035. Trembling on a train

Swathes of responsibilities concur with

these new roles. It all arrives in a moment of

epiphany, when you’re laying down and

staring at the ceiling. It’s a reminder of your age and

what’s expected of you.

Why are our lives on a trajectory

when none of our plans go as anticipated?

Why do we feign preparedness when

life never prepares us?

Forgive this existentialism.

Pondering never hurt anyone.

034. The common plague

The shops that don't seek

but can stand. Listen as

the wind sighs through

hollow homes. It takes some

dust with it. And the stag

that consumes straw

from dried dirt. Kick around

the gravel and imagine her

standing. The lips that withhold

your answer. It's the answer to

natural decay. Hang it from

your neck while you walk--

while you walk amongst townspeople.

That way you don't have to speak. That

way they don't have to

listen.

033. discomfort

There is no normal.

Everything sad and

different and

aching and

morose stays within.

And these uncomfortable

things are often the

truth. They are hidden

by lies--these "normal"

things. But when everyone

has something sad and

different and

aching and

morose, that is what's

normal.

032. A War that hasn't ended

Do you ever act out of a force that

you can't describe? What is it that

made this force so proprietary?

It's a mix of things only your

mind knows but your tongue refuses

to relay.

​

It started when you first saw light.

When you first heard a voice.

And with each choice you make, it changes

so slightly.

With each cup of coffee.

Each mention of your parents.

Each time you think of her--and all the

times you killed her.

​

Remember her face?

Remember that feeling in your gut?

Perhaps that was the force reminding

you who you are.

But that reminder is encrypted.

No one can translate it.

Not what your force has to say.

031. RAMBLINGS

As the world crumbles, as it festers

into black wind that stirs ash,

know that you didn't stoke the

chaos. Know that we who care

can only care to the fault of

those who don't. It's not that they

are stupid. They aren't. They think

we are. They believe obedience can

prevail through this plain and

into the apocalypse. It's a shame

they'll only see the remnants of

something once beautiful and

pure and promising

of unconditional love. That's true

hate. Not knowing. Obliviousness.

Hate is ignoring. It's stoking the

fire and letting it rage on and

obliterate. To those who have done

what I speak of, consider again what

awaits the fawn who loses its mother.

030. reincarnate

When the sun sets on our love

I will remember the vivacity--

the vivacity of the birds.

Of their calls.

The sun still ripples now

on the water that shivers in

October.

Maybe when it warms up we

can stretch our legs and

dance.

Maybe dancing will free our ankles

from the weight of us.

The weight we carry

in our binding hands.

Our interlocked fingers.

Fingers used for every shape of

emotion.

How I trembled and screamed alone

about you.

It reminds me just how

little I knew.

How little I know now.

029. Starting over

Leaping excitement,

painting fallacies,

opening doors,

locking others.

Telling an old story with new paint.

Discovering new realms.

Casting a new lens.

Crushing the past with your heels.

Taking a jump.

​

Infatuation.

Desperation.

Unwarranted regret.

Grazing fingertips.

Asking.

Asking again.

"Was that okay?"

"Is this okay?"

"I didn't mean to," for the first time.

​

Comfort.

Bodies are familiar.

A new age.

Trust me.

Even when I fuck up.

Even when it's my own head.

My own life.

028. What she can do

An old painting drips wet

with pigments only seen then

but under the same sun.

That's what she is.

She's filled with the sort of

delicate knowledge about things

of a certain time and ilk.

Rarely does she say,

"I don't know."

And if you touch her or

her canvas

then perhaps her paint will

rub off on you.

Maybe the reds and greens and blues

won't wash out with water.

Maybe not with alcohol.

Instead, in order to get rid of

her you'll have to cut them off.

Cut your hands off.

Shed your own pigment.

Make your own painting.

027. COLLISION

Walking and seeing

your eyes lit by golden rays.

My hand outstretched, free of cuts

when we touch.

Heeding the breeze with only

our long hair.

The difference between our skins.

The difference between our skins.

Look at how much we've changed.

The damage in our eyes is healing, finally

starting to heal.

Finally.

​

But spectral hands reach from beyond.

They pull.

Claw.

Hissing vocals clash with the

earthly air.

The words are in another language that

my soul understands; nothing else.

Nothing else.

026. The Earth

Listen to the earth.

Listen to all it tells you through

whispers.

