drag my body to the river let it float out towards the sea drag my body to the river don’t shed a tear for me wrap my heart with barbed wire, broken fingers from too many fights, chewed glass every morning, drank gasoline on sleepless nights i didn’t go looking for trouble, but it followed […]
i was born on all saint’s day, but was supposed to have been here to celebrate a fool getting lost, guess this fool got lost as well and this may have set his course for a life of misread maps and faulty compass distinction born to be a fighter, spent the first ten years learning […]
the cold light of morning tends to shine upon you things we don’t want to see the loss of the day before the wreckage we stumble away from seems so much worse as the muscle ache sets in and the adrenaline wears off the snapshots in our mind, a jumble of blurring colors, all seems […]
irradiated in the solar rays isotopical failure half life full life no life left mutated designated reinstated ridicule falling farther from the light of day ensconced in shadow left with waxy feathers and an expired lottery ticket roaming the world alone a modern day daedelus craftsman destined to watch the ones he loves scorched and […]
just another social anxiety flare up one of those public autopsies encouraging hashtags and in depth analysis no one cares what i think so when the inevitable breakdown occurs audacious ineffectualness a murder of crows settles silently on the fence a conspiracy of ravens on the church steeple universally inept coroners conduct a social autopsy […]
i know i’m a human the question i’m feeling this one has me reeling am i a human being being anything, just a walking corpse, just a stain, a pain, another moron penning sad refrains am i here can you hear am i a human being being anything but a carbon dioxide dispenser, a tear […]
my life has become an abandoned camp ground, when i explore it seems i’m always traveling past tents, in the past tense, by fires that raged but left blackened circles of stone and half whittled confessions if you close your eyes you can hear camp songs echo over the trees, which is funny because i’ve […]
dear five year old me i know it hurts, shhh, it’s okay to cry, let it out, trust me i’m you no the other kids don’t wear long sleeves to cover up the bruises they don’t grimace when they sit back against the hard wooden chairs or feel the wetness on their back from a […]
am a light bulb swinging in a dark basement, the filament is tenuous and the next flip of the switch, surge of voltage could be the last, glowing a burnt sienna when once it was white hot illumination a festering wound filled with maggots that no matter how ravenous can not eat the spoil away […]
there is an old chinese proverb a man dreams of a butterfly when he wakes he wonders if he is really a man or a butterfly dreaming he is a man last night i dreamt i was a dolphin now i don’t know if i am a man or a dolphin dreaming he is a […]
he has a heart like a hand grenade beware when he pops the pin his eyes are alive with radiation his gaze known to kill tongue like a rapier swift strikes deftly carving the air around him but it his heart you have to be wary of a perpetual dome of alienation surrounds him he […]
uncertainty is the spice of strife study my shortcomings in hopes of long term solutions for finding a way to sink my own battleship as victory is right in reach tyrannosaurus arms and weak wrists prevent a healthy dismount from the uneven bars that regulate my life i’m not a smart man not by any […]
there are three phases to me, like i am a power conduit slapping in a mud puddle, angrily lashing out invisibly to a world that forgot i was here the first phase the best phase is beauty in everything, a sublime feeling of synchronicity, all has a purpose and falls into place the second phase […]
we need to silence the poet end the inane drinking of his words slay the fool before he speaks again cut him down where he lies we need to silence the liar the con man spinning yarns the contemptuous snake oil salesman end his misery i’m tired of hearing him whine his voice grates on […]
she said loving me was like being caught in a tornado, struggling to find the calm in the center but also like being flayed by a thousand knives the image caught me and i recognized the truth in her words, the solemn beauty of truth spoken like a razor blade against the wrist, knowing to […]
transcendental meditation, slipping through the veil, floating through the commonality of luscious acruements and sadistic sacraments, the void and time lines of dimensional abnormalities one step out of phase, congruent inconsistencies sticky and sated, plated on copper with silver piping, tasting of blood and dreaming of supple lips, the fragrance of sweaty ultimatums, chores to […]
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 […]
the poet illiterate is in a weird place his words keep singing but his feet don’t feel like dancing to the guilty rhythm the bare nerve endings and the onslaught of salty mist is unbearable he needs more and not more of the nothing he has grown accustomed too he tires of the same unfulfilled […]
