i don’t know what i expected maybe being home would relinquish the darkness of a week spent in a foreign place the sorrow would lessen and the tension itself would melt away instead i lay in my own bed staring at that familiar ceiling thinking the same things catching cat naps and whispering soft serenades […]

last morning a couple short naps to get me through as i gather my things triple checking my double check before loading up a run to mexia cross country up to little hillsboro then back home waiting for breakfast to be prepared sitting in this cell listening to traffic so many miles driven for little […]

it is impossible to tell when some of these little towns simply dried up there are people in dilapidated homes the central color is something between a piss stain and rust boarded up windows broken down cars the once scenic views turned little more than hokey nostalgia replaced with ghost towns i can tell that […]

there is nothing for miles latched a mental tether to the black car in front of me as i stare out at cows and goats and the occasional patch of scrubs i can tell by the shape of the pinions from a mile away if it is a crow or a hawk circling but i […]

planning out a circuitous route to travel today four towns spread throughout this bland corridor of central texas one last night spent haunting this hotel room then a slow drive back to a more familiar silence in a more intimate form of seclusion a phantasm seeking his own sepulchre where the sadness in nonexistence doesn’t […]

the crow fought for every inch laboring low to the ground as the wind a blast furnace swirling around the overpass pummelled the poor beleaguered inky feathered splotch time slowed as i never so fully understood another creature so clearly near as i can tell this place is just one giant truck stop i have […]

a rundown carnival three rusted rides and a few formerly brightly colored tents sits forlorn and dark in the parking lot of the tractor supply store on 36 as you enter sleepy little gatesville a museum dedicated to one man’s obsession with spurs sits across from a derelict brick building covered in posters that proclaim […]

somewhere between pacing and sitting staring at the blue accent wall of this mediocre hotel it began to rain a turgid drizzle the type i suspect falls on lonely travelers headed to a funeral powdered eggs sit by a vat of sausages a beggar’s banquet with a small machine that makes waffles in the shape […]

i have been stuck in an amniotic daydream seeing only shadows in this one size too small slice of texas the indistinguishable barrage of fast food signs cartoon beavers begging for commerce waco and temple feel like horseflies fucking on the decaying umbilical connecting dallas to austin it’s easy to maintain this funk when everything […]

driving in circles the one ways of waco will drive you insane going three blocks out of the way only to find the address i was given was wrong this mismanaged ordeal would have me tearing chunks of hair out if i hadn’t just shaved last night before bed which was a nonsensical gesture at […]

the theme for the next story is isolation usually i tend to research extensively spend a few days combing the web for the kernal the tale is built upon but i know isolation so i guess this one will be more autobiographical in its nature i will spruce it up never let anyone see how […]

i just can’t there should be more some definitive end but i just can’t i would go to bed but the way that my heart is hammering i know i won’t sleep there is a fragility the kids are gone i feel broken at the verge of tears i just can’t if i let myself […]

for all of their bluster neither those on the left or the right wish to upset the status quo they will scream and point fingers angrily but if you pay attention they do nothing else draped in red and blue yet only beholden to the almighty green dollar parroting talking points to maintain the illusion […]

i subsist on coffee and sorrow and this morning even my coffee maker gave up on me leaving nothing but anxiety to fill the tired places where all i have is silent reverie dismantling my tender into a caricature of my own bitter failings planning another excursion for work a traveling sideshow of bleak americana […]

i spend my nights picking apart the patterns unveiling the truth hidden in a miasma of lies seeing through plausible excuses as they build up into a canvas of hidden agendas pattern recognition as a survival mechanism does as much damage to my brittle sense of self degradation as admitting it is all so much […]

this apathetic lethargy hollowness pulsates inside of me and i get scared when the nothing is all i truly feel threading the needle trying not to have a complete and utter breakdown i am held together with strips of scotch tape and best fucking intentions vibrating filled with angry hornets that cannot tell friend from […]

the targeted adskeep trying to sellme a rope as a beltif they reallyknew me at allthey would market itas a neck tieand accept the easy sale wavering betweenacceptance of futilityand the homespunanxiety born oftrying too hardboth lead to the samesleepless nightswondering why i amnever quite enoughand knowing i wasnever even close the ceiling sagsbeneath the […]

