assure you
I’m only
down here
because my fiance
is up there
asleep
and you see
she works days
and I work evenings
and
what’s that?
I told you
I live upstairs.
What do you mean poetry
is an inside sport?
It’s a nice evening.
and
what’s that?
well
I rent
from the guy who
owns this chair that I’m
sitting in and I’m sure he
has no problem with me
using it at one thirty in the
morning and
really if you want I can
call him
and

What?
I am not being a *******
and
what’s that?
yeah.
okay.
uh huh.

well,
when you put it that way…
yes my bed is
a lot more comfortable than the
one you would provide
for me.

have a good night,
officer

It’s 1:22 am
and I’m sitting on the
patio furniture
of the restaurant above
which I live
and I can see a bar
down the road with
a regal sounding name
and we’re nearing
bar time
when all dreams end
and a lady comes out
stumbling
and loudly yelling to her friend
points at me
“What’s he doing?”
“What are you doing?”
and I wave and say
“Come over here!
I’ll write you a poem!”
and she hesitates
for a split second
and decides that
a buzzed ride home
would be less dangerous
than a conversation with
a stranger in the middle
of the night and a free
poem
but all poetry is free
and maybe she knew this
and I had fooled myself
by assuming my
words
would enrich her night.

I don't go
to bars.
Not that I have anything
against alcohol,
I just can’t drink because
my liver will immediately
fail
and **** me
and I’m far too young
and beautiful
to die from alcoholism.
Not to mention,
I’ve not made nearly
enough mistakes in my
life
to have earned the
right to die miserable at the bottom
of a glass.

So I don’t go to
the bars
as there is nothing
for me there to do
other than count
how many times
that guy said
I love you
to his friend
who took him there
to get over a
recent ex

Everything has
its purpose
including nothing
the space between
our fingers
allow us to grip
and to hold
more efficiently
and the spaces between
us
allow me to love you
more beautifully
and wholly
because I had to learn
how to make my love
caress you
hold you
and warm you
when I’m not there
and the stars
just like our moments
together
wouldn’t look so
beautiful
if it were not for the
spaces between them

Sometimes I sit
hunched
over a pile of
broken glass
trying to glue the pieces
together to make something
that makes sense
but the pieces are all
different every time I
look at them
sizes, shapes and colors
all in flux
like beach sand
under a microscope
and some are circles
worn by this ceaseless sand
and some are jagged
and freshly broken
and look
you can see
a little blood
on this one here
and it’s not my blood
--this time.
Not that it matters
anyway because
I pick through this glass
and get cut
again
and again
and again
until my fingers are
shreds
and can’t grip
anything
and my blood makes
the glass all the same color
and when it dries
the coagulation
of my failure
holds together this ball of
endless translucent
torment
and I put it back into my chest
and zip up my ribs and
try to forget about the whole thing.

Until
it starts
to hurt
again.

After a day
of pondering
I flew into
a frenzy,
burning books that
couldn’t help me
and so through centuries
of love poems and stories
I blazed
wondering if this was how the
ghosts who wrote them felt
when they poured out their
souls
and I burned and
I burned and I
burned
until I came to my final
book.
A Dictionary…
And I burned that too
because in it
I could not find words to
adequately describe how you
make me feel.