as my eyes opened this morning, the chill of an empty room compounded by the fan blowing ever steadily onto my freshly shaven head, the effects of the pills that stop my ceiling staring antics still fuzzy around the edges, focusing on focusing my pupils, ever the indignant students lately, i felt as if today […]
jagged broken teeth glass covers everything like glitter after a stripper shakes her head over your lap save the mosquitos, nuke the whales, there is a feral cat epidemic like an anti bubonic plague you are my albatross, my sign of land, my lonely flying friend flotsam and jetsam and ambergris, floating whale vomit that […]
i try and make love to words because of all the lovers i have ever had the words were always the best and no matter how they cut they never actually tried to kill me i worry one day that they will leave me as well, like every other lover who has seen the real […]
can’t shake it all the time herded to the inevitable cliff through complex machinations destined to plummet endlessly metaphorically metaphysically metabolically a hyper state of metastasis methodically driven down the branching paths crooked streams subtle innuendo miniturized and magnified an extended departure to mythocracy mantled, manhandled, management, manic, maniac, mana misdiagnosed malignancy emancipate emissaries effegies […]
who am i i don’t know any more me i know the mess stress distress the urge to regress repress digress deflect the question to the uncaring void of forever the only mark a person existed is a couple pairs of scuffed up vans a vaguely human char shape on the couch spontaneously combust all […]
i asked her to put me a pedestal not a place of honor just a place far enough away that the cracks wouldn’t show with too much scrutiny a poorly lit corner at a safe distance don’t pick me up i fear the sharp edge could cut your gorgeous hands don’t hold me too tightly […]
these calloused fingers and scarred knuckles have seen some miles not content to settle in one place a wanderlust of incremental repairs that stretch the states of illinois, texas and plausibility used to steady movements mastered over time soldering components onto green wafer boards transistors, diodes, capacitors and all forms of resistance forming the pathway […]
1) i realized i am probably afraid of emotional attachment see every woman i’ve ever loved tossed me away except for one but she did everything but toss me away and then screamed when the lack of anything became too much of something and i left 2) don’t much care for heights anymore not that […]
i only eat monsanto, smoke eight packs a day, speed through school zones drunk, and am a master of barely restrained circle pit line dancing heel to your throat, do-si-do this mother fucker, i will allemande left hook you in the kisser i left many a partner swinging from the old cherry tree, spinning from […]
in an effort to be more transparent, i have stripped my skin off bare musculature and suddenly external organs impossible to hide when you leave a trail of blood everywhere you go exposed nerve endings and alabaster skeleton, the ultimate in showing off the real you i have nothing left to hide, in fact i […]
the outspoken and friendly introvert that hates every word fumbling out of his fool mouth seeking to make love but knowing the process is flawed by his inaccurate touch scared of the love he so desperately seeks wanting a cure all for what ails him but unable to swallow the pills that get caught on […]
they say when you see 11:11 you are exactly where you are supposed to be it is a sign you are going the right way everyday i catch it at least once and where i am is not where i need to be listen to me, i am not supposed to be here, this is […]
i’m a dissident wearing a khaki green pea coat over my ché graffiti T-shirt with torn jeans and scuffed up combat boots no i’m a real dissident recognizing ché for the animal he was and considering him deserved of an unmarked grave in the mountains he wasn’t the romantic figure he is made out to […]
i need cell service, no bars, stem research on hold, insane in the membrane wall, leaking into the plasma, prism, prismatic, shine my light across the spectrum, ultra violent to infractional read boredom, my kingdom of couch worship and empty nest introspection is this a dream the hallways of my mind seem drafty, dusty, cluttered […]
i still remember the first punk rock album i ever heard i was a metal head, like everyone i knew and i dabbled in hip hop like no one else around me music was then and is now my be all end all but nothing beats discovering it so i was looking through a music […]
i’m the third rail, the voltage that courses through your hand, the static electricity on a cold winter day, the tingle between your ears when troubles coming hello nice to meet you name is mike i’m a scorpio, astrologically, a rabbit, chinese zodiacally, a lion, metaphysically, a lover, tongue gymnastically, a poet, failing miserably, a […]
i’m an artist and my skin is the canvas upon which i perform menial tasks wielding a razor blade like a paint brush broad strokes subtle definition trace the pulse faster and faster swore off selfies already know what the result will be laser trip wires cover the floor spastic pastiche a ballerina with degenerative […]