my body aches one big bruise a goldbergian array of overly complex failings slowly toppling from within a sac of nigh translucent pink brief flashes of dying dreams a million stars winking out leaving huge swathes of swirling darkness in this semimobile eddifice to emotional erasure treading across these eggshells careful not to disturb the […]

the leaves rustle leaving a haze of indistinct duplicity the way shadows flicker and change in an eclipse no matter how hard i strain to see them they are intangible in their duality existing somewhere between two broken planes the more i stare the less sure of my place in the universe a casual observer […]

i can feel my malformed soul jerking in irritation inside my flesh coffin restrained by the limitations of meat and bone incapable of escape refusing to accept the chemicals are the only real part of this marionette no blue faeries or wishing upon space trash caught mid-immolation can cease the horror of existing only to […]

i slept falling into the depths of my own dingy darkness a free diver lungs shrunk to the size of quarters as i was forced to plumb the schismatic ruptures within my own subnautical subconscious waking every two hours gasping for sweet oxygen fresh bruising all along my tender failings hot briny tears obscuring the […]

i long to press you against the wall while tongue tastes the blood from your lower lip where ny teeth in a fury of unbridled need bit to fulfill this desperation for any part of you intermingling with me we can learn to breathe through each other in a franticness lost in a tempest of […]

a sickly green tinged absinthe abyss pulsating morbidly around the gleaming ruins of crumbling dreamspires jutting from the shattered roadways of this calamity of beauty a fungal jungle of creeping tendrils suffocating the light from this hopeless blight of shimmering chasms in clotted wonder blanketed in silence wrapped tightly in spidersilk to dull the softly […]

i hate these long stretches where the words are all barbed my inclination is to let my fingers trail in the water then look dismayed when i draw back bloody stumps nothing to say sitting silently listening to my guts gurgle an acidic roiling i can’t be bothered to do anything about anxious and distraught […]

i was standing in a ring of reds and purples cast through the stained glass windows of the baptist church large round circles depicting various iconography that while appalling to my own devout derision was appealing to my sense of color i had spent a strong five minutes basking in the beautiful windows and admiring […]

a blizzard of pollenfloating tufts ofdander driftinga veritable whiteoutin sinal dissidenceexplaining the clusterand pressure mountingjust beneath my tired eyesi weave through thissymphony of soft silencesleepwalking my wayfrom call to callcovered in pollen andlonging for home

the words have felt too real lately their bittersweet ecstasy of agonies a little too filled with a poignancy bordering on repugnancy trying to lose myself in other authors and the subtle mastery they effortlessly exude but then i realize i know how they make the dough i forget sometimes because the bulk of my […]

watching the world die in real time is an anxiety inducing semi plausible suicidal situation yet i cannot make myself look away long eschewing any signs of salvation in the unflinching images of death and destruction numbed to the violence mimicking earnest reactions while feeling nothing at all self preservation as an act of intoxication […]

the president the governor teary eyed for the cameras wonder why oh why was there another school shooting unable to grasp this tragedy while millions clutch tightly to their crucifixes a big gulp sitting on the floor next to where their foot once was a gun on the table next to an unopened bible begging […]

i got turned around in this industrial park the sky and city both smothered in gray dodging potholes nearly large enough to swallow me whole surrounded by these cold war era east german style nondescript soot stained yellow brick buildings with angled fences dripping shiny razor wire fleets of trucks rumbling slowly as their loads […]

i spent a good chunk of my life young and stupid but after many years of effort i am older now the youth molted until only the stupidity remains still doggedly chasing after the dreams of a much younger man lined with scars where my heart was torn free of my tattered sleeve facing the […]

i travel seeing the world through videos reading books and daydreaming circumnavigating my way around the globe while staying safely hidden within my tiny slice of impoverished hellchasms trapped inside this bubble unable to actually interact a ghost surfing the internet my corporeal form dying slowly as my mind races everywhere loving and living in […]

he sits seething reading along as someone else gets praised i ignore him i always ignore him any second now i can feel it he will try and spin the entirety of the conversation back to himself he always does unaware when he does the talking stops he blathers on about himself and everyone else […]

