For me to be
Part of whatever that is
And have any chance at enjoying it
I have to change the make up of my brain.

Is there a kiosk for that at Sephora?

Though it really seems they could
A seemingly inevitable parallel
Always between what one deeply desires
And what awaits on the other side of that sharp and beautiful exhale

again and again and again and again?
****!
A comedic autobiography with tinges
nihilism Darwinism sandwiched w professionalism?
it really is stupid and oxymoronic

Are delusions any more tangible than fleeting confidence or a temporary motivation?
Contemplating I no longer have a grasp of what is tangible
The root of the void has been in-
Distracted by housewives.

A **** in my ribs,
It burns in an electric feel
unlike love.
Who kicked me in the chest?
The consistent prodding is nothing but
the opposite of what you advocate for.
How are you so blind?
How blindsided could one really be?
Not very.
Yet the wind has been taken from my sails,
and the humidity creeps in
to choke me.

your passenger seat sits empty
thoughtless tears fill the page
scribbling as shading
messy derives definition.
where the wind has taken
two longing souls we may never know
but longing for that eggnog grin,
flannel wrapped yellow rose
two toned raincoat and not
pinky gold
opal, no, maybe emerald.
you’ve remained the most
beautiful, you’ll not
understand, but
hopefully at last
you see.

Perfect
Desired accessories were never necessities
Born as you were, are as you’re meant.

your heart was
heavy, yet held
mine, and my arms
were weak, but
the sponge never
filled and when
I wring it out
there’s shades of you
Everywhere

She spends her morning icing up,
Drawing on those brows.
Thirty minutes, all it takes
The talons and teeth, feverish though she takes.
Unbothered, gleeful even
The glassy eyes promising purpose
Yet here we are
Icing for thirty minutes.
Too many cans in one bag,
The cat would've been fine.

Shower suddenly lava
Not even a metaphor at this point
Orange carpets I should learn
And go to the dermatologist

No recycling
Dump your garbage here

You’ll stumble, stutter
My gesture, you sat.
End with a bump

Strangers and Irish car bombs
Intervention, mortal if anything.

Baby blew.
The wind carries and will continue to,
indefinitely until hues unrecognizable
pass you by. You don’t bat an eye.
Chest pings, our Morse code transcending
The distance placed, and
never closed.
Preferring the perpendicular to the parallel?
Just you,
Baby’s blue.

Loving and painful
I don't believe I've learned to grieve
Nobody has
Cicadas have me trapped in an echo chamber
That's a projection

I need to Google what poetry actually is.
I will then write a poem about corn!
Elotes, man.
Amen.

You pull me in
And grab my face

You plant a kiss
It tastes like pennies

I don’t know where you are. In life or in thought.

You carved me.
Not into the soft fabrics of stone, Michelangelo’s passion project,
but in the chest caving way that echos across years
and states
and moments I can’t trace, but still feel shaped by you.

There’s parts of you in most I meet, and everyone that knows me will know aspects of the you I once knew.

We never broke, and though wilted, the flower never died.
We unraveled. Quietly, circumstantially, slowly, in ways that never made sense out loud. A boat tethered in a still wake, just climate enough to disintegrate the fibers. A brisk breeze, never windy enough to cause national alert.

And that’s what’s made it so hard to let go.
No fight, no final draw. Just… silence.
Stillness in a room that once danced.
Swayed sacred memories under a Scotch taped mistletoe. My once eggnog grin boy.

I’ve looked for you in places I know you’d never be.
Cramped hands scribbling thoughts I won’t send.
I’ve read your words and heard them in the faint memory of your voice.
You told the history of us in stanzas.
I’ve carried the epilogue of us since, so you can hone in your next plot.

I think I’d want to ask nothing.
Just watch you breathe.
See what time has softened, and learn how Plan B became Option F.
Shake your hand, like we’re meeting again. Detention divvy in the cafeteria round two, yet not starting over, but seeing clearly as we’ve become.

I don’t expect that moment will ever come.
I needed this not for reply,
but release.

You were my first mirror.
My first awe into ache.
And I think, in a way, you’ll always be.
God ****** that wake.
It’s time for me to stop waiting cave-side for echoes. The occasional ping in my heart pager is plenty.

I hope you’re loved in the ways you couldn’t ask for yet, and all of those thoughts have found safe, understanding hands. Ones that mark color into your inked rib flowers on occasion, and the snake not remind you of me.

