the voices whisper constantly a litany an invocation white noise in the background of every quiet moment gentle tolling of the bell the dagger the cup an entire tarot deck come alive thousand fates unfold at once don’t go that way this path is fraught with peril death danger failure inconceivable torment allegorical ache irreparable […]
in the moments before dawn, right before the tendrils of light push the darkness back, that sublime moment of anticipation and fear what new horrors will be cast in shadow, the hidden face of primal fears and knots in sub-gastrointestinal distress will be shown it is a time of truth, where the machiavellian plots of […]
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 […]
thunder lizards on the horizon subtle shaking as they roam closer stark technicolor nightmares viscera a low upright bass off scene buh doom boom boom boom boom boom boom buh doom boom boom boom fingers run down the ivory keys the tyrannosaurus snaps a brush across the cymbal nostrils flared the scent of prey on […]
i asked her for her name and she only whispered death i chuckled but she didn’t even smile the closer i looked at her the more indistinct she seemed to grow the room chilled as she grew near i tried to make small talk but she was indifferent at best, disinterested and bored with subtle […]
you are beautiful as i float along this gentle winding river of shattered dreams and fluttering moths of yesterday gathering the pieces i’ve so carelessly let go over time pieces of me of you of strangers glittering little baubles of broken hearts and souls well wishes and wandering eyes as the words fall in fat […]
the bible says man gave a rib to make woman i’d give another rib to have you here, in front of me, to just whisper my eternal love to you i would use my tears to moisten the clay beneath me so i could sculpt an effigy of you to show my devotion but my […]
and as the world crumbles down around us all i can wish for is to feel your hand upon my cheek your lips on mine to gaze into your eyes as it turns to ash there could be no greater way to go my sweet lost love you were the most wonderful dream in a […]
so many thoughts fly none of them fill me like you like this bottle here i’m empty and discarded headed for the bin outside nothing fills me up it all just leaks down my face what a fucking waste another vessel ignored left to be broken again open another let the liquid slosh about and […]
i came home to find her asleep in my bed she had on my shirt, too long and big for her but she wore it so well she was laying still and i watched her as she slept memories of a hundred nights of lying next to her i let her sleep didn’t climb in […]
there’s a quivering in my abdomen, a fear begins to grow, the words they come a spilling out, there is nothing left to show fear is just uncertainty, and trauma seeds to sow, armageddon is two blocks away, my head’s about to blow the razor runs perpendicular to the raised scar tissue that starts to […]
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 […]
she said if you’re playing with me, you’re likely going to drown so i dove in headfirst i let her churning waves and mysterious depths consume me no need for a deep breath not in her oxygenated embrace the farther down i swam, the more i needed to explore all sensation of up and down […]
did i tell you i dreamt of you last night no how could i we don’t really talk i would have though in the dream i was back up north a place we have never been not together at least i went to the bar that i always went to and remembered falsely you went […]
can you see yourself through the lens of another person’s bend, if you could would you look hummingbirds and preying mantises prance along the feeder outside my window i know how this will play out, another bird carcass littering the ground what does the bird see, just a bundle of patiently staring green sticks what […]
the taste of whiskey will always be synonymous with your lips, the feel of your hair as i pull it, the taste of your throat as i hold your head back the sweet burn as it goes down and the smell of your perfume as we pull over just so we can kiss some more […]
bananas have tryptophan and trace amounts of radioactive potassium if i eat twenty five million bananas and the radiation and consumption don’t kill me i could gain superpowers or sleep throughout the night either or is a best case scenario am i willing to go to such desperate measures when i close my eyes i […]
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 […]
our relationship was a ménage à trois, this love that we shared, those secrets we bared it was her, me and crippling emotional divestment sharing a mattress of exposed springs and pillows wet with tears she’d tie me in knots with her pretty tongue and leave me drenched in sweaty denials when she placed her […]
he came crawling out of the woods, his femur broken and pushed through the skin, the smell of infectious rot permeating the air his eyes unfocused, finger tips covered in blood and the ragged remains of fingernails everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him as he pulled himself slowly along the ground […]
even in dream in a world of pretend when my mind is free to make believe it is an empty void while awake grand visions dance and frolic but when all is quiet it is that distinct lack of anything that smothers my head shhh no need to remind that she doesn’t exist let me […]
