after a long year of consistently lowering expectations the last page of the calendar seems a fitting tinder for striking the fire to consume the next in a maelstrom of unbridled desires long left neglected no longer hiding in a kingdom of ash fearing failure until the fear of attempting became all consuming settling for […]

the gray dissipated as the holiday ended winter retreated petulantly to regroup for a second assault in the new year as texas thaws indifferent or rather aloof a no man’s land in seasonal differential a false autumn in between blustery polar dissent the trees as yet to shed foliage smugly stand tall among nude neighbors […]

newton insisted time continues to pass as a constant while einstein argued it was more a relative passage which would explain how fresh pain seems to last an eternity and yet time still flows time is a cage in which temporary beings seek to inflict order upon chaos governing even the most microscopic changes with […]

there must be a miracle drug to ease this overwhelming anxiety bubbling in acidic groans throughout my meat prison. none of the other drugs seem to erase the edge. or maybe this is what it is to be human a condition of inescapable horror leading to death with brief moments where things make a modicum […]

i hope the three spirits visit me this evening i need some self help tips on obtaining the spirit of christmas and let’s face it my people skills are tragic and that’s being overly kind curious to spend another sleepless evening revisiting my past and over analyzing each and every misstep or fretting over this […]

i am filling this pervasive void with music with poetry any self serving sense of distraction from being alone with my thoughts sealing up the insistent whispers with wax until the inside of my skull is a honeycomb leaking poison rather than the biblical flood of easily triggered abandonments saturating my soul the cold has […]

i am a goddamned mute trying frantically to speak yet not a single peep disturbs the silence draped over my tongue a funeral shroud of bitterness flapping over this frozen texan hell

i have a knack for finding a logical reason that stands up to scrutiny to explain my irrational need to hide my ingrained fear of failure along with a predilection for anxiety give me a near superpower in justification and so i hide ignoring the petty nagging cuts giving my peace of mind willingly to […]

winter is an emaciated old wolf howling snarling teeth bared just outside the door as another storm of the century lays waste to holiday decorations as they blow across the empty highway i watch it shivering on the couch wishing for a pot of coffee dressed in layers and flinching each time the heat kicks […]

like drinking orange juice after a two day fast how the acid begins churning rising until a whiff of hades tickles the back of your throat a burning pit consumes your internal organs blackened bones and embers in the ash glowing nothing seems to distract me from the swirling cosmos of chaotic malaise not the […]

loss is intangible smokey particulates everywhere yet wraps around my chest with the weight a dwarf star crushing me into dust perhaps i am inhaling my own fetid remains on another of my journeys through the tartarus of a rancid soul a single minded misery machine who picks scabs in the long dark silence of […]

all night i tried to write and the words fell from the hole in my center to tumble listlessly onto the floor in a pile of squirming illegibility. i am emptynulldevoid a walking enigma of negative worth incapable of beauty. or maybe it’s just a bad night. i can’t seem to tell the difference any […]

the solsticeis quite aproposthe longest nightmatching mydark nimbusas depressioncolors my world i should beused to the variedshades of darknessthese huesmy fracturedsense of selfshines effortlesslyin the hollowsof my mindevery random arcin miswiredsynapses sendinghigh voltagein convulsivelyrigorous sadness i blackoutall the windowswith brushes dippedin the sins leakingfrom the lesionsmarring my lightbereft soul we raceever faster towardan endingsome of […]

i get lost in my agonies fireflies sounding off in explosions just under my papery flesh so easily torn by these foreign intruders lumps squirming larva growing in the fibers of aching muscles as i decipher the lights dully gleaming a hidden missive from the universe or god mocking me either or i sit with […]

the difference between deified and deicide is a matter of what you have done for someone else lately a constantly fluctuating goal impossible to ever maintain

no more willful blindness facing forward with open eyes and an acceptance somethings are beyond our control when you express a desire to be seen and valued that suddenly you become the villain it isn’t you that is the problem despite what you are made to believe don’t ignore the sudden opportune timing of your […]

words can be twisted contorted until what was actually said becomes a sick parody with a whole new meaning far removed from what was actually said like playing the old game telephone where one person whispers a word and by the end of the line it has become something else entirely removed from the original […]

