the fool is the fool because he foolishly pursues the things he knows he will never have he is the poet illiterate because he doesn’t understand the things he thinks he needs the words are wrong the man behind the scenes has given up all pretenses
ignore the bruising and tears i get clumsy with my emotional dissonance this time of the year i haven’t learned the true meaning of festively shutting the fuck up
i used to dream of space of soaring through the cosmos now i dream of the space between dream and reality feels like the wonder has died jettison me into the cosmos i think i have dreamt enough for a lifetime of unfulfillment
her smile was like black ice on the road at night when it hit you were no longer in control
i made a blanket fort buried myself in it more a blanket tomb a womb a standing burial shroud my own personal cahokia we took a school trip there long ago underground they turned off the lights we screamed in childish delight they turned on the spotlights skeletons lay illuminated before us i was enthralled […]
i have nothing just the vapid dismay that flavours the words i would say if saying them meant anything at all so we sit letting the silence envelop us your move empty room
i am lost all of it crumbles melancholy meanderings losing whatever was left out of hope staring in the mirror tsol ma i
when i held you the words went silent, i tried to say the words through actions now that you’re gone i have a list of all the words i wish i would have said maybe you would have stayed we both knew my tongue was sharper than the shards of a glass i keep inside […]
i am goddamned mess for you my dear a collapsed house of cards strewn across the carpet let me crawl inside your brain curl up around your amygdala whisper sweet odes directly into your inner ear i took the liberty of cutting the brakes let’s go for a drive down that winding canyon highway but […]
a shot of novacaine in my sputtering heart to ease the palpable palpitations from your smile you folded me into a crane with your gentle words how i tried to soar with brittle wings bent into incongruent shapes held in shaking desire to maintain your sparkling gaze i am the crane on broken talons you […]
started my day with a cry more an existential sorrow than anything else isn’t that strange nothing set it off just woke up and felt like maybe just maybe i should release the tears barely restrained maybe it was an overloaded tear duct or the headache that has become my constant companion but i started […]
he blew in like trash on the breeze in search of a dumpster fire to rest his head there was more but the dream fades as i try and recall it something something morose i imagine i either need to write faster or dream harder this leaving things half formed is for theodicists or men […]
i have been sick for days but it feels like months and my mouth seems to run on it’s own with no thought to what my brain keeps yelling like an automated car or a chainsaw in a horror movie once it fires up i just clench and await the blood that will inevitably come […]
taking your time means time taken from the end anyway so i dive in head first and make up for it later on i have a way with words making them twist like molding clay from things of beauty into sculptures of decay so let’s play a game we will put our hearts up raise […]
i stumbled to the bar, in hopes of finding myself in the bottom of a glass or twelve, seeking absolution in stringent spirits for sins as yet uncommitted the snow up to my knees but a fire burning in my chest, the cigarette clutched in deadened fingers the only light in the darkening evening the […]
the skin on his chest buckled and ripped as he lay staring at the ceiling the black beak tore through his flesh slowly the beady eyed gaze stared into his own it shook itself slowly emerging from the now open wound with a caw it launched itself into the air flew around the room before […]
love is a bridge made out of weasels that squirm and seek purchase where ever they may it is a bowl of dead octopi coated in soy sauce and dancing still firing nerves no sense just manic twitching it is an iron fist in a velvet glove that has been coated with rusty strands of […]
cast from clay cast from paradise left to toil through this world alone she was my lilith my first love the one none could hold could never hope to conquer strong independent so very fierce labeled a demon by those who could not comprehend still in the back of my mind my heart i miss […]
wrapped myself in a cocoon of pain and misery, the ugliest caterpillar turning into the strangest moth writhing in the blanket chrysalis, begging for an end, a halt, a moments peace from the nails driven into soft flesh in this moment of singular despair even the words left me, my constant companions, they swept from […]
when i am sick i feel less human and more over critical anthropomorphic can opener it could be the lack of sleep talking or the throbbing in my head and face but i want to drizzle syrup over you like a freshly buttered pancake and leave you hoarse after licking it all off or cuddle […]
in the grips of the grips of pain depression and misery couldn’t sleep last night unable to nap today it’ll get better they tell me as it somehow only gets worse
she was so concerned he would leave her that when he finally left her it was a relief she willed him away with every ounce of her self doubt and insecurities but when you ask her she will tell you she always knew he had a roving eye even as she handed him the binoculars […]
