we drove down to austin to see some of our writer friends and so a fool could do a panel on being insane in a mad, mad world it was a blur a who’s who of independent horror twisted minds in the sweetest people the hands which have shaped this community a rogue poet finds […]

the sun feels awfully oppressive for so early all i can do is daydream of her absent heart as i melt down into a primordial ooze of aching regret steaming on the asphalt gurgling faint i love yous before seeping down the drain

at times the fractures cause a steady dissociative angst where i cannot tell where i belong either reality is paperthin or i am shattered beyond saving then the city unfolds for me and i find myself on streets filled with a bitter soulstarving type of hunger as i pass the places we would pull off […]

the chorus of chitinous crickets call out in a distorted complexity of morse code static bursts vibrating in place as they cry out for a momentary connection in an eternity of silent survivalist sensibilities. no different from a fool seeking sunrise with steaming coffee and an aching heart tapping out pedantic verse spilling out technicolors […]

her smile continuously haunts my rare dreams with the promise of lips every cell in my body need to feel pressed firmly against mine i wake a junkie needing one fix one taste to still the shaking in my limbs to ease the thunder in my hollow skull to calm the howling desire burning through […]

if you drive into cleburne from the south the clocktower rises up like a pockmarked brick erection which is likely the kindest thing to be said about the sleepy town just outside of the metroplex you can already see the rot the flood of cookie cutter subdivisions slowly eroding the countryside away one day that […]

the sensation of my darling mania is flying headfirst through a pitch black tunnel of ice with no idea if there is a blind turn or bottomless crevice awaiting me i cling haphazardly to the sides of my seat knowing the dead end of incalculable sadness is the only end for this ride you just […]

there is a five eyed angler fish staring down at a shattered soul lost in the shapes of wispy gray settled succinctly over the silent city the sudden suffocation of a storm threatening in the stagnancy of summer’s sin. demons swirling a bipolar hellscape projected in a mass of seething clouds promising no relief just […]

this ass sees the spots on the wooden carrot where the paint has rubbed off exposing the duplicitous nature of hope. yet it dangles tantalizingly in front of my face always just close enough to seem attainable while remaining ever out of my fumbling grasp. i am aware enough to know yet foolish enough to […]

my mind is a claymore the etching on the broken shell reads face toward the enemy so i direct the explosion inward in an effort to spare those who are actually important to me.

i have spent so long perfecting my paper-mache mask to appear as a real boy when my brain begins to scream in a borderline bipolar klaxon as the world falls apart all around me by the time my mask slips it is a shocking exposure of exactly what i had been trying to warn the […]

i am an accumulation of ghosts haunting a weary skeleton lost in a blizzard of feathers and flower petals a shuffling confusion of crimson tears leading ever further from where i longed to be. an urban legend the dyslexic cupid firing missives of adoration while wasting away in empty lots across the city of unreciprocated […]

you have no fucking idea the lengths my broken brain has me go through to keep this shattered sphere of sin spinning obliviously on its shifting axis repetition routine a rigid fear if i make one small mistake the house of cards comes crashing down there can be no variation in the pattern without sending […]

sitting in the parking lot of a small town newspaper listening to the soundtrack to rocky horror waiting for someone to come unlock the door while lost in the science fiction double feature a relic sitting in a museum lot two artifacts long forgotten in this modern rage of building only momentary monuments as the […]

my strength ebbs as each laborious step strains my feeble form. i am tired fighting a war in my mind contemplating raising the white flag of unconditional surrender since unconditional and failure seem to be etched onto my unraveling strands of dna.

personally and publicly his repugnancy pushed her away and so deep did the poison infuse itself that professionally the toxins were too much for her to be expected to handle as his soulshatter induced her vertiginous rejection. he didn’t quite understand and for too long he continued to seek a spot in the light she […]

i never feared her flame no i longed to feed it to let her set the horizon on fire with her beauty like a thousand fucking suns. i knew all that would remain of my loving remains was a fool burnt into the side of the building with a sliver in the shape of her […]

the malignancy pumping sinful pitch a tumorous growth in the shape of an unwanted heart keeping a corpse trapped in a hell of just being aware enough to see how he is the punchline to a lowercase joke masquerading itself as knife wielding minions of hope. every dream i have ever had burned itself to […]

there is a run down motel next to the tire shop i have been trapped at for hours now i have watched a steady procession of ladies who clearly work the night shift at said motel a caravan of battered blossoms blinking in the harsh summer sun as i wonder at the dreams forsaken to […]

overexposed constantly reminded i am little more than an intangible while never mustering any true substance of my own the lingering attentions from those longing to watch my inevitable fall pointing out with persistent regularity how i was publicly exposed then as abruptly publicly disavowed the sad word boy with his unwanted heart pumping the […]

my heart is a paper airplane crashing to the ground in front of her pretty little feet will i wake before seeing if she carefully unfolds it or simply walks away?

