I was starving in
Pennsylvania.
One night, I had
enough.
Done with it all.
The poverty and
sickness.
The drunken mad
nights
and dog-fight days.
Brutality for breakfast.
Served sunny side up
runny yolks with
butterflies trapped in
the yellow sunshine.
Spiders built webs in
my soul.

I stood on the torn-up
couch in my living room and
yelled at the walls.

Listen, you devil.
You want me, you better be
ready for a fight.
I paced the floor like a
washed-up heavyweight champ,
eyeing the ceiling like a
drunken sparrow in a cat's mouth.

God answers the prayers
I don’t remember praying.
My prayers are just stepping
stones to a better reality.
If I die this year I’d feel that
way about my last prayer.
My bitterness will stop injecting
itself into my fantasies.
My butterflies grow obese
because of the magic.
I’ll keep trying to grow
past all of this tragic.
I’ll stop living everyday as if
it’s  already the future.
It makes my Time Machine
into a ready guillotine.
My depression and happiness
hug for the first time.
They have not been intimate
long enough it seems.

Cool morning shadow
Along a park’s wooded lane
Honeysuckle blooms

I apologize to those who were wrongly laid to rest,
To any graves where blood is still wet.
I respect those who survived,
Even in the face of adversity.