i watched her through the peephole as she knocked on the door there was no reason for her to be outside a doorway that she had chosen to exit for the final time years before she waited with her ear turned hoping to hear signs of movement and then i watched as she slinked over […]
went negative by a nickel and that began a spiral that ended up at seventy dollars in the hole in the fifteen minutes between getting paid and transferring the funds five cents took me from groceries to staring out into another insurmountable crisis of scraping by the bloody fingernails in the prison walls the only […]
the yellow diffusion drifting in through the cracked blinds fills the room with a sense of foreboding in golden rays that seem to only highlight the motes of dust floating as stagnation hangs heavily over everything the coffee drips sludge to work free the arterial blockage static bursts play in the lavender bursts that rattle […]
(un)requited is up for preorder on Potter’s Grove Press in paperback and ebook on Amazon. i think this is my best collection yet, but i guess that is what someone trying to sell a book would say. probably wouldn’t sell much if i said it is mediocre. which it hopefully isn’t. oh no. i was […]
the sounds of wet tentacles slapping against the windows of the car as i try and navigate this new instance of hell on earth where the sky bleeds on the cracked carapaces of a billion dead cicadas and bloated copperheads my eyelids feel chitinous as they scrape across a duality in unnatural bipolarity
a crack runs across the wall every time i see it i swear that it has gotten noticably bigger as a kid my dad would yell to stop fingering at the crack which became incrementally more hilarious the older i got the wider that it grew the less anyone else seemed to notice as if […]
i saw where someone had abbreviatied unfortunately to unfortch and any bit of remaining hope for all of humanity died inside me i am convinced humanity is a placeholder until a truly deserving dominant species saves the day.
there is an odd juxtaposition in a fool that loves to sit people watching but cannot stand to look into the mirror in the morning as he gets himself somewhat ready to face a day yet cannot seem to face the face of obtuse ugliness awkwardly stapled to broken bone pitted with scars that stares […]
she strains her self perceived perfection perched upon her shoulders a modern day atlas of inconsistent rambling lies pluck one thread to watch her persona fall apart as the tall tales told as reverential epiphanies scatter in the gales of discombobulated false realities an inherently flawed marble statue carved in conflicting styles to try and […]
he has a routine coffee as the sun rises with a chorus of sparrows that share news of the day before a long shower where the water beats across sorenesses undefined melting down the lump perpetually sitting at the back of his throat as sorrows unrefined tickle his battered tender places hidden among smile lines […]
i drifted aimlessly all morning walking streets i havent seen in so long that i have lost track if they ever really existed at all maybe it is a case of having forgotten what the back of my hand looks like but i could swear somewhere underneath a life of accumulated scarring there was once […]
in this destitution of self induced lamentations craterous shaped by unbending wisps of sacramental rejections reflections bathed in insidious refractions a blind prism an open prison an incision bereft of precision carving the scartissue heartshimmer a fictional recounting of frictional anxieties mounting it is all falling down my fiddle sits unstrung as the fire rains […]
i feel as if i have become a dimestore schopenhauer but then i have to question if my own interpretation is just the ideals placed forth through plurality a studiously flawed summary of external stimuli enforced by the chemicals feeding the will but his focus on the minimalization stripping bare all the trappjngs of an […]
the roads are slick everyone is going too fast to try and start off this long weekend early ie just whip between the red lights flashing in a hurry to get absolutely no where speeding head long into a three day period of mourning trapped inside my cavernous empty skull writing words that go unread […]
i leaned forwardran my tonguealong the sinuousedge of the abyssand for a momentit was your lipsthat flooded my senses
she broke my ribs to fashion a more fitting cage for a flighty dreamwoven heart she broke my spirit to create a pliable devoted slave eradicating the things she said she loved most and like the silence that watches in eternal boredom i watched as all i was was all forgotten as she gazed upon […]
undiagnosed mania obsessive compulsive irrational actions that feeling if things are not done exactly the right way the entire world willfully falls apart into scattered shards where order and chaos sixty nine into sheer oblivion the universe doesn’t remotely give a shit about stressed out apes playing god to fill the vacuum where deities have […]