for all of my neurodivergencies keeping me mostly miserable i am aware even if i am my own worst nightmare i am living a dream not only do i get to scribble all the strangest thoughts from my broken brain but there are actually people who seem to enjoy it there are shirts emblazoned with […]

like the calm in the waves crashing her absent heart beats the sweetest

i wonder on nights when the ache is all consuming will it ever fucking end? worse though i fear its absence. because on most nights the aching is all there is. patience isn’t something i was born with it was acquired through pain. now i cannot seem to tell if it is patience or stubborn […]

my lips are conduits to the raw voltage coursing through my trembling frame the doorway to pleasures unimagined trapped inside an unwanted fool daydreaming as the sparrows listen to his solemn sighs

i feel the weight of the week none of the anticipation as my brain screams of intangibility with enough empirical evidence to actually back up its claims oscillating between understanding and uncomprehending not an obligation there just wasn’t any other choice so what else can a bipolar bard do but accept he is a human […]

the understanding despite my broken brain screaming i do not exist that i do in fact actually exist just not in any capacity in her world is schismatic being right even only partially is a fucking curse

each new day packs its own brand of mercurial horror yet i was taught to carpe diem despite the fangs eventually i learned i wasn’t the best at search and seizure while the days escaped best intent how could a too earnest fool ever hope to carpe a diem and sow chaotic seeds of beautiful […]

i don’t know why i ceased to exist in her world but i feel the absence of her light as she purposely shines it on everyone around me while i remain lost in the shadows.

if i could writethe perfect metaphorconstruct the rightline in which tounlock my kaleidoscopicsoul and drawthe correct gaze tothis blinding passiondraw them close enoughto see the truth lostin hazel dissonance maybe then the worldwould deem these wordsfit to be consumedrather than turning uptheir snouts in disdainfor a bipolar wunderkindwasting away in hell i understand i amunworthy […]

lady luck, like most other ladies now that i think about it, has never had much interest in a fool born with a broken mirror for a soul. still i toss a pinch of salt over my left shoulder, hoping to curry a little favor with tyche.

she spent so long draped in silence when it began to finally abate she found she simply had nothing left to say to the marionette strung along dutifully he sat there wondering why he was always the extraneous bit so easily excised by the ones he gave his deformed heartshatter to

i should know better than writing another love story channeling adoration into the aether leaves me hollow i could write about flying or running at the speed of light stopping crimes and rescuing people but none of that is such an unfulfilled longing as being loved in return maybe the words will bring errant hearts […]

it’s okay to be lost sometimes as long as the star leading you home are the smiles of those who truly see you otherwise you’ll never find a way toward anything but sorrow i tend to follow the wrong constellations only to realize too late it was simply a mirage waiting for the starlings to […]

being at someone’s disposal doesn’t equate to being disposable until it does

seeing only the worst in myself leaves me seeking the best in others i know how much the universe enjoys reminding us we are nothing and i don’t like the idea of others feeling the way i usually do when i cannot find beauty in my septic soul i find it in the smiles of […]

each time a car drives up the ramp the world lurches beneath me i drift alone in a concrete swimming pool watching the currents sweep away the brightly colored fish impatiently waiting to arrive somewhere they have no desire to go to the parking lot slabs shifting restlessly under a fool longing to simply drown […]

i never see the hesitation so lost in the filaments of adoration the onset buyer’s remorse as she stares at the heart impulsively purchased as it sits on the bedside table murmuring odes to undying love when the intital honeymoon period has faded away to reveal the horrors of a bipolar soul incapable of seeing […]

time to cinch the van allen belt around my toxic soul pull back into the radiation soaked space between happiness and a fool adrift in his own aching emptiness

he had a talent he was able to decrease the volume of his soul minimize himself to nothing while he poured his unwanted heart into making sure his loved ones were secure despite the constant mockery the clear signs cast in public he silently sent his love hoped she would be better soon even if […]

my tender is badly bruised a bitter pill better to be choked down reinforcing insubstantiality to be ignored a bezoar of squirming maggots filling the emptiness

