exquisite

she sat pensively, i knew the moment i saw her that i would do anything for her if she would ask it, the sun didn’t shine upon her but framed her exquisiteness, and all the words in my head fell onto the floor with my jaw, my heart skipped three of four beats when she […]

nonverbal cues on poetry night

i went to an open mic poetry reading last night sat hunched down in the back listening to everyone spill their pain and positivity a lady sat next to me and saw my face go through the motions of emotions i had stumbled in while on a walk with no intent to read my inner […]

surfing

flipping the channels on my non-existent cable package not even sure the television is on been watching a documentary about a man living with manic depression, it is so sad, daydreaming that he sits on the couch smoking weed all day, he writes nonsense and yearns to drink himself to sleep, he is teetering at […]

escape artist

she disappeared vanished as if erased from the face of the earth the globe feeling off balance at her absence my heart tilted to the side and all of the softer parts poured into the cavity where my guts had shrivelled and ceased to work i had not expected this disappearing act a trick houdini […]

target practice

i stand against the oak tree knees trembling holding an apple over my heart you insist your aim spot on and i trust you because what’s the worse your arrow can do pierce the soft meat of the fruit and embed itself into my chest milady your smile does far worse and with little to […]

pop

i feel like a balloon floating where ever the wind takes me not in charge of my own destiny pulled by a string in the hands of someone i cannot quite make out while buffeted by winds i’m losing helium slowly drifting down a lazy descent for such lofty aspirations if i could i would […]

exceptional charade

the world was killing her incrementally day by day a little at a time carving off little bits of her and it killed me to watch it occur standing by helplessly wishing to help to hold her to let her know it would all be alright but i couldn’t lie to her hell i found […]

if wishes were fishes

if i could i would kiss you gently on the cheek and whisper sweet dreams wrap my arm around you and hold you until the alarm goes off i wouldn’t mind a face full of hair or my other arm in an awkward postition not sure i would sleep just bask in holding you close […]

she and he

the sweet melancholy grips me i should be used to it’s embrace be able to shake it off ignore the smell of roses the gentle prick of the thorn but it has roots in my every cell tiny tendrils of sorrow it permeates my very breath she her no is it wrong to assign a […]

one instance of perfection

my favorite color is candlelight reflected in your eyes playing across your retina my favorite scent is you after a long day and coming in to your embrace my favorite sound is your heartbeat racing as we lay together my favorite taste is the salt on the side of your neck as i pull your […]

lovely day for a funeral

she pulled up in a hearse the windows tinted nearly opaque and as she climbed out, her legs in torn stockings and scuffed black heels on her feet, a veil covering her face to hide the running mascara with only her quivering lips exposed the black dress tight and showing off her body and not […]

vindr dreams

the wind rattles the glass of the window and i find it kind of funny see a window means wind eye in old norse vindr is wind and auga is eye vindauga and the wind is rattling the fuck outta the eye and i lay here tired enough to pass out yet just awake enough […]

pain in the shadow of salvation

blades of sound slice through his heaving chest, an echo of the poetry that flays and filets, consternation and chills running down his spine, across his face, raw emotion and buried truth her words filled his mind lit a fire inside of him and as he lay on the cusp of giving up her words […]

my bonnie

i would pick you up and we could just hit the highway, spin a pencil and go where it points, leave the cares of out former lives behind stop at a sporting good store and shoplift some ski masks go on a spree rob a jeweltry store to get matching rings, like mickey and mallory […]

you and you and me and her

it was a dream i was there and you were there and you were there and she was there and you can fill in the who and what’s as we go i was a spoiler god but not capital g god but a god god and she was always off screen but i was searching […]

pebble

after a brief reinternment due to pushing too far too fast chapter title in my life story a quick iv bag and fresh script of pain alleviators angry stares and disbelief nurses and doctors and a general sense of disapproval basically dropped off the kids and went straight to the hospital so when they say […]

love letter

you see a tripwire, i see a means to an end. it feels as if society is a dogearred copy of salinger from flipping its collective shit. all the while i cut myself not to make the pain real but to make sure i am still capable of bleeding. that they did not swoop in […]