when the pointlessness sits on my chest an angry polar bear clawing red rivulets to expose dessicated organs in the midst of full on failure i busy myself with bleach and red hands scouring every crevice until it all gleams with a cleanliness fit for a failing meatbag sloughing flakes of dried skin over the […]

lost in the wistful crespusculance of lucent persiflage dreamscatter puffs of angular nuances a nuisance an angry cyst a weeping wound of insular distrust as the idiots gather to rattle the bars of the poetic monkey flinging shit in the silent adulation an abscess of absense gray as the skies gray as the tears monochromatic […]

the sky turned the shade of melted rainbow sherbert an orangish purple with streaks of raspberry swirls a dense color saturating the air settling over the parking lot like a deep bruise as the cold front slides in shifting the temperature down twenty five degrees the wind chimes having hung listless in the brutal heat […]

the first chords of thunder sounds the leaves of the trees vibrate indistinctly as the branches curl the wind builds into a crescendo of the wailing damned screeching madness under murky gray the room is filled with the dishwasher churning rhythmically a metronome calling the unfolding tempest and my heartbeat taps in echolocation to bring […]

evening pours itself to extinguish the candles leaving just an electric purple from the light pollution and the perpetual clouds my head is filled with drunk angry bukowski feeling ugly as sin pissed off with discordant noise hissing in my ears the goddamn night stuffed charcoal cotton muting an already eerily silent night in hell […]

i become an amateur mathematician adding up the things gleamed from reading between the lines double checking actions against the meanings in a series of justifications until it becomes impossible to ignore the empirical data making intuitive leaps of faithlessness to come up with complex formulas to disprove simple truths rationalizing irrationalities showing my work […]

it took mea few minutesto figure outwhere i waswhen my eyes openedand the roomslowly swaminto focusi had fallen asleepon the coucha sentence lefthalf writtena cup of coffeegone cold withan oil slickcatching thefaery lightsand a dull achewhere someone hadpounded a spikethrough my templesmy neck screamedfrom the odd angleit had beensubjected tothe last two hours i drank […]

time to kill before the next call so i went to the park to stew with my own insidious turmoils nothing to say no one who will listen to me anyway just a hundred thousand shimmering leaves and the fattened ducks expecting snacks the sparrows found me watching among the trees heads cocked in confusion […]

missed turns wrong exits driving lost in a city of confusing junctions one way disillusions spinning on a roundabout falling farther from the lines on the digital display signalling nothing but red lines as the seconds turn to hours in a scintillating display of flashing lights orange barrels and closures as the traffic piles upon […]

i didn’t turn onany music this morninglet the solemn silenceof the highway leechthe poisons from mysickly soul to streamalong the embankmentsof crumbling concreteguiding my chariotswept away with the otherblank faces seekingsolace in the congestedhighways leading fartherfrom comfortable bedsto joy crushing cubiclesin shades of beige dismayworking my way throughthe stories lodged inthe back of my mindtrying […]

all out of second chances broken dreams and a book of matches watching as the flames consume the room a long night of hushed aches sleeplessly riding the waves shuddering quakes falling apart in lonesome apathy a breadcrumb trail of crystal tears amid the briars as the birdsong drowns out the plaintive whispers of love […]

when i worked on pool tables and pinball machines juke boxes and illegal gambling a few bars were open for the third shift crowd having a couple before bed at 8am and the other day drinkers were just beginning their shifts on duct tape covered wobbly barstools where they would sit until they either ran […]

sifting through tipped over bottles of wine needing one good swig to wash the acrid taste of half chewed pills lodged in between the empty sockets where wisdom forced its way up through bleeding gums one mouthful to swish around just enough to numb my tongue so i can get back to being fucking miserable […]

i kneel in supplication as the flames of self immolation reduce this shell to greasy smoke ash blowing in the hot texas wind just another flash of stinging grit in the unblinking gaze of forevers a roadmap of broken promises and faulty math from years spent seeking answers to questions only fools would ask as […]

when did this labyrinth of glass and steel go from being the concrete jungle to a cookie cutter slaughterhouse we have drained the last shreds of individuality from the corpse of the american dream leaving a homogenized slurry of bland gray gruel to be lapped up by greedy tongues needing the satisfaction of instant gratification […]