checked most of my emotional baggage at the kiosk except for the scars that carry on into the day to day routine a quarter smile more than the day deserves plastered over a mask of utter indifferences secirity eyes me the fake grin and shaved head and total inability to hide what i feel from […]
every line punctuated by myopic misunderstanding every reflection painted in dysmorphic irregularities my mind is stuck in neutral as the world spins ever on the only certainty is bathed in uncertainty as i seek to capture sunlight with a butterfly net to top off mason jars filled with dreampollen triggering a sinus infection cerebral deflection […]
i find that i irrationally dislike things colors intersections people buildings and the hair on the back of my neck stands the lizard brain reacts instantly i back away i find that i unintentionally love things vistas smells memories scars when the hair on the back of my neck stands and i choke down the […]
the world outside as hollow as my insides the sick echo of emptiness strains the frayed heartstrings of the most foolish of them all so i slink back down into the dark tired and sore striking matches never seeing a spark living alone in a vacuum gasping for something more as my tears make technicolor […]
i don’t fear heaven nor hell because i see nothing can be worse than spending a life controlled by chemicals in a slowly degenerating sack of meat so i am not kind in an effort to woo an invisible force that has not once tried to woo me i believe in kindness as a way […]
the fiction screams as the poetry purrs my mind a cacophony of needy prose she sits smiling serenely on a throne in the eye of ny storm my nirvana calling soft to always show me how to come home
i am forced to resort to hyperbole and metaphorical meanderings because the words do not exist to say exactly how unimaginably extensive my love for you truly is. it is as if every cell screams for you as if you are oxygen and i have been slowly suffocating since the moment i was born unable […]
the sparrows tap tap tapping at the glass door demanding another poem about her the lady with wildflowers in her perfect smile as i sip coffee contempmating how to wrangle an unruly sea of slippery words the sound of little beaks tap tap tapping at the glass door heads cocked waiting to hear of a […]
i stood on the bridgea cup of cocoasteaming in my handas the sun burstthrough the hoarfrostcoating the branchshanging overthe flash frozenriver of filthy ice as i stood watchingmy breath coalecsein the frigid airi noticed a figurestumbling slightlyin high heels acrossthe sheet of icei blinked my eyesthinking the lightwas playing a trick but there she wasstanding […]
absurdity is the lens in which we are able to laugh at the hopelessness that smothers each agonized moment of existence
an inherited silence fills the room as i strum the strings of a ukulele i never learned to play convincing myself these rampant urges to end this murky facade are just a phase the depression multiplying the headache and the premise of keeping on keeping on feels as hollow as the now broken ukulele softly […]
maybe wearing a shirt with camus on it as my head tries its damnedest to kill me as weak sunlight filters through the blinders strapped to my ugly face sipping bitter coffee that reflects my mood far more efficiently than terrible verse could hope to summate was a poor choice but i woke up strapped […]
we don’t sleep we reembrace the nothing from which we were unceremoniously spat i steal scant hours from the well of emptiness in which my bare consciousness spent nigh eternity coalesced around fearful of the eventual return that dogs my every labored breath the sky is the iris of a bored celestial baby unimpressed by […]
the world was spinning a teacher once told me that among a million other lies taught filling my skull with many half truths to prepare a child for a life on a cold dead rock hurtling around a slowly dying ever hungering star a pretty blue marble suspended in disbelief a million miles from answers […]
he cannot see why these wings he has fashioned for rusted iron and broken concrete will not carry me closer to the sun the physics are tricky this close to the heart of a dying almost star concave shadows dart in the corners of landlocked hazel lies disguised as wise as maggoty lips decry innocence […]
life is a series of unrestful naps broken up by exterior stresses a constant cycle of waking up unprepared for the fresh batch of horrors floating just outside life is an expectation that despite all of the empirical data that suggests it is mostly slowly rotting by working hard for someone else’s interests that there […]
i collect every tear shed in a crystal decanter as i long for something more than the nothing that is my existence one day you can quench your thirst imbibe upon my sorrow which feels like all i have to offer a world that has forgotten i have not expired yet
a lone bird calls out to the rising sun a bottle shatters loud as the tentative fingers of light carve away the night for a moment the affection drawn upon the cratered moon is palpable the dead satellite shines with stolen light and i smile understanding far too well exhibiting beauty reflected from an external […]
