Saint Lavender - Spring 2021

SPRING 2021

3/20/2021

I think I missed another deadline,

another dead-end

I accidentally co-signed,

another full send I authorized just by ignoring,

another self actualized and then scorned, birthed then reborn,

again and again and another dead-end.

Dead line, finish line, bottom line,

re-lapse. Front line, head line, hard line,

re-cap. See that?

I breathe that, it's called "oxygen":

get too much, get too high,

not enough and you're gonna die.

(I love that song!)

So long! I'm re-decorating, I'm

re-orienting, I'm re-membering

that the outside world exists

only when I choose it,

only when I take the world for all its tools and use it—

I unlearn something new every day!

Twice the work at half the pay!

I'd take it over ignorance any day—

and that's the problem.

Every word I've never said is sewn in

the hem of my coffin.

A stitch in time will never forsake

his own deadline.

3/20/2021

I like who I'm becoming,

I just don't agree with me yet I guess.

Somebody's getting in my way all the time,

but I'm just so sick of shadowboxing.

Why can't I show my self to me?

How can I begin to win against

whatever remains unspoken?

Whichever seal needs to be broken,

I'll break it.

I know there's no chance— I'll take it.

Just give me something to work with;

Lord knows I'll fill in all the gaps.

Just do what you do best—

I'll take care of the rest!

One day you'll catch up with me,

and I'll catch up with you.

Then all will be said and done

after one realizes two.

In the meantime, I'd like to calculate the mean of all the data; I'd like to take my average up by adding a few outliers here and there: a change of pace,

a really good day, a summer to waste,

a new game to play. What else can I say?

3/21/2021

I used to be so scared of Time

(most of that time, I still am.)

I can't even begin to explain

how I looked at it, what I thought it was:

for starters, something separate from me.

Time is not Other;

it's always been you, silly boy.

(Reality patted me on the head just now

and told me that.)

I am always being embraced by everything.

Time, Noun: the indefinite continued process of existence.

Okay, so it's indefinite, I knew that.

Continued, sure.

Process, Noun:

a series of actions or steps taken

in order to achieve a particular end.

Something's not adding up here,

or maybe it is just a little too well.

I'm beginning to wonder

if we cannot describe it

simply because we are so entangled within it.

I guess it all must boil down to this:

You Are Afraid Of What You Don't Know You.

3/21/2021

Sometimes I get too testy with the streetlights, beg them to wink at me,

to prove that they're in on the joke too.

These words take up inches;

my thoughts are spaceless.

They are actions, the noun of the verb,

the pre-tense for the non-sense.

I'm drowning in the current

state of eternity.

Fuck man, I really think

they might be all the same;

I really think it's all one name;

I really think

that there's another version of me

whose soul is just two inches to the left,

who wrote a different poem

that I'll never get to see,

who could've sworn she saw those same streetlights

winking back at me.

3/21/2021

A human is a human being.

A monkey is an animal is an organism

is an animal.

A peach is a fruit is a product is a substance is matter is substance.

Water is a liquid is a substance is matter

is substance.

Self is a being is existence is a state is a condition is a state.

Energy is power is ability is possession is a state is a condition is a state.

Time is a process is an action is a fact is a thing is an object is a thing.

Love is a feeling is a reaction is an action is a fact is a thing is an object is a thing.

What is a word is an element is an aspect is a part is a piece is an object is a thing

is an object is a thing?

3/21/2021

If you didn't know what you knew,

you wouldn't have noticed.

How am I supposed to notice

when I didn't even think to notice?

What, don't tell me you think I'm being redundant—

tell me why I can't be anything except redundant;

tell me why I can't say anything

that I didn't first have to find!

Wait a minute, Nevermind—

who cares about any of this?

I will never see today again.

The sun is shining!

Nevermind!

3/22/2021

I was just thinking about how I might never visit my father's house again,

how I probably won't be tanning on an

air mattress in the pool or listening to the neighborhood summer sounds.

"It's not that big of a deal," I tell myself.

"There'll be summer sounds everywhere.

It's a season, not a place."

Once upon a time, the season and the place were the exact same thing.

Days slipped by like dollar bills and an elephant's ear matched the cornstalks' height and the heat made

children of us all. Sometimes I listen well enough to feel it; other times it all conspires without a warning, and I'm soaking wet, chlorine stenched,

a kid again. Something so demanding about childhood, about how you're supposed to make every moment meaningful, every summer count, every second fun while it lasts. Why do adults love saying such things to children?

