i don’t claim to be an expert on most anything except being mentally defective. i don’t know if i will ever understand the hills politicians decide to die upon. people are still homeless as we have record numbers of empty homes. kids go to school hungry. our infrastructure is hot garbage. lobbyists control everything. sitting […]
barely intelligible rancidity in pedantic prose a wrinkled old man needing validation insecurities on full display simply seeking reactions all while he flails desperately unable to see the caustic failures keeping him alone ignorant to his own narcissistic tendencies growing out of control pretending to be anything but a human stain tainting the world as […]
if i filled my pockets with a stone for every time i felt lesser than unimportant that i do not matter the only beings that would notice as i walked into the ocean are the fish i would disturb as i lay down in the silt. a collective sigh of appreciation ringing out from shore […]
in life, we get what we get. it is what we give that matters. it tends to get forgotten in the day to day. or we give in to expectations feeling cheated when things don’t go how we wanted. grow bitter scorned. ignoring the happiness all around. then again who the fuck am i to […]
people love youwhen they cancommiseratewith your pain. but findhappiness? that’s whenthe realityof who they arecomes to the forefront. in sorrowthere is acommon denominatora conflagrationof similarsadnessthat speaksa universal truth; in joyjealousiesoverridethe false emotionalconnectionleading to themwondering whythe happinessisn’t theirsas well. friends celebrateyour successesand lend a shoulderin defeatbut these falsehoodsin miserable approxinationof sympatheticcompatriotscast dispersionsinsinuatebecause they cannotsimply relateto anythingexcept […]
some people try to be better some wallow alone in a haze of pain some strive to find purpose seeking to beautify a world of ugliness. some are just sacks of shit staining whomever they come into contact with. petty little people with dead little hearts that inflict petty little agonies on those they already […]
angels and demons snarl at my heart’s worship, brimstone warbles through a tempest of harmonies, a glorious cacophony of dreamshivers. the predatory gaze of jackals in sheep’s clothing tracking what they hope is wounded easy prey, while pontificating their best intentions. being chased through the snow by bumbling villains, hiding cruelty in self serving semi-literate […]
poets should come with warning labels skull and crossbones printed on their pretty little tongues danger! in all caps (you’ll have to imagine that) a list of possible effects may cause: prose odes insufferable longing madlypassionatelove desire dreams hopes and most importantly: once you’ve become a poet’s words how do you ever want to be […]
i see the harpies in the branches preening each other whispering words of encouragement for the world to see all while unaware everyone knows the game they play every unmeant compliment given builds themselves with no thought to the recipient masking the ugliness in their hearts with a manufactured facade of sweetness pulling in fools […]
it occurs to me that no matter how deeply dreamt or fervently wished the things that i want aren’t required for me to survive just to live so i exist in the pedantic lines of unread poetry a half alive spectre standing in the snow peering through the large window as the lovers curl up […]
i can’t remember exactly what it means to be me anymore because me has always ended up being the worst thing about me
a last trip around the frozen civil war cemetery my mind haunted by extraordinary beauty music playing loudly in my ears the cold bite of the wind a reminder that i am still alive that these ghosts are figments of the me that died to be reborn in her eyes as something more complete than […]
every poem written is a piece of crumbling mortality spat into the wind to fall unread across the page the quill taps the soul as it scratches along the vellum depleting the whole in an effort to appeal to a world that stopped paying attention millennia ago
i think that everyone should listen the ramones at least once a day they are good for the heart they are good for the soul if you don’t like the ramones i don’t think i want to know you that they should teach murakami kafka and twain in grade school then every three years after […]
she described my own tombstone to me while trying to make me feel better he was surrounded by loved ones yet never loved the way he chased his entire useless life she said it nicer
i admit i have my own issues around my neck rusted chains with an anchor pulling me into the hell always open beneath my vans but look at yourself in the mirror try to convince yourself when i took your breath away with every kiss with every lick every time my hands rolled over your […]
loving someone with anxiety This article destroyed me this morning. This is me. I am broken and worthless. I am not alone in my loneliness and I have sobbed all morning. It doesn’t help knowing I am like this. It doesn’t help anyone that falls into the fool’s world. I’m sorry. I love you. And […]
i took a hammer to all the hardest parts of myself until there was nothing but bonesand filling the skinsack the incidental invertebrate trying to perfect this imperfection knowing no matter how many swings there will always be the memory of rigid truth in the hand clutching the hammer i sit still against the alley […]
sometimes the crystals in my inner ear get stuck into this circular sensation where in those moments between frantic allusions you feel the world spinning beneath your feet the enormity of everything the odds that are astronomically against anything. sometimes i need comforted told that it isn’t all just random acts of malevolent disaster. that […]
love is like a penny it costs more to stamp than it ever will be returned on investment or maybe it is just mine that was turned green from disuse tossed aside for a shiny nickel left on the train tracks to be flattened
When I hit that iceberg of inconsolable grief, find the bottom rung of the ladder in the pit of despair, I turn to music. I would say I spend around 85% of the time completely alone. Parking lots across the metroplex. Minute conversations. But mostly an empty apartment. This level of depression is the kind […]
the wind whistles through the stone outcropping hanging over the arid plains the lone call of the hawk as it circles high above the varied shades of brown below it is there the heartache blends itself into the vast world of undulating sweetness of sin far away from the wagging tongues of naysayers preoccupied with […]
if the liberty bell can be famous for being broken there is nothing stopping you.