give it a couple minutes to kick in, she whispered in an evil tone playfully how will i know it is working i asked nervously you will know my head snapped back as fireworks blossomed across my optic nerve i was on the back of an otter, if it was huge or i was small […]
1) she stared at me waiting for me to make the first move in my head i knew i should lean forward and kiss her knew it was what we both wanted all i could do was stare into her eyes 6) she pulled me down the hallway to show me the framed pictures of […]
she wore a shirt that said eat me, drink me and i was ravenous dying of thirst willing to go down that rabbit hole a tea service for two smiling when she announced it was off with my head told her i loved her she grimaced said that was seven impossible things she’d heard before […]
i loved, i lived and i lost, ghosted and roasted by an egregious flame that sputters and flickers chasing shadows across the lawn, invisible puppeteers and the strings they tug and yank,jerking movements and motion sickness on full display my soul is a greasy soap bubble floating through a forest of thorns, anxiety and ill […]
if you knew the effort it takes to sand down my horns, to hide my blackened wings, to keep my tarnished halo hidden, these cloven hooves require special boots often it is forgotten i can be the lightbringer, the chosen child before my being cast out, my fall more famous than my earlier position as […]
the steady hum of the dual solenoids firing rapidly, needles driving deep into epidermal artistry, wiping blood and excess ink away as the pattern takes shape, like a thousand nettles, an angry swarm of beautiful bees, lost in the endorphin surge, elevated the story of my life with another indoctrination, every new scar, every new […]
she walked in like she owned the place she may have how in hell would i know the difference she came over sat at the table next to me and stared at me like i was some kind of stain on the chair cushion she pulled out a pack of smokes and carefully tapped one […]
black tar tears blister and bubble down her cheeks rusted nails across the dirty glass of her soul she has been seasoned with needles of stringent regret and left in the heat of tortured passion the tinkling keys of a piano played like the loose teeth in her smile an angel with moth wings and […]
in these hastily written odes to her, to life, to depression, to home, to loss, to pain, to tender refrain, to bloody knuckles, to jazz, to music, to muses, to ruses, to rhyme in tanka, in haiku, of sonnets, of soliloquies, free form, rigid structure, dialogues and diatribes this is a dedication to you, i’m […]
indistinct mutterings from the other side of the veil, frail, stale and lost under the stove, kingdom of discarded spoons and lintball fantasies, gone the way of the slotted spatula and hope captured, enraptured, fact into fiction, friction, mistakes in diction, restrictions, restricting, conradicting, evicting the childhood to make room for adult condominium desires compartmentalized, […]
a lot of my sloppy odes are directed towards her, the mystical she, the not so well disguised metaphor for love, for pain, the incarnation of ache, of unrequited need she is the culmination of a life of bitter regrets, of poingant rememberance, of heady need and passionate lust she has the face of every […]
when i was a kid we went to the laundromat every sunday morning back then i hated it, or thought i did we would get up early, my father and i, and get there as it opened a deck of cards and endless hands of spades or hearts or go fish to make the time […]
hello passengers, this the captain speaking it is seventy five degrees and the barometric pressure is roughly as intense as the heart of a black hole out there we expect a terrifying flight across the endless void of insecurities and unbound passion if you look out the window to your left you will see the […]
as i lay here naked in bed, the works of true genius to my left, a cold wall to my right the empty bed feels like it is a football field, the derisive voices of real authors mocking my feeble works from the stands the fan blowing across me, sending little bumps of gooseflesh up […]
the cat sits watching as the mouse stares at the cheese the dog looks at the cat the spider happily weaves in the candle’s waning light a bird builds a nest in the thick bush just outside while the squirrel scurries a chill begins to settle as the moon shines down on all he sits […]
i traded two expired coupons for the whisper of a wish the whisper of a wish for three beanie babies a lucky find the spider eggs were still unhatched mostly gave those to a gourmand for a pinch of essence of wonder the essence went fast to a bored kangaroo got three billy ripken baseball […]
if i die tonight know every day was a gift even through the pain light one lone candle and place it in the window to guide my spirit just call out my name and i will come to see you my love will survive every soft whisper crosses past the great divide and pulls me […]
remember when i didn’t say i love you as i stared into your eyes under the harvest moon the stars gleaming and the wind was chilly and full of the promise of snow and how you looked at me with wide eyes as we were the only two people on the planet for one long […]