955

the words these goddamned odes to the only lady that sees me for me the grand dame depression every morning my eyes open and she whispers hello and holds me close and i hate her so much but she’s all i have the world is so empty and every time i see a light it […]

one way retreats

is it disillusion or confusion, how did it come to this, facing hard truths and the lies seem just as bad life is a cancer, we’re all just polyps, lesions, a legion of pus filled protrusions pinching a nerve and the cure is no better than the symptom i said the cure is no better […]

written in blood and tears

i could love you in ways you never dreamt of but we both know it’ll never happen some people just don’t want to be worshipped i guess i’ll be over here loving you from my corner of desolation good night

reverse in suck still lists as poems

20. good bye 19. i hate her with an all encompassing fucking hatred what was i thinking i’m an idiot i love her 18. fuck i miss her 17. everything hurts reminds me of her i can’t get out of bed why would i what’s the fucking point in anything it’s all just a reminder […]

she knows

she is my cleopatra the queen of denial, the lily of my mind’s eye i would erect the pyramids for her to give her shade, reroute the river water for her to bathe break my back to make her dreams come true i think she knows it she is my marie antoinette my luscious croissant […]

hate poems as lists

1 depression is like clinging to nothing 2 falling into the void with willing abandon, swimming in the cold comfort of her vacant 3 her eyes on me from across the room, burning into me, pulling me into her orbit where i am hopeless, only able to gaze in adoration before feeling the flames of […]

scientifically

the light entered my cornea, refracted and hitting my iris like a laser it passed through the vitreous, the gel that maintains the shape and supports my retina there is was changed into an electrical surge and raced down my optic nerve my brain interpreted the signals and an image formed, this all happened in […]

she as a metaphor

it is just another one of those she is a metaphor for love things another contrite deluge of longing in metaphor and is given the form of her who is she she is the shadow of jayne mansfield behind a silk curtain the promise of dangerous curves her voice is sultry crackle of tobacco on […]

blood type

i don’t know my blood type if something happened and i needed that knowledge for a transfusion i would say she is my blood type, she is the fluid flowing through my veins, my vanity, she is my type, she is the current that shifts, as she grows near it rises, races, pumps a million […]

hard to complain

she came into the room wearing nothing but a bloodstained apron and a smile her eyes gleaming with passion i could nothing but stare at her in love and appreciation ready i can only nod not daring to speak to break the moment she smiles sadly a hint of bittersweet to the pure sugar of […]

constriction

her hands, so small and delicate, the immaculately sculpted nails painted a mirror black those hands wrapped around my throat, the nails digging into my flesh, half moons of blood running down my chest she rides me like a bucking bronco, far outlasting the eight seconds, her eyes closed, face upturned to the ceiling small […]

beautiful

beautiful the face looking back blushes laugh lines crinkle as the word takes full effect a shy smile half forms as she looks at me in the mirror apply the mascara, make it dark, make those eyes pop an angel looks back, cocky smirk on her full lips she is perfection like she was sculpted […]

the time i joined a cult again

i was on the couch thinking about a nap when the knocking started at the door i didn’t want to get up but after a few minutes of not going away i did it was her ‘i’m not home‘ i shouted over her fist banging against the wood ‘go away’ i turned to lay back […]

schismatic

it was a triumph of tragedy a new glistening peak in the mountains of suffering that have sprung out of the craggy exposed bits of his spine those shards of calcification and ignoble regret filled with fluid and the cabling necessary to control the puppet bone spurs jutting carving new issues lamenting laminating broken by […]

impossible ossicles

running at full speed in circles getting dizzy from gravitational fluctuations playing havok with my ossicles no sense of direction meandering steady onward though ever forward steadily on to my demise whenever i have a flight coming up i am stricken by the thought this is the time the gremlin on the wing throws a […]

a monet

she’s a monet, le jardin de l’artiste á giverny, hanging in a museum she’s behind glass and protected by a series of lasers, temperature and humidity controlled pristine and perfect i can only admire her from afar i’m chalk art on a sidewalk pastels blotches, blowing in the wind, drawn by clumsy hands and walked […]