the parisians took to the streets to celebrate the use of the old guillotine wine splashed across the cobblestones an augury to the blood to come they packed the bars awaiting the guest of honor to be paraded to the wood and iron implement of final resting of succinct endings a bucket placed unceremoniously in […]
tranquil beauty thrown into the irrational blender of bipolarism lends itself to painting transitional images across the impenetrable depths. it can serve as an eye opening into the deeper meaning of friendship discovering the royal we and acceptance are a diverse set of opposite focused means to an end. as i felt the boot on […]
in an impossibility of insomniac disbelief the thoughts rage as they tend to do stirred up as the reality of the situation lands belly up in front of my very own deceiving eyes no one respects a doddering fool that plies a dead trade nor wish to speak with an insignificant poet placed between those […]
it seemed to rain everyday for a month the entire time the dull gray skies seemed a reflection of my soul now the sun shines through the crystal blue and in this naked exposure i find myself longing for the rains i am as tumultuous as those thunderheads that hung morosely over the uncaring concrete […]
sometimes i feel self awareness so intimately like sandpaper across bare skin but with the small in scope veneer of the velveteen depression that seeps over everything an ashen maple syrup that leaves everything wanting so the irony of my profession being fixing things as a semi-autonomous flesh bag filled with the shattered stained glass […]
i feel the lick of the lashes as the inexplicable whips of rancid understanding leave lines of bloody reminders down the length of my ability to verbalize this nauseating truth the blissful ignorance of a life left painless long since discarded with childhood fantasies in the ditch of stagnant refusals it is a form of […]
how much of the real me is too much me for the world at large to handle as the porcelain mask cracks to expose scarred skin pent up lies irreversible damage inflicted by weather by hope by dream by love by self monsters are real they hide behind our eyes whisper little acts of horror […]
the typical question i get when someone finds out i write is why. what else is there? i respond with a quizzical look painted on my normally scowling face. some people see the face of god in the world around them some see inherent beauty some people see wonder. i don’t see any of that. […]
i find in my numbed movements i am far more likely to retract than react to deflect than accept i am a distraction with little emotional attraction just another faceless drone roaming the streets alone
he bounces into the room with that manic energy of someone fresh off of rehab and still high on the the idea that the path to finding oneself is attainable it’s the third time he has done this the third time he has found his truth the third time he cast aside the blinders on […]
i am one sexually transmitted disease induced delirium away from the penniless cliche the poet found dead in an opium death the writer other writers think is brilliant but the normal person cannot be bothered to read a line of as i beg and plead desperately published into the halls of obscurity to fade into […]
je t’aime aujourd’hui plus qu’hier je t’aimerai plus demain qu’aujourd’hui si le soleil s’éteint ce soir ne jamais se relever ton visage éclairera mes ténèbres
i am a force of natural destruction, a cyclone of lust incarnate a fluffy cloud of gentle loving, the azure sky of pure emotion overhead golf ball sized hail rattling off the rusted tin roof of self collapse endlessly misting rain like a lover’s embrace dancing across your bare skin thunder in the distance with […]
i see her not with eyes blinded by the world around but with a newly awoken third eye that cuts through the detritus of this modern age of shame filled lies with a sense of connection magnetic otherworldy in scope it slices the rejoinders the epidermis to expose the hidden layers of truth buried in […]
whisper lies into my greedy ears, i will swallow them whole this hunger for anything is tantamount tell me your secrets, let me spin the finest silk of your slippery truths i will be your vault as long you remember not to feed me when the moon is full your sovereign source of stability ignore […]
the revolution will not be televised it will be monetized it will be commercialized we are past the point in terrestrial diversions, excursions, retractions and distractions when the actual revolution occurs we’ll be busy chasing our tails and missing the broad strokes almost as if it doesn’t concern us at all the revolution is a […]
i can’t tell if it was all a lie you fed, i wanted to believe so badly or an illusion i created myself, with no footing in the real world i don’t know which hurts worse if it turns out to be true but it is one or the other and i am giving up […]