i am pompeii while you my love are vesuvius i find myself sitting in your shadow oblivious to your sighs and anger it feels as if it is business as normal soon all will be drowned in your careless disregard all that remains will be ash
he told me he used to fly a pilot in the war the hurt in his eyes stopped me from asking which war his eyes were rheumy his fingers like gnarled roots but the look on his face showed he still flew if only in his mind
i wonder in what seems like hour nineteen of dancing thoughts about you do you ever look to the sky night or day and a vision of me dances with you no music needed just cheek to cheek across the kitchen swaying softly in one another’s arms no of course not we both know i […]
i imagine in two million years the light from your smile will grace the skies of an alien planet when it does an astronomer there will have that butterflies in the stomach feel of love at first sight probably won’t call it butterflies though but he or she or it or whatever will know exactly […]
she told me with a whispered voice that barely carried across the infinitesimal distance between her lips and my ear my life is like a picture frame that has been shattered my face scrunched up in confusion at the words feeling i must have misheard her somehow she frowned sadly at me and shook her […]
i want to be kissed until i cannot breathe until my lips ache until desire tears me apart i am here waiting for you
she is a tigress shaded by the canopy of leaves stalking her prey in silence she is a tulip a declaration of love and beauty the air filled with her heavenly scent
the gluttonous pig of self doubt feeds heartily from the trough of insecurity today one day the knife slides across the stubbily chin and spills hot crimson etchings of devotion on the stones of the courtyard a torrent of devoured dreams washing away the aches and pains of everyday soliloquies
she screwed her adoration to my back like angel wings unfortunately they turned out to be hinges anchored to the wall now i swing in the wake of her lost affections slamming against the frame of my own remorseless love
was that you i saw passing by the window earlier or just a vision of beauty calling from the back of my mind i can’t tell but i know which one i wish it was
we spend so much money trying to make it to dead planets while we kill the one known living one i wonder are we running towards or away from ourselves
some days i am the life of the search party. others, an uninvited guest. once though. a while back. i was guest of honor at a donner party. everyone agreed i was delicious.
fever dream or street fair, no longer able to tell the differences of real or not vendors with slitted pupils peddling wares of brimstone and lies in multicolored stalls kernels of popped corn heavily seasoned with salty tears and tangled machinations forked tongues spinning yarns made to entice and pull the sullen soul from vacant […]
overhead the planes spew smoke in lines like absent fathers mailing presents to forgotten children banners stream behind them cash for gold golden bands forever ever begging goods for service servitude for sanctuary and i wonder am i a mirage in this desert of loneliness or are you the shimmering sands of winter’s discontent still […]
sinus infection, moral infraction, soul in traction, stuck in redaction i am considering db coopering my life there is a bomb in my briefcase i need two hundred grand in twenties and a sewn shut parachute fly me through the rain towards reno take my clip on tie and watch me soar into the dark […]
her eyes leak sludge down her withered parchment like cheeks like turkish coffee spilled onto a newspaper the comics sit untouched neither of us feels like laughing
the moon hangs heavy i stare at it like a picture of a lost lover.
they seek to tell me what to feel to think to write as if it is their words they are not. if they are anyone’s they belong to her my muse. the woman that i write all of this to for in honor of in service to. they circle around my words like crows picking […]
it only hurts when you remember it yet everything is a reminder so that pretty much sucks
i could teach a class on your beauty. give weekly lectures on why i love you. it could be an elective. but since the moment i found you you’ve been the only subject that matters.
it was a cold night and the sky was clear as we drove through the winding city streets she leaned across the console and put her head on my shoulder if you had asked me right then i would have told you i wanted that feeling to last until the sun goes supernova and wipes […]
he built a scaffold out of the ivory bones of affection used it to scale down to tap the reflection of the moon in the bottom of the sea the coral cut and snagged his suspenders, suspended in the waters, neon pink daydreams of high colonic dismay a diorama menagerie of carefully sculpted plankton beside […]
depression rests it’s silky smooth wings over my cerebellum it slides it’s fangs into the opioid receptors and feasts a feast of famine for a moment brief yet prolonged it feels like the lips of the love you long to kiss so desperately in your dreams come true then a cold oily sense of discontent […]
he floated face down in the pool he said it was practice but he never said what it was practice for but night after night he floated i wonder if he ever got good at it
his head was replaced by a giant tick it did wonders for his personality.