high voltage

i’ve got a case of the electro-shock blues zapping my limbic system controlled voltage i don’t want to forget about you just the way it all went south all my thalamuses need a good shaking up flip the switch baby help me forget my hippocampus could use some current the current state not the mental […]

another scar was formed

i was driving home just wiped out done pulled up to home and as i did one of those stupid love songs came on the one you tell yourself to delete but you can’t pull the trigger and with dread the shuffle goes and the first notes hit you like a hammer to the jaw […]

sleepless shanty

heavy eyelids empty words echoing do i sleep or write another pensive ode does it matter in the long run what’s another night of fitful sleep another stop start smattering of words i don’t deserve either but i feel like i need both some days i feel like a pirate displaced from my proper time […]

not the things that mattered

she gave me most of her but she kept the parts that mattered her mouth explored her teeth bit her hands they had their way but when it came to the part i most desired her heart she never gave that away there was not a piece of her i didn’t taste fondle tease into […]

without words

i’ll hate myself later for this wake up in a traffic jam of self denial and despising the reflection staring back with bloodshot vacant scars slivers of mirrors where my eyes vacated the building but that is later for now let me stare at you drink you in like i have the shakes and salt […]

sic luceat lux

and she looks at me and the world stops spinning the rain drops float amorphous droplets shimmering like a thousand stars in the air and all that is real is her gaze and that is real is her light and all that is real is her sic luceat lux pouring from her infusing me every […]

beholden to beauty

i need a new wardrobe the rags of shame and regret are ill fitting mementos of another time dress me in your words kiss my scars drink from my bottomless well of devotion i was such a fool then it wasn’t until you i understood the meaning of the words i take it all back […]

see you in your dreams

can you hear me hello this is me the real me lost in the static of the world no hidden meanings no fanciful imagery just me talking to you you know who you are don’t you i’m not half as clever as either of us would believe i’m yours if you’ll have me scars and […]

are you okay

she stood in front of me holding the smoking pistol i stared into her eyes as crimson blossomed in the front of my shirt she smiled innocently and raised the gun again a feeling of cold swept through my limbs and my body seemed to refuse the panic my brain was sending in waves she […]

a discerning eye for unapplicable appreciation

it was weird to hear my thoughts echoed from another’s perspective it’s strange to think the things i think are thought by others at all depression can be like standing in a wonderful wind tunnel you brace yourself from the onslaught and lean forward a bit the rest of the world is like smoke that […]

debris

it all crashes down the debris of what was life disillusionment stripped of all facades now bare reality is a dream cushioned in sweet lies draped in another’s wishes lacking all resolve spun into false happiness doomed to live another day subtle injustice coated in honey and smiles hidden knives that slash behind ivory veneers […]

unfit to shackle

another passively aggressive message searching for fresh water in the brine another plea for me to cage this piece of me to accommodate her feelings no more i apologize for opening up and that not fitting the mold of me you painstakingly made but this vortex of emotion has consumed me the worms in my […]

down

you’ll never know the esteem i hold you in how badly i want to kiss your sacred heart hold it and feel the gentle glow i’ll eventually bruise it but i swear i will never break it i’m irrevocably broken and that is something i could never do to you your sacred heart il tuo […]

but this life is not for me

my head is spinning schematics dancing follow the ground overengineered german ingenuity all i want to do is listen to the song in my skull race back to my comfortable cave and spin more words into the immensity that is her but instead it amperages capacitance resistance and the main resistance is my mind screaming […]

bastards of fate

music roulette was a harsh mistress this morning in my drive lost out in the darkness came on the sweet hopefulness of it had me happily singing along seeming to sum up my feelings as of late but then chesterfield kings came on and while it is one of the best punk love songs it […]

dusty galleries

i’ve been fortunate to have loved and been loved by true works of art, to have had my portrait hung in their hallowed halls even for just a short time, to be painted in minute detail as a renaissance instance of passion writhing between the canvas, bruises and scars and a devilish smile and eyes […]

explicitly exquisite

she pushed me against the wall i let her she stared daggers directly into the soft gray matter behind my eyes she snarled a lip up put her fingernail against my throat and i felt her draw blood the anger on her face doing things to me i couldn’t put into words do you want […]

