Storm

This isn't my life
Dreams showed me a truth better
Than this confusion

I'm falling backward
Without an end or safety
Through sweet delusion

The storm is passing
Fleeting sun shining on me
Welcome illusion

Memorial Day Squirrels

Three squirrels
Chase each other across
The fence top
Wiggling ridiculous tails

I thought animals were made
Of much more instinct
And survival

But I know I just saw
The middle squirrel
Hop over the first
Goddammit
They are playing

I'm daydrinking on the back deck
Alone

It's Memorial Day

A day to quietly reflect
On squirrel behavior.

Nothing

I'm not even a blip.
A thought.
Even though my brain
Is so loud.
Colorful.
Overflowing.
I mean,
How could it not be noticed?
There's times
I convince myself
I am the center.
But really
I'm a background character.
Just an extra.
Insignificant.
Unremarkable.
Flat.

Full moon

People speak to
Invisible gods
So
I don't feel all that mad
Out here
Begging favors from the moon
Please
Hear

The weekend begins

It's a sticky warm Friday afternoon
My hair is biggish and frizzy
Sweat at the scalp
I smell like sleep and summer
Morning coffee has been swapped for liquor
Pretty quickly
Lawnmowers happen through the window
Erica Jong Half Lives open
On the kitchen table
And I realize all the poetry
In the world never hits me so hard
As a Springsteen song

I do what I want.

This life
Time
Is all a charade
Illusion
No matter what we do.
Who gives a shit
What I do or why
In the long run
In the big picture.
From the dawn of time to now
We're just a blip
An insignificant blip.
We can do what we want
And fuck off to every
Judgy shit
That thinks otherwise.

Stoppit

It's hard to be silent and mindful
Withdraw from unhealthy behaviors
Focus on what should be
Instead of reaching for coulds
Don't drink, don't get weird
Stop hyper focusing
Nobody likes that
Quit creeping, quit brooding
Just exist within these boundries
Where no one is uncomfortable
And no one gets hurt
And everyone wins but me.

Awake

I'm sober tonight
and plan to be
better
Plan to shed this shadow
Find myself again
Stop trying to find
meaning and holy moments
in those who can't see me
Life is uncertainty
Answers don't exist
Only the odd insights
Unexpected soul confrontations
Irretrievable spots of beauty
that linger only in memory
And there's no way to force these things
It feels as if we're in this
awkward conflicting state
both passive and responsible
But we do have the controls
Repeat after me
I am not confined to this role
I am never stuck
I am not a character in this story
I'm the writer.

Exploding

How can some seem so
Emotionless when
I am so fucking
OVERRUN WITH THEM
Is it a male thing
To not show any sign
Of being human
Or am I just so
Unstable
That I distrust those
That appear to have this shit
Figured out
I can't live tonight
Without music shaking me
Liquor turning me inside out
Poems to shoot and kill
My demons with
My mind is an exploding universe
And I can't deal with
The goddammed laundry or dishes.

Slow burn

Tread lightly
Regardless of what dreams
Drunken intuition
Or pangs of lonely
Tell you

It's fragile
And as messy as I am
As hard the need is
There's so many sides
So many
Sides

I'm afraid
Of acting and not
Change
No change
It can't all coexist
One cancels out

I don't want to know
How this ends.
I need to know
How it begins.

Tunes, man. Tunes.

Life needs a soundtrack

Until this can happen
I will continue to just blast my music
In every situation
And irritate the neighbors.

Boom.

I always wake up chonky, dammit

I dream
And I am who I feel
On the inside
On the outside
The pictures match
So that I wake
Disappointed in myself
Every day
Stuck in this
Heavy vehicle.

Sunday night

The hardest part
Is living in this
By myself

Seeing this
Beauty
Alone

There's only
One mind
In here

Talking to itself
Creating illusions
Dreaming

Feeling full
Feeling empty
Feeling everything

Inventing
Is not so crazy
I'm not so crazy

Fucking hell
This world
Makes no sense anymore

I may as well
Create my
Own

change

I stand on a cliff
peering over, deciding
do I stay or jump

my bones would all mend
or they wouldn't, I don't know
miracles happen

it occurs to me
that i'm already broken
so what can I lose

the scales are balanced
and I don't know where to go
so I sit and hope

that the choice makes me.

Absorbed

I believe
my thoughts are magnetic
my dreams, a black hole.

that my mind would have the power
to interrupt the lives of others.

who the fuck do I think I am

I'm lost inside a
suffocating inescapable
prison of me

Nothing moments

"I'm only human..."
Plays on a clock radio
I am 9 years old.

Lying on a floor
Watching the radio light
Red dot in the dark.

Nothing happening
Such a vivid memory
it was, nonetheless.

And that's all life is
Just tiny nothing moments
Full of everything.