lost in the silence before the rest of the world has woken lost in the thoughts defining the twilight of humanity’s fall i can do nothing to disrupt the mute orchestra as fingers strum along tightly strung ligaments a soundless cacophony between palpations of every dream left to rot in the fetid dumpster of predestined […]
i occupy the witching hour my eyes open at three o’clock the dark whispers caress the folds of my scarred indignities it is the time when every doubt becomes too much to possibly sleep through my shoulders ache and my hands are pins and needles from clutching awkwardly at the surrogate pillow i occupy the […]
i watched a sheep dog lazily wander nipping at the tails of vagrant sheep keeping the flock tended as the wind swept across the tall grass a wave washing over verdant seas the sun beating down merciless intent blurring the emptiness an illusionary diversion a cop car on the side of the highway a sea […]
you don’t know what is truly essential until you have nothing at all i can scrape by with a bag of rice for weeks a pack of ramen every other day no internet the air turned up to eighty-five all day spent thirsty hungry growing desperate knowing that it is weeks until it gets caught […]
life spent in a state of bipolarity is a series of unparalleled heights and precipitous falls occasionally in the same choking gasp she has a way of balancing the chaos her smile and effortless understanding with patient words walk me back from the edge i didn’t realize i was sprinting toward when my brain screams […]
at what point is it safe to give up on a dream to relinquish hope aceepting there is no silver lining just toxic rain coming to melt the failing flesh from brittle bone? how far negative can one descend before the unhappy realization that it is never as bad as it will become the shrinking […]
i sat watching the sea at the edge of a cliff as the sun rose angrily vertiginous as thoughts of falling tumbling ever down teased me dreaming of taking to the currents like a tortoise sinking slow i sat watching the sky as the sea ate away at the cliff and stars fell agoraphobic at […]
she was an extortionist using me as and emotional contortionist twisting myself into the always shifting shape of the space in her chest i was her lover poet punching bag excuse she was only ever happy when my tongue wagged obediently between her legs or the words lapped between her ribs but oh how i […]
the rats watch at the edge of the alleyway unblinking eyes following every flash of motion i sit waiting for a burst of willingness to step out into the heat already dreading the walk downtown beneath the solemn concrete edification signalling humanity’s lack of wellbeing pigeons hop unashamedly begging for whatever scraps will be dropped […]
i have gone on record detailing the plethora of flaws faults and shortcomings that have always led to the fool discarded tossed aside by the ones that promised to never go maybe it is an error of physics this inverse magnetism the secret power to repel to repeal to render love null perhaps it is […]
another father’s day spent wondering if you knew how much you shaped me into whatever it is i have become every other weekend trying to live up to the example that you set just without the alcohol enhancement i have kept your tradition alive of crushing hugs and small things that show how much they […]
she told me how she wanted to be a poet i smiled not understanding the confession well just fucking write poetry was my only response she looked at me shocked wondering if it is really that easy i shrugged worst case it is garbage best case it connects with someone it isn’t as if there […]
the day is too quiet a miasma hangs overhead the silence lingers heavy becoming fear of newfound deafness colors muted a haze of gray malaise drips sullenly down streaked filthy glass showcasing an shallowness of inverted hue resounding in dull need i strip my leathery flesh watching as blackened blood thick with blowfly larva a […]
days like this consist of two alternating currents of thought vacillating from a desire for relief and the overwhelming desire for you i wear your love like a crucifix around my heart to keep the vampires and fiends at arm’s length but the goddamn pressure strives to turn my brain into fine dust and i […]
god doesnt think that i exist she is agnostic to my presence a blindspot when she looks down on the insipid mess that is creation hurling stones at glass houses because there is nothing else to do until the inevitable end that slowly crawls for us all as she sits silent headphones on listening to […]
the crackling neon advertising beers long since lost to time flickers above the dark bar am unemployed cryptozoologist slams shots of bottom shelf paint thinner with a balding sasquatch in the middle of a dire midlife crisis in grainy distortion gray aliens stand around the green felted billiard table in the back room manipulating the […]