The whisper of the rain and

lick of the wind. How the tide

murmurs under the moon.

Listen to those shouts of

desolation. The hot magma of

an angry volcano. How it rolls down the hill

and conjures flames like a wizard's fingers.

Listen to all it has to say

before all that's left is

ash.

025. A Girl & An Animal Try

She screams through a hissing speaker

at a man who doesn't hear her.

Wrestling the reckoning,

inevitable isolation.

Take your turn in the cage and watch

a fragile man's rage.

Be alone in a crowd.

Rush through a day of nothing.

Complete a trial and

crank the dial.

Hopefully someone will be waiting and

you'll be vibrant, unaffected and not dying.

024. Youth

How young is too young

to wander?

To feel?

To think for yourself?

To pay for your parents' dinner?

Why do we claim to

look after the young

and then stand on their backs or

shoulders, expecting praise?

Anything can be just

or gravely wrong,

especially if you scold them

when they're young.

023. Silence

Rolling your eyes at bumper stickers.

Plugging your ears from the inside.

Trying not to cough from his smoke.

Going to the doctor's office for

something embarrassing.

Knowing a compliment is nothing,

nothing but patronage-

pity.

It all makes sense in the evening,

while you lay on your back and

look at the ceiling.

But your your dreams are different.

And when you wake up

it's all forgotten.

022. Abstract

Name one thing that isn't real.

That isn't a part of you.

That you have no feelings toward.

​

That thing may just adore you.

It may be spending its life

trying to please you.

​

Find that thing.

021. on the end

It's safe to say that

death is part of life.

It brings many things out

of everyone.

Or simply,

it brings everyone.

People you haven't seen in ages.

Those who smile and shake your hand.

Those who say,

"We should keep in touch,"

but never call.

Not until another dies.

​

Death brings words.

Words people don't mean,

angry or not.

Words people have been

holding in for ages.

Words about you or him or

the one in the ground.

​

Death brings love.

Love that breaks through

everything.

Love that forms circles

of everyone sharing memories.

Love that forges relationships,

that mends them.

​

Death brings life,

depending on what you believe.

020. Everything

I cannot;

I will not

separate myself from

anyone,

anything.

Not this pen,

not this screen,

not my fingers,

not my tongue,

not my skull.

There is no line between these words.

They are me.

They are one.

019. unresolved

When the sun shifts

behind a cloud,

I hear your voices.

How everything you ever said was

a feeble façade.

​

And I believed it.

​

I've discovered

so painfully

what it's like

to spend time with you

while you're somewhere else,

Laughing.

018. Broken

You weren't thinking.

It only took a moment.

Instant flow.

Gratification.

​

Now as the winters pass,

as things have grown and festered,

you haven't forgotten.

Forgotten the ripples.

​

How easy it was then

and how hard it is now.

017. Escape

Like a thousand needles

on a curtain

I'm constricted

by invisible hands.

​

Don't listen

to them,

only animals.

Those who can't see you.

​

Take loneliness,

stuff it away.

Surround yourself with something.

Something useful.

016. Offshoots

Sprouting,

curling,

blooming.

I feel it grow

like crawling crystals

deep inside.

Consider again

how it feels to be alive.

015. A Picture of chaos

When the rain comes back, fierce,

I wait for thunder

or a flash of light.

Something that tells me

the sky is thinking,

that something will come

after the rain.

​

Why do we sleep well during chaos?

Why does it relax us?

​

I want to know about this chaos,

see what it's like to be inside.

Look at a utopia from a hell-scape.

Understand what it means to look out

at those who ignore,

those who sleep

during chaos.

014. virgin night

When the sun sets in hell,

not a soul wavers.

Only scattered light pierces,

illuminates the obscuring,

black fog.

It settles upon a new evening,

one fresh from an 0range bath,

ready to look to the land.

Scour.

Feed.

Feed on anything that's left.

013. Untouched

A blemish on the canvas

seen by none,

known only by one.

How can we know what happened before?

Before us?

Who made the cuts?

Someone was trampled,

wrung out by stampede.

And now we won't impede.

You can't listen to voices already silenced,

not without the page,

giving time the stage.

Go home to where you know:

beyond the sun.

Find it how you left it:

brightly lit.

Untouched.

012. Skulls

Desire.

Give.

Take it

home.

​

Do I speak to the clouds?