parts of us die when we suffer abuse and we often are forced to question if we survived or if we simply became monsters as well the dead bits never truly go away but they linger reminding us what was irrevocably irreversibly taken away and in those spaces scars grow until all that is left […]

i am nothing more than a vaguely human shaped san andreas shaking with anxiety as i find everything is my fault as the world quakes around me it is easy to blame me i will always shoulder all of the guilt whether or not i am responsible because one of the quirks in being broken […]

i blame it on the rain my inability to see clearly is the precipitation not the barely restrained tears the cold wind stinging my face as the frost forms in my beard not the agony in my chest but axial tilt pushing me farther from the sun in eacapable avarice for the warmth taken away […]

i can’t keep the plates spinning balancing my own failing mental health with the stresses mounting around me curling up tighter and tighter into myself with no armor to shield my tender catastrophe from a world at the brink of destruction where all i need is barely enough but more than what dreams can manage […]

slipping in and out of dissociation i have forgotten how to form words with this tongue i am uncertain is mine the heaviness that accompanies this depression pins my form to the page a butterfly frozen in midflap blue fingertips tracing the frost on the window as the sun refracts off the snow the sparrows […]

wasted away the entire day too anxious to concentrate everything just felt off only for the lack of production to trigger even more anxiety because i just fucking wasted the entire day and now it is too late to try and get something started with this magma in my guts and sleep is not on […]

it’s cold in the apartment in a hoodie and a beanie shivering under a gray blanket waiting until next weekend for the kids to turn on the heat rather than waste money on electricity for simple comfort rationing coffee stretching out rice and beans so i can avoid going anywhere as the depression leaves my […]

i have put up a good fight trying to keep from falling into the abyss gently caressing my tired cheeks i could feel it swirling ever closer when my eyes opened and i slid out of bed and into a hot shower hoping to fool myself into feeling some sort of contact besides the tendrils […]

in an embarrassment of ingrained issues feeling as if i do not truly exist is the one i struggle against the hardest and it is the one in which i was thrust at a time when falling to pieces was already culminating profusely i used to daydream about being saved from the events that broke […]

tangled in webs invisible strands wrapping tighter cannot breathe no movements except frantic struggles as the silk grows thicker blocking out the faint light just occasional twitching in the last spasms before oblivion sings a lullabye calling eternity in all of its empty adoration

i stitch each night with coarse black thread my mouth shut in sloppy x’s before going to lay in bed the muffled screams make a lovely accompaniment to staring up at the ceiling for hours and hours on end my fingers are cramped from threading the hooked needle my lips ache from the many holes […]

despite the best laid plans obstacle after obstacle has this job in a perpetual haze of hurry up and wait a blur of activity followed by sitting as the fire alarm blares or the power goes off or the assistance that’s required doesn’t call back the expectation of an easy job overtly complicated by incessant […]

the weather turned seasonal overnight the trees seem conflicted the verdancy draining as the last of the leaves have decided to change into a late autumnal canopy of falling reds each day as i arrive another has given in unwilling to accept it should be winter i wish i didn’t see such a stark correlation […]

day four of this incessant ache clustered in my skull consistent bad enough that i try to sleep yet lay with it scraping a layer between awake and trapped in half dream where everything is just out of reach as i lay there staring at the fucking ceiling a solitary nerve ending held to a […]

my eyeballs detached popped free of my skull two floating jellyfish in hazel hued madness swimming about the car as i sit still in the lingering nightmares of another abandonment my kelp fingers slid sinuously around the steering wheel as my hwrmit crab heart left searching for a better chest cavity in which to hide […]

i hear her my upstairs neighbor sobbing sobbing sobbing broken only momentarily when i sneeze or cough a rhythmic surrender after last night and the screaming he cheated (she thinks) and after three hours of circular yelling the door slammed shook the frames on my wall and knocked the dry erase markers onto the floor […]

next year i am supposed to go to virginia for a convention supposed to walk around among the writers while pretending that i belong it is such a scheme scribbling stories the same as everyone else yet expecting lightning to strike and the right person to comb through the overburdened shelves find your book spread […]

