they shamble past moaning incoherently backs bent by the weight of past loss clinging to agonies slowly breaking them into parodies of the people they once thought they were unwilling to let go still strangling the light from past flames unable to accept they starved the oxygen from infernos that blazed across the sky corpses […]

this couch is uncomfortable i sit pensive swatting at these insipid little angels as they circle my head with unblinking eyes four pair of wings flaming halos singing my beard when they get too close to me my ceiling is my neighbor’s dance hall the dulcet tones of a yelping dog keep time with the […]

the hands of the clock worried into knots lending an immobility to the fractured sky i woke upside down as the birds swam across a sea of clouds wasps buzzing trapped in the screen door as shadows scurry beneath the toaster the world caught in sublimation subliminal in hoarse cries a flummoxation of verdant leaves […]

a voice spoke to me from the cold side of forever in a sepulchral song tickling my inner ear waves of frigid serenity in surrender coalescing around my lizard brain i know not whom calls from beyond the veil whispering torment in the antithesis of daylight from beneath the liquid metals sloshing about the heart […]

one day after i have finally died i hope no one searches for meaning in my words dissecting poetry is the same as listening to someone describe their favorite sunset the perfect mix of pink and purple a hint of dark to the east when the diffusion of golden light saturated the world in a […]

there is a principle ofmicroscopic reversibilitya theoretical detanglingof proteins that couldallow man to unboil an eggreverting a solid intoits original state send me backwardsto a protozoan formback before the sunlightshone down with suchdegrading malevolencebreak me down into mybasic components andlet me drift off the cliffinto the gelatinous lakeof the primordial ooze before gillsbefore lungsbefore the […]

an echo rings out but no sound preceded a fuzzy aura halos that shouldn’t exist recombinant memories transcribed on frozen flesh a flurry of snapping bands bands of thorns a telltale trail of crimson droplets sprinting numbed to the horrors certain to lurk in the shadows of thought lancing memories a regurgitation of pain in […]

i see their pictures the youth i remember drained from the faces i barely can recall grown lined and round happy creases in the corners of sparkling eyes a single snapshot does not encapsulate the bickering screaming each petty barb cast this photo shows two people that have taken good and bad and found a […]

i worry sometimes all i am is a sea of misaprehenions a slurry of words spat in the same sullen monotony a flake of dandruff marring an immaculate suit other times i am sure of it but occasionally i yearn to be more than the last drink half spit half cheap whiskey left forgotten in […]

the idea of dying in a hospital horrifies me the knowledge that all i could leave is astronomical bills i will likely die in misery at home secure in the knowledge i didn’t saddle my loved ones with a mountain of debt that says something about the terrible state of healthcare here government funded addiction […]

an electron dispersion as dream turns to a shower of sparks smoldering upon the carefully tucked covers until the entire dreamscape becomes a raging inferno slowly consuming every stray oxygen molecule to fuel the never ending destruction tossing and turning a cold sweat clings to numbed flesh another evening spent in the throes of manic […]

there is a completion in letting go of the last vestige of dream a happy sigh as the pressure leaks out falling slowly into the routines left behind no more frantic scratching just releasing the voices settling into silence the incessant cycle creation to deflation begin again and again until you are buried under unpublished […]

he smiled showing granite teeth carved into fangs bats flew out from the darkness that was his howling forever a schism in skin a skein of fate unravelled tangled yarn of a million degnerate souls in a pile of brightly colored distress still he smiled through the cloud of rabid rodents with hungry maws screeching […]

a thunderous doom rings clear in the quiet morn the powder clots no matter how much i stir the glass it floats and bobs defiantly on the surface reminding me there is nothing in existence i have any control over yet i keep turning the spoon moronically the steady bursts of lavender blossoms light the […]

perhaps poetry is a vestigial trait one worn to the nub a random mutation eroding in a world where everyone seems to feel everything causing apathy to drape itself over the constant grit the quiet desperation of the solitary poet an appendix ignored a forgotten stump only remembered in times of great crisis how i […]

i sat silently on the picnic table watching as obsidian waves gently kissed the beach the first birds piercing hidden things had woken the second set who whistled happily drowning out the first or perhaps they napped lulled to sleep by the happy song bellies full of the early worms on which they supped peace […]

i imagine around seventy percent of what i write is likely terrible but the same amount of effort goes into the seventy percent as it does into the thirty percent and i will be goddamned if i can tell any sort of difference between the two sides a short order cook during lunch hour with […]