the last time was the last time in a long series of last times just another broken hearted broken promise that only promised he’d grow more broken as time passed but no matter the matters that so shook and shattered he found the strength to try try again a testament to ageless stupidity but if […]
call me your satan, come rub my horns, let me teach you how sweet bad can be call me your dionysus, drink with me a spell, our revelry doesn’t ever have to end call me your satyr, be my nymph, and let my seed take root beneath your loving tree call me demon, call me […]
when i write about you i always write it twice one in words you can read one in braille as painstakingly difficult as it is to put myself onto the page and bare my inner thoughts to you to take the time to raise the little bunps on the sheets of paper you’ll never see […]
she didn’t remember me, no, she didn’t forget me either, instead he chose to dismember me with her mind looked past the times of smiles and joy, the laughter, the love i once thought we shared but she so selfishly kept as she walked away she remembered to tear it all apart in her mind, […]
everytime the phone rings a sense of dread and misplaced hope a break in silence another intrusionary diversion selling more unnecessary dreams, death and dismemberment of emotional dependency do you ever wish you could hit that magic button and talk to the one you need to hear the most a blank icon that reaches out […]
the human heart goes for one million dollars, yet i cannot give mine away intrinsic value compared to sense of worth i suppose but still i stand on the street playing the violin for loose change fingers dancing on the strings, eyes closed and visions of you play on in my head spinning signs on […]
she mounted my head above her fireplace she ran her fingers across my skin and removed it with the razor blade she keeps in her mouth stretched it across the plywood beams and let it season in the sun before making lampshades bottled my blood in homespun glass with a sprig of mint and a […]
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 […]
she came to me again last night it was quiet and i had fallen asleep but i woke to the feel of her lips on my cheek this was unhealthy, needed to stop, but before i could actualize these thoughts i had fallen into her embrace i grow weaker with every taste, she feeds on […]
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 […]
the knife slid upwards between his ribs like an eagle diving into the placid waters there was little resistance as it slid through lung and heart his knees immediately went weak and he slumped forward she caught him before he could hit the ground his eyes met her’s and the pain was not from the […]
sometimes i need this a driving bassline to blast to erase the edge turn it up louder and go lose myself in the music when the world goes dark and my head is lost in space i need an escape something to shake the malaise to lift me up when i’m down this song never […]
and still i’m awake twenty hours later and sleep won’t find me i curse the walls for their silence the ceiling for it’s allure the world for it’s indifference my mind for it’s ceaseless rambles tried begging and pleading backwards counting and offset breathing how do i shut this off this mental replay seeking fanciful […]
the dead come stumbling down the street towards me hungering their vacant eyes devoid of thought staring down at their phones en masse a part of but apart from this world of the living and they outnumber us us souls still searching for a connection that doesn’t involve towers and satellites look at them mindlessly […]
she is a bolt of lightning that courses through my every thought, from the moment i wake up to when i stare at the walls halfway through the night the personification of dream, of desire, of hope, of love, distilled and made whole she is the dull ache, the sudden rush of adrenalized creation, like […]
we weren’t star crossed lovers, just two pieces of the wings, from an ill fated cross country flight, just two separate beings, we were just two bullets, fired from two shaky guns, and when we crashed it was spectacular, but nobody won you looked at me and smiled, and i gave my heart away, enchanted […]
i stayed up last night staring at the ceiling lost in thought, eyes heavy with precipitation just at the edge of falling, gathering up on my cheeks like dew what more could i do i’d like to say i fell asleep and dreams of you danced inside my head, but the ceiling was so alluring […]
just another pile of brittle bones made of kindling, kerosene for blood and paraffin wax for eyes, devoid of life but yearning for flame a laissez faire scarecrow perched on the side of life’s back road, crows perched with little regard to inane regularities she was slick with desire, legs grinding together like a cricket, […]
you wrote me a letter, an offering of secrets, i read it over and again, your trust and pulling back the curtain sparked something deep inside of me read it over and again, your perfume intoxicating, your handwriting beautiful and precise, like you, i could see the swirls and loops of your pen imagine the […]
i came to the realization today the wide open eye, breath choking in my throat, sweaty palm conclusion i’m dying it’s fine i’ve accepted it one of these days instead of angrily opening my eyes and muttering a hearty fuck you to an uncaring world i just won’t the poems will stop everything else will […]