i surfed through clusters of frantic storms the melon hued sky misleading in vibrancy unrestrained each new burst igniting a flare of red as the turgid swarm of insolent fireflies panicked at the downfall of dismalities i drive with a tarnished crucifix in a steady deluge of drowning dreamers cast down convulsively by a dismissive […]

the clouds above dead static in an ode to forevers undreamt sickly purple of a week old bruise god’s divine hematoma reflected in refraction of pulmonary devotionals in muted dejections a funeral a wedding a death bed confessional of first kisses squandered a symposium on natural reactions to mythical mysticisms as taught by madmen and […]

i struggle most of my days feeling as if i am a pox unworthy of the love i have craved since it was denied from a very young age trying my best in a bipolar reverberation yet failing in expressing my feelings in a way that shows just how deeply each emotion shines coming off […]

this week is going to be a grind big installation across the city with a coworker who has developed an attitude in addition to having this sorrowful pulse from cardial shattering as the chimes sound out a mournful tale of cold winds blowing the coffee does little thos stygian brew of caffeinated darkness swirls bitternesss […]

sundays are always my least favorite night the day is great the kids bring a light that is quickly extinguished the moment the door shuts and the silence reasserts its dominance over my depression with a gleeful swarming the fucking holidays are right around the corner and the loneliness threatens to end me all i […]

anxiety forces my struggling heart to pump the sludge of unhappiness through brittle veins an acidic ooze caiterizing hope in a tangle of scarred remembrance the bad end of yet another cycle where depression is a constant state every word is wrong none of the feelings can be trusted and i fear this is just […]

i am content to ride the ocean of fathomless emotion the hyperbolic flow of bipolar extremes knowing the danger but giving every heartspasm to my beacons of stability the lodestones in my shattered soul that guide me home tethered to the sea seeking to drown me my thoughts are unruly chaotic sparks burning my mind […]

i wonder if the thunderous beat of my heart rattles windows of the cars i pass as badly as my pulse seems to rattle my brain against the jagged ivory of my skull i set off alarms in the slow descent through concrete slopes deeper under the city lights flicker as the ballasts sway precariously […]

i exist somewhere between the falling raindrops out of step with the world a phantom intangible as life goes on all around me watching as busy people pass through me a tender surrender of inconsequential need in cold waves and i fear falling down plummeting through the ground itself to drift alone in the spaces […]

i do it to myself the world shits on me i don’t exist and i sit and read bukowski and nod or friedrich rambles in his mad way doing nothing except confirming the feelings i went to read and try to forget about for a few moments but then i am pissed hank snaps and […]

bob mould sings about everything falling apart in a two minute burst of midwest angst that sums up the wicker armor haphazardly constructed around my fractured misconception of accepting all the blame for slights i wasn’t even aware existed i feel as if i am little more than a piece of anthropomorphic trash floating alongside […]

human nature dictates an unnatural need to put themselves ahead of the rest of the faceless herd i see it daily as they scoot along trying to cut in at the last moment frantic to be three car lengths farther in the stagnant traffic pushing towards the end of the lane so clearly marked for […]

every two hours i woke up and repositioned the pillows as the embers of the last dream sizzled gently hoping to find a single moment more of sleep before rising and tossing the nets into the choppy water in hopes of straining enough of the words to manage a poem or three and still have […]

i am lost roaming these nonsensical pathways of an escher fever dream disregarding laws of physics as the illusion of freedom sheds itself while i clutch at the shifting stairways that lead manically into the night the horizon looms ever out of reach despite the impossible angles projected in this absurdity forcibly replacing the lies […]

the cold moon hides in frigid disdain obscured lunacy of reverential malaise gradual disavowment leaving flecks of celestial disenchantment in sanguine surrender forming a nimbus in penumbra repugnance distorting dismay sixtysixhundred devotional hymnals ashes drifting in a plastic bubble diaroma of discontent the stagnancy of irrational irrelevance a dull blade tracing an insolence of disregarded […]

the sky pisses rain horns blare i am lost between the swishing blades displacing dirt and fat drops ever falling. brake lights a sea of angry red festively glaring as the traffic swells along the overpass. arterial plaque dancing in the muscular atrophy of a congested cardial illusion seeking to break free and cause the […]

