four days ago my email stopped sending me new emails no new poems no notifications i thought i had become unvisible this morning a flood after signing the oath with my new electronic overlords missed so many good things some repeats a deleted angry missive my fault really had my gall bladder out friday kept […]
some termites and ants practice an innate ability to rupture their own internal organs and spill a toxic fluid out of their exoskeletons autothysis they sacrifice themselves for the sake of the colony with the amount i self analyze it should have happened long ago the pressure churning your dying breath is to churn poison […]
in hong kong they don’t have real estate for the dead so they built buildings like so many postal boxes to store the ashes in columbariums and that is disappearing as well seven point four million souls virtual reality tombs little boxes to store your earthly remains space trash send them to the moon or […]
i’ve noted i’m telling the same stories over and over again moments of confusion an inability to do simple chores and tasks telling the same stories over and over again tempura deja vu lightly fried temporally in a wok telling the lame stories over and under again moments of contusion repetition the sky is gray […]
the song be hurt came on lovely little ode to it being okay to be broken the world seems to slow down as i sped happily down the highway that is when the semi changed lanes into a black pick up the shiny silver trailer exploded as the music played i watched it unfold as […]
i like it when someone in the crowd comes up to me as if to ask a question then a moment passes a flash and they begin to weigh if they want to ask me anything at all i assume it is fear of getting punched they have a half formed smile as they approach […]
static fills the air the hair on my arms stands up a hum fills the room ossicles vibrate and form a bridge to the oval window like when the cicadas are out in force and it pervades everything all shakes on cue all shakes on cue i’m starting to think my imaginary friend is real […]
mnemonia pneumonics cancel the world i need a break from the absurdity of reality let’s make a headline together steal a convertible, cherry red with white leather interior we are staining the hell out of everything drive it until the engine explodes cool slow motion shot of us walking away from the wreckage as the […]
the smell of ozone in the air, scored carbon across the lead, blown capacitors and fried transistors invisible and corralled through the green board, simple yes or no answers sent like synapses i have little burn holes on the tips of my fingers from arcing zaps my dad would wait until you were halfway inside […]
she stands at the top of the stairs every morning her cup of tea steams in the morning air at first i just got into my car and left as she gazed out on the parking lot the other day i said good morning she smiled and waved it became our little game she would […]
enter the darkened cave clean up the mess the kids left carefully unzip and remove the skin suit humanity leaves until they come back no one else wants to deal with this mess of a person they have no choice in the matter until they get older and by then i hope we have the […]
can an old flame long dormant ever spark again will it ever reach the inferno it once was or is it destined to just be an ember until it eventually turns to a hard black cluster on the right ventricle it stops just enough blood flow to cause lethargy but not nearly enough to kill […]
time froze i could see every drop of venom she sprayed at me the vein in her forehead popping out fury i did my best to dodge the liquid as it splattered on the ground with a hiss and plume of smoke her deadly accuracy and my innate ability to dodge responsibility working in tandam […]
we are about to do something special there is this restaurant a little barbeque joint it makes the best pancakes in the metroplex now i am prone to hyperbolic statements artistic license with language it is possibly true but this is no exaggeration the people i have taken have always raised an eyebrow gave a […]
tornado warning the summer before i moved to texas tornados destroyed a good chunk of ft worth funky town as the locals call it i don’t know why i am hard pressed to think of a less funky town salt lake city probably moscow strikes me as more vibrant underground house or techno i like […]
been driving and listening to more music than normal refuse to skip songs just letting it come from the chaos of random been a lot of old country lately johnny, waylon, willie, all three hanks then i heard colter wall he is exactly my mood deep voice, story telling in lyrics, like old man johnny […]
shimmering lights all around me the fever has hit one oh two i am shivering under three blankets another day in paradise force a long shower to cool down and get dressed the rain is messing with my knee insult to agony the pounding of kettle drums behind my eyes and erratic driving by the […]