i inhabit the liminal space between frozen moment and sheer adrenalized panic attack absolute solitude and too many eyes i am the alpha and omega of desire turned hatred a comfortable hilt on a broken sword the instant between incomparable pleasure and unfathomable pain i am the threshold the keeper of the seals separating the […]
i was in a little town a nameless little stain on the roadmap the gaslight had been on for the last twenty miles my legs were squeezed tight as my bladder screamed out for relief i pulled into the gas station started to pump the gas and then did a fast walk inside the store […]
darkness encroaches be it my vision finally failing me or whatver lurks just beyond the last vestige of sputtering light i cannot quite tell every hair has stood on end for as long as i can remember since the moment i woke if waking is what occured there is no way to tell as my […]
reading theories on which freezes faster boiling or cold water some of the greatest thinkers through time claiming hot water freezes quicker than cool water in defiance of newton’s law it is utterly less than meaningless but i can’t shake this headache and my mind won’t quiet i need a distraction something to provoke a […]
an undercurrent of agitation pulls me down beneath the surface of blossoming joy everything but you is salt on an open wound this terrible too hot garbage day in traffic as the government does the same amount of fucking nothing in the name of constituents that do not exist besides as cattle i dislike being […]
i can always tell it is three o’clock in the morning by the sudden flash of wakefulness that sweeps through me with an adrenaline burst erasing dream my brain gets itchy at eleven eleven an overpowering need to write overtakes me high tide laps hungrily at the crumbling shore a tsunami of words drowning rational […]
the green stretches on into infinity on both sides of me panic seizes my mind iron bands squeeze my lungs to deflation i cannot tell with any certainty where i am right now i fear the next city as a thorn of reality puncturing this dream what if nobe of this was ever anything more […]
i get excited at the prospect of roads untraveled conquered by my curious hazel gaze new vistas to engrave into the sea of turbulent words the tempest within that casts shadows of my favorite forgotten journies on the ceiling when i cannot sleep and i long to tell you about the oddities a lifetime of […]
shedding scales becoming something less than human each line another scar on fresh pink flesh the sun warms coldblooded verse until it stirs on the rock inside my chest some days this snake coiled into the shape of a heart strikes out venomous drips the painful lacerations furrows dug deeply into tenderness welling up with […]
there are occasions when i am in downtown dallas finish my job but still have time ticking away on the meter i sit in the car watching people or staring up at the buildings there is art statues a million and one things to catch an inquisitive mind but the thing i do the absolute […]
if i could do it over i tell charon as he guides us in the creaky boat across the styx i would have told more people that they can fuck themselves instead of trying to keep the peace between folks that never thought of anyone but themeselves charon says nothing just nods along with the […]
as i stumbledfrom a bedthat serves noother purposethan that ofdream prisonor perpetualmotion machineunable to findany comfort ora moments peacethe sun shineda golden glowthe birds hoppedperhaps excitedto see the foola hopefulnessbathing the land and i crackedopen the doorlet the lightand the simple songwash over me in ajoyous sacramenta celebration ofa brand new week before promptlyscreaming forthe […]
a slow drip rendering the amazing aesthetic of the avant garde amniotic amnesiac suitable for human presumption a chill races through your system of vascular distress leaving nothing but the echoes of haunting gravedirt soliloquies a last gasping breath of fetid particulates percolating within dire dimensions of dastardly dreamspite the sheen of madness lunar lunacies […]
gravity pulses behind occular distortions everything is just out of my ability to find any focus little burns on my fingers from the simmering sauce needing to be stirred and i feel nyself dissolve with the finely diced cloves of garlic floating on the robust scents through am apartment that has grown just a bit […]
of all of the lines in poetic nuances to have swept through my cavernous skull when you tell me that you love me not a single verse from the greatest poets throughout all of time strikes me with half the pure happiness every single day i seek futilely to scribble something a quarter as beautiful
in the lost yearwhere everythingwas locked downi forgot how muchwas missing inthe day to daylast year anyoneout and abouthad a hurried gaiteyes fearful overmasks and shields. today i saw ladiesin sundressessmiling brightlyin the noontime suni was struck byhow long it had beensince i saw a smileout in the wilds. these glimmers of hopeare still too […]
the fur on my brain is extra thick today the sky is gray matching my pants socks boxers and mood i will just stay under my rock if you think you need me don’t there is just enough space for her and i don’t see myself needing anything else