do dragons snort

she sat alone on a bench watching the clouds roll by maybe she was looking for an answer possibly a sign i don’t know all i could see was she caught my eye and seemed like perfection an abstract beauty different from the world she occupied a glitch in the system i don’t know we […]

inside my dreams

i dreamt of you again last night when i woke tangled in the sheets and breathless my first instinct was to wake you and whisper it into your ear but that was the dream wasn’t it that you were here this awake life is not for a dreamer like me my sallow skin is see […]

inescapable

blushed into silence from lines that spray like pixie dust upon the screen i don’t believe in god but god believes in me and from this subtle paradoxical meandering we both cease to exist glancing at one another through window panes and the great heavy sigh of acceptance that we are not on speaking terms […]

and it was snowing

i remember the first time i took her out it was a date in all but name in hindsight it was my first date not the first time i went with a group and it was like a date but was really a herd of giggles and my overly loud voice trying to reach her […]

glimmers beneath

she stood in front of me fully nude my eyes feasted upon her every inch on her skin was written her sensual odes sharp words cut into supple flesh by knife by pen by fingernail etched as if sculpted by the hands of god herself she did not offer herself to me for one cannot […]

all my tomorrows

she said we need to slow down we don’t want to wake up in the morning with regrets i just arched an eyebrow baby, we’ll still be up when the sun rises if we continue what we’re doing now she looked shocked for a second and then we proceeded to not see the sun rise […]

untitled rambling, #827

she lays on the bed in one of my shirts it is long and big on her but she looks gorgeous and as her finger runs through the hair on my chest and her eyes lose focus i know something is coming her finger pauses and i tense up she feels it and snaps out […]

she moves

with the sinuous grace of bacon frying erratic and seeming to shrink as the music sizzles a back drop like a panther on a tree limb subtle and sleek and looking like nature’s perfection with the over exaggerated style of a drunken monk seemingly stumbling but every shift in weight is calculated back and forth […]

for she is death, my love

she comes pale as the frost so light on her feet she dances rather than walks across the darkness one with the shadows a shimmering monster of ethereal grace she comes to me as sleep encroaches, to open a vein and feed upon my dwindling strength, she is the night, pleasure and pain with long […]

denying definition

she is the sound of dishes breaking branches against a window in the dead of the night a sensation of speeding downhill with no brakes as the railroad crossing arms begin to lower and the whistle blares when the knife cuts in but is so sharp you only feel pressure for the first few seconds […]

synaptical reverence

she is beautiful he had never seen her face in person, stared longingly into her eyes as the sun sets and the sky is a watercolor testament to heliotropic pinks and purples as the diamond bespectacled black runs roughshod over the eastern sky she sent him an mri of her mind though a static burst […]

she sits, she thinks, she wonders

laying in a pile of pine needles, more a bed of nails, like a thousand wriggling cockroach legs against an uneager spine, working through fibers and finding pale flesh pockmarked by old love and sickness the ground is damp from fallen rains and cold with the promise of winter, all deciduous nudity and frank truth […]

i wanna make you a mixtape

i wanna make you a mixtape old school love letters on a cheap boom box i wanna stay up with a blank tape in the deck and the stereo playing until that song comes on a hush falls over the room as the record button is pressed i wanna put all the songs that sum […]

serenaded by the damned

she said my mind was always running from reality my heart was in the right place but my head wasn’t she was probably right didn’t stop me from writing her off as dead though of course she actually died so i didn’t do anything really except probably drive her to the door my heart wasn’t […]

wildflowers

it always comes back to the woman with hair that smells of wildflowers the nymph the siren the enchantress the devil in stockings with that round ass and her nose always in the air some nights i spend cursing the world for daring give birth to the foul demoness all the scary tales whispered around […]

and she deserves better

she would come in from a long shift at the warehouse where she spent all shift telling everyone how rotten i am and how when she gets enough money she’s leaving and i can rot in hell then she walks in and i have dinner ready and she takes off her shoes and the entire […]