she looked me up and down a smile on her lips let me tell you something you are a pig a real asshole you say what you want disguised as the truth as if you think it makes you better for being real it doesn’t sugar coating doesn’t make you weak would it kill you […]
on nights like this i hear the sadness echo off the rooftops the lapping waves of an ocean of tears, cold as the fan hits my face i scribble on the walls and then try and decipher the meaning of them through blurry eyes the wind through the leaves like the rattling of bones and […]
my mind is a museum, i take guided tours through the musty halls in the quiet moments those brief seconds of peace between bouts of overwhelming sorrow and confusing seconds of energetic need those are the times i am me, like when we talked, the voices grow quiet and all there is is all there […]
the first fist caught me in the side of the face, my head snapped to the side and i spat blood onto the ground the next three, well i’m a little fuzzy on those but as i launched my forehead into the bridge of the first one’s nose with a satisfying crunch and drove my […]
feels like the world shifted one degree to the right, to the left and i wouldn’t have noticed everything is perfectly normal but not like it is more difficult to put on the mask or maybe i want to see what it is like without but i’m afraid how does everyone do it so effortlessly […]
do you ever read what you wrote and try and recall the exact moment you knew you were so messed up that it all made sense to you, that those words meant more than random filler ever sift through the remains of your life and try to put the puzzle back together again but it […]
the day started like it always does, not with a bang but a whimper of denial, the rebound headache forcing the reminder that new day doesn’t mean fresh anything blink my eyes and wait for them to focus on the nothing surrounding me this nothing a more familiar nothing than the previous nothing of the […]
my guts feel twisted up in knots as i sit here crying from words of beauty that cut through me like a hailstorm of rapturous shrapnel fired directly into my heart tapping out words of the most exquisite sorrowful joy onto a screen i can not see to a world that doesn’t see in a […]
the cat stalks me as i walk down the path every now and then the swish of it’s tail gives it away go away you stupid beast, you don’t want any of this the movement stops and i wonder if i succeeded so i continue walking along night has fallen and the tree branches hang […]
i’m not sure what i was doing the moment i realized i loved you but i remember the world stopped spinning for a second the lack of centrifugal force sent everything suddenly flying and i flew with it all cars and cows and perfect hydrogen bonded spheres of water floated weightlessly around me and i […]
in the daily life of erratic crossings and insignificant interactions it is almost unruly to one’s sense of self when another falling star intersects and the stark similarities of pain resonate, somehow pulling two indistinct patterns into focus in a fury the carefully built bomb shelter of emotional walls crumble and you find yourself naked […]
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 […]
did my morning workout, thought to workout the feelings, the pain, the feelings of self induced anger and hate and as i did my cardio nearly impossible as it takes three pieces of equipment to work out a broken heart as they refuse to be a team i pedalled and pedalled, like a street vendor […]
walking alone outside headphones in, try not to scowl bass rattles my skull steph raps to my soul as my hand reached out for yours but you are not here he pleads he needs more i feel the words echo deep hit repeat and zone lips move silently is this reality or another bad dream […]
did you see me staring out of the corner of my eye at you, trying my best to seem disinterested as my heart nearly ejected from my chest, the thin line of sweat on my brow, nervously tapping my foot to the beat in my head face half hidden by my phone that had a […]
you hear my words expounding upon my perception on your perfection, yet it sounds like more of the same inane banal nonsense of the pursuer desperately chasing a girl if there were a way to invent a new language one in which the subtly that has been lost in the groan inducing ones we use […]
my heart is a canary in a cage, my hands those of a coal miner, sooty black and covered in callouses i carry the cage in front of me, looking for signs of poisonous gas, when the canary dies i soon will follow, it’s a game we play every single day, walking the derelict shafts […]
she has the most wonderful singing voice, as she hums softly in my ear, she loves me deeper than anyone else could ever hope to she wakes me in the morning with a with a deep kiss, it reaches through my lips, down my spine, lighting every nerve on fire, curling my toes in pure […]
am i just an empty chalice, faux gold and colored glass for show, scarred and dented by my trials that i failed, left alone somewhere somewhere out in the cold there was a story told to me when i was a kid, something something good will always win, but that something something must have been […]