on days like today every errant thought seems to be drawn to her she tickles my brain in chimeric shades impossible colors from beyond the spectrum effortlessly drawing forth these imaginary tones until everything that i thought i knew becomes hyperbolic orange with super luminous red tint her voice evoking a lull in stygian blue […]
if you were to slice open my belly a flood of half digested verses would seek to drown the entire plane if you were to crack open my skull it would throw projections of her smile onto every available surface and if you were to spread open my ribs you would release the sparrow that […]
my soul is less of a stained glass refrain showing inner beauty more resembling a lost archeological digsite picked clean of artifacts now a pockmarked eyesore with no familiarity to the ancient civilization that once spread bountiful seeds of hope and wonder pitted ivory bones cracked by the jaws of hungry predators seeking to find […]
all the color bled to run down the gutters a technicolor swirl of brittle prayers left unheard as the stars fall one by one slowly darkening an already dimly lit sense of forevermore she smiles at me her seraphic beauty a balm upon my anxious soulslurry the brown in her eyes the pink of her […]
i had a dream i cradled my own head and stared into familiar eyes as the light faded and i did not know which one of me died when i woke a sense of disassociation swept over me as i stared into the mirror all i could see was the spark going out now i […]
i wondered whythe sun failed to risethis morningit has to come to termsthat it will now riseon a worldwithout youit feels sogoddamned unfairwatching a star fallknowing nothingwill be the same againi hope you knewhow muchhow fucking muchyou were lovedor how very muchyou will be missedthe sun failed to risebecause it knewit wouldn’t shineupon youand now […]
(un)inhibited has gone live on Amazon. excited to have a new collection out and thankful to Cyberwit for getting it on Amazon. (un)requited is coming soon from Potter’s Grove Press. this one is extra special to me because my daughter made the cover. working with her on it was wonderful and she is so excited […]
the colors run down the filthy glass as the world outside becomes another black and white misremembrance a celebration of the nothingness lurking just behind cold dead eyes and vacant serpentine smiles a hint of venom in the earnest flooding of inoculated tears the verses spill pooling across the cold tile floor in viridescent slicks […]
sweeping dust bunnies from the darkest corners of an already dimly lit series of contussions scrubbing the tarnished silver in the haunted chapel of my mind the skeletons in my closet put on a show and dance carefully choreographed to put all my greatest failings proudly center i hum along to these greatest fits of […]
two fluffy sparrows feathered balls of joy hopping merrily singing the blessing of a new day through the bushes that ring the building /creeping forward death padding silently/ the happy song of sun bounces off the windows filling the courtyard with odes to fat worms colored yarn and hatchlings yearning to feel the wind lift […]
each raindrop cuts down the jagged edges of unregulated crystalline sorrows the headlights magnify the shadows a constant horde indistinct waging wars upon innocent onlookers to the kaleidoscope projected out in fleeting visions tinted in hazel incongruencies a thunderous thing leaving a husk a cicada burrowing from the soil copperheads hidden in the bark seventeen […]
the rains are unrelenting as the last tempest of spring blows through the texas heat teases a return i sit alone as the sky cries for the beauty left to brown as mistress summer casts her wicked gaze towards a fool seeking answers to questions washed away by torrential rehashings of utter dismays the filth […]
he watches a world that he doesn’t quite have the patience to be a part of, some days it is a mass of confusion or contusion a pummeling oddly cancerous thing, a flurry of flirty embarrassments insistently incessant in irredeemable idiocies, he watches unsure at the end game slightly sickened by his own curiosity, wondering […]
/still/ the sun shines high in the sky a butterfly bright yellow on soft pink petals red and blue dart amongst the branches the cold water rushes past white froth swirls /still/ the wind sings through the chorus of sharp green leaves an orchestral accompaniment by the excess inhabiting the forest of tranquility /poisedtenseready/ a […]
the solitude feels more solid somehow the words are being persnickety plucking blooms off of cacti instead of tending a pretty garden in an abandoned lot my soul feels heavily salted and my best attempts at planting something is just another upside down bulb growing towards, yet away from, differing sets of hells seeking solace […]
the heat brings clouds of gnats a swarm descending (patience) a warm breeze gently pushes the hovering horde the sunlight in hazy beams plays against the swaying leaves (a twinge vibrations dance a blur where one was a struggling little gnat now a meal gently wrapped to be liquefied at leisure) mindless wings further entangled […]