i always feel hopeful before i check the status of my bank account the things i need the things i want happy little plans gone to ashes as soon as log in i don’t know what it is exactly i think will be there a magical thousand dollars i forgot about maybe a sudden surge […]

shards of glass on the cool breeze cutting deeply into the resonating pangs that come with rising opening tired eyes to take in the majesty in the fleeting seconds each day feeling the prolonged effects of the living condition eroding expression off of calcium masks layered musculature covered in failing flesh less emotive each new […]

i like to get a topo chico with a hint of lime every once and a while as i walked from cooler to cooler searching the rows before my eyes i beheld a miracle in the beauty of life rows of little sodas waddled down the plastic tracks sea turle babies freshly hatched headed to […]

the redundancy feelsdidactic in a morosediabetic dilemmaa lazy glaze of malaisediametrically shot inpanoramic lens flareshowing nothing butthe shades of a liferendered neatly unseen an energetic anemiaa slow leeching of willa nervous nervelessnessa calculated chaosleft to flop on the coalsof this apathetic sunrise sounding on the clangingchimes in a whirlwindtornadic turbulenceit tastes like batteriesanxiously unassuming inpresumptive […]

broken spectacles shadows dart in the bottom of drawers a panic stricken sense of encroaching agonies unbespoke the sun came out to be swallowed whole by the incidental clouds as the men march in bright orange brandishing implements of lawncare the screams of leaf blowers a morning siren for the disenfranchised dreamer my pillows are […]

i got a new alarm a couple weeks ago my neighbor who works the early shift back his large truck the over compensator into the space right outside of my bedroom window and at around four fifteen he goes out and sits revving the engine until about four thirty it rattles through the sleep that […]

the sun did not rise behind the cloud cover the land is tinted with azure highlights a semblance of cold to overlay the day a facade in tentative shades of tainted light the traces of sickness sparkle in muted hues dreamlike in intensity nightmarish to behold another day blurred incomprehensible from the ones before it […]

i am tired the stinging rebuke of rejections a remora swimming with the sharks foolishly believing there was a place among the hunters a parasitic failure picking scraps from between ferocious teeth slowly starving in symbiotic emptiness what is a writer no one reads but a delusion in streaming words pooled in the drain forgotten […]

at last it rains angry droplets so long hovering at the verge as the crow wings darken the sky they are expelled washing away the sins coating the city i watch as the trash wobbles drunkenly in the swollen gutters racing the raging drivers windshield wipers slashing dismissively across the glass a solitary baby shoe, […]

gray is present as i exist in the present tense a bundle of spindly wires rusted in peeling plastic a harness unharnessed useless and frail still thr rains only threaten nothing falls listless hopes awaiting the battering cold drops shaped like tears the skies do not weep they are aghast afraid, ashamed, aloof asymmetrical allegories […]

empty hollow a candle’s flame a series of conical reactions zero density a reckless chain of water vapor carbon dioxide melted wax less than the component of the candle itself slowly destroying its own form for dire chemistries my adoration carries the rapture of a thousand suns molten at the core the coal fire stokes […]

over caffeinated souldust glitter humming in hues frigidly staring at nothing for hours retracing steps through the blizzard of dust shed skin and radioactivity this heart is a geiger counter clicking hisses rapidly tick glow in the dark with the serenity of sterile flame blistered flesh bubbles as the rancid bits slough fluidly off of […]

lost tired a forest of rat teeth yellowed incisors sharply sprang from the sickly gums buried deeply in the soil enameled roots thriving untended gnashing a constant gnawing a thousand pinpricks of purple light dancing playfully along the hollow cavities we alternate positions arms snaked around each other a sleepless fugue of exhausted terrors given […]

he whispers softly to each bullet reminding them of their sacred purpose he cleans and oils his rifle with the patient hands of a practiced lover who he was eroded with every flash and puff of cordite until he and his weapon were indistinguishable he is a killer the blood crusted upon his hands could […]

the storm smothers yet will not engage baleful despicable an inane insanity sequestered anxiety i fall from the sky a fledgling river a dense fog a leaf mottled in red and gold a lone drop hits the glass i wait breath held for another

every third bird glitches winking in and out static flashes each car is the same make same model same color indistinct drivers exude boredom i dissassociate from dissociating i am numb the days are summer each night kissed by winter i oscillate generating electricity in eye blinks sending a morse code cry for help flashing […]