there is an ever expanding bubble of sorrow in my guts, every second clicks by it grows and consumes me will i ever get back home can i just throw it all away what am i, really just an empty shell of regret plus remorse multiplied by bad decisions and empty gestures, a grand sum […]
woke up into a dream, a seamless transition, running through the park, dark footsteps shadowing my own, heart racing, sat up in bed glad the dream was over, got up to get a glass of water, only my bed was floating over forever clutching my lion blanket, my constant companion since my childhood home burnt […]
there’s a tripwire running from my brain to heart, strung with care down my spinal column and lined with explosives dilligently monitoring for any signs of emotional disruption from daily business all it takes is a flutter do you know how hard it is to operate on yourself to rip yourself open saw through flesh […]
drained and damaged, disemboweled, dismayed and digilently dreading destiny i stood before the gates of hell itself, weeping blood from the empty sockets where eyes once were burning coals in place of lungs, and barbed wire wrapped around my heart, salivating acid and undulating across broken glass i hurt no real words to describe the […]
much to my dismay my eyes opened again this morning it has been weeks of this grainy black and white superlative existence the crackle of film as it rotates through the projector no one here speaks a tongue i can form not that i don’t understand the language per se it is that they speak […]
i wonder if one day i’ll hang up my work boots never to wear them again me and my comfortable vans from then on out or will i be that old angry man barely able to tie my boots or bend over without pain dreaming of retirement that will only come with a box in […]
i only drink salt water the only things i need to replenish are tears and sweat save the desalinated water for those that deserve it only eat food past it’s expiration date no point in fresh i like meal worms nutritional value through the roof i scurry from the light you shine like a cockroach […]
i put myself up for sale on ebay fully functional human replicant some assembly required will to live not included weird motor sensory glitch thinks words sing to him hard factory reboot recommended full system wipe suggested always a surprise when turned on some scarring came that way not self induced *may in fact be […]
woke up with acid in the back of my throat my uvula dancing in the bubbling liquid stress of bad delusions bad mental health bad options spent so many days looking for silver linings i forgot what it means to be me there are none if things are looking up i’m most likely hanging upside […]
ladies and gentlemen thanks for stopping by the manic word depot the poet illterate is taking a much needed vacation he won an all expenses paid one way ticket to rock bottom a much needed relaxing trip in the bubbling pits of doubt and sorrow you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay […]
it’s been said that anger is a gift then that makes me woefully regifted restricted evicted and tossed out alive if patience is a virtue i must be virtuous but virtue is a saving grace saving face facing the consequences of sequential animosity anonymous the faceless face of infinity floating ever closer yet farther away […]
she eyed me from across the room my first assumption was she was looking at someone else why would she look at me i’ve seen me and now that i’ve seen her she must be looking elsewhere i feel like curling up in a ball armadilloing my way through the building nothing to see here […]
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 […]
it started with a broken wine glass snapped at the stem no let me start over it started to end with a broken wine glass snapped at the stem no it was the end of the beginning that started with a broken wine glass snapped at the stem the delicate glass cracked in my calloused […]
mark oliver everett told me i was goddamned right it’s a beautiful day and while i didn’t believe him per say i did sing along to the bootleg album from paris as i showered maybe it would come true if i pretended then the misfits threatened to kill me in the bathroom so it’s pretty […]
i’m my own dopplegänger, an ill fitting, clumsy suit of meat controlled by parasitical aspirations myopic and confused stuttering against the flow of words to define what it means to be drowning in a shallow pool of depression struggling to find the words falling failing flailing hopelessly lost in the surge unable to find the […]
some days are filled with need, others with regret, the peaks and valleys of emotion shift and rage like tectonic adolescence long ago he stopped trying to regulate them, to dam the stream, to damn the chemicals, to wrangle and brand the dissonance now he floats on a paper mache raft through churning rapids and […]
i have a monster under my bed he feeds off my nightmares and fears he’s a good guy has a wife and kids my failures are paying to go through college he knows my every truth my every hidden wish we don’t make eye contact very much i had a monster in the closet but […]