i am hollowed out an entire day spent sobbing sadness screeching as i rock afraid my body will shatter an impossibility of cracking under the weight of my own lack of substance bruised flinching away five again longing for affection drowning in silence leaky valves in an unwanted heart dripping watercolor odes even as i […]

heart likea claymore setto annihilateanyone foolishenough toaccidentallyventure closeenough to trigger mind likea rusted trapinfecting yoursoul withlockjaw inrunners oftetanus in aterminal spiral cordoned offfrom the worldwith all theagony of knowingi will neverbe more than astain in the shapeof a broken heart

a loose button hanging by a thread incapable of serving the one purpose for which it was stamped surveying the crevice in the couch which will one day be its resting place with the other lost mementos of a life spent hiding i am a button hanging off of god’s waistcoat swaying over an existence […]

he knew he was just embarrassing himself giving his heart and soul to someone who had nothing to say to him dodging the concerned messages which asked questions he couldn’t answer simply because he knew less than anyone else all while he tried to ignore what was going on right in front of his unbelieving […]

i tell the sparrows to send my love rather than let my words go ignored for days my heart has always been stubborn despite evidence shown

sadness washes through me in half frozen inverse waves how badly i yearn to crumble swept away with all the other forgotten trinkets more valuable in dreamdander vistas than in reality i do not want to feel this way but i learned long ago the universe doesn’t give a fuck how anyone feels

the world is indistinct awash in a silvery glow a solid wall of white noise sparrows stuck in static repose flickering madly i scream my love in pixelated bursts which simply scatter to stinging grit sweetly meant to caress her cheek instead left raw from innate irritance

my poetic is bruised and battered in dire need of tender loving care my poetic is hanging itself an inflamed uvula making swallowing a difficult chore i am far too ugly today for pretty words to fall fully formed from repugnancy

when her world fell apart i was the only thing she willingly sacrificed and all i can do is hope it made things better if this were the first time i was the easiest stress removed i would be met with great sorrow instead i realize i am transient despite flowery phrases muttered the great […]

the quiet has settled deeply the spent firework sits remembering lighting up the night sky with his friends to sit tattered holding tightly to momentarily shining bright before his spent essence drifted off into nothingness all alone

a free floating cloud of chaos aimlessly drifting surrounded by glorious beacons crackling manically alive and humming with momentary existence unfiltered wonder in a sea of smiles a disparate group of beautiful misfits and the mad fool lost in laughter next year never seemed so far away

occasionally silence is the answer left unread as succinct as a goodbye

when i am ugly small sad lost i don’t need told how i am wrong just reassured it will be okay eventually i can make it through anything as long as i know it will all be okay sometimes it doesn’t feel as if anything will ever be okay again and the silence only compounds […]

so many friendsare coming to townfellow writersconverging fora conventiona confluence ofsome of my favoriteink stained souls i am anxiousbut not miserably soexcited bythe many hugs andlate night sessionsof oneupmanshiptalking a craftroaring as an infernoinside our minds i imagine howhank would havebitched and complaineddrunkenly holdingcourt over alland i realizewe are now the onessteering our artthe ones […]

being mostly a hermit, which has gone from eccentric to acceptable over the last couple of years, the false warmth of social media filled the need for contact in an imaginary reticulation blurring reality with chemically altered additives accumulating provate data to create the perfect dissociative state pavlov’s notification unleashing endorphins with each vapid blue […]

a lone cricket sitting on the porch vibrating a song of incessant need chitinous legs a one bug cacophony in staccato refrain screaming for something i am not sure truly exists a lone poet sitting on the couch vibrating an ode to a vacuous need mind shivering a one man disaster held in love’s disdain […]

i leave strips of the best parts of myself not yet gone rancid nailed to trees so no one bothers following me into the hellscape of self sabotage i seem to willingly build around me i needn’t bother the pestilence brewing inside of my sickly soulshatter putrefies any absent adorations accidentally cast toward a fool […]

rotten fruit still life in rampant decay cold shivers wet bulbs burst in summer’s dismay silent miseries let loose a cacophony under blanketed gray empty lots of cracked devotionals awaiting a solitary ray the empty throne of abandoned divinity to whom we pray torn vocal cords in an ignoble torture of what i can’t say

blue black skies awaiting the sun an air of cannot uncontracted no clever apostrphe hung as the toads warble loud enough to wake the angry cardinals the world vibrates in nots and no’s crimson slashes screeching in defiance yet clearly uncertain as to what they are defiantly against discordant chaos an oil slick of rainbow […]