are we really so vapid that we must have nostalgia for everything fifty years ago did they post about missing polio one hundred and twenty years ago do a big retrospective on how great the civil war was and why we need to bring it back did someone write a whimsical diatribe on putting more […]
if i hadn’t cheated on Maude done her wrong with half the town if i had treated her better i wouldn’t be laying in this box six feet down she turned a blind eye to it all always greeted me with a kiss but i finally pushed her too far and this time she didn’t […]
stay in school kids and live with your parents until you are fifty get as many pieces of paper to hang on the wall as possible drown in debt swim through the currents of leases and loans tattoo your face with rainbow sixty nine and four twenty raid the thrift store and dress like a […]
playing a game of hide and seek but when i go looking they didn’t just hide they pack their belongings and move to another state they have prior obligations past issues the carrot on the string is just a dowel rod painted orange but in this maddening hunger i don’t seem to care get a […]
i don’t understand the phrase under the weather i am always under the weather or part of it but today i am officially under it i tried to deny it to ignore it just keep moving and it will vanish like debt and stress i assume that is how it all works i probably got […]
i sat in the lobby waiting for the dude who has the distinct privilige of being my personal tour guide through the bowels of the county hospital the first thing you notice about the county hospital is nothing appears new the entire place has a lived in feeling in comparison to the for profit hospitals […]
he grew up on these same streets he no longer recalls they were once so familiar he could drunkenly stumble and avoid the pitfalls in near coherency now he doesn’t even know the side streets he is one wrong turn from a mess of trouble he used to navigate these twists and turns like he […]
i’ve cracked the code yesterday was a miserable day of exhaustion and three tap dancing rhinos in my skull coupled with a long day at work i was in misery so i ate four tylenol pm at seven and promptly passed out at eight and nearly stayed comatose the entire night it wasn’t good sleep […]
there was a big wreck on the highway seemed like five or six cars was i curious sure but i was driving and i take my role in getting where i am going pretty seriously so i refuse to rubberneck now if we stop and it is in within view i look for stray limbs […]
didn’t so much sleep as fought for every second i got woke up too many times tossed and turned desperately fought to return to dreams it was a failure stretched over seven hours if there was a championship for trying to sleep for assuming a comfortable postition and seeking to yank defeat from the gaping […]
i have started putting cinnamon in my coffee as i brew it i like the smell it feels exotic as it brews it is mostly just coffee flavored so you know good but with a cinnamon tinge i have had an avalanche of lines in my head today but my fingers can’t make them make […]
sometimes during a kiss i open my eyes in my mind i paint a portrait of the look on the face kissing me back a frozen moment some looks are blissful, calm, in the second so completely, almost melting into me those are nice sweet kisses, soft, tongues dancing, rapturous instances of joy others eyes […]
awoke in the fetal position arms pulled in tight, head bent inwards, knees to my chest shivering where the blanket had been twisted around me so badly it ceased being a blanket it took on the form of a bondage device shaking from the fan blowing on me, the thirty seven degrees outside the frantic […]
when i eight i got a survival knife the overly long, serrated blade with compass in hilt that had matches and a wire for use as a saw think audition by takashi miike — one of my favorite movies the moment the bag flips it becomes terrifying my friend bought it after i told him […]
i leave the walls of my apartment bare the soothing white walls are a haven for when the heavy depression settles in i can concentrate on them feed the bad into them and it goes away but in my mind it is a different scene altogether i hang pictures of the past of the never […]
it all started to cascade like the churning waters of the white rapids when you were a kid that trip why is that in your head indistinct drawings of stick figures and strange beasts, the flickering light of torches wash across the cave wall, the sounds of something primal, stalking, low growling bounced around the […]
it starts with a heavy feeling in your eyes like they weight a little more turning them feels clumsier somehow then the heavy feeling goes to the front of your mind and it feels awkward as well a gentle tinging feeling in your face and the rest of your skull like it is subtly humming, […]