chivalry is not dead though i saw it offering sexual favors in an alley open sores around it’s mouth and looking decidedly sickly as the line between it and misogyny becomes blurry life is not fair it’s like working at a state fair everyone around you is having an absolute blast while you restock the […]
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 […]
never a feeling of hopelessness like when it seems the light must come soon holding on by torn fingernails to cliffs edge while stones and dirt shower down knowing at any moment the levees will burst forth and drown everything in a torrent of uncaring force the last desperate motes of hope like settling dust […]
it doesn’t take much to remind me how shit of a poet i am just another pithy scribbler in a world of pedantic odes i don’t have roses growing from grovelling lines just thorns and patches of bare earth what’s the point when you can read truly beautiful works and instead you shovel salt and […]
light the goddamned house on fire burn the rickety timbers and we’ll dance in the embers as they fill the air like fireflies it doesn’t mean a thing none of it my knee hurts and my head hurts and some mornings i can’t see shit for fifteen minutes tired from traipsing along this overgrown path […]
my eyes have been filled with tears all day on the cusp of crying a total emotional break brewing so long sitting and pretending like feelings were beneath my natural need softer feelings escape my daily struggle as i escape through channeling them into destructive tendencies but some days when i relax or am it […]
happy anniversary to the manic word depot a year ago i climbed from under a mountain of razor blades with an idea to spit into the face of hiding from my illness this sickness i had always tried to deny put behind me the years of beatings and drunken words like knives to forge them, […]
he wasn’t a diamond in the rough he was zirconium in the mud just another piece of colored glass in an avalanche of melted sand not even costume jewelry just the bottom of a bottle that missed the trash can he once aspired to be more but good intentions can’t shift the crystalline structure of […]
when i knew it was over over over not just a bout of unhappiness it wasn’t a roaming eye or someone else it was my friends telling me they remembered me being happy and i looked at them confused i thought i was happy but they saw my smile never reached my eyes i would […]
i know too much about serial killers and electricity read too much dream too much write too much i like meaningless things obscure trivia random thoughts and sitting in the dark staring at nothing hate being alone for extended periods tend to stay alone for extended periods thinking about things odd things sad things how […]
i don’t like to think of it as hiding behind a self made wall i prefer to think of it as curling up in a candy coating of my own device not barracading the walls to keep others out but adding a perimeter to keep my thoughts in see i opened myself to another once […]
you have to deal with your demons one day i make deals with mine everyday stand in clouds of sulfur and divvy up pieces of my soul in exchange for moments of blessed peace they seek to read me but i’m no children’s book with big letters and colorful illustrations i’m more like poe on […]
he feels like he just went ten rounds with a gorilla on meth beaten black and blue on every inch of his body lacerated and pummeled by the winds of fate and that foolhardy bastard destiny so he lays there trying to compose himself get his bearings which seem to have been flung around the […]
sometimes i feel like people think they get me but they don’t get get me like they believe the sarcasm is true that the self hatred and self indulgence is false my calls for help are cries for attention i like talking to people but i mostly can’t stand people a people person that dislikes […]
everything seems to find a magical way of getting worse but i keep on moving the cement blocks on my feet and chains around my neck all they do is build the muscles famished from oxygen deprivation my neck is like a bull’s in a yoke from tilling the farm my spine replaced with diamond […]
everytime i close my eyes i see the words take shape i’m exhausted but as i lay here contemplating a nap to be somewhat more functional all i can think is write write write and i don’t know why it isn’t like this puts food on the table there’s no measure of satisfaction in a […]
it’s like an onion layers upon layers slowly minaturizing versions of the whole deeper and deeper until you find the core the interconnectedness of the universe and like an onion it makes you cry sometimes as you cut into it the fumes growing stronger the farther you penetrate it releasing acid into the air inflaming […]
i’ve got a gurgling in my guts an ache in my neck jackhammers going off in my skull i’ve got an emptiness in my chest that no amount of drugs can ever fill a hollow place that keeps getting bigger just string up caution tape and hope no one falls in it’s a bottomless pit […]