i try to etch all of the confusion the sorrow the anger the need the desire the love the fear the madness the wonder the hope the angst the loss into the æther yet all i manage is hollow prose childlike sketches of chuldhood scars rough approximations of clinging scabs as i bash my head […]

when did i become so much older than i think i was meant to grow? somewhere in the intoxicating haze of hot passions and frigid silences the years continued to accumulate as i was preoccupied by the beauty around me. giving up all of the best years i had chasing someone else’s dreams and abiding […]

the straw that finally broke the camel’s back must have been someone else’s expectation that left the poor beast of burden paralyzed in the billowing sands the things left unspoken yet are assumed to be known deal far more hurt in the open chasm of silence widening to tear things apart

the man in the bright neon vest with his electric leaf blower does his best sisyphus imitation as the trees all around him let loose a blizzard of yellow leaves with every wrrant breeze and passing vehicle to fall where he ineffectually has just aimed his plastic armament of detritus displacement there is a lesson […]

the coffee brews a percolating cacophony in the silent morning threatening to wake the petulant sun stretching just beyond the eastern horizon i forgot what it was to have this broken sleep after a month of fevers and ten hour dream loops with brief moments of panicked flailing for half drowned wet gasps trading in […]

it has been so long since i felt like myself that i can’t help but question if this is really who i once was or what i have become after being detached from the fragmented shards of my elusive delusionary soulscattered regrets my skin is unfamiliar as i roam about underground in concrete caverns with […]

there is a howling sounding in my guts an insatiable growling beast demanding more sustenance as it hunts angrily prowling through the hollow depths for a blood drenched feast to stave off this self imposed famine of need snapping and biting claw prints carved in the dew soaked grass beneath the silver sliver of lunar […]

hushed silence in nihilist whispers broad strokes emotional resonance metaphor for dream a heavy sigh of acceptance as the poet realizes he will most surely die on a pile of unread manuscripts broken hearted and certainly all alone the whiteboard is filled with ideas the insidious haze in my cavernous skull will likely never scribble […]

stardust shimmersdead skin cells hoverin a dust devil ofdiscarded detritusa terminus of tattereddreamthistle driftinglazily in the sallowsunlight filteredthrough the dirty windowscascading shadows ofmyopic dysmorphiascatching fleeting glancesat the stranger staringthrough toothpaste streaksfrom the other side ofthe bathroom mirror i am more thanthe sum of scar tissueand lingering regretsan anomaly ofelectrical surgesin hyperbolic dissentand in this stormi […]

the skies above passively aggressive in shades of gray cast dispersions upon the dying week the sad realization of self unimportance as the sidewalk chalk swirls in spiralled demises to taint the water table and the bloated daydreamers float facedown in an obstructionist act of redactive wonder does little more than sully the beliefs of […]

my hands shake whether from the chill pervading the room or the anxiety in adrenalized spikes stabbing down my spine making this fundamentally flawed house of cards i seek sanctuary within less a shelter than a lesson in incompetency from a failed architect trying too hard to hide his scarred topographic map of dire depression […]

life has felt eerily similar to a car crash filmed in black and white a silent film of distorted pains with nary a whimper to differentiate the scene breaks as black blood pools in solemn waves slowly consuming the intrepid fool in a liquefication of obsidian disasters the film stretches flame spreads across metal canisters […]

i dream scratching across the vellum of night a dull pencil wood scraping faint graphite creasing eternity in an impotent display of loss my only true contribution to art a vague smudge on the edge of a canvas housing flawed masterpieces in half coagulated remorseful scabs as i rage fitfully in a bipolar malaise pollock […]

a purification of sin in sweet self immolation beneath the interlocking brasswork teeth of god sending entropic slivers in a blizzard of molten reverberations to bathe the chemically deluded with a torrent of pain nauseated from spinning against the turbulent tides the undertones of undertows grasping at flailing limbs in a frozen symphony of sympathetic […]

