FALL 2022
9:23:2022
I don't think that I can replicate what I want to say as effortlessly as I would have hoped. Unfortunately, I am only me, and she doesn't know a goddamn thing except "survive, survive, survive"— And nothing like that bitch Sylvia's humble brag of the heart I am, I am, I am,
No, I must be, I can't not be, I'll survive.
Survival for its own sake has never interested me; that's why I can't hold a nine to five or stand the conversations that take place backstage. I can't stand up for anything but unrequited rage.
That's the problem with anger:
you're never guaranteed your investment back; you'll never get that time back that you spent in vain wishing the world would just let you survive like an animal superimposed— "I know that I don't know, but I also know that I know".
You sound stupid; stupid is the only way to sound so you might as well own up to it, right?
Isn't that what nightlights are for?
Isn't there a way to open the window
but shut the damn door?
Don't ask me any more; I don't know
what to tell you— never did, but a little bit of anger goes a long and winding way.
It makes your life feel longer,
but only at the expense of the story you waste
along the way.
(None of this even came close to saying
what I wanted it to say.)
No, I must be, I can't not be, I'll survive.
Survival for its own sake has never interested me; that's why I can't hold a nine to five or stand the conversations that take place backstage. I can't stand up for anything but unrequited rage.
That's the problem with anger:
you're never guaranteed your investment back; you'll never get that time back that you spent in vain wishing the world would just let you survive like an animal superimposed— "I know that I don't know, but I also know that I know".
You sound stupid; stupid is the only way to sound so you might as well own up to it, right?
Isn't that what nightlights are for?
Isn't there a way to open the window
but shut the damn door?
Don't ask me any more; I don't know
what to tell you— never did, but a little bit of anger goes a long and winding way.
It makes your life feel longer,
but only at the expense of the story you waste
along the way.
(None of this even came close to saying
what I wanted it to say.)
9:23:2022
The sun doesn’t really make a sine wave
Up and down, up and down and
Over and under the horizon;
My perspective is what forces the illusion.
Or is it the illusion that forces my perspective?
And if one really does force the other,
How come the sine waves come out
Perfectly naturally?
Is nature a byproduct of my perspective,
Or is nature the law that binds it?
It seems to me that the notion of truth
always implies its opposite,
And stars are living proof of this:
Without our eyes, constellations would die.
But does that mean that stars are alive to begin with?
You get this sense that the stars will outlive you:
They were born before your birth
And will likely shine on even after you’re gone,
But they’ll no longer mean anything—
Not to you, at least—
And eventually, there will be no one left
For the stars to mean anything to,
But does that mean the stars never meant?
I believe
that the very same gravity that will one day
pull me down to the Earth
Is well worth the weight;
I believe
That I am lucky to have the stars
For whatever I see,
And that one day
The stars will be lucky to have me.
Up and down, up and down and
Over and under the horizon;
My perspective is what forces the illusion.
Or is it the illusion that forces my perspective?
And if one really does force the other,
How come the sine waves come out
Perfectly naturally?
Is nature a byproduct of my perspective,
Or is nature the law that binds it?
It seems to me that the notion of truth
always implies its opposite,
And stars are living proof of this:
Without our eyes, constellations would die.
But does that mean that stars are alive to begin with?
You get this sense that the stars will outlive you:
They were born before your birth
And will likely shine on even after you’re gone,
But they’ll no longer mean anything—
Not to you, at least—
And eventually, there will be no one left
For the stars to mean anything to,
But does that mean the stars never meant?
I believe
that the very same gravity that will one day
pull me down to the Earth
Is well worth the weight;
I believe
That I am lucky to have the stars
For whatever I see,
And that one day
The stars will be lucky to have me.
9:24:2022
Writing metabolizes, memorializes, criticizes me.
It tells me who I was— not who I am,
But who I will be once I read my self back.
Writing characterizes my character;
It trivializes the barrier between author and story.
Some times, my pen lags behind my locked mind;
Others, my brain is what trails off behind.
And even still, some times between find
Body and mind moving at the same speed.
For example: just this now, I am understanding what it means to be present-progressive:
I am writing;
Writing is what I identify as me.