his hands reach over the edge and with a grunt of exertion he pulls himself up always up down is death at every new cliff he hopes to see the horizon but all that is in view is another craggy wall to climb he repeats his mantra always up down is death the things he […]
i need new ink been two years and the feeling is creeping into me the need for the needles to rapidly jam another design from my soul into my flesh the constant him if the motor the feeling of a thousand nettles the rattle and shake the divine pain the glorious blood and black spillover […]
i paid twenty bucks to go to the zoo should have been working but i was close and said to hell with the job for the day they wouldn’t notice and i deserve the break monotonous swill anyway push a couple buttons move on to the next and the zoo is relaxing especially in the […]
i had raised her fingers to my lips the smell of books and ink wafted to my nose synapses fire recollections of lazy nights on the couch her laying on my chest as i read from one of the thousands of books scattered about lands far away blossoming to life we took a trip together […]
i found myself at the crossroads, was sleep walking on air, awoke at the crossroads, and the devil met me there he asked if i had any wishes, i told him fix my broken heart, he said he could fix it, it would only take the smallest part i asked what it was he wanted, […]
nurses are odd and wonderful creatures i have been complimented on the veins in my arms three times this morning their eyes go right to them i am an easy mark for blood testing apparently and they are much more forward than i expected though i suspect my easily blushing nature has something to do […]
if i ever take the time to control my laughter they will see my body fly swaying from the rafter if this pain does not subside and if this is all there is here let me fade into the night watch me as i disappear another day, another dollar, but fifty percent is gone in […]
staring out the window the headache is back and pissed off i spent half the day without it a sparrow dances on the fence it is clearly after something but i see nothing it hops back and forth, intent on it’s prey a truck pulls in with booming bass and it flies off unfulfilled the […]
he is crude curses like a sailor writes what he thinks as he thinks it doesn’t take the time to think it through it is how he is scenes open in his mind and he relates them as best he can not fantasies not really just sees images of things and tries to sculpt them […]
the day started with so much promise i plastered on false optimism braved the traffic for my seven o’clock appointment and waited and waited only to get a call saying that there was a miscommunication the person i am here to meet won’t be in until eight thirty or after waiting forty five minutes for […]
traffic like a herd of angry lemmings all headed to the cliff edge but vying for first over the edge am i the only one who wants to live to not plummet to my fiery doom to just make it one more day for the promise of sweet lips as a reward at the end […]
must have been something in the air over the weekend and by that i mean pollen tons of it my allergies had my head gripped in a vise even medication was laughed at and it seemed everyone was in a bit if a mood as well sad, suicidal, disappointed, let down just generally down well […]
brandishing my fists like an outlaw with a six shooter rootin tootin bare knuckle brawler spitting blood and teeth in equal measure i don’t back down it ain’t in my dna got my ass kicked a fair number of times but i never quit never laid down and accepted defeat chipped a couple teeth with […]
if i had it all to do over again knowing what i know the shit stacked against me, the broken hearts, battered soul and the way life beat me to a pulp i wouldn’t change a thing up to a certain point those two perfect kids i would go through every trial and tribulation exactly […]
up early making breakfast fried potatoes because maia has something against eggs scrambled eggs with spinach for dax because he hasn’t developed a thing yet made them bacon and now as the potatoes rumble in the bacon grease as food smells fill the air and stir them from sleep i have had my headphones in […]
this time it was different i knew they were all dead we sat laughing and joking but i remembered they had died and i couldn’t make out there words as they looked at me but their tone and mannerisms said they were making fun of me and i laughed knowing whatever they said was more […]
“So let me get this straight.” “Okay.” “Invisible sky guy knocks a woman up with himself so he can die to erase the sins he created in the first place?” “Well, you are over simplifying…” “And we celebrate with chocolates and dyed eggs?” “I mean… well see, …” “And coincendentally the major holidays fall on […]
