Condense

You were really right there the whole time
and I couldn’t sidestep myself

I was too busy screaming at the canvas
to pick up the brush

Too lucky to have you
standing, lasting through the crush

And I believe the lesson you
never meant to teach was that
promises don’t need to be billboards
nor soft love letters nor transactions
simply principals uttered to yourself before
and between tears for no other reason
than that they make perfect sense

The world needs less books on shelves and more etchings on hearts

Vows should be laced first through touching faces not binding pages

The best authors are the ones who publish their works on accident

The ones whose prose are uncovered by
those lucky enough to feel the way they
live their lives with no one to impress

And here I am. Too busy too proud
to simply confess

You are really right here
and I am trying to learn how
to sidestep myself

Antipathetically Analog

tonight
a wide open novella
laborious in nature

i find myself in a garden
fingers wanting to brush the blades
for effect
nose wanting to smell the scents
you always cradled closer, yet
left alone

-i never understood your ability to know
and discard, i admired your focus-

unfounded fear and
cracked open thoughts keep either
from transpiring
fingers more apt to interlocking
and a nose wanting for you

waiting shifts shape
this escape
has taught me everything
i needed to know then

i thought the small pauses
would always balloon to fill the space
i thought eternities would always fold
into minutes
forgetting to argue their case

the waiting is empty now
time has decided to follow the rules

peppered sky, my thoughts, and the clock
one thousand one, one thousand two

though the story of every star is visible
i only wish to read them with you

Evaporate

You were wrapped up in blankets, body melding into bed
Stealing the last seconds of stillness before life regained the lead
I could never lay as still as you nor breathe as soft
My subconscious couldn’t stand what I put off

I thought I saw your father’s voice when you spoke
And for a second it made more sense to me than anything had before
The echo’s of our pasts dancing with my hollow words
How I could forgo your agency and allow nothing to occur

The brink of disaster and the brink of life
Are not one and the same
What power we forsake
When we forget to truly speak a name

Silence

Invisible cocoon of ancestry
weaving father’s fathers’ glories
and haunts into diamond
slivers that fracture in
the sun but in
time between times cannot
be undone harmonize about
hearts and cradle from
beginnings ended to finishes
born before their time
faintly felt in rooms
with forgotten keys where
the ripples of choice
find their voice and
just when the words
are about to be
made corporeal diamond slivers
beckon the ethereal echos
home and we are
left with an unfolding
silence.

15 Things

1. Never Yell
Not much good comes from yelling in my experience.

2. Don’t Always Put Your Laundry Away
That shit’s exhausting. Put your effort into the dishes.

3. Create a Morning Routine
Follow it almost all of the time. 1% of 1 day is 14 minutes. Use it to plan the other 99%. The other days buy a dolled up coffee.

4. Create a Hangover Routine
No rules!

5. Write a Very Basic “X Number of Things” List
Pray to God that the self-referential humor is enough to keep you cool.

6. Calmly Accept The Fact That You’re Not Cool or Creative or Special
Isn’t everything selfish anyway? Is this list format making fun of list formats defeating the very point of trying to make fun of the sea of bloggers and influencers by trying to vie for the very attention and notoriety they are vying for?

7. Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
Lay out your clothes the night before. Gas up the night before. Basically if you do something in the morning, its better to do it the night before.

8. Give a Coffee Shop Two Chances
Then ax it. Be ruthless.

9. Record Something and Learn From It
Preferably a conversation. Involving you. Without consent. Then turn the bastards in. Whistle blower.

10. Find a Favorite Band
But don’t force it.

11. Once Found, See Said Band Live
Absolutely force it every single time.

12. Write Down Something
A journal. Very detailed. With dates. Involving a domineering boss. Then turn the bastard in. Stick it to the man.

13. Save Perfection For the Gods
But believe in yourself really hard.

14. Practice Utilizing One Extremely Weird and Tenuous Metaphor Daily
Make connections in odd places. Tie knots people squint at. Like the captain of a great ship at sea have repeatedly anxious and paranoid suspicions that the silverware in your kitchen drawer is plotting a coup.

15. Yell
Scream at the top of your lungs. Sometimes its the only thing the logic of this life tells you to do.

16. Go the Extra Mile
People will more often than not roll their eyes. But some people will also give you promotions.

Police in the Museum

Keeping the attitudes of inanimate objects in line
Even when present in the room is so trying
When I walk out the door, order restores
From desolate chaos to unbridled peace
It’s weird knowing life thrives more when you release

I learned from the rain, to pour myself when I desire
Making puddles on sidewalks and mud out of the mire
Caring not for irrigation pipes or scheduled systems
I throw the whole kitchen sink, and let grow what
Grows and push those drowning to the brink

Sloshing my days away.
From the edge of blank white.
Forgetting the details that stress me out.
And keep us all stitched together.

Transitions (Day Drinking)

its okay to not know what you want this year
this life

its okay to admit that our eyes have all adjusted to the dark
and we forgot to turn on the light

its okay to discard timelines for old mines
dig despite the nerves

its okay to pick up archaic agents of destruction
to unlearn what has been learned

its okay to gain perspective
even as you pour another drink

its okay for miracles to forget sometimes
because redemption never leaves the brink

Christmas Tree

There is nothing but quiet retractions
Plans I’ll never see

Save for one devious mission
Set out specifically for me

The mist clings tight as the snow
Forgives around my branches

Though distant sounds sinister cut
Through this morning in flashes

The children’s laugh pierce deeper
Than the cat’s claws in spring

I know that facade and the
Serrated teeth it brings

The veins in my wood rage unseen
Against tradition’s tapestry

Busy orange beanies speckled white
Round the bend as I curse my ancestry

Shade of Love

The fire’s embers pulsed against their death, waving their essence as a tattered white flag clashing frantically against the coming night.

I told her that dying fire could not be reborn, that the universe has known countless fire, but none the same.

She sat between my legs and laughed at my words.

“You demand little, poet. You slide easy through the night and shade the in-betweens.”

I told her that crying and laughing often is the only way I knew to squeeze the essence from the sponge we call life. If we aren’t careful it will retain all of us, a secret forever.

She kissed my neck and threw a rock into the sea.

“Love should be free and full bodied, don’t you think?”

I listened to her and inhaled her scent though fractured hues. Our stilted shade of blue blended with the night and washed out with the tide.

Stoking the smolder, I wondered at her whimsy and how it danced with her immovable spirit. I didn’t respond.

We sat and watched the fire whisper its final secrets we would never think to keep to ourselves.

A Gift

My heart is in the work.

Who can truly say that? Too few.
Those who are down trodden but full of
objective opinions on the ravines of life.
Who’s fire hasn’t gone out and if it has
they refuse to acknowledge the night.

The foolish. By certain metrics.
Their hearts in work the world
refuses to acknowledge. Holding tight
to within knowing without is without
a certain perspective. Theirs.

Never bored on a rainy afternoon,
never scared they’ll be taken too soon.
Mortality is a gift who’s pressure they
dance in, when they remember its presence.

Most of us wish mortality away with all
the times we are alone and can’t stand
ourselves. We would rather be bored
for eternity than face the forge of our
passions and fears.

And while we search for our hearts and wish,
they break open their sternums, exposing all.

And they work.