I am not so stagnant as my name
would have you believe; I am writing.
I am singing, I am smiling.
I am letting the Earth take her turn for awhile
Without cramping her style;
I am apologizing for past mythologizings,
I am stealing seconds like inches
Before God takes a mile.
I am living.
I identify with this life that progresses through time presently, through this body, through me—
And I'm recording this very moment for later,
For gloomier weather— so that even in winter,
I can use it to worship you better.
God’s voice rings through
Every work of scripture and every single letter:
You are hearing it now in your head;
You must align with the need to set free
Whatever it is that my writing
might mean to me.
It tells me who I was— not who I am,
But who I will be once I read my self back.
Writing characterizes my character;
It trivializes the barrier between author and story.
Some times, my pen lags behind my locked mind;
Others, my brain is what trails off behind.
And even still, some times between find
Body and mind moving at the same speed.
For example: just this now, I am understanding what it means to be present-progressive:
I am writing;
Writing is what I identify as me.
I am not so stagnant as my name
would have you believe; I am writing.
I am singing, I am smiling.
I am letting the Earth take her turn for awhile
Without cramping her style;
I am apologizing for past mythologizings,
I am stealing seconds like inches
Before God takes a mile.
I am living.
I identify with this life that progresses through time presently, through this body, through me—
And I'm recording this very moment for later,
For gloomier weather— so that even in winter,
I can use it to worship you better.
God’s voice rings through
Every work of scripture and every single letter:
You are hearing it now in your head;
You must align with the need to set free
Whatever it is that my writing
might mean to me.
9:27:2022
What scares me?
Death sometimes, certainly—
But mostly petty things concerning
My agency or legacy, presently.
Perhaps it is wise to fear Death,
But how naïve I must be
To fear Life when I’m already here!
Death sometimes, certainly—
But mostly petty things concerning
My agency or legacy, presently.
Perhaps it is wise to fear Death,
But how naïve I must be
To fear Life when I’m already here!
I am afraid
of not fearing Death wisely and using Life kindly.
I am afraid
Of staying the same, because that is not how
The rest of Life appears to operate.
I am afraid
Of not putting my consciousness to good use;
I am afraid
That whatever Life might mean on paper
Is as close as I’ll ever get to the truth.
of not fearing Death wisely and using Life kindly.
I am afraid
Of staying the same, because that is not how
The rest of Life appears to operate.
I am afraid
Of not putting my consciousness to good use;
I am afraid
That whatever Life might mean on paper
Is as close as I’ll ever get to the truth.
I think about grief, mostly,
About how Death can impact the living.
I think about how, even though it flusters me,
Love could not exist without Death’s hospitality,
Since eternity would leave no room for misunderstanding.
I think about how, even when Death scares the shit out of me
Now and then, I always manage to return to this Life again.
I think about how, even if Death is as scary as everyone thinks
That it is, nobody knows what they’re talking about, since
Anyone who knows or doesn’t know about Death still lives.
About how Death can impact the living.
I think about how, even though it flusters me,
Love could not exist without Death’s hospitality,
Since eternity would leave no room for misunderstanding.
I think about how, even when Death scares the shit out of me
Now and then, I always manage to return to this Life again.
I think about how, even if Death is as scary as everyone thinks
That it is, nobody knows what they’re talking about, since
Anyone who knows or doesn’t know about Death still lives.
I think about how silly having fear really is—
Often, Death confuses me to the point that
Fear can’t even find a way in,
And love bewilders me so much so
That Death becomes irrelevant entirely:
Victory isn’t the same as “I win”!
What scares me?
Where do I end—
And where do I begin?
Often, Death confuses me to the point that
Fear can’t even find a way in,
And love bewilders me so much so
That Death becomes irrelevant entirely:
Victory isn’t the same as “I win”!
What scares me?
Where do I end—
And where do I begin?
9:30:2022
Autumn must abuse the trees;
It bruises their leaves and threatens them all into dormancy.
Who among us isn't guilty of poeticizing
The dying leaves?
This calendar feels so backwards;
What can a piece of paper tell me
About the ways of the Earth?
Not so long ago,
We worshiped her.