right as sleep took over my mind i had a brilliant idea but through the fog i convinced myself i would remember instead of writing it down now it is the memory of an idea with no substance taken over by a dream i rode a bicycle across europe hooked a sharp right and rode […]
never feel like i fit in quite right the elliptical block in the round hole sitting outside maia’s school freshly shaved head bearded angry looking white male with silver hoops tatted bad man surrounded by soccer moms country coming out of their trucks and suvs the bass rattling my windows or singing along with punk […]
the sun shines directly into my eyes blinking and trying to make out traffic headed nowhere you are all invited join in on an epic road trip to the edge of boredom i brought snacks stale popcorn and warm flat pop a half eaten pop tart if you reach under the seat there may be […]
i’ve grown accustomed to the idea of dying alone of trips to the hospital rehabbing from whatever surgery and saying no it’s just me hoping the kids come visit to break up the humdrum solitary existence not sleeping next to someone holding then tight when a nightmare strikes the nagging one of us me leaving […]
blind, tripping over everything including my tongue the blank picture in the yearbook as if sick on the day the photos were taken insert face here like a plane about to hit the mountainside while the pilot tells stories about his perfect record the perfect attendance record and a late case of mono numb fingers […]
it’s raining been a long day of writing between menial tasks a cat yowls outside miserable in the dampness poor little thing i’m so tired not sleeping thoughts whirling i miss my kitty ish she changed before she died she wasn’t the same never wanted cuddles just sort of did her own thing away from […]
“Friedrich!” She stood in front of an iron wrought throne with crimson cushions. She was as pale as moonlight but had a deadly grace to her. An air of menace radiated from her and had been known to cause her enemies to clench up in fear. Scars marked her face where her hair didn’t hide […]
i see my reflection in the mirror and hate it not content with horrid image bouncing back then i see myself in the window as I walk down the empty hospital corridor and don’t recognize it as the same a separation of id and ego perhaps the walking image is thin and has a nice […]
when she left she took the dogs i’m not a dog person i got them for her because, at the time, i would have done anything for her and i grew to love them pains in the ass they were always needing to go out or needing attention like rowdy three year olds and when […]
one day this ragged dream will end history will determine whether any of it meant anything to anyone the beaten hero faces his final curtain call his blood spills out like the words from his pen and did he ever succeed reach the one he so desperately called out to the only answer to that […]
i almost did something today almost early morning tomorrow busy week ahead so when i made my excuses to my friend’s it was nearly believable nearly instead i hid shaved my head fought a headache wrote trash basic routine with the big schedule next week i plan on taking some much needed quiet time from […]
she stood in doorway hands on her hips, nose in the air she was mad again i would say it mattered but she left me over a year ago her anger was a non factor she didn’t take that very well nor when i asked her to leave instead she started to unbutton her shirt […]
it is the little things i find myself missing in these oppressively quiet moments arguments over stupid stuff nonsensical then making up i don’t get into many arguments now i tend to agree with myself that i should do nothing but work and barely existing it is odd missing moments of turmoil but they are […]
these hands are battered and scarred too many fights hard work from sketching the road map of a broken spirit along the empty corridors nothing but my shuffled feet to keep me company whispers from the dark call out to me sing lullabies slap the worthless from my heavy brow i couldn’t save anyone couldn’t […]
on repeat daisies of the galaxy by the eels jeannie’s diary just one page in jeannie’s diary it’s a motherfucker living without you one of my favorite albums mellow for the headache brooding for the heart ache can’t stop the thoughts today been one of those days again feels like an all time record for […]
i need more than this spinning out of control screaming at the walls music doesn’t calm the savage beast not any longer chemicals meditation mediation exoneration past sins present indiscretions need company closure anything but this nothing falling falling losing grace sputtering out of fuel inability consumed by silence send help please break the walls […]