Or the dirt?

Where do my thoughts go?

​

Things are thoughts.

Everyone's outcry,

plea for recognition,

a puzzle to solve,

a labyrinth to navigate,

an end to find.

011. Things to forget

Dimensions of fate

rely on you, now.

Control the inevitable.

Make it yours,

something to be modest about.

Feign gratefulness.

Feign talent.

Feign answers.

​

Remember your core

at the end of the day.

Where you began,

who brought you here.

Then tomorrow you can pretend

it was someone else.

Someone other than you.

010. The cycle

I see the sheet of light

drape over everything

and the rainstorm that cries,

masking a sun that shines.

​

How is being still, unaware

better than being awake?

Like a melody turned sour,

a winter that killed the flower,

I remember what it was like

to see in color.

But when I open my eyes

everything dies.

​

The people on the bus,

the ones who talk on the radio,

two separate realities.

One ignores causality.

​

Continue to breathe,

keep your eyes open,

someone will listen.

009. PIT

The icy hooves thunder.

Conceal amethyst veins.

Watch the dew glisten.

The sun spear.

​

Correct the dark.

Fall into the code.

Cave walls drip like

ancient rain that leaves

misty vapors.

​

Traces.

Morbid

shock.

Scramble.

​

Cut off the ties,

all the channels

converging at one

center.

​

A glowing pit

that inhumes

existence.

008. NURSING

Locked wisdom.

A wall instead of a gate.

Howling coughs.

Wretched yellow light.

Time thins into

inevitability.

​

Snapping Focus.

Reintroductions.

Proverbs go to die.

Wisp away into that vault.

Never see fingers.

Only ash.

Only ash and steel.

​

Cold.

Thinning.

No contribution.

Words go unlisted

forever.

007. For leaves

Oblivion in my system,

screeching.

Listen for other threads.

Watch for certain threats.

Constant teeming.

Sooner dying.

​

Screeching.

​

Ways to remedy whisper to

the leaves that cling to brittle branches,

arriving through idle gazes,

smeared windows,

invisible hands.

​

Screech.

Screech

now.

006. Gleams

Cut the cast.

Listen to my unenthused past

as I ramble on about things that didn't last.

Not in my house or theirs,

only in my skull as it dares,

leaving open-ended questionnaires

about all the things unseen.

How things should've been wiped clean

with a rag soaked in blood that gleams.

005. Absence

Daggers rise from the ground with steam.

Fangs orange with rage,

spawned by the absence of a dream.

A despair unseen on the page.

A hatred caused by sadness.

A feeling whose thorns strangle,

forcing an animal into abyss,

bending memories into a tangle.

​

No.
I cannot go back

to a realm of stark absence.

004. The hum

Standing in serenity,

surrounded by chaos,

I feel like I'm in a city

pondering a distant man's loss.

​

The crowds pass,

The rain plummets.

I'm in a lower class

looking in disdain at the puppets.

​

My hands,

what color are they?

Are they filled with grey sand,

or already where the dead lay?

​

Sounds make up silence,

silence spawns thought,

thought makes something crude.

A new future

of morbid altitude.

003. With You

Swirl, blossom, and buzz.

I remember just how pure it was.

But my claws are raw.

Now, I'm only everything I ever saw

with you.

​

Not because of,

never in spite of,

but my side was always filled

with you.

​

Listen to me.

I've ascended,

reached the cusp of rich fruition

and now I have to reach a decision.

​

You say all you do is everything,

but my boots are soaked

and your legs are pristine.

Work is conscious when you're conscious.

​

Never sleep.

Never sleep

with you.

002. Everything Contrived

Spill.

Feed.

Revel.

Recede.

​

When the lights come on.

When dusk turns to dawn.

Morose are the shadows

but in them are swirling billows.

It goes from black to orange,

from calmness to the fringe.

​

Remember.

Come collect the stained timber.

Narrow on what you can control.

Listen to those who cry from the death toll.

​

Omnificence goes to futility.

Autumn turns to visibility.

​

Spill.

Feed.

Revel.

Recede.

001. The Black Road

The ice splits and the glass shatters.

Desperate are the wheels atop the fragments.

They screech and leave nothing but black smoke,

an echo that will carry through the homes.

Black is the smoke as is the stain.

Ears will forget but never will the road.

As desperation echoes through more than air,

it leaves its mark everywhere.