my eyes meet your baby blue gaze
“nice to meet your face”, they say
my heart keeps a pace
adjacent to a train racing
to replace itself and sound and light
and if he attacks me
i hope it is not tonight

in my indulgence
i dove inside
her scent of home
i felt justified
to be alone.

when she broke my stride
i tripped and fell
and i watched the scabs decide
which bones to reside in

i spent a day away
and after that, all i can say
is i felt the distance like a scab
itching for a hurt you never had

how tucking dumb of me to think my absence
would make your heart grow fonder
imagine my surprise when you found
delight at the sight of me underground

should i shroud myself
in the great, grey?
your display will claim there’s
something wrong with me

i hate you
splitting beds with me
spitting lies through teeth
gritted against other men beneath
your sheets, uncertainly
lack of self esteem. in me.
you never denied it
when i said you cheated

let this page be my escape
let the paper make an umbrella
let it scare away the rain
let me only hit my pillow
and not a bottle full of pain
let me wake up in my own bed
let me feel less insane.

i am frozen water
you sway in every way
you can to keep at bay
the rays the sun displays

i’ll decide where my cyanide should hide
not surprised by grey clouds in the night sky
i’m tired of trying to define the outline
time to find a way to stop being me.

between your hips
licking and living
until i can’t feel my lips
is exactly where i want to exist

everything is vibrating again
bleeding blood through another weekend
drenched in sin and emotional dividends
what i lack in love i make up for in vices

i’m walking a pitbull
upstream against my feelings
it’s easier, neon contrast to my dull
sense of being human
i
am
better
off alone

we are static from a speaker
on the radio in the dashboard
my trough met your crest
and we both lay, flatlined on the shore

i want to be where you are
to feel your skin for it’s scars
i want to repair your heart
with greasy hands and spare parts

i’ve once again sipped beyond my limit
the mornings scorned and the scars adorned
skin feels dipped in flicked cigarettes
i penned a letter, licked to stick
addressed to me, every word as slick
“please, forget that i exist.”

liquid gold
licking the skyline
picture perfect
your eyeliner
sticks to your bottom eyelid tonight

an empty space
like snow on a canvas
resting memories
cracked and broken face
pulled away from embrace
my own worst enemy
i feel everything you spit on me
like a fuzzy television
frozen in place
i wish i could destroy
the ice in my veins
let me flow through me
crystallized in place
with no escape

i’ll admit that i
have never been the type
to avoid being crucified
i’ve always been the one
to just shut the **** up

and me, deceiving me
so convinced that it’s bravery
a selfless act drenched in chivalry
the crimson handprint worn
proving i’ve never deserved much more

how do i walk away?
i’m collecting sediment
far to heavy to shift
whenever i try to run
i've always been so sentimental
so i trip and eat ****
lips and teeth rip
spittin blood red ****
train wreck, mayhem
can’t tell, me him
you her they them
cut at the stem

i will fixe my gaze
the repairs are underway
stanchions and cables all gave way
support beams caved under the strength
the weight of love made them break
to be fair, they were rusted and
stripped of the brilliant paint
that made pedestrians stop and stare
and wait for someone else to see them there

there was a very, wise owl
and one day he spoke to me
he told me that approximately
350,000 people die daily
and today, you were not one of them
so shut the **** up

hello,
this is a letter
i write alone

i’ve been daydreaming of you
a dark cup of feeling enthused
your soft lips on mine making me
awake at night when i should be
sleeping, maybe it’s meant for us
maybe i just don’t get it
maybe i’m still alone

i feel like it becomes overwhelming
so many of my poems feel hateful
and i hate it

i want to write happy light stuff
about summer days and flowers
and feeling breezes
and skirts blowing
in that breeze

it’s only when a stranger starts picking
pulling bark and sap starts running
desperately retreating to the warm comfort
of the mud around those buried roots

it’s only when you let down defenses
the brick let’s way to picket fences
and discomfort displaces the sun
of a summer day

am i a clam laboring away at a precious pearl,
or just a broken boy turning my back on the world?

the wick burnt out with no more wax to melt
i watch the picture frame go dark and quiet
no more memories and the fire that i felt
was as cold as the asphalt on which i slept

i don’t know what i want
but i think i know what i don’t
slowly lowered six feet deep
without a soul to see it

fist to cheek with a bouncer, dodging tabs
or stuck to a cedar stool
eye level with a rocks glass

dimly lit circle of chairs with strangers
sharing stories of some substance
and it’s dangers

christmas  with no gifts
and explaining to my son
why mom and i are taking shifts

these deepest fears feel like reality
and i know my life will lead me
to being slowly lowered six feet deep
without a soul to see it

as i define the muscle
and chisel the truths from stone
the sediment leaves chalk words
on my heart that imply my ill intent
gritting my teeth i repent
that true beauty lies within
because if i can’t change what i hate
then how can i deserve to live?

broken knuckles
holes in walls
blistered palms
battered soul
no answers for a man in pain
no silver lining to clouds of hate
everybody i love hates me too, dude

i am the gravel
grabbing skateboard wheels
and skinning knees

eager fingertips slipping
between the space where your hips
create a crevices against your jeans
and eventually finding those lips
oh, how your body crests on my eclipse
and finding pleasure like a photograph
sudden and immense and wet
i want to make you feel yourself again

it’s beautiful
and tragic
destruction inside creation
the start of something wonderful
it is what i am supposed to become
its less uncomfortable than you believe

i felt the earth shake beneath me
a mass immobilization of emotions
masquerade music plucking at the strings
of my stone harp heart
i feel awake and liberated
you will never again play me
the way you did before

the impairment without the drunk
unconscious and subconscious all at once
a fleeting in-between of clarity
and feeling floated in a fog
in this space i meet the things left incomplete
and all their less familiar friends
like marbles underneath my feet

no heart and all thumbs
i’m tired of feeling dumb
scarred wrists and empty cup
i’m tired of feeling numb

a new sun’s lamenting golden rays
lay waste to cemented golden days
a fresh perspective levels everything
like laser beams careening  through yesterday
i realize now this is not
who i was meant to be

i’m allowed to feel things too
said the turtle from his shell

the cold has become
less like needles in my skin
more like fuzzy ear muffs
i haven’t forgotten
i stopped nodding off
during the lessons
i’ve gotten more attentive
to my own intentions
and things that draw my attention
not to mention, i maintained the heart
in my possession

i sat upstairs in a lava lamp
hoping to feel the ground under my feet
fluid flooring is all my soles meet
and i do not think i feel anything

i’ve become the gray i hated
from the day i saw it paved
i’m making room for the demons
satiated in their eyes by this hatred

despondent and vacant
a spacious brain is a playground
for vagrants and the displaced fragments
of society, i feel them eyeing me.

make me whole again
make me full of love
i am solely responsible for
my own happiness
i know this now and
i will not let me down

maybe i can do this
maybe this is a good fit
maybe i can glue a few
of these shards of broken mirror
together to make something new
reflecting.
good morning to you, too.

tired of sending texts
the sentiments resemble
sorry i meant to hit you back
i guess i must have got distracted
lost track of hours
and days
and months
and lost the thought of what you last said
meds or death or coping strats
whatever just to get me back

i’m still stuck in a bad place
but sunlight crests across the skyline
in my mind
tendrils of hope stretch across my sky
the day presented itself in a new way
i think i’ll be okay

“i never meant to hurt you”
her words like a lit cigarette on my wrist
smiling into this crochet mask i knit

“it’s been far too long
since your knuckles bled”
she said with her actions instead

i will ice these bones
while you feel at home