swimming in this fog of indentured nomenclature leaves a soul deep stain that mars the hopefulness in scarred divergences the echoed screams reverberating lingering loss in a secluded delusion of past incoherencies that pummel passionless prose i yearn for an infusion solar irradiation to infect the melanoma of understanding with a fresh melange of rumors […]

the flower wilts despite the sunlight and encouragement he whispers in the silent moments that stretch far past an acceptable amount showing despite the best of intentions some blossoms are so self absorbed that they do not realize how they discourage an amateur gardener from his adorations now his ambitions lay in burning bridges after […]

he sat picking the loose scales hanging like scabs hoping to molt into something new that wasn’t always relegated to a second class commodity and held at arm’s length whenever his heartfelt expressions were left ignored once again maybe somewhere buried deeply beneath this old form of the same callous disregard lay a creature worthy […]

it is far too easy to lose sight of those things that bring us a modicum of joy in the endless malaise of entropic failures that define being human as human beings scrabble about trying to prove that even briefly we existed as life crashes against our weary forms the tide against the shore slowly […]

stoking the ashes hoping for an errant ember to reignite the passion gone dormant in the long dark night of dreadful half dreamt melanoma spreading across beauty in a suffocating wave of defiled deliriums slipping downdowndown a sinkhole, a portal, a gateway to the open maw of hellish best intentions a fetid mass of half […]

falling in and out of fever dreams as the meds keep me from ever fully awakening even as the shallow unnatural sleep matches my shallow liquid breaths a half state in this lingering torment as everything seems to melt into a sludge or slipping into the quicksand quagmires encasing hopes for any type of wellness […]

faulty pneumatics in pneumonia dementia an inabilty to draw oxygen into a corrosion of bronchial disdain the fool moves slowly in a city already done with a short week of pretending to work as the long weekend beckons sullenly from the commerce beckoning to fleece the masses a false narrative leads into a frenzy of […]

a distortion pulling all of reality into the spiralling arm of armageddon with each palpation sending an array where the double helix begins to unravel rewriting the genetic code into a sludge of base desires and indecency in a spectral anomaly that cascades an irradiation of timid intrusions into the absence at the still heart […]

i wake up already choking on these unshed tears as sorrow fills my vacancy in a sloshing nightmare of my own insecurities given icy form and i wish i could find a dream where the rope slides softly around my wheezing throat a lullabye for an endless parade of bitter failings shed like dead cells […]

the drugs hit a million suns burning through cellular dismay a cauldron of molten metals in a pervasive sway dancing in collapsing veins a disruption of mitohypochondria powering illness in entropic chaos the sinuous scales as the dragon slides a delicate dance of nigh divine dystopia cascading in waves of solar dissonance as the vessel […]

a silent celebrationfor the birth of a museto the lodestone in herwildflower smile thatunwaveringly calls mybipolar heart back hometo bountiless beauty inher bottomless brown gazean effervescent effusionin the golden nimbus glowingso bright she blinds yetcannot seem to see herselfa silent celebrationto the graceful beautyof the most tender soulin flashes of pink petalsdancing in her barelyrestrained […]

trapped in another cyclical redundancy incapable of seeking an escape from secondary waves of dissatisfaction where doing your best is subject to the whims of a world that could not give two tugs of a dead dog’s cock about your feelings belittled and shelved no inherent value until long after you have mentally checked yourself […]

i have no more coinsto toss into thishaunted wishing wellof emptied empathyas nothing but thesilt of unreciprocateddreamslurry in thepassionless face ofsheer self absorptiongreets the new day ofdistempered adorationseach tarnished pennyholds the knowledge ofhow self absorption colorsthe disregard to whatanother has suffered inthe inward gaze whereit becomes impossible tosee any fault except forthe glaring flaws of […]

every timei think i haveshaken this illnessthe fever ignitesand i find myselfstill drowning i fear it is apermanent sicknessas each good dayis balanced by threein which i wheezeand long for death the pills aren’thaving the intended affectand sleep is a miseryof half dreamt hellsas i long for a dayof feeling vaguely human one day i […]

there is a phenomenon called the halo effect where people assume because a person is physically attractive they have inherently more worth than someone less aesthetically appeasing a condition compounded by spcial media and the cult of puerile celebrity worship based not on any real merit whatsoever just a longing to feel as if they […]