will over want

she stood up and stared at me i just watched unsure of where she was going with this she kept her eyes locked on mine as she slowly undid the buttons of her shirt this was not what i expected but the animalistic part of my brain howled for me i tried to not let […]

never quite happy with rhyming, an ode to you

would you dine upon my flesh quench your thirst with my tears could you let these words hold you lull you until slumber draws near feel the callouses as they drift all about your lovely skin tempt the beast just underneath with your promised glimpses of heaven could you let it all go fall deeply […]

anything

this is her world i’m merely a figment in it a fantastic phantasm another poltergeist to rattle the silverware the splinter in her mind’s eye incorporeal make me a real boy and we can go down by the creek and scare the fish away give me limbs with which to caress you lips to whisper […]

dreadful wishes

racing down the knife edge leaving a copper scented trail down the blade as i rabbit into the flask you bought me to celebrate sobreity the thirteenth step of relapse you taste like whiskey all the sensual notes of your musk you’re the venom in the kiss the junk in my veins that first thought […]

the thin line between could have and can’t

i love you probably always will but in a world of infinite possibilities all the myriads of choices if i had to choose between loving you and contentedly living alone i choose alone you are my definition of perfection made all the more poignant by your supple flaws and every cell of my being longs […]

empty words for my worthless soul

what is any of it worth empty words and a worthless soul she stands in the doorway, tears welling in her eyes, what color are they, what does it say about me that i can’t recall, how many times have i stared into them, plumbed their depths looking for absolution, fallen into them as she […]

footnotes

ever feel like seth, cain and abel’s brother, lost in the annals of history because you weren’t a murderer or a victim, just a poor soul cast from eden because of your parents and their inability to follow the one simple rule or like the one conscientious objector that was ostracized for thinking maybe stealing […]

more

she makes me want to slice her open and taste her from the inside, to run my tongue and teeth across heart and lungs i know how that sounds i just don’t care she fills me with a ravenous need for more and more than she could possibly give but i will take whatever she […]

the dragon and the fool

she was never the one to intiate contact normally she stayed in her armored cocoon even though her beautiful wings were fully formed not to say she was ever a caterpillar become butterfly she was a gem encrusted dragon emblazoned with the scars of life and i was never a dragon slayer nor tamer nor […]

talk a big game

i talk a big game use big words and metaphorical warfare to cover deficiencies when all i want is a her to call my lady and cuddle when the world is too much one that can pound some sense into my throbbing skull push me to be better force me to continue on when all […]

in pieces by design

her name was inked upon his tongue, but he was forbidden from speaking it aloud, a fine silver spike keeping it firmly held to the roof of his mouth, his lips sewn shut by her silken words and promises of better tomorrows, tied with a gordian knot of desire his mind painted with her murmured […]

typically cyclical series of ever escalating blues

she called me again today i watched her name on my phone and resisted the urge to hit answer it seemed to ring longer than normal before going to voicemail as if the phone itself was as desperate as me to hear her voice again but neither of us got what we didn’t really want […]

in five years

she asked where i saw myself in the next five years i didn’t answer just stared at the fish in the aquarium she repeated her question i turned to her and asked why a supposedly fancy establishment like this would have such cheap fish in the tank, don’t you think they would have sprung for […]

too much too quickly too little too late

she glared angrily but i wasn’t able to see the intended victim of her evil gaze chances are it was aimed at me it always seemed either aimed at me, eventually guided towards me, or i was just the unintended victim of her need to make someone the scapegoat I ran through the list of […]

at the edge of the end of the world

got gasoline and a book of matches you bring the marshmallows and some sticks we’ll toast them at the edge of the end of the world i love the way the burning buildings reflect in your eyes holding hands as the screams of the dying serenade us no regrets my love i’ve got some graham […]

waiting for her call

it was the scent of freshly fallen rain on a field of tulips she danced among the open blooms with no sense of time or place lost in the heady clouds of pollen weighed down by moisture sending swirls of the yellow dust into the sodden air with every intricate movement somehow avoiding the flowers […]