So here is the official cover art for my collection of short stories! Coming soon, Notches.
this constant looping ending has disrupted the natural flow of my story it has been so long since i can recall a new beginning just spinning around at the end of the middle or the middle of the end i don’t know where i am any longer but how i wish to savor a new […]
my sinus on the right side is in the wrong way today pressure ear canal feels like venice in an earthquake i cannot find my smile have you seen it put it on a carton of milk crooked little thing enjoys dark humor slow walks along a murder scene and the sight of her
it was a nonlinear good bye she said she would talk to me later that was a month ago yet i am still waiting
the rain is indigo like the second to last band of the rainbow i can’t stop thinking roy g biv when i see the prismatic band play across the sky redorangeyellow green blueindigoviolet i wish i could see the full spectrum dancing the infrared and ultraviolet instead i see impaired and ultraviolent i can’t help […]
she re-reads the same poem everyday it makes her want to write a poem herself she doesn’t understand she is a poem and everyday i try and read her but i don’t know the language
at the end of the day a knight in shining armor is just a man that smells of rust if i smelled like rust would you love me
somewhere in the sky a lone star looks down on both of us i whispered a secret to it for your ears only let me know when you hear it
measure twice cut once works on nearly everything but depression and love
could this be a really vivid dream i will wake up none of this is real all of my mistakes didn’t happen i will miss you but it isn’t like you’ll notice i am gone i bet when i wake up i will still love you
she is an ! i am an … she is 🙂 while i remain ? we don’t speak in sentences any longer, we speak in hieroglyphics the rosetta stone comes with a search bar and all my inquiries come back 404 twenty six letters have stopped conveying the words necessary to say i love you […]
have i become a whore to the almighty metaphor afraid to admit this life is not what it was made out to be so i make it what i wish it could be by making it something else completely
when i was ten i would spend my summers at the nursing home my mother worked at none are as honest as children and adults close to death many truths were shared at times i was surrounded by ghosts that didn’t know they were dead yet but they always had hard candies and they all […]
she told me the lamp was magic, that there was a genie inside that would grant three wishes, i just had to rub it, everything would come true i laughed then after she left, i was alone and that lamp sat on the table, her smell filled the room yes wildflowers yes, i know and […]
my parents let the television raise me. we let the phones raise this generation. soon enough it won’t matter. because the planet will be dead. i guess we showed them.
i am not a poem worthy sort i am a silk screened image of a car wreck the after photo for depression i am the guy you don’t love just yet willing to write poetry on your skin with my tongue use my teeth for calligraphy tattoo promises of forever in pooled blood just beneath […]
there are bees behind my eyeballs buzzing stinging rats with moth wings bite me as i sleep my blood is poison my venomous pain seeps over broken lips i am tired drained weakened but still strong enough to burn down everything with a lackluster smile
cold hands grip tightly to the stone lid of the coffin hunger need the moon reflects the rays of a star never seen the steady beat in your lovely throat calls sings the staccato pulse of life pulling from across the room in your dreams i come
sometimes i feel like she wants me to tell her the things she specifically told me not to tell her the first time we spoke the problem i listen too well so i stay quiet just write these odes to her tell her what i feel without either of us acknowledging it it is a […]
we are all broken so do you wanna super glue yourself together with me
last night i dreamt that the oceans were blood the skies were fire and you were here
she slammed the door with a crack like a sniper’s bullet through the heart each subsequent slamming dealt further into the law of diminishing returns how many times can a heart be shot before it a) kills b) becomes desensitized there is a reason the arm goes numb during a heart attack, i try and […]
we switched roles in our love each playing regan macneil or father karras on equal matching motions each with our own demons proudly on display
i wish i had you to hold. instead. i have a book. i imagine my fingers would do better. along your spine.