a summer storm sudden thunder as the sunlight filters between fat droplets a heavy blanket of humidity laden intoxicating disenchantments falls over me waterboarded by an oversaturation of billowing gray conscious enough after days of no sleep to know that this is an illusion everything we see is upside down and shot in black and […]

how many times can i be pushed to the side before acknowledging i am the problem i am sorry my love is a bitter taste i tried to infuse it with all the sweetness inside of me but apparently this lemon is all rind a fool is meant to love silently with no hope of […]

half an hour early sitting as wu tang explains how cash rules everything around me and i can’t help but wonder if that is the cause of this acidic pit etching misery another day in the pursuit of someone else’s dream as i scribble in the margins from another parking lot as the sun glares […]

there is no poetry to be found this morning reality is a rusted blade in the guts while beauty is not for one such as i just echoed dreamwhispers in an abandonment of adoration

i see the rash of carboncopies aseriesofpaperdolls eerily similar to love’s fool hanging on every word. they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. you cannot flatter someone who cannot see themself. cut deeper right now you’ve barely left a scratch it isn’t until you see the sinew watch tendons flex when the agony […]

i am an empty vessel untouched except by a thin layer of dust a vase filled with wilted blooms amidst a garden of beautiful blossoms the bucket hanging itself from a dried up wishing well suspended by the frayed rope of unreciprocated heartshivers

woke with tears already brimming obscuring the sunrise as a storm swept over and i already fell apart before managing to turn off the buzzing alarm this vortex of raw emotion cuts a thousand spinning blades across the tender edge of amother day in hell spent feeling everything too intensely while calling out to the […]

i realized i wasn’t lost so much just guided by long dead stars a broken astrolabe a fool confused staring at a map where exes marked fragments of myself impossible to reassimilate those figments of love’s imagination are safer with them rather than a bipolar bard following a compass which only ever steered me fartherandfurther […]

last night the wildflowers crept across dream leaving scars in pollenated withdrawal this morning the coffee is the second most bitter miasma to cross my tongue after waking and calling out to the nothingness pressing down on all sides

i read sylvia in the mornings to remind myself there is beauty in the world i read hank right before bed so i know i am not alone in this teeming disenchantment it’s easier staying awake all night long angry with the promise of joy during the day i do what i can to numb […]

no one cares if it hurts the now is insignificant how beautifully did you bleed were you able to leave one faded stain somedays it just fucking hurts still i cut disappointed at the trickle starving in the dark praying as only an atheist at his wit’s end can pray.

a day off in the middle of the week has my cicadian rhythm of screaming relentlessly for love before burying myself for another seven years a touch off but going from monday to sunday to monday again having to acknowledge it is tuesday is a garrote around my brainstem leaving circadian dismay in a lurch

daylighta crimson slashrefracted acrossan unwillingskyline ofconcretecondemnations i see the wolvesfanglesshowling in illfitting sheep suitsproclaimingsalvation in theclink of coinagereplacing couragewith connivingbartering eternitywith lower case t’s downtown is emptybut for foolswith homeless heartsbegging for changeincapable of itimpoverished soulswith faded signspromising paradisesunwanted and unseen

the sun sleeps sweet blasphemer nestled beneath the dark horizon far from the dead eyed glare of divinity cast in tepid boredom lost among light pollution in a settling of orange hued smog a blanket tucking the sleepy city in with carbon monoxide flavored kisses and a hint of eternity in whispered odes to happily […]

sprinting nude from room to room tossing stones to shatter the dejection of living in a glass house dodging dispersions in a demure deluge of daydream damnations a death defying amateur daredevil taking greater and greater chances just to try to faintly feel fucking anything at all an atheistic prayer hedging bets as the call […]

in the throes of a story i channel sheer voltage scarring the vellum as my quill scratches beautiful catastrophes in incremental sorrows i am a human lightning rod a vessel for this madness to course carelessly leaving etchings of haunting images scorched into the earth around me battered with wispy tendrils of smoke rising on […]

a heat dome settled over the lone star state a relentless brutality in wavering lines distorting horizons wispy clouds not the spun sugar happy cottony cumulus accumulate more plumes of smoke as the roadside combusts ecstatically daydreamdeliriums melting down into salt ringed puddles of despair inducing a humidity in aching wet bulb semipoeticdeathonomics