there is aplastic bagheld captiveby the breezeon my patioas i stareout into thebright worldit dancesclumsily againstthe blue coolerscrambling backout of viewbefore dashingitself once againinto the offensivecooler blockingits escape route it moves withthe same pliabilityof an octopusboneless exceptfor the hidden beaktrying to finda darting fishamong the aridbleached texas coral i am a plastic flamingodriven into thecracked […]

i am obsessed with the chalkdust moon watching me from cerulean skies my eyes drawn to the melancholy satellite drifting trapped in the inescapable pull of the wobbly blue marble so far below maybe something in the vacancy of life a dusty rock circling romanticized yet ultimately barren pockmarked from all the impacts of errant […]

when the angry over aggreasive white sports car began undulating from lane to lane cutting off the other drivers yet finding himself falling farther and farther behind the rest of the cars adopted a migratory bird type of hive mind moving in one cohesive unity to prevent his idiocy from infecting the rest of the […]

i left partof myself inthe broken dreamsfeeling lesssubstantialbetween thosefleeting napsa storm of petalsfloating somewherein half slumbernow i am hollowsleepwalkingthrough the dayknowing somethinghas vanishedunsure of whatbut feelinga vacancy flutterin this prisonof yellowed ivoryif you cup yourhand to your earyou can hearmy desperate declarationsto loving heras the milesare swallowed upbeneath soft feathersin a storm ofpastel pink petals

a blockage in my mesolimbic pathway keeping me unable to receive pleasure from any praise another blockage in my mesocortical pathway leaving me unable to make any decisions to get myself started low dopamine transport keeps me trapped in this loop of deficiencies in anxietial abundancy an enforced structure of necessity pushing me into last […]

looking about at the half formed clay of shambling lives realizing god must have grown bored somewhere around the third day the light was good separating the waters above and below was pretty alright then the minutiae of life itself grew to be more than the divine plan called for so with filthy hands and […]

the silence fills in each minute crack as dilation swept throughout my chest rejoined by the stuttered echo of my pulse throbbing in heavy gasps as every vein constricts an unction of shivering darkness swallowing the edges of my bleary sight a desperation for oxygenated necessity while fevered flesh convulses in time with the burning […]

i read there would be a full lunar eclipse happening this evening the sun sets at nine insomnia kicks in somewhere around ten so perhaps at the witching hour i can stumble outside to see the jealous moonbeams vanish the same way any chance of dreaming slips in grains of sand into the corners of […]

i feel an elliptical wobbling starting in my chest radiating in waves of discombobulation a nauseated shimmer of oil across the surface of my mud puddle mind refracting the light of a thousand daggers stabbing the frontal lobe as a lone crow caws an echoing requiem for sleepless dreamers in convulsive dismay snatching at the […]

how long have i sat here as the sun baked through the tinted windows of the car watching the squirrels frolic and frolic they did in the tall grass waving at me calmly? my urban camouflage has been perfected as i blend in with the nondescript buildings lining whichever industrial park with a tamed view […]

i know these roads as intimately as i once knew the arch of her spine yet i don’t pay nearly as much attention to hugging these curves aimlessly driving from same place to same place a repetition of cyclical disasterpiece theatres living the same infernal longing in a corkscrew pattern ever inwardly because the words […]

the birds gather singing uproariously about sunrise after having missed me on my wayward travel perhaps they sing because in the night i cast aside my armor of flesh and bone to wriggle out a bundle of nerves thin filaments of fluctuating voltage a writhing mass of worms connected to a chemical dump in gelatin […]

there are benefits to being an old ugly nobody my phone is nearly always silent no one expects much because they see the burden of this abhorrent existence written on my despicable face today is an ugly day one where i grasp in futility for some semblance of beauty with gnarled hands knowing it shies […]

the coffee isn’t working as i stumble around the hotel room trying to be sure everything is in the black duffel i read all night as the strange ambient noises jittered oddly in the corners of the room the mini fridge howling constantly a mournful spirit unacknowledged in the small cubby beneath the televsion i […]

the air conditioner sighs morosely as the condenser fights the early heatwave i have tossed and turned so many times that the sheets are a hopeless tangle around my naked torso and i feel partially mummified as the woman in another rooms sings along with the loud radio and a vacuum cleaner runs over a […]