Perhaps if I understood more of those too-long-car-ride convos.
I’m shoulding on myself.

I hope laugh still covers your face, and your brows scrunch into your nose.
I hope you feel free, and the flight wasn’t stifled by a storm along the way.
I hope if you think of me, it’s with a faint yellow softness, not a sting.

It’s impossible to forget, but I must rid myself from the weight of remembering alone.
There’s no gym routine that fills the space, but watering cans to garden around the museum of us.

I still look for it by accident
Sometimes it's blue
The modern way of hearing from you
The stamps weren't expensive
But money never was the problem

An eye for a lie
He went blind

The adrenaline when facing the gun
Feels a lot better than pride lost
Walking away,
But realizing discomfort in safety
Benefits longer than awaiting the
Unsure -
Rather the less likely,
Putting a target on my back heavier
Than I was ever destined to bear.
Wishing the shooter well
Knowing someday I’ll be held by one
With pillow arms
And a softer heart.

How did I
Make it home
And what’s the throb
Within my neck
From my brain or hips
Misaligned pings
Pain telling me something
Yet I can’t translate

Stepped into the page store today,
The rain is making my brain throb.
A stroller pass as I drop my keys,
A wet stain in my sweatpants.
Grabbed two books that many have read,
Will I ever? Perhaps not, yet I buy.
I ask for help to find what’s staring at me
From an upbeat older guy.
The second unread, but committing to the third;
Maybe this is where motivation will arise.
But as for now, I humbly pray, for the throbbing to exit my eyes.

I wrap my face up
Snuggly and tight
The pressure makes me forget a little.
Not enough, but anything is something.
The veil lifts as the sunsets
And I find comfort in faded shadows,
But as the sun disappears I become a child again.
That fear isn’t of the dark, I can’t place the discomfort.
Might it be a splinter, a bruise? I’ll keep trying to figure it out

Caramel latte,
***** chai,
Smiley wrinkles that outline your eye.
I’m happy for you,
And the same me to I,
For all that we longed for, we never could buy.

You launch your car through tunnels
with flashing rows of lights.
The bulbs maintain their static,
but the speed overwhelms your eyes.

She burnt a disk of songs for you,
the consideration makes you freeze.
Is this beginning of the end,
or are you being teased?

You follow in sprint, stars lighting the beach,
and engulf her in your hug.
She cranes her neck, and kisses deep -
**** me it felt like love.

You start your chain of lying here,
both aside her and to your kin.
Soon she’d learn
she’d never conquer
trusting you again.

Shaking hands struggling to
get him to his feet.
My heart pings painfully,
following the pull.
“May I help you?”
He agrees.
Reminded of my former days,
Grasping his soft, warm hand.
“I just need to get my feet under me.”
My heels slip on the ferry’s tile,
two others are urged to assist.
Wishing him well into the elevator,
my mind feels heavy until we dock.
Wondering who he used to be, and
how something so harsh can overtake a human

Not taking any, though
accruing scripts

I think I just needed an xray

I search for you in places that I know you’ll never be.
Assured the last thing you would want to find unprompted? Me.
Though I know that’s false, and love has ways of making far seem close,
And the beauty in the vastness makes me think of you the most.
Guaranteed your time is filled with goals both big and small.
I’m proud of you, although I’m sure that means the least of all.
Perception is a fickle thing, mine never sold to trust.
But the memories are palpable,
And on those? I’d bank or bust.

I’ve seen so many places,
Faces, held the far and wide.
Mass amounts of *******,
You’d never believe what I took in stride.
Though another lie, as you taught me to take things and show strong -
If only I’d determined what was right and could be wrong.
Yet here I sit, stationary at last, the hardest challenge to date.
Dissecting the most convoluted,
Acceptance no easy feat.

So I’ll allow myself the guilty pleasure
Of looking for your head,
In crowded rooms and maybe sometimes laying in my bed.

For many hours,
Two or three,
Pages flipped by too dry fingers.
Lick the thumb,
Flip and balance on my chest,
Neck angled oddly.
Training and straining
My scarred retinas
Begging for some timely fatigue

I invited you platonically.
And what I said was true.
I’m not in the business of asking others to do what they can’t do.
But I would not lie,
I’d try to find some chartable avenues;
Because as I touch myself in certain spots
The name I think is you.

All along.
The driver never questioned if the windshield was worthy of being clean or *****.
He just scrubbed the **** off and left the dirt water in the tub.
My mother once told me people **** in those.