my merriam webster

as far as i was concerned her name was oxygen because i couldn’t figure out how to live without her but like jurrasic park life finds a way she was my mallory and i most certainly thought i was her mickey our crazy just resonated together in a harmony that made silly things like laws […]

egyptian cotton

she was covered in freckles i used to love to play connect the dots with my tongue some of the places i performed gymnastics with my tongue were freckle free but i didn’t mind pretending and she loved to play as well writhing on the egyptian cotton she would casually walk into the room and […]

not strong enough to ignore it’s call

this incessant throbbing antibiotics and witchcraft coursing through my cheeks i curse the pollen a pox upon nature herself these microscopic indulgences that feast on torment rendering innocence into half formed photographs of insolent rage i begged for sleep and the inner cacophony chose to warble dulcet tones of stabbing across my prone form this […]

the ground had other ideas

to the new guy with my old flame that person that fell into an orbit i never wanted to be jettisoned from launched into space with a half empty oxygen tank and shattered self esteem tell her she’s beautiful as often as you can if you don’t think it everytime you see her that’s on […]

i hunger, umami

she was perfection in my palate of emotional taste she was sweet when she looked at me with those big eyes sour when she first woke up or when things didn’t exactly go as planned bitter when her eyes reflected on the past salty whenever another glanced my way but it was her umami that […]

a treatise in beauty, not a list

object a) she walks into a room like a woman in a rock and roll video the noises go quiet from somewhere a wind gusts blowing her hair in a storm of sulty dead proteins a guitar howls with her every step she is a goddess sex given shape lust incarnate object b) his heart […]

who can say

my love for you is the epitome of simpler times I love you like saturday morning with a bowl of cereal and cartoons like the rooster crows and the farm comes to life i love you like turning sixteen and driving down country roads with the music too loud free at last i love you […]

winds of time

if i had telekinesis i would bring you close to me your every whim would float to your waiting hand i would move mountains to make your view of the ocean clear if i had pyrokinesis i would burn down the obstacles between us your fears would be burnt away before your pretty eyes i […]

this cold war we fight

she sees me from across the room not a flicker on her face of recognition as if i’m a stranger not the man that held her as she slept for five years of fitfull dreams any hope in my heart died at that moment not that there was much we had been in this cold […]

that’s enough for me

there has to be more to life than this she said to me leaning on an elbow as i tried to go to sleep don’t you think there has to be more than this i knew she wouldn’t stop until i answered probably i muttered i want more and if you don’t i don’t see […]

somethings just aren’t meant to last

your love is like spring you sweep in and the earth comes to life at your every glance your gentle touch i thrived under your rains your love for me is the promise of better days to come and shedding layers of clothes as the winds turn warm sprouted from my hidden lair under the […]

lonesome poet blues

i’d cross this entire country get my passport stamped around the globe wear holes in my trusty vans just to catch a glimpse of your lovely smile i’d write a thousand poems ink them in my own blood on billboards down the winding highways graffiti the mona lisa with your name just to let you […]

i could be a matisse

she’s a writer not like i’m a writer she chips away at the marble and you can tell there is a deft hand at work maybe just a little untrained maybe a little rough around the edges but the basics are there one day she will write a masterpiece me though well not me i […]

fregoli delusion

i see her in everyone her eyes her smile strangers in a crowd they make eye contact and smile her smile a smile that was made just for me or at least i thought it was but i saw her sitting with him a him that wasn’t me or was it am i the me […]

opening one cage while cementing another

she looked at me for a long moment, weighing the words before asking do you still hate me i don’t know what i expected her to say but it wasn’t that a swarm of knives flew around my mind unbidden, so many hurts and wounds and scars still forming no, not any more and never […]

if you squint

she looked at me and laughed as i sat on the couch in my boxers you’re not bad looking from across the room, if i take my glasses off, she said between giggles i’m an adonis if you squint, i replied as i sucked in my gut and tried to affect a look of disinterest […]

to be the rock battered by the waves

she looked at me with tears running down her beautiful face she shook like a leaf in a hurricane as the agony poured from her torrential and seemingly endless i sat with my arm around her shoulders powerless in the face of this storm she had not spoken a word since i arrived after receiving […]