the lavender pierces through the day a trident thrown by poseidon an explosion eradicating all thought bursts of ill defined painshudders deteriorating consciousness at the atomic level a cluster ringing in stinging nettles clamped tight around this hollow burden lilac blossoms carried on nuclear winds degenerating nervous anxieties into full on armageddons

a stagnancy permeatesthe predawn luciditya sleepless pressurea franticness instigatedin the lost hourof silent reproach of teeth of dream of heavenbroken broken brokenlogisitical fallacies in brazenshades of nightfalldusky hints of terminal neurosisthe fecund mindscape of brutally self inflicted malaises my mind skips across the placid puddlesripples ever wideninga drop of intensityblanketing the soundscape betweenlocked jaw and […]

under swollen moon persecuted by adventitious misery a wave frozen in glass unable to feel ebbing tug of the cratered satellite crystalline tears an engagement of sorrows misplaced displaced replaced by sullen imposters untouched by the wan yellow glow disengaged from the soulshiver pining in this supple sea of secondhand tranquility lunacy in lunar withdrawal […]

his once sharp features eroded with time his button nose peeking out clitorally from sagging jowls he was once somebody in fact he was once someone now just a collection of clogged arteries desperate to cling to the sparse silver crowning his skull razor sharp tongue pitted and dulled he glares ruddily with porcine contempt […]

he stood stone still a statue as night pissed darkness across his face i mistook him at first for a phylactery of meaningless discourse a golem with nonsense carved into his clay unmoving form the cats hissed as they passed but he showed no emotion a tree with dead roots a father figure in abandoned […]

the car a reflection of my soul a mess piled on every available surface a boot, a hole in the toe, a daisy grows through the worn leather, two coconuts, cracked, leaking spoiled milk to drown a chain of paper dolls with cigarette burns where their hearts once beat, a prayer unspoken, flowery prose unheard, […]

hello helios trapped in helium dream the remnants of sorrow cling to each beam of golden dismay barimetrically opposed in summer’s lingering embrace oh sulking sun eminently hungering expanding a ball of flame consuming the emptiness the universe an unwanted pregnancy this star indifferent to the rocks in perpetual orbit ossuaries floating lifeless fuel for […]

sitting in this room listening to wheezes a sense of dread from the nebulous doom that seems to hover over the huddled masses yearning to be well kafka said he liked the americans because they were healthy and optimistic i have to remind myself this is before high fructose corn syrup was pumped into everything […]

my mind races a consolidation of unfortunate truth leaving scabs on this pockmarked soul oozing pus down the surface of monochromatic hell an inverse prism of indentured sorrow painblossoms in flowery script

does my grief glow as a light burning with greasy smoke an overladen ladder bowing in the middle teetering toppling an unopened pack of cigarettes calling forth tiny daggers of eventual demise the door sits cracked open but i am unable to tell the direction in which it leads no strobing red light to illuminate […]

i am insistent in carving a wedjat upon my furrowed brow before the falcon flies off into the setting sun absorbing as much from the hunter’s screeching cries awaiting the adze to crack my skull the hooks driven through cartilage to remove my brain wrap my corpse in bright silks send it floating down the […]

there is a constant motion dark things flit at the edge of ny vision a spider bite glares at me angry and red i do not scratch i do not move as small streaks skitter about i snap my head only for them to vanish back into the shadows once more am i mad disassociating […]

if we at least attempt to find the poetry in the everyday rigmorale of the perpetual sameness inherent in existence we can leave a broken trail of heartwept insolence to confound future generations dousing the flames of this trashfire into windswept paintings to brighten the eastern sky

he will no longer chase false hopes left scattered tiring of being nothing feeling himself fading away disconnecting from the world keeping him carefully held at arms length the wind chimes sing in the darkness while he sits huddled afraid to open the blinds to the nothing outside the reflection of himself in sterile skies […]

we need to normalize screaming as we greet the sun stabbing with rusted daggers into the soul of creation spewing great truth in the faces of all the liars dancing nude in moonbeams as the cricket symphony plays there are lightning bugs in our chests desperate to call out to kindred hearts we need to […]

every experience is one lived over and over again for the first time in these things the repetitious life is filled with a stark barren hell of paraded monotonies a determination to grind smiles to dust i repeat myself in an effort to make sense out of this senseless routine desperate to find the correct […]