We used to chronologize our time after the fact;
Now we use the internet to tell us
where the leaves are at.
Over the centuries and empires and ages,
Our sacred holidays have been ripped away
from their proper places:
The night is equal to day; let's celebrate.
The sun’s rays are glorious and strong,
But it won't be too long
‘Till the night has its way;
Let us worship today, not to date.
In retrospect, this disconnect
Between intellect and Earth’s offset
Does to our minds what the world does to time:
Re-assigns its value, shifts it out of place.
And who among us isn't guilty
Of finding poetry amid disgrace?
I like the way the empty branches sway;
How come that's no holiday?
A party of one, a better judgement day.
In my world, when the wind comes along
To disrupt the birds’ song
It means prophecy.
It bruises their leaves and threatens them all into dormancy.
Who among us isn't guilty of poeticizing
The dying leaves?
This calendar feels so backwards;
What can a piece of paper tell me
About the ways of the Earth?
Not so long ago,
We worshiped her.
We used to chronologize our time after the fact;
Now we use the internet to tell us
where the leaves are at.
Over the centuries and empires and ages,
Our sacred holidays have been ripped away
from their proper places:
The night is equal to day; let's celebrate.
The sun’s rays are glorious and strong,
But it won't be too long
‘Till the night has its way;
Let us worship today, not to date.
In retrospect, this disconnect
Between intellect and Earth’s offset
Does to our minds what the world does to time:
Re-assigns its value, shifts it out of place.
And who among us isn't guilty
Of finding poetry amid disgrace?
I like the way the empty branches sway;
How come that's no holiday?
A party of one, a better judgement day.
In my world, when the wind comes along
To disrupt the birds’ song
It means prophecy.
Sometime in October
His eyes never soften mid-sentence,
Like he just caught himself
Telling the story of him
In real-time;
They’re always at some fixed point
In space, triangulating what to say.
It’s hard for you to focus yourself into words, isn’t it?
You’re too busy being to talk about it,
Too busy listening to think about it.
Me? Oh, I’m always droning on
About this or the other;
I wouldn’t know when to quit
If I came to a stutter—
Repeating myself, but not in chunks
Of a meaningful sound,
More like the kind that lead meanings astray,
Take away from the words you can’t say.
This is my problem, not yours:
I believe that somehow, this all might mean victory.
I believe that Life might be something
worth dying for.
Who are you?
I know who I think you are,
But they’re not the same person—
And I can only fill-in-the-gaps
With more me!
Nobody’s innocent, but that doesn’t make
Everyone guilty!
Let your eyes soften up,
Catch yourself telling the story of you
to me.
Mercy Kill
"This was a pretty risky move, telling me this. If I wouldn't have taken it well, I really wouldn't have taken it well."
I pondered that for a moment. Honestly, I was fairly certain that the current wouldn't be transferred to begin with; this was not my first time trying to tell you this. But I also knew that you were right: even assuming the current did transfer, there were so many ways that it could've gone wrong. You are absolutely the type of person, for example, who's inclined to shut down or freak out when confronted with these kinds of topics; I witness it every other week. But none of that matters anymore— the current was transferred, and now the two of us exist on the other side of some intangible unfathomable barrier— and to me, at least, the relief is well worth its risk.
"Yeah, but we've both been in such high spirits; we’ve had such a wonderful day today." I smile back at you. "Plus, now that you know, you should understand why I had to tell you." I let my eyes speak for me until I can summon more words. "I love you— and— if we were ever going to—"
"Have a real chance together, then you had to tell me sooner or later," you interrupted me. I'm so glad you did; I'm not sure where exactly I was going with that sentence.
"Well, not just had to, I guess. I needed to." I reach for your hand, feeling a little shaky, like I was watching you peer back over the edge of the chasm that had loomed between us just minutes before, freshly traversed, now behind us, eyeing you cautiously, holding onto your arm
to make sure you don't jump.
"I love you."
"I love you, too," you say right back, the same way you always have and hopefully always will.
"So, you're not mad at me; you're okay?" I ask nervously, afraid that this is all just too good to be true. You take a second to shift positions, consider my questions.