the first time i dreamt about death i was four i saw myself on the table my parents, like so many back then didn’t think about the shows they watched in front of me didn’t take my high intelligence into the equation probably thought i was too busy playing with toys to see the things […]
i like to think of my failed suicide attempts as dress rehearsals or just planning stages not failures just getting the rhythm right the cuts the pills the misfires like jerking off before a big date get the bad ones out first so when the voices finally win when i reach my wits end i […]
corporate speak is another language altogether catch phrases and empty terms i find myself afloat in it rudderless i speak with the caring grace of a sledgehammer in an unruly five year old’s red bull fever drenched hands the talking around points hinting while never expressing mumbo jumbo like casting spells with no inherent understanding […]
some days i feel like i am at the front of a murderous conga line like the person right behind me has knife poised at my throat a series of dangerous intent follows poisoned needles syringes filled with air machetes, machine guns and other phallic shaped implements of my unwitting demise not to say i […]
woke up from a dream in the middle of the night like a world made of multicolor smoke it dissipated as i tried to hold on pieces flash still coherent racing down the street my friend driving an odd collection of faces i no longer make out a van we were late which sounds right […]
four aspirin, four pamprin washed down with dayquil and my first coke in years a cocktail recommended by a friend hope it works been a bad one today staring out the window as the purple creeps over the blue the moon rises an equinox warm spring blossoms green takes over from brown atmospheric pressure pounding […]
he is outside smoking again standing there in his wife beater blowing clouds of bue gray smoke grease stains on the front yellowed at the arm pits he is going to work on that car all day again today just smoke cigarettes and lay on the ground beneath it i have never seen the damn […]
maybe i have a problem letting go of the sadness because the cause of the sadness was what had made me feel happy if i let go of the sad i let go of the happy as well and in the desperate clinging to those few precious moments of joy i have to hold even […]
can’t shake the feeling i did something wrong again not sure what exactly but that amorphous sense of impending doom floats like rabid moths in my center churning sharks in my stomach whipped into a frenzy by the subtle scent of blood lifelines have receded, pulled up anchor and set sail for anywhere but near […]
agoraphobia is a fear of open places, trypophobia is a fear of holes, basophobia is the fear of falling i don’t have to deal with them but i know they are real i suffer from sedatephobia the fear of silence nothing screams as loudly as a quiet room i will go days without speaking not […]
upload my consciousness into a synthetic form remove emotion pure rationality let my mind roam without distraction ones and zeros binary bliss sink the detrimental parts with the flesh suit no ache no remorse none of the middling things that confine, define and resign us to this human condition electrical impulses curb impusive behavior occum’s […]
when i was little they never said it was gonna be this way they never told me about the blues inside my head i had dreams, i had goals, there were things i wanted to do they never said it was just a long drawn out pain until you’re dead if they had been honest […]
baked muffins this morning the kids chowed them down i choked down the sadness as spring break comes to an end our last day together the silence calls again the void of a life alone for two weeks they don’t want to leave i don’t want to take them back they are the only lifeline […]
be prepared for the magical mystification of the poet illiterate be dazzled as he turns victory to defeat spins interlocking rings of indecisive dismay into a solid band of loss oooh and ahhh as he pulls depression from his hat and paints a scenic vista of the hell in his mind his unfaithful assistant saws […]
He knew he was totally fucked when she smiled at him. He knew it. Saw it in her smile lines like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. The way her eyes lit up her entire face. He didn’t want this. Had fought against it for a long time now. In fact, he had […]
my daughter has a crush watching young love in bloom is surreal and amazing stirs the heart strings and all that jazz i wish i could shield her from the dire effects, encase her heart in steel to protect it from the pain that is destined to come but i cannot my battered heart knows […]
you already know the blast from the past, the nickle plated nine shooter, tell your girl to be quiet or the madman will have to boot her the radical renaissance man, the lacsadasical shit talker, step to me with that nonsense you’ll be leaving with a walker i come in guns blazing, you know i […]