when i tell you that you are beautiful i don’t want you to misunderstand what i am trying to say it isn’t a line or me trying to be slick when i say you are the most beautiful woman i have ever seen i mean that because my feelings for you and that magnificence you […]
i am the story you tell after a few too many pints when the warmth fills your belly spots of reds on your cheeks a smile at an otherwise regretful time i want to be the thought that keeps you awake all night long tossing and turning i want your heart to race every single […]
i love you more than i love me that’s the reason i am the best you will ever have but never will be enough in the end when all is said and done it is a ravine you will try and fill to no avail until you realize it isn’t worth it i am not […]
she asked me, are you afraid to die i sat and stared up at the clouds rolling across the sky for a long time and shrugged, not really you’re awfully brave, she said with a smile i couldn’t look her in the eyes, i just kept staring at the sky she watched me carefully i […]
i’ll never be your dream come true but you will always be my fondest wish this is something i just have to accept
i moved from illinois to the deepest of deep south away from snow away from bars from all i knew about far from the vacant eyes of lovers gone astray wagging tongues of slander from dear friends i ran away traded one empty for another but never ever did i realize it would turn out […]
it seems a pen dipped in venom can still write the loveliest of words even as they scorch the table beneath
my head hurts just a double bass pounding in my temples with a circular saw behind my eyes so excuse me while i sit in the dark stare up at the ceiling thinking about you knowing you won’t read this if you do i doubt you will know it is you that is the you […]
i speak with the voice of the voiceless heard by deafened ears seen by the blind my portrait painted by quadriplegic artists in comatose reality i am a lession covered leper in the broken heart club the zero sum investment the toothless lion pariah of the pack sinking like a stone into the poisoned waters […]
if there was one thing that had fought against the depression that smothers me so it was you. but then you showed just how little i meant to you as well. i was little more than a distraction. easily disposed. not that it matters we both knew it was so even if we were too […]
she mistakes me for another curses yells as if i need to obey her tells me what to do how to feel who to be when she isn’t aware of who i am i don’t understand it we seemed to be friends or at least friendly until she decided i was someone else she mistakes […]
no one really cares not really. they just like to be seen as caring. as the world keeps proving it was built on sand filled soil. desperate cries for help are met with motivational posters of cats and branches. no one really cares not really. or they wouldn’t stop to apply make up before running […]
i would rot in hell with you if that meant we could be together this is as close to romance as i can muster on this day of crushing hopelessness but i would forsake heaven for you if you asked me to
i am not good with titles or life or being open i am howsoever good at falling madly in love and even better at making it all fall apart
when i am dead and long forgotten certain truths will remain i loved (though she never knew it) i lived (though it wasn’t with her) i cried (for the longing i feel for her) and this singular moment right here we shared you and i maybe not at the exact same time but it was […]
if his disabilities were physical maybe he could rise above them instead they drown him
she asked what made me so broken makes me feel as if i could have it all and i held up my hands coated with decades of dried glue and shards of glass i can’t seem to put it back together again no matter how i try so now i just watch the light refract […]
i like fairy tales because against all facts to the contrary in the real world they have happy endings evil is vanquished true love prevails everyone lives happily ever after life is nothing like that though evil tends to triumph the valiant knight gets cancer the princess tends to run away with the bad guy […]
i’ve submitted my poetry to a few different publications each and everyone so far has rejected me i submitted my short stories once and they sent me a contract i believe the issue i have to face is this i am not a poet not a good one at least and the submission i need […]
she had unreal expectations of me because she thought my words were pretty i knew all i could do was let her down she had built me up into this person i never was mistaking metaphor for truth and truth for metaphor i told her i am not worth the time or tears just because […]