"Well, you changed my life."
"Is that for the better— or— worse?"
"I don't even know!" You laugh a little, which makes me laugh, too.
"I don't even know!"
Could Be
(10:10:2022)
Seems like every Monday
It's like the weather agrees with me
That we should stay in our beds
'Till the newspaper says
That we were better off in the trees
Sure do miss when my Sunday's
Had a lesson tied with a bow
Now I just sit on my phone
Making sense of the tones
So I can reap every seed I sew
I could be wrong
I could be right
I could be wrong
I've got a feeling I maybe might
Crying over my spilled milk
I better go out and get some more
So I get into my car
And I don't get far
when I forget what I'm driving for
Ate shit on the staircase
I think I might've just broke my crown
But then I can't help but scoff
As I dust myself off
Was I just on my way up or down?
I could be wrong
I could be right
I could be wrong
I've got a feeling I maybe might
10:12:2022
I'm getting a little tired
of telling myself the same story;
I think it might be time
To digest a bit more glory,
let my mind's eye metabolize the truth apart from lies before I spin a tale so long that it means Nothing in disguise.
How many different units of meaning
are there?
Are there? I can only talk about meaning by talking; there's a difference between meaning and knowing, telling and showing, you know?
I guess what I mean
Is something I could never truly say,
And, well, I'm getting a little tired or always trying to say it anyway.
And what about the outside World?
She's wide awake— filled to the brim with an amount of Life
that must be more than whatever I can take—
or else I'd mean it, say it, be it whenever I awake.
The naïvety that permeates my speech flies right over my head— it's beneath me,
But to rise above it all would mean that Life has settled more than what even gravity required;
I'm getting a little bit tired.
10:20:2022
Let's just believe that Life means
what it ought to be;
let us believe.
Let us not grieve out own deceptions—
else, we'll never find the key
that lets us heave our hearts asunder.
It's no wonder
why we can't help but deceive:
there is no wonder left—
and yet we dare perceive.
We leave it all to chance
in our attempt to interweave,
but thread is more than lore can atomize,
it ties dance to reprieve.
Death tries not to be known too much,
though, up everyone's sleeves,
like names, things, places,
times, rhymes, aces,
non-life aches that we retrieve.
Let us take meaning at face-value;
let the storytellers thieve—
let's just believe that Life means
something, shall you?
Let's believe.
10:27:2022
These statues all use
The same mechanics my eyes do:
Imprinting in three dimensions
Not what they see (Reality does that plenty),
But whatever they feel;
How the light weaves itself
In and out and around my thick skull,
turns light’s energy back into particles.
I think art relies most on
The stories we give it:
Soft or jagged edges,
Boundaries brought forth from one
Material or color over another.
Looking at artworks, I mostly feel
Lost, tangled up in the current of
I-Am-I-Am-Not,
Adrift inside of signals crafted
Centuries before me,
Feeding back into the feedback loop
Eternally.
Hundreds of faces are trapped in
Rendered memories, whose spirits
(I can't help but imagine) surely
Resist their own mythologies.
And how many of these bodies
Old, decrepit yet depicted
Are now intangible as their stories
Told, or worse— never existed?
How many of these statues and paintings
Were erected just to resurrect the Truth
For however the artist aimed to represent it?
I can't help but respect their dedications,
In either case. The space
Between my eyes and what they see
Still keeps a sense of relevancy.
Myths aside, these figures reside
In Memory’s fond residency:
Beckoning back, calling ahead
Just to whisper “Hello,
I know, I know;
I told you so”.
11:1:2022
I have a place and a time,
So they must not be me.
Atoms perform me like Adam before me:
A story over-written, under-rehearsed
(And, depending on who you ask, cursed).
When I die, I will still have a time and place;
They'll just be a little bit harder to trace.
I'll have spread my self out far too thin
To join in on the fun, on the conversation,
If only the kind that's enjoyed by the likes of Life.
At times, the atoms that hold me together
Respond to these thoughts with a tremor,
Resonating with some erratic frequency,
Something you'd see on a seismograph
When the sirens laugh.
Crying and Laughing were always so
Devilishly close, weren't they?