beauty strikes at the heart of this panoply of melancholia an icy finger tracing the tender leaving blossoms of radiant anguish to take root filling furrowed scars with daffodil petals as bees of anxiety spread pollen in stinging nettles over taut flesh beneath lavender skies

he was an armadillo retreating into his carapace whenever he was overwhelmed he may as well have carried leprosy as repugnant as the world found him in general rocking on his back curled up into a ball staring at the ceiling hoping for a sign he knew was never coming he was an armadillo always […]

a friend asked meif it feels bettercatharticto spill ny gutsonto the pageevery single day the easy answerthe one that i knowshe wanted to hearis of courseit is liberating the answer she gotnot in the slightestit is reopeninga wound so it mayfester in the lightit hurts as badreliving the momentas it did living itworse so becausein […]

he buried them in neat little rows across his backyard doll heads in mason jars staring up at him in tiny sealed watery graves each of them one of his sins still in tangles of hair like seaweeds suspended watching vigilantly awaiting the next he would stand sobbing alone staring back at them incapable of […]

i am a top teetering wobbling before coming to a stop my momentum is spent the urge to fall over too great i have come utterly undone no longer do the fingers of eternity wind me up

so many wrecks flashing lights at every intersection a cold trail of tragedy vivisects the city crashed cars pieces of plastic shards of glass reflecting the reds and blues as everyone else sits staring or angrily attempts at merging into stopped lanes i hear the impacts behind me as i try to avoid the ones […]

do you hear them muttering in discontent? they line the hill hunched down on knees and forearms their bodies forming steps that lead up to the house at the very top. at first i step gingerly onto their bare flesh my boots digging in they groan pitifully i do not deter. they wail ever louder […]

the day is still festering like a corpse stagnant and humid swamplike in texture the bloated belly of a body fished from the lake after a week filled with maggots a pinata of abhorrence ripe with gases and ready to burst open spewing putrefied filth on an unremarkable day in the bowels of hell a […]

i long for a sensory deprivation tank with big fat treads i can pilot with impunity firing the cannon off with silent shells to mute the land outside especially on mornings dredged from broken sleep as the protein powder clots in the coffee while i frantically stir the neighbor’s truck overcompensating outside shakes the windows […]

i woke up on the wrong side of my brain the deficiency of finishing a piece has cut a swath through the heart of this lingering insubstantiality the next story is already singing the instinct is to dive right in but this petulance pervades creativity the tide has not rushed back into the vacancy within […]

i have bled every emotion of hopeless romanticism and helpless anxieties letting them drip into the aether where they fall consumed by silence met with genuine indifference the whiteboard sits blank except for a cartoon heart like the one i drew in the snow with our initials and eros’s arrow piercing at a jaunty angle […]

the map to my life must have been haphazardly scrawled by a dyslexic cartographer who had accepted the pointlessness of his existence deciding to give hapf effort in his own future endeavors even the woman trapped in my phone yelling directions throughout my every day has lost track of north from south sending me the […]

the sirens fill the silence a symphony of wails hanging on the still air as i contemplate getting dressed unwilling to as the chaos screams just outside the coffee tastes unmotivating tinged with dejection self inflicted or enforced by the powers that be the neighbor watches unable to see anything a row of dead cactii […]

divinity drips in fat ugly swells from every fetid pore corpseflesh in various states of putrefaction a salient sentience pervades the tepid aloofness in ragged relapsed reanimations dragging the rusted blade down the heaving chest of flayed innocence blowfly larva squirms through layers of liquefied meatpuppets a hastily dug pit filled with dismembories soiled dream […]

consumed by thisvigorous rigiditycrystalline thought shardspierce the tenebraebetween happy sadness thoughts go sidewaysas realityslipslides intothe recurved confusionof conflictingnarrativesof truth as experiencedand fantasy embellished curled into the wavesa contusion of confusionscast aside withmalicious disdainthen romanticizedby the emotionally vacant ever vigilant againstdefunct adorationsan ever shrinking spiralinto a cyclical malaiseof diminishing returnsavoiding potholes gapingacross this mercurial tenebraebetween happy […]

sunday mornings have a nuanced melancholy a saturation of softly stinging sorrow the bottom half of the hourglass buries the day an internment of contented smiles dragged across the barb wire sense reality will bear down suffocating all joy leaving just a stain of strained disdain for the silence that will soon ensue sadness hooks […]

again the skies threaten rain while i luxuriate in despondency well aware the entire globe despises me with an irrationality bordering dangerously close to exactly what i likely deserve the parts of me still remembering what it was to be a glimmering star now a reduction of malignant loss cascading sparks over the tinder of […]