all my exes think the same thing when asked about me he was a dreamer was slick to talk to in the beginning could sell water to a fish talk your panties off with promises of forever but i preferred his head between my legs that was his gift rather than to hear him talk […]
it is coming apart this illusion i have made that it will be fine
why aren’t we pissed off at the state of the world like we should be seriously the doomsday clock ticks closer to the point of no return the oceans are warming and clogged with plastics and poisons the ozone still isn’t repaired animals birds plants and insects go extinct at a rate of one hundred […]
some words mean a lot some of them don’t mean nothing i tend to use both kinds i paint with the one and i live by the other you pick which is which but know this one thing i try to never tell lies truth is beautiful so when i look up and tell you […]
no fake smile today, no pretending it doesn’t hurt, that it is not falling to pieces reserving the right to write the truth, when truthfully the lies come easier less poetic to usher in the fall less romantic to curl up in a ball but jagged aches are all a part of the process, and […]
normally i would write something to go along but this says it all sometimes the music can sum it all up for me better than i can so listen to him say the words i wish i could since i know i can’t close your eyes my love imagine me singing this softly in your […]
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 […]
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 […]
i stand against the oak tree knees trembling holding an apple over my heart you insist your aim spot on and i trust you because what’s the worse your arrow can do pierce the soft meat of the fruit and embed itself into my chest milady your smile does far worse and with little to […]
the world was killing her incrementally day by day a little at a time carving off little bits of her and it killed me to watch it occur standing by helplessly wishing to help to hold her to let her know it would all be alright but i couldn’t lie to her hell i found […]
she asked me what my spirit animal is and i said a lion she laughed at me that figures lay around all day while the lioness hunts and takes care of the cubs only getting up to fuck and feast you’re no lion i say back and thought about seemed ideal really a bone in […]
when i was young i used go down to rush street and talk to the whores this was before they cleaned up rush street and put a house of blues there it was a dirty little street filled with equally dirty whores that stood on the sidewalk in plastic looking miniskirts and long boots they […]
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 […]
under this damnedable hotel, beneath the cheap sheets, beneath the mattress and carpet and floor and pipes and conduit and cheap laminate and under the basement under all of this man made monstrosity dedicated to commerce and making men and women feel like they are in a miniature uncomfortable home for homeless souls worms crawl […]
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 […]
yesterday was a special day for the poet illiterate two wonderful poets took my words and made them into something beautiful it’s funny see i post my rampant thoughts in the assumption no one will notice and instead art was made from them i don’t know how to describe the feeling even in floundering verse […]
she stared deeply into my eyes and whispered i love you i shook my head sadly and turned to walk away why do you think you love me she held my shirt sleeve preventing me from leaving forcing me to stay i fell in love with your words your hurt you are broken but i […]
love left unreciprocated morphs changes it’s cellular structure becomes something else a grape left to whither becomes a raisin yet retains it sweetness love does not become a prune nor does it facilitate the evacuation of the bowels of the soul it hardens once ripe it has a shelf life a short period in which […]
the red dust kicked up by the old pick up looked like dried scabs blowing in the wind he had his hat pulled down low as he bounced with the worn out suspension the stereo was turned up loud lee ving was screaming about how he doesn’t care about you and he sang along but […]
my friend asked me what would i have if i didn’t have writing i looked at her and thought about it for a long minute well i’d have the sickness in my head still a million tales of heartache dancing in my chest anxiety and pain odes of love and pretty words of missed opportunities […]
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 […]
she looked at me for a long moment, weighing the words before asking do you still hate me i don’t know what i expected her to say but it wasn’t that a swarm of knives flew around my mind unbidden, so many hurts and wounds and scars still forming no, not any more and never […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 