the false walls help disguise the arms of the spiral the tentacles pulling ever in by the time you recognize the pattern it’s far too late a modern day daedalus crafting impossibilities with a crooked quill too clever to be less than dangerous not clever by half as he assumes the kraken roars ferocious beak […]

it has become impossible to separate you from my defintion of love despite time and distance your name crosses my lips last each evening as natural as breathing including the persistent fucking ache

been awake so long the last nap is but a bitter memory of stinging sand still forming in the corner of bloodshot eyes on cruise control as the hazard lights flare in orange flashes stealing night vision leaving everything in a perpetual dark as i furiously blink static afterimages obscuring the wall i barrel into […]

i don’t know what i expect anymore everything is monumentally difficult when my brain is always working against me and the fucking thing never rests it gets too quiet the voice purrs we pick apart pixels seeking waves of dissonance rippling across placid illusions it gets dizzying chasing circular fallacies of your own creation let […]

realityis pins and needlesas the sparrowsscream it is okaysomedaysto not beokay othersit is alli can donot toscreamuntil bloody flecksadorn thenascent hellhoarsely decryfluctuatingbetweenskinless ina sandstormor shiveringnumbly nudeon a glacier pinned andneedledby anxietiesthe circulationto my soulcutoffhanging likea withered umbilicalstained withmaternal neglect it is okaysome decadesto not beokay probably.

plastic bags billow phantoms floating over fields of brown ghosts trapped in trash unable to find the light no matter how hard i press down on the accelerator the anxiety stays nipping at my heels the spirits of my ancestors caught up in the detritus of a life squandered screaming as i rocket past on […]

sylvia wrote of a being the ghost of an infamous suicide her blue razor rusted in her throat unknowing of how prophetic she truly was even if the means was gotten wrong she is impossible to emulate the electric stove notwithstanding but this morning as the sparrows scream my eyes retrace her infamous suicide with […]

i didn’t want any of this life content to bleed delusions anonymously from the safety of a worn sage couch no one knows the horror of being seen and not knowing what they see when you cannot see yourself i can tell you every flaw i have run your fingers along the scars explaining exactly […]

the sun rose so brightly over a moribund swell gently caressing the cancerous growths seeking a momentary reprieve from the rapid inundation of ignoble agonies saturating the ground soil into a bog of derelict disillusionments the rot has found purchase in the striated musculature of fading heartblossoms wilting the petals until a certainty of bewilderment […]

he sat hopeful unaware he was little more than an ersatz poet a placeholder yet again almost exactly what was needed just not quite enough keeping the seat warm for perfection the sunlight wages war with the thunderous gray encroachment a soft aching reverberates in a mocking berating of joy

he said “pain is just an illusion” i shook my head “pain is the only proof of existence. the only thing we know is real” in the absurdity of day to day i find as much comfort in the headache leaving me blind in one eye than i do to any piebald dreams as flimsy […]

i exist in the pregnant pause at the beginning of waiting room by fugazi the moment when the groove hits and then everything stops manic lightning infected by the beat gone silent and arcing madly with no purpose zero direction lost in the creases of electrified jelly by the time the rhythm finds me the […]

evocative metaphor strained by adverse adjective frustration ill defined need pensively beautiful expression of pain petulant diatribe on feeling insignificant change metaphor build new tension express dichotomy pull apart emotion into warbling dissonance confusing intial verse sloppily interwtine the two disparate metaphors into a painful sluice with a hopeful glance at a happiness that will […]

the voice whisperscreams incessantly questioning everything picking threads until i am tangled up in an indecipherable hellscape of my own devising i know this i am aware yet i am utterly fucking powerless because it does not stop and i can only stay so stoic for so fucking long in the face of indeterminable sadness […]

i am thunder crackling on a sunny day the chill running down the curve of your spine the phantom touch caressing your gentle heart a myth a nightmare a hyperbolic catastrophe crashing into your serenity disrupting rigid order in a storm of incipient chaos a weeping wound never quite closing leaking lavender in a pollution […]

hopelessly romantic leads to hopelessness when seeing hollywood endings seem to only occur in the movies my lips ache in time with my heartbeat hollowed out from souldeep longing for things that only exist in dream rapid oscillations have me reeling the celluloid ignites i watch the flames race along exposed beams unfrightened in billowing […]

the pressure pulverizes bone into dust i don’t want to be this way anxious overwhelmed dissociating from stresses i cannot tell if are real or imagined the diving bell distorts displacing large bubbles rippling to a surface no one monitors a kink in the hose forming into thirteen loops i know the suicidal ideation is […]