i’ll never be your dream come true it hurts to say the words to breathe life into them and make my greatest fear an irrationally honest utterance i won’t sweep you off your feet these arms are weak and my back broken from the lashing whip of a thousand broken promises i’m not the knight […]
i’m leaving she said, bright eyes suckered by the greener grass of new sides pulled in by white lies and brighter dyes, the facade of what she hoped would be true i let her go, knowing that once she traipsed barefoot through the fresh manure coating everything she would come running back while what i […]
you don’t have all the time in the world as you grasp it the sands fall between your fingers every second you selfishly try to save is another one lost live in the now not in the then the future arrives as you contemplate it’s miseries, mysteries the past grows farther away even as you […]
there are days i feel less like a person and more like a possession, owned in some way by phantom hands it was unbeknownst to me that i had ever been purchased, there have been occasional rentals, used and using in symbiotic fashion for pleasures or as a stop gap measure to beat the loneliness […]
she listened to me vent on being an unknown nobody who aspired to be more in a world where being seen counted more than being heard, but i don’t like the face i am forced to carry, my words don’t carry enough weight to distract, to detract from awkward smile stuck on with super glue, […]
there isn’t any judgement like old school judgement, the trials and tribulations of gods and man, but this new world has more judgement and less holy myth when i was a kid i would sit on this big rock at five every night, so excited for dad to come home by seven i would be […]
i got home from work and my headached so i turned off all the lights and laid back on my bed, propped up two pillows and decided to read poetry, maybe find inspiration this is something i don’t ever do i’m always shy around poets and reading their works they are brillaint with pen and […]
we live in an era of de-evolution for every great stride forward with technology our dependency upon it grows,without even noticing we are losing basic functions need directions, use your phone, need instructions, internet, feeling sick it’s cancer, it’s always cancer using a map, the dewey decimal system, experiencing life there is an app for […]
potential the sums of so many thoughts of words and whimsy the small cubby in the bed my resting place fan blowing the frigid wind, so much wasted potential, so many fluid forgotten phrases, a life unlived, a song unsung dreaming of another place, where fear and foreboding didn’t win the day, where words spoken, […]
common courtesy, like common sense is not that common any more in this day and age of dying by inches and social media likes, of followers and following but going nowhere instead of trying our best to be better people we try our best at trying to appear our best when that is smoke and […]
my beautiful insanity on pubic display, my heart turned circular from all the time my mind spent in space my misfired synaptical responses from concussions and spinal infractions, the scar where my appendix once lived all marrow and sinew, detached retinas and cavernous sinus cavities in the now vacant skull, finally emptied of the words […]
drunken fingers knock the bottle of wine over onto it’s side a rorschach ink blot in purple on the white linen i refuse to look at it unable to take the disapproving glare of the maternal figure spite and rage written in the brown orbs and inked in reddish violet tones whispered phrases of regret […]
sometimes i write a poem as the words to another tumble onto the screen forgetting the last line as the next dances seductively in the near future so consumed with gestating the next literary orphan and cultivating a promising career of anonymity leaving behind a treasure trove of gold foil wrapped chocolate gone white with […]
dreamt of you again last night woke up sick feeling like i did for weeks on end frantically checking to see if you texted or called or emailed me while my fragile body slept the weakness and necessity pull me from endless stares at a popcorn ceiling with the secrets of the universe and happiness […]
realized the old name didn’t suit the new frame the dystopian adventures in dating long dead and buried settled into a solitary lifestyle just a couple hundred acres of imaginary flatland and free range philosophy none of that preconceived nonsense they sell in the stores a land of perpetual dusk just the hint of the […]
my friend called it isn’t often that happens so i actually answer he is lost needs to figure out which path in life to take the safe and simple two and a half white picket fence or take a little chance get himself a mcmansion and a trophy wife in yoga pants on one hand […]
had a breakthrough i don’t know how to handle when things are over i’m incapable in the middle of twelve books but unable to finish one of them just start another binge watch something until the final couple and let it linger but it is a state of flux i’ll snap to a new mind […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 