Okay Mrs. VP

I recall sitting at that wooden table,
The grain memorized by my fingertips.
I took a bite of a fruit once ripe,
Yet no longer and I began to gag.
For decades, I’d slander this slender snack,
Giving anything but a chance;
Yet today, somewhere new,
Surrounded by berries,
It happened to be my favorite part.

Never as verbose,
Frankly couldn’t get close
But lord knows one’d yearn to try.

Tree bark wrinkles,
Decorating the curves;
Leaves vained and beginning to dry.

Throwing feet down a path;
Faux catches in photograph,
Pondered properly, one’d silently cry.

Your namesake echos;
You’d never accept nor believe,
But lord knows I’d yearn to try.

He licks,
And licks,
And licks,
Until he’s bald.

Never picked it up,
I saw you called.

Newfound band resistance -
Will is walled.

Tight black dress
with red hair draped
on shoulders small but strong

i struggle to not use
i in every poem
i write and at some point
i feel like it throws the perspective off. but
i also think maybe it feels right to
you, reader.
i'd love some insight, or something else to think about, but
i also think if
i don't let some steam out, the campbell's can that is
my brain will start to overheat like the hershey's
i used to leave in the center console of
my honda accord, but it wouldn't take long to solidify if
i shoved them in the air vents bc for some reason
i had a ton of fun sized bars? and if
i think hard enough,
i believe my first bf stole a giant bag of halloween candy and
i, the bonnie to my clyde, ate that **** for months. now all
i have are some stale tootsie pops, but luckily
i didn't get any trick-or-treaters this year.

we kissed under the mistletoe
unabashed
hand on the small of my back
first and last

there's flakes making my hair wet
warm showers rubbing your back

hot red flames
pour down my cheeks;
my chest hurts,
you are here.

you can't be seen -
nor felt or heard,
but somewhere you
see me.

shows of affection,
scenes aiming towards my rocky foundation;
like that puny pebble to the giant.
i fall.

if squeezed hard enough,
eyes clenched until there's stars,
it's felt that you are proud,
or would be,
wherever you are.

Still recognized
With my lone 2 eyes
Nobody brushing my shoulder.
Enjoy it for yourself?
How

Why would I drive
fifteen minutes
to secure the table
for 30
in a realm where
we could've won
so many more
and laughed over
many more lost
because at the end of the day
nobody actually cares who
is stripes or solids
just play when it's your
god ****** turn
and don't knock over
the quarters

I’ll reach to you
When the clock is right,
Which is twice a day
In this instance per lifetime.

I’ve swung and missed
Could’ve sworn you cared
I hope by February
It’s something else in the air

An unforeseen fact
You’re in love with an archer
Fourfold
What luck!

Rushing the clock
Never knowing when is too early
Until it’s impossibly late

By the water,
Ants on my legs;
I’ll let them use me as a bridge.
They have yet to bite,
Sting or bother,
As much as the flash
When I saw you beside me,
Hair blocking my view from the boat ramp.
That fluffy, flannel hat.

Reading through squints.
The pages reflecting the sun back,
Many reminders I will soon make my own.
The hills dotted with families,
Lovers,
Loners.
Don extends his hand and teaches me,
About his kids, grand girls and losses.
The water cracks against the rocks.
I’ll think of him as I hear symphonic cries,
Reminiscing my youth,
Forgetting you again, fondly this time.
We deserve the chance,
And I hope we end up like Don

Coolant pooling on the ground
A pinhole in my tank
If anyone is making tiers
Put Chevy in lower ranks

It looks so ridiculous
But those shoulders?
Let them watch

This mushy couch,
I’m clammy and warm -
Crying about the wrong dad being taken
When suddenly
The therapist turns,
A knock is heard,
Many - rather.
A ladder appears
And a dude with a belt
Far too big for his stature.
He climbs and cleans
And makes me laugh,
And my asthmatic therapist
Takes us on a walk instead.
Uphill! It is humid
We both pant and sweat
I haven’t ditched the juul
The way the rug was pulled
Back we go
To the mushy couch
With the clammy pillow

I'll never see you again
I'll likely never hear your voice
I forget what it looks like when you brush your hair behind your ear
But I'll always remember what you order
And the snacks you'd reach for every time
And I'll remember to be grateful that
Even if you don't like those Doritos anymore
You used to
And me
And that's worth everything
And nothing