i could use a glass of wine, red or white, doesn’t matter just a starter need a tumbler of scotch, ten or twenty five years old just to take the edge off drink away the misery, how i want to drink away this pain, just let take a drink, before this world makes me fade […]
and she stared at me, her antennae twitched as she gnawed upon the gnarled remains of her lover as her limbs jerked and orgamsic moaning still punctuated the air silently, still but for her noises and the crunching of carapace like shells i crouched low and stilled my rapidly beating heart, the surge of adrenaline […]
in my dreams you sing this song softly as we lay together in bed take my broken parts and somehow you can make them into something pure as i stroke your hair and fall farther into you and it makes me smile the world is so cold and you’re so so far away but still […]
the dingy black and white room with scuttling cockroaches and spiders spinning traps empty bottles lay on their sides no more than vapors of past conquests two bodies lie in a tangle of sweat soaked drug induced satiation lying on a stained mattress and wrapped in a pile of rags eyes flutter under heavy lids […]
and the room feels familiar, a certain sense of two pieces clicking together the ghosts that linger, wispy forms that flutter and stare, they don’t attack but just hover and stare in a disappointment here the creeks and rattling of chains, muted screams of past lies relived, they missed having a sad soul to torture […]
a poem is a fun house mirror reflection of secret things elongated shadows trick photography sometimes Vaseline on the lens to smooth out the wrinkles other times no filter just ragged bloody claw marks and desperate screams, empty rooms and crowded elevator cars of filth and anguish happy little scenes and grotesque menageries of wounded […]
twelve hours a one and a half hour flight took twelve total to reach it’s destination storms in dallas we flew for three hours before stopping in shreveport and as we sat stopped i entertained the angry passengers telling jokes and stories keeping them laughing even as my world fell down around me ever the […]
the flight was delayed a half an hour then we boarded and sat for half an hour and then they had us get off and asked for volunteers to stay but i remembered feeling the plane move did we take off crash as i was sleeping and then begin a loop of flying and waiting […]
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 […]
sitting on the floor of the airport, curled up in a ball, trying not to let the tears fall down my cheeks knew when i woke up today would be a shitstorm didn’t expect it to fall the way it did, as quickly as it did, as fully as it did and i am destroyed […]
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 […]
loving me is like wearing a shirt that is itchy, with a tag that rubs your neck raw is like a thong riding up or too tight of boxers that pinch your balls as you walk being with me is like visiting a haunted house, the ghosts surround me, blood drips from the walls and […]
taking a fine toothed comb and cleaning the crevices of an ever failing whirlwind of monotony scrubbing the tile with bleach hand and knees bleeding on the floor behind me leaving a crime scene for any would be detective to suss out is it suicide if you kill the parts of yourself you hate if […]
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 […]
come to me my love twirl your body to my song our danse macabre a rictus of pain and lust the tempo drives our passion sing to me of fire of the slicing of the blade crimson drops falling your tongue across the razor your eyes locked on mine our lips pressed tightly the taste […]
they never should have been allowed up there the two of them cheek to cheek slow dancing to the music in their hearts on top of the zepplin the sounds of bombs falling guns firing explosions and distant cries of pain but none of it mattered as they gazed into each other’s eyes the starlight […]
i didn’t fall in love with you no it wasn’t a fall it was more being pushed pulled sucked in a tornado came from out of nowhere and grabbed me and launched me through the air i didn’t fall a portal opened beneath my feet when your words hit my brain my heart leapt and […]
woke up puking blood in a crimson rain that reminds me of you spit a tooth into the sink as i washed the sleep from my eyes one popped out i’m not falling apart repeating this to myself as i sew my arm back on and hope this to isn’t me i’m not sick put […]
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 […]
lost in memories again in how words and art cannot pull the true power of the emotion out because it is so much more than a word or painting fermented and impacted by all senses touch aural olfactory chemically mentally culminating in emotionally the first greeting punctuated with a spike in adrenaline etching the moment […]
the security guards play penny poker in the shack i walk through every morning asking me to stay in town instead of heading out next week funny how the ladies get so talkative in the morning and ask a million questions from a face they see for thirty seconds a day incrementally staving off the […]
it is a toss up which band means more to me, the eels or the flaming lips. both fill me with melancholy sorrow of the sweetest pain always loved this but now it means something more it seems made for you and as it plays on echoing in this hotel a lone tear slips out […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 