the spectral transience wavering through the hotel felt like sliding sideways from the filthy metropolis into a fifteenth dimension the woman behind the counter seemed freshly plucked her too close eyes stared with a half dead stupor down her beaklike nose as a short man stood too closely behind me yelling about how he was […]

i felt the primal power of a land so clearly carved out by the receding glaciers of the last ice age the trees of the hill country have been blasted by the howling gales the branches twisted yet grasping at the light cedars leaning to the north amid the signs for dinosaur trails and fireworks […]

most of my time is spent behind the wheel driving down new roads simply to see what secrets lay hidden in the complex mystical algorithm in winding avenues i was trapped in solitary refinement most of my childhood the moment i could escape into the wild a fat kid riding his bike a thousand miles […]

every time i make a frantic fifteenth pass to be sure that i grabbed everything for the work trip i wonder if this is the last time i will ever see this apartment stricken with fatalistic wonder as i murmur my love like a benediction before heading out into the symphony of bird song back […]

feeling punch drunk reeling from another trip into the darkness where each time i reemerge i leave a little something behind rubberbanding back from a walking nightmare trying to find my footing on uneven soil my soul aches a dull throb as i reach for the light yet it shies away demure in its pestilence […]

i was speeding i always seem to be when i saw an evergreen hearse in the left lane directly ahead of me it felt ominous but with anxiety everything can so i sped past it then the song stopped and the name of it in all caps scrolled playing with fire this made me pause […]

white noise permeates the dawn a squeaky bearing on an overtaxed central air unit a flock of birds planes circling low beneath silver skies bass thumping as a car sits just outside my bedroom window all bending time into a crossroads of incessant noise filling my head with a swarm of angry hornets stinging pink […]

i can feel my heartbeat in my left earlobe a jittering little spasm a stray hair i can’t manage to brush away a quivering little feeling as my heart hammers away at xylophonic shivering ribs it is quite intermittent as i sit shaking from anxious energy and i rub my fingers across my ear absently […]

i admire the view staring down the sights aiming at the aimless itchy trigger warnings as sirens blare sending the deer to scatter the hunter fires buckshot at a buck a shell ignoring the irony in war being a billion dollar industry as the price of ammo rises sifting through social media for more ammunition […]

there is a part of me that is never quite prepared for stepping outside into the blast furnace that is texas summer you know it is going to be hot out there but then the door opens it was just last week that the mornings were overcast and cool the evening curled up chilly in […]

i will not deny my scars nor will i erase my past pains i shall clutch them tightly to my mechanical heart as i exhale steam into the light of today’s struggles steadily moving ever forward against the tide of sorrow my crystal lattice bends against the tectonic surges in agonized acquiescence a malformed soul […]

my jaw creaks as i expel the last of night from my raisin lungs yawning deeply to pull the light into every cell unable to taste the caffeinated swill falling over my dehydrated tongue a slab of leather from which to hone am edge onto the words stuck behind broken molars into slashing tirades against […]

isolated cast off into the darkness that holds no more answers than the silence a miserable stain begging the question if ignorance is so blissful how do i remain so goddamned sad in the face of this emptiness that swaddles me happiness is a phantom limb pins and needles along the rim of this vacancy […]

the fat bastard thought to use me as a pawn in his cheating games managing to convince the irritating shrew whatever he did was all my fault again there are people you consider to be great friends who only ever scheme to advance themselves on your good name these conniving pricks so full of themselves […]

my mind is filled with this dark story but my heart is filled with love for her allowing a balance as the heron glides over the sunlit waves seemingly against the laws of physics i lose myself deep in the wonder inherent when i take the time to let the beauty she effortlessly holds shine […]

i wish i weren’t so sensitive that i could let go and breathe deep without this constant weight on my chest that i didn’t feel every single cut as if it sliced my mind to ribbons i should have grown a callus from the repetition of razors sliding yet i remain a paperthin bundle of […]

how strange a wound that caused so much agony becomes a scab flaking off leaving nothing but a patch of fresh pink skin hardly a scar to remind of the pain before it just a phantom itch where something once so important is now forgotten replaced by a thousand papercuts inflamed with these incipient new […]

a gargoyle carved from granite crouched on the ledge looking down as life goes on in tiny specks far beneath a forgotten perch edges worn smooth by buffeting winds a thick coat of bird shit slathered along every crevice doomed to watch in stoney silence until eventually crumbling tumbling in a hail of dust to […]