romance is dead they decry bereft of passion they bemoan their flatulent corpulence smothering beauty leaving no recourse for poets but to resort to necrophilia striking flint hoping for a spark to light the darkness of a world that has forgotten what it means to be in love accidental quixotes chivalry having died leaving an […]
the rabbit hops /caution/ a circling shadow an instant /danger/ darting through tall grass heart pounding an adrenalized bundle of muscle (snatched mid leap a flash talons grip squeezing powerful wings launch the raptor and prey) /maddening paralyzing panic/ tufts of fur bloody float on the thermals that gave way to death
a calm swaddles the city outside while the same three note refrain plays on repeat even the traffic seems to recognize the soft swollen hints of hope in the golden light a row of fat little sparrows stare in at me as i stare unseeing into the aether lips still tingling from a plethora of […]
the many suckered tentacles of existence pull at my rather tattered soul, the void is just an inkblot sprayed in haphazard schisms projected across the sky -i am done ill consumed by self administered vitriol flavored ignorance strands dripping from over stimulated salivary glands- blue rings dart tiny kisses of deep paralysis settling down into […]
subdermal transience * incalculable static interference * traversing synaptic dissonance in random ones and zeros * an electrical tempest shivering between feeble gasps * carefully tuned to register tangential idioms raucous in design awkward in function * lost with all the other ghosts haunting the meat machine
every day an avalanche of selfies carefully filtered proper angles illusions twice daily a series of vignettes fabricated delicately to push the delusion that she wishes to cast bragadaccio in fictional tones selling a version of herself for the adoration not welling up within her in this deliberately manicured yet patently false social persona she […]
as a child it seemed like life would be a series of adventures sprawling trips exploring ancient ruins as a teen it seemed like life would be a series of love letters perfumed odes of secret trysts and declarations as an adult it seems that life has become a series of eviction notices from the […]
it has been eleven of your birthdays in which we have not spoken at all part of me wishes that i could just forget the date strike it from my mental calender but something always seems to find a way to remind me between dad dying and you might as well having done the same […]
i hear the waking world but my heart stammers outraged at the sameness as it recognizes things the mind lets accumulate a prison is a prison if the walls are made of concrete or from flesh itself and i have a spoon and a lifetime sentence in solitary to try and find a way out […]
trying to form the most airtight lie ever told to convince myself everything is okay when i see a trail of things i thought i had managed to keep together blowing across the highway behind me a scene of calamitous ecstacy as fears are splintered on the grills of angry semi trucks barrelling through insecurities […]
his yellowed hands shake as he taps out a cigarette a coffin nail he wheezes to himself as he places the butt between lips striking a match and sucking in acrid smoke he stands away from the door hacking blue clouds into the sky as he watches the pretty ladies with blue hair he sees […]
five thousand odes hastily scratched to capture fleeting emotive dissonance to sleep(unslept) to hopes(undreamt) to tears(unwept) to secrets(unkept) the waking dreamer lost/a sinking ship off the coast of shallow homeward memory/drifting on stranger currents ever farther from faded ink stained love letters(the empty promises of safe harbor in times of war) an empty bucket on […]
a rigidity along the shadows lending a dual nature to waking in a river of flame in this lower level of hell spent all night dreaming of failing to save the three souls that i love as they suffer unduly for sins i committed myself a poisonous swamp at the edge of a frozen lake […]
perhaps the void is written in braille black on black to hide the bumps i run my lips over the seething emptiness the barbs spelling out the secrets of nonexistence writing with trembling over adrenalized digits in this abstraction of nothing my mind loses coherence thinking at the end of universal bothersomeness
fireflies and cigarette embers unable to tell them apart as they float in the dark of summer reveries i can close my eyes and feel them land on my forearms one tickles one sizzles and i could not say which one is which it has become an issue this inability to separate stimuli rewired to […]
at times the pieces of the puzzle swirl into view but for all of this studious obsessing over the most minute of indistinct detail i gain zero insight from the manic design unfurling before my tired animosity unable to slide the pangaean parts into a working model of distressed tectonic wandering i sit with my […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 