My first legal St Patrick’s day I went to the Blarney Pub with Dad. It was special occasion as that was his place and he asked me to come meet him after work. It was an adult thing not a father and son thing. It was equals meeting for a beer. You only get that […]
been a bad couple days in my brain the prison of loneliness has grown more bitter solitary resignment not consensual, not by choice, nor grand design a contextual manifestation of sublime horror and traumatic intuition this terra incognito, this wasteland of one alcohol doesn’t numb it, drugs cannot tame it, airing it makes it worse […]
tick tick tick the metronome keeps the time of the beat inside my mind i tap my foot with it eyes closed the world synchonizes with me soon all throbs with the same all encompassing urge i napped fitfully on and off in restless dream states waking with need dodging sunbeams like lasers from a […]
it isn’t really insomnia if it happens all the time it is a state of being made the mistake of letting my depression run free and it brought on a manic fit of would’ve could’ve should’ve instead of sleep so i wrote and wrote at the middle point i always think i will quit this […]
tantalizingly out of reach swimming in and out of focus i’ve forgotten what it means to be whole can you see me standing here, light refracting from the fear, the end is all so clear, hold me close and call me dear adversity, amoral acceptance of actual accidental arrogance ambiguous at best the thin line […]
normally the words sing today they murmur dismal chants into my head and i have chosen not to listen droning on and on, they whisper of pain and the implosion of sunshine vapor trails of loss so i feel it all quietly fade away it is raining in my heart that constant drizzle of cold […]
a crystal menagerie of arthurian legend trapped in amber behind the veil of time and space elemental runes etched on the craggy walls sword and steel frozen in battle stance the maiden heart and virtuous knight locked in each other’s gaze for eternity of dragons and lairs filled with golden dreams and demons and atlantis […]
the winds whip up the sand around me stinging and lashing, i feel it lacerate my exposed skin haven’t drank in days the burning days and freezing nights shimmering mirages taunt me at every dune i climb the carrion feeders circle the end is near this desert, all browns and yellow no green no life […]
he set up a folding chair in his living room a dozen long stem roses for the lone guest two candles one of which to see her one for breath control she is a vision, his heart stops as she takes her seat he regrets only a dozen blooms as they pale in comparison to […]
a private performance seating for one the spotlight casts it’s harsh gaze upon the fool, center stage his bald head covered in sweat from the light he bows opens his mouth to recite prose yet not sound comes out sips water, clears throat to try again nothing he looks out, fear and panic in his […]
gonna live a true poet’s life too much wine, too much debt, too much internal angst ink stained fingers and suicidal daydreams embrace the rot within does any thing else matter besides clever word play and vague substitutions no start drinking coffee as four a.m. wine at six whiskey at ten supplement cocaine when the […]
left trust to rust in the warm swirl of vomit dropped the d out of dream and reamed all the feelings restitution, prostitution, the over deification of dramatis non persona look it up, i can’t be fucking bothered presumptuous consumption, courageous corrosion rectifed the partial lies until the cellular make up was mud clear issuance […]
sadness is a diamond cut by a master jeweler every facet is beautiful, crafted with care, polished into a blinding gleam and lasts forever my savage anger has forged my fists into weapons capable of reducing diamond to dust sorrow no longer has a grip on me homocidal urges control my brain, my fists, my […]
So I am minding my own business when I hear a frantic call. “Come on, she will be here soon.” I looked down to see a dish pulling desperately at a spoon. I blinked stupidly. Did that plate really just run away with a spoon? Did someone dose my coffee? Again? If it wasn’t so […]
there was a knock on the door, but as i looked through the peephole there was no one there again a knock no one there ding dong ditch i thought so i stood there waiting a hand came from the shadows and i jerked the door open the poor woman i’m in my boxers, was […]
normal people weird me out going through life happy and without a care how do they function without crippling depression make it through the day without screaming in their head for the constant babbling to just fucking cease no dependency on chemicals to blend in like their natural camoflauge doesn’t exist they just manage to […]
