when i begin the process of culling a new collection i am forced to read my words

i don’t do that

i don’t read and reread, there is no painstaking process of seeking perfection

i vomit i publish i begin the next

so they are new to me when i go through, i don’t recall the words but i know the image that spawned them

which is strange

sometimes the image is nowhere near where the piece ended, but the feeling echoes in the bones

occasionally i am surprised by the subconscious deeper meaning beneath shoddy metaphors, murky in the middling prose

i am not ashamed to admit i refuse to look back because i will end up back there

then sobbing

it is a record of things that need to have been let go, yet in their consumption i am consumed

these fetid wounds need not be picked at, yet i scratch and bite at them

i need one of those plastic cones, fill it with black coffee and dark rum, add some pineapple and cherries so i don’t get scurvy

so i am not crying, you are, just to be clear, i am fine, this does nothing to my mental state, just words

that’s all

and smiles

i would rather forget

we haven’t gotten to the one that obliterates the dark

literally thousands until we get to her(except for the hundreds she never knew about)

so many strips of flesh, so many new scars

i shed them for me but claim they are for you, but the pain is mine to savor while you just get the scraps

i need help

and the mason jar of whiskey next to the mason jar of sativa next to the framed photo of you

in my mind

are the only things keeping me sane

while the meanings still remain tantalizingly

(un)defined