there arethirteen stepsthirteen loopsin the artof tyinga hangman’s noose the sky opened uppissing rain as ifthe world was justthe floor of agas station bathroomi stood in itflagging down thetwo truck driverthat was onlythree hours latecalled when thr skieswere just threateningnow we are both soakedgiving one anotherthe old angry side eye thirteen stepsthirteen loopssimple in designnearly […]

a tertiary blemish ignored unless necessary then immediately tossed back to the side an insipid growth with spindly hairs best left in the dark ancillary to the main plot easily overshadowed by any other distraction any other possible distraction textbook definition of unimportance not by design but by the apathy of those who always come […]

he is an amateur photographer taking snapshots of beauty highlighting simple perfections forgotten behind the flashes they smile for the camera eventually ignoring the invisible man who is never in the frame no one notices the loneliness of the photographer relegated to being just a spectator unimportant except for the constant encouragement in which he […]

rainbows never smile the prismatic effect pulls the corners down towards the horizon leaving the spectrum bathed in an incomprehensible sadness as the light splits the gray thunderhead errant rays of sun stab at the cityscape as it settles in a fugue of dismally decadent dismay while the banded frown stretches cold fingers in a […]

i take the stairs if given a choice i drive all day and the exercise helps keep the dire depression to only barely choking the light from my insolent ocular stare i do like the clear elevators though and today was faced with the choice between health and watching the cables with a heavy heart […]

fog drifts obscuring the road as the sky is a yellowish gray somewhere above the clouds have settled far too low wispy condensation grasping at the asphalt scars leaving everything trapped in a haze of vague dreamfuckery suffocating the city with a sense of wild abandon

a sterility of silence tends to blanket my bedroom a hushed reverence in this darkened crypt a low rumble perhaps a plane or thunder from the clouds blowing in from the east the rains have been frequent over the last year, give or take but summer turned harsh as the ground thirsts for a much […]

one of my biggest pastimes besides staring at the ceiling is sitting in parking lots between calls watching the birds i am no amateur ornithologist just a fool longing to fly to feel weightless (un)encumbered by this heaviness able to stride adrift on the currents my wings and that compass in my skull guiding me […]

the fools say the sun always rises to banish the dark burning away the sorrows that linger on the breath of yesterday i sit alone waiting for the light to engulf me in cleansing flame and all i feel is the frigidity bone deep soul stuttering shocks of cold as if it shines everywhere but […]

i amso very tiredbut i knowthroughoutthe span ofan eveningwaking withher nameon my lips staring intothe darknesswishing foranother minutein dreamwhere her lipsare close enoughto taste instead of thehours layingawake tryingto sleepcursing my owninsomnial musings i am justso very tiredof waking tothe mockingceiling above so very tiredyet awarethat tonightwill be theexact same at threei will sendfrantic kissesbegging […]

i don’t want to rot away in a silk lined box buried deep in the ground as chemicals flood my body my guts in a bag my heart weighed and tagged separate from the cave it called home sweet home away from her name as the constant beating engraved it into the bone that once […]

the weightless weightiness being draped in otherworldly feathery growths a speck of pepper in the drooping eye of divinity rainbows spasm from the prismatic corpse heart encased in amber at the center of universal inequity as acid pours down from the jagged scar torn along the seamless orbital facade corneas float detached jellyfish riding ocular […]

the road has too much fucking turbulence today for my liking the cars are all too close drifting over the dotted lines i want to go too fast the windows are down and the stereo is too loud but i don’t have it in me to care the turbulence that fucking shaking the wobble of […]

as i sit here ignoring the voice of anxiety as it tries to talk me out of going to the laundromat drumming my fingers on the coffeeless table trying to convince myself that it is only forty five measly minutes sitting in the car as the clothes spin forty five minutes i put off until […]

someone needs to write a self help book for those of us that can’t seem to help ourselves one that tells us it is perfectly okay to not be anywhere close to okay that it is alright to be locked up with anxiety and sorrow because sometimes we are going to be incapable of anything […]

only those that imitate consider it The highest form of flattery those that actually create are too busy making something new

history always repeats itself and no matter how deep the scars the lessons learned evaporate as we spin again and again and again ad nauseam if i have learned anything from my past it is that it feels just as bad in the present we are moths watching as our brethren burn to cinders thinking […]