Fear and pain, the body’s cold case,
And joy plays their happy host / gossamer.
Somewhere inside of my pain and my fear
Lies a small mote of a joy that is so damn sincere
It resides out of place and of time—
Which implies that it means something greater,
Like pain, and like me: we are being
Orchestrated, arranged into movements
Like symphonies, broadly casted into sight
For whoever is to see; I see!
Our oldest metaphor, sore but sworn
To secrecy, to take my eye at face-value
For however I might meet it
In this given place and time.
11:11:2022
There is no more wisdom in deep breaths
Anymore than shallow—
But I'll be damned if I can't make
Those shallow breaths shine.
It's not always so bad, you know:
all you have to do is listen,
And you'll hear a million tiny voices
Call from every which direction, say
"Hello! Hello!"
God makes the time to visit you
In the moment just before you
breathe back in again;
He set up shop in the space between
Your eyes and whatever they see,
Your words and whatever they mean,
Your thoughts and whatever they know,
You know? I have trouble breathing
At the best of times—
but how often I seem to forget
I am breathing at all!
Breathe and you remember the cycle
you're a part of.
Remember that your breath is not a metaphor—
Like Heart beats you to the punchline everytime,
You just keep on going.
There is no wisdom in deep breaths, in shallow; wisdom can't lie in whatever you know,
it's the threading of changes
All terms aim to follow.
11:24:2022
I'll take yours out to pasture
Just as soon as you give me back mine,
But then, I'm sure by the time that
Our glances next met the current
Rate of exchange, it would all be too late.
Why don't we not tempt our fates,
angel breathing?
Why not take the bait
And then claim that the story it holds
lies inside of the way that it tastes?
I refuse to be idle, to wait—
I dare not use those words.
I love you now: aloud, proud, anyhow,
I'm far too pressed by gravity
for any more pressure,
Far too self-savvy
to make it out alive on passed the stretcher.
I won't survive, but she's just the structure—
No, I couldn't be Me,
My self knows us both better.
Creatures just as well rupture
From inside to out,
From shortcut to long,
from weak love to strong;
from love to what love's about.
Surely, the Lord can't be my kind of Shepard;
I don't even know what a sheep would act like!
11:24:2022
The ghosts all leak out of my cavity holes,
Tell me all kinds of secrets
I'd rather not know:
"you know, your jaw flaps quite crookedly,
Perhaps you should loosen your grip;
You know, there's more to this life
than just living it."
My good eye is always looking elsewhere,
Always double-crossing
Life's former forecast,
Climbing the ladder and getting a grip
On what's real; that's the deal.
Sure, my teeth may have sinkholes
far denser than gravity's,
sweeter than cavities’ —
but collide a scope or two and you'll see
that there is no underlying line to cross;
there is no final boss;
there is no new shiny tooth to floss;
there is no more cross left to bear.
Yet right there next to yours you'll find
mine, his, and theirs—
and we've all got a few
That we save for the grave.
We've all been saving up for a space in the cemeteries, to buy right back up
our own birthright / depravities,
filling in gaps despite
ghost-leaking cavities.
I'm drunk,
But not the fun kind of drunk that helps you forget about the state of the world, the kind that leaves a lilting in your stomach, an uncomfortable settling of the body, the kind that reminds you that the Earth is always moving. I think that that's what's really happening when we get the spins: a barrier dissolves, and our bodies suddenly catch a glimpse of just how fast we're really moving— sixty-six thousand miles in just one hour— eleven hundred miles a minute, eighteen point three miles with each passing second. That's incomprehensible, isn't it? To imagine that our stability could truly be so relative to narrative.
We call space "space" because we have to call it something, call time "time" to keep up pace with nothing, worship quarks because Science says to say the name, tack another label onto infinity like that will keep the dam from overpouring blame. But once gravity's had its filling, it'll do this thing called "killing", and there'll be no you or me to comment on how energy keeps spilling into one thing from another, letting rot and rust break down our trust until we remember the thrust of the Earth that we've known since birth, obvious yet somehow still oblivious, innocuous, begging us to just hold on— as if racing toward our coffins (at speeds we forget all too often)
ever left us with any other
options.