i find myself sometimes talking to god which is funny because i absolutely do not believe there is a god no half assed agnostic hedging bets waiting for definitive proof just a bipolar nihilist espousing talking to himself by directing it at the ceiling perhaps the issue is god doesn’t believe in me rudely upturning […]

one thing i always look for when going somewhere i have never been is where the local lover’s leap is located because one constant no matter the locale is at some point sorrowful lovers have leapt to their early demise rather than live without the one they love most the misused expression of lemmings following […]

downtown fort worth is the simplified version of downtown dallas these conjoined twins one filled with art graceful skyscrapers the other dull gray the frills exchanged for a country feel in one ways leading nowhere two eggs frying in a sea of rancid oil bubbling along unaware of the rotten tendrils spreading like filth in […]

unraveled in the things left unspoken disheveled in uncertainty meandering along another lost spirit in a tide of half haunted wispy recollections driving towards another empty lot unable to tell if it is a reflection of all the things i am lacking or just life’s way of reminding me my place in things looking for […]

an ever shifting ambiance of amnesia in amniotic ambrosia delivers a dirge of dynamic depressions a drowning of dream in semi geosynchronous anemic heartshudders beneath angry red skies as dawn breaks the silent wonder of night bound tightly in silken threads of a self spun cocoon in souldandered spiteful serendipities restlessly arrested bound and gagged […]

an underpinning of cruelty infects the quiet of the evening a sallow rot deep in the marrow of night floating upon the shimmering current of apathetic lethargy where the images shine yet no words accompany the pale pink blossoms in rows down the orchard flutter in the breeze a hearty sigh of discontented longing blown […]

we are taught there is a beauty in purity the first snowfall unmarred by man the stars at night a lone rose blooming on the bush dark crimson petals lush in virgin grace ignoring the symmetry the vivisection where beauty becomes tainted as life defiles the sanctity sought the moment rot settles deeply upon the […]

spent half the night trying to undo this knot behind my right eye a twisted mass of gnarled old barb wire i picked up somewhere west of ranger coffee brewing as i plot a path to graham hoping a little caffeine can motivate relief before the next three hour tour of meth flecked americana i […]

the chains in the back of the truck jangled like church bells, i was lost in reverie the road blurring by around me not seeing a single bit of it though, drifting in between ideas of stories untold kisses unkissed watching as the hawk circled above me the ground showing the effects of the storm […]

i find a great relaxation in running a blade over the whetstone careful pressure to form an edge capable of slicing electrons at least that’s what i tell myself after losing myself in taking the nicks from a long week and starting anew before accumulating new mars on the once perfect surface my sunday ritual […]

the deep fovea in my mind’s eye allows a visual acuity to disseminate every internal flaw in a broad spectrum of microscopic woe clusters of photoreceptors perceive every new fluctuation monitoring and gathering reams of data to over analyze through the long sleepless nights spent grasping the beauty so obvious in others yet deficient in […]

i do not handle negativity well it creates a feedback loop sounding off the already less than ecstatic worldview doubling down in my strained at the best of times shfting fragility i feel quiet which is always a bad first sign a tectonic sway in bipolar hemispheres as darkness blankets my mind a silver flask […]

watching sadly as the rest of the world sees you for exactly what you proved to me you always truly were may the bridges you carelessly burnt keep you warm as your house of cards crumbles around you there was never anything as important to you as your own precious ego the salted earth on […]

there are moments when i cannot reckon the words i write against the emptiness i embody clutching to the dying dreamer whispering of things i cannot feel wrapped in steel wool nothingness devoid of anything except nugatory denials yet i bleed emotion from wounds self inflicted numbed as i sit a coil of rampant anxieties […]

if i am a shell of who i once was hold me to your ear and listen as i tell you how much i love you in hollow echoes lost to time my hermit crab soul discarded this empty broken vessel long ago now all that lingers is memories eternity won’t let you forget

people often mistake being polite and considerate for weakness not understanding that it takes more effort to not punch them directly in their flapping maw of self absorption while nodding with a smile acid etched over disdain if you see me standing silently trying to unclench my shaking fists as i avoid eye contact it […]