Seasonal

The veil separating
Ordinary life and reality
Wears thin, I think
Sometime around November
When the dark expands
And moves through us.
We see more of the possibilities
Like seeing a mirrored reflection
Of a another mirror
Where each echoed picture
Is just a little different.
Could haves.
Could be.
Regrets.
Potential.

Life Less

Rain is flooding
The river
A casual crisis
Rising
Cross the road
I'm uselessly sighing
Breathing cat piss
And beer
Reading DH
Still in my boots
Sinking into
Sinking into
Nothing.

A photo of a photo

Memory's chain
Shiny, the part
Held now
Yesterday breakfast
A movie, a book.
A bad day at work.
The news.

Rusty, though, the end
Left dragging
Through the fog at night
Names and years.
Faulty snapshots
Of a bridge
After a flood.

I revisit the vivid
Untarnished dream links
(between peeling faces
From a yearbook)
And small sections
Of regret
That will never break down
Under the elements
Of time and change.

Tonight I sat with my beer
In the dark, following my chain
Backwards, to the bridge
The new bridge over the
Yakima, a No Trespassing notice
To their backs
Kids,
Shining amid rust.

Mental

Most of my misery
Stems from the idea
That another human being
Can somehow fix
What is happening
In my head.
When I know they can't.
Fact is, that belief
Makes it worse.
Alcohol doesn't fix it, either.
Writing about it
Doesn't fix it, either.
Nothing fucking fixes me
The end.

39

It's past 4am
On a night where I swore
I'd get at least
6 hours
But I've only got
5 hours left
And I'm still
Googling
Googling
Googling
Names and videos
How-to's
Old Myspace pages
Obits and old addresses
Other people's reviews
Of hikes, shops, dives
In other states
I'm too aware
Of how stationary I've become
Also, it's almost 5am now
So that's 4.
4 hours left and then I'm having
Mimosas for breakfast.
Happy birthday, me.
Last year of your 30s.
Here's hoping it's your last
Stationary year.

Seven days late

I thought
I was still
Young enough
For the one thing
But maybe
Actually
I might be
Old enough
For the other.
It still
Hasn't come
But I tested
Clean.
I celebrated
With drinks.
Forgot
Panicked
Plans.
A negative
Can be such
A positive.

Adulting

I put them on the bus
Check the mail
Apply the makeup
Feed the cat
Seek out
All the wrong patches
To mend a tear
In my already deflated soul.
Make coffee.

I feel the crashing down
The cracking the breaking
The tearing and rending
Suffocating strain.
The shattering of the universe
That no one in the world
Acknowledges.

I make the dinner
Run the bath
Help with taxes
Fall into blackness
Watch some Cheers.

I can't
Anymore
But I have to.

Is this all
Adult life is?

he's home

standing there
eye shut
with my forehead
pressed to the wall
i listened to
his sleep mouth breathing
in the afternoon
work shoes on
jacket still on
unopened mail splayed
across his tummy
immediately
dead on arrival
i had no one
again.

Ours

Here's some
Frustration. Relic.
Seed to continue
Where our foremothers
Left off.
Never surrender.
Never give up the fight.
Reviled.
Imprisoned.
Died.
As I sit comfortably
In my age
Watching the tide come in
To snatch it back
From under our
Indifferent
Noses.

something

it's a chore,
man,
finding the something.
the something
i have no good words for.
the something that
prods me forward
when i'm stalling out
and sleepwalking.
the something that
pings back at lonely 3am
when i'm convinced
there's no one but me.
the something that finds me
sees me through crowds of no one.
i'm tired of searching
through nothing
with nothing in sight
just stuck in this perpetual
thick and frustrated night
keeping my own heart beating.

Night Daydream

I could go to bed.
Sure.
If I wasn't so busy
Dancing in the dark
Drinking in the corner of the kitchen
Lipsynching to Journey.

I'm feeling more me
Than usual
And more alone
Than I am.

Other people's
Projected thoughts
Are getting me angry.

Other people's
Stupid lives

I'm dreaming before sleep,
Inventing actual souls
To play with,
To create a space of meaning
Around me.

I'm talking to the air
Staring through the walls
Wondering where I really am
And why and when and whaaaaat.

Hello?

I speak so easy
Quietly, from my own mind.
Are you listening?

I hear your brain.

Telepathy is
Sort of a thing, in a way.
With the right person.

Not so shiny tonight

In my bleaker moments
I get a peek
At the obvious hopelessness
Of everything
Of existence
The horrible void
How dull it all is on the surface
How dull it still is a few layers down
Digging deeper for naught
Just feels like masturbation
What is right, or good, or real
Is anything there outside my own mind
Is it even worth the bother
Who am I even writing this for
And who do I think will care.

Not a fucking soul.