this morning there will be a disconnection and an almost certain death will follow not long after the machines keeping the body alive even though there is no electricity driving the meat it seems almost callous how simply pulling a plug can erase an existence even if it is just a matter of forcing a […]

it is probably completely normal to be stricken by such a dark depression sitting alone sobbing in between breaths i cannot catch as puddle’s pity party plays the soundtrack to a life unlived the skeletal hand of hope squeezes my chest in a redundancy of shattered shards piercing in bleak submissions and i am donedonedone […]

never ending fron panic to drowning to acceptance that i will always be secondary ignored and forgotten in this suffocation trying to breathe through the thick layer of sick bewteen oxygen and my failing lungs the kids go back tonight and i go back to my hole a rough week ahead worse if the sleeplessness […]

the kids are sleeping a profound peace falls as i listen to their rhythmic breathing all the ills squirming inside of me mean nothing as two thirds of my heart beat a resounding song of perseverance that fills the little apartment with a joy so desperately missing in the two weeks of sickly silence shrouding […]

every exhalation crackles with congestion a consistency of syrup laden shallow breaths and i cannot fall deeply enough to find dream constantly waking before my brain can process it is asleep dipping my cerebral cortex into the shallow end of unfulfilled desires just enough to taint the long stretches where my heart hammers against the […]

i woke drowning an ocean of torment sloshing as i tried to untangle myself the blankets tied around my wrists as i feverishly pulled the headboard creaking as the wet wheezing blossomed into full panicked thrashing the world glared in strips of photonegative abandonment through the blinds as the periwinkle suffocation of clouds reflected the […]

this virulent disaster seated in an angry mass within my brain colors the day in shades of rage squeezing every drop of anxiety into a slurry where darkness stabs into the truths i try so desperately to deny i dread going to bed knowing sleep won’t come though i am exhausted fearing another flash of […]

another panic attack three am sitting on the edge of the bed trying to remember how to breathe in between the dry heaves i suspect santeria in conjunction with the blood moon pulling my bipolar psychosis into a feedback squall of screaming static everything is tinged in palpable darkness as errant synapses fire into the […]

the hot fetid breath on the back of my neck cracked black teeth tearing ragged strips of fevered bloody flesh an insanity of chaotic dentata denada in feral regala traumatically reviled in nauseous lies the scars on my forearms from playing tic tac toe with thanatos to a draw into infinity on the head of […]

fleeting flickering puffs of flame dance fireflies in sea of impenetrable malaise the dour smog seeks to suffocate the still sleeping city where the poisoned souls of driftless dreamers plummet into an abyss of inconsequential woe a rhythmic clip clop of shorn hooves over dew slick cobblestone vacancies swirl as the fog coalesces to the […]

my poetic is shrouded in a dense fog yet every dream is filled with her smile i stumble drunkenly barely able to type chasing fireflies in the shape of peonies from small town to empty parking lots uncertain of where the winding roads lead just a vague sense of incapacitated wonder echoing through the impenetrable […]

the sunlight filters through the solid mass of accumulated cumulus bathing the city in an irradiated silver glare it feels too hot for so late in the year as autumn promises are obscured by greenhouse suffocation i long to crawl out of the hole in the ozone layer to drift free alone another celestial oddity […]

if i shift just rightthe pain in my shoulderwith every shallow breathcan be dulled slightlyeven as this roilingball of oily sickin the pit of my stomachchurns endlesslythroughout the night i am a human biohazardincapable of shakingthis demonic processionin virulent possessiona walking warzone waginginvisible battles incomplete cellular declinea petri dish of diseaserabidly seekinga new host to […]

the paint blisters as the room burns all around me i feel the heat watching the flames consume the ceiling listlessly waiting for it all to come crashing down upon me in a torrent of ashen embers unable to differentiate if the inferno originated in the fever coursing through paperthin walls or my own tattered […]

the last four days of influenze spiked dreaminfection has left me in a haze where the thorns of painthistles tore in every halfdrowned breath that managed to wheeze its way out of my decaying husk carried the delirium tinted calls for a respite from insidious aches as i slept walked unaware if i lived or […]