she dances like sunrise i am the darkened sky for a moment we are neon pink starbursts entangled upon one another for the world to see
i once had a job filling the condom and tampon dispensers in bathrooms of bars. it was not as glamorous as it sounds. so believe me when i say, i know a thing or two about a thing or two. i am not just a pretty face that writes poetry. and this has nothing to […]
sitting at the park drinking coffee from a paper cup thinking about the pretty girl that asked me to write a poem about her as i stare at the water trying to figure out what i should write about her i had an idea as i grabbed my phone to scribble it down a squirrel […]
my happiness is the light of a star by the time you see it it has been dead millions of years
do you remember the cold october night holding hands as we sang along to pennywise speeding drunkenly down the highway screaming fuck authority like we were kids again how all i wanted was to be your romeo as you were surely my juliet but that juliet had other plans other than a faked death to […]
i feel fancy in a vest and bowtie sitting alone wishing it all would end
she is a comet that races through my mind when it is too quiet a blinding blaze that suffuses me with heavenly radiance when it is too loud which it often is she is a comforter draped across my mind to muffle the voices of doubt and shame
i don’t trust my mouth or words when the feelings of love begin to take over my brain i will find myself standing outside grinning like a fool at the heavy gray clouds a neighbor will wave and i will smile and shout “she wears magic in her smile like a normal person wears shoes […]
i saw her sitting alone on the bench the wind whipping her hair her dress her floppy hat it brought to mind the koi fish fighting for pellets in the pond at the zoo the bodies flopping on one another in gluttonous frenzy mouths sucking at nothing a mindless sort of spasming
i remember waking up and her mumbling she loves me as i crept from bed now i wake up alone but my day doesn’t begin with a lie it is the little things
thirty pounds ago my shadow seemed more like a balloon twenty pounds ago my pants fit like they should ten pounds ago i began questioning what i was still doing now i just don’t have the money for food but i look good
he was a poet right up until he slipped cracked his head on the toilet bowl now he is just another ghost haunting and haunted in equal measure
it might have been the end of the world or the end of the road or the end of the block who can tell when the wildflowers fill your head her voice fills your skull and nothing else matters at all
every tooth in my mouth is a tombstone to every time the words i love you passed over my fool tongue in error one day i will be less of a fool
i have forgotten how to write poetry the words won’t come just flashes of things feathery soft bits of fluff sharp little teeth tearing sinking into brown eyes i have given up on poetry it’s like love unnecessary
the overcast skies above me her warm flesh beneath it is a dream i know it but i don’t want to wake rejoin this life of empty hope of failing need of loving in vain yet here i sit sickened and bereft
it isn’t a biblical life of suffering i live i am more cocaine and unable than hero my lack of faith is a faith in itself so i will cast lots and play the humble poet crucifying myself in an effort to be less of a hassle for you
woke up tired and mad napped myself into morose if i keep sleeping will i find myself happy or just slip back into mad
she makes me feel like the line between forever and never is as razor thin as the one between lover and over i straddle each with the grace of a drunken monk
i spent so long staring into the night when the sky brightened morning felt like the end of the world
watching her put on make up with the practiced hand of a mortician seems either way it spells death inside my mind a beautiful funeral
she laughed at me when i told her she was my fetish she admired my strength my will my glorious anger my limitless sorrow but she never understood my worship of all things her or what it did to me when she snuffed the candle and took her light away so when she called again […]
it’s cold and wet like a dog’s nose empty like my mother’s eyes so i paint on a smile like a clown pretending it will be okay
i collect the dark thoughts like raven feathers as they are born within my mind i nearly have the whole set when i do i will scatter them about my feet like a secondary shadow. then i shall alight upon my new shadow, high above the depths of this hell, and gaze down in hopes […]
like an idiot i decided to go for a walk in the cold rain it was miserable i was miserable the whole thing was a mistake when it was over i sat staring out the window wishing it showed a different world bound to this cold earth with no tangible means of escape is a […]
i am not good with titles or life or being open i am howsoever good at falling madly in love and even better at making it all fall apart
i fear you heard me tell you i love you. what i meant to say was sure has rained a lot lately let me be your umbrella.
i don’t want you to make love to me like two star crossed lovers i want you to take me as if i was the only drink of water in an ocean of sand
i don’t have much but i can compare you to the sunrise breaking over the eastern seas or always tell you that you are my favorite shade of anything yet nothing is comparable to you my love
Mike's Manic Word Depot 