I don't even know what time is— don't tell me that I'm already running out of it!

I sure am gonna miss that neighborhood; I'll sure miss Redbud Lane.

I remember the last time I thought I'd ever visit again, how I walked around the house late at night and took

long, sad looks at things.

I didn't even get to do that this time;

I didn't even get to say goodbye.

Maybe it's better that way,

makes it feel more like a real ending.

3/23/2021

I'm aching something long overdue;

I think I even have a sunburn.

(Secretly, I've always liked sunburns.)

My cheeks are rosy

from a day well-spent.

How often do we really

stop to remember that we are?

I'm sore just like I spent the day at Disney:

wandering lightly from place to place,

another stop here, learning you.

It's a wonderful thing that we humans do:

I want to know you for my sake and yours,

for a different point-of-view that helps me understand the truth, because I like you.

To love is old, to like is bold.

Should I admit my understatement?

Who knows? Let's just see where it goes—

I don't know about you,

but you sure seem to!

I don't know about me,

but I sure hope my sunburn is worse in the morning; I know that I'm tired and happy.

2/24/2021

Sometimes I can't even commit

to breathing.

I'll stop halfway through just to

readjust my lungs, to remind them

how they're supposed to do it.

It helps me stay present, I think,

helps me feel less like I'm on some sort of stage giving a performance,

less like time is a novelty.

No shining lights, no audience members

except for the air I breathe

in and out, in and out,

forever repeating 'till the day

that it doesn't.

But death isn't scary to me right now;

I feel the need to tell you when it isn't

just as much as when it is.

Both inform the bigger picture, see:

the truth is in dichotomy, superposition.

It is terrifying and awe-inspiring—

you breathe out to breathe in again,

in to breathe out again, and yet somehow neither of those answer to

why you are breathing. How am I supposed to know? I'm too busy breathing to figure out why, much the same for Life!

3/25/2021

My name doesn't know me,

my mirror doesn't show me,

my rituals outgrew me

and my nonsense never knew me.

I'm something worse than a schema

and more than a timeline,

a grapevine pantomime

of those who came before me.

I'm not in it for the glory;

it's the glory who is in me.

I am Who.

Who?

You don't know who;

you're too busy being you.

In the meantime,

why don't we leave being me to the pros,

let the prose show who it shows?

My name could never know me;

it's the one my parents chose.

Their name like yours is much the same:

a flawed projection made in vain.

It's nice to have a sound!

But if it's all the same to you,

I think I'll be choosing my own

this time around.

3/26/2021

Earlier today,

I passed a man with blue hair

who said to his friend:

"I tore up my last five cigarettes

and smoked the sixth",

and I thought that I'd better go ahead and commit that to memory, just in case

it's on the test.

Lauren, what test?

You want an ultimatum so badly

that you went and created your own;

it's okay to stop searching.

If everything, everything, everything

happens for a reason, well,

then certainly the likes of you

doesn't know it! So why bother?

(Oh boy, no, not at all, man, calm down.)

And, if there truly is no reason,

you need to work a little harder at making the right kinds of connections, the ones that make you happy, the ones that help you understand just how lucky you are.

Just forget about the blue-haired man;

he isn't on the test.

3/26/2021

When the sky looks like this,

it reminds me of a computer screen

late at night.

Artificial light from some omnipresent

source: where is the internet?

Where is the sun?

No, really— where exactly is it?

You're probably tempted

to say something along the lines of

"Well, it's in the center of our solar system.

It's about 91 million miles from here,"

but what does that tell me?

You told me that it's in the center of a bullseye we invented;

you told me that it's miles away from me.

I don't want another reference point;

I want the actual one!

What I'm trying to say is that some things are just too damn big for maps,

too damn vast for scale,

too encompassing for words.

Sometimes I wish that our language never evolved beyond pointing at things

and giving them sounds.

The sky is calling— somebody pick up!

3/27/2021

If you aren't sure what you're saying,

you should probably go ahead and

keep talking— how else are you

ever going to figure out what it is?

You can always take it back later.

In fact, I would argue that

the past takes everything back,

whether you want it to or not.

I am not the person I was one sentence ago, and neither are you:

we are constantly being changed by time;

I am constantly changing my mind

all the time.

"I change my mind."

Without context, this almost reads as

some sort of affirmation—

I am the one who is changing my mind—

no one else can do it for me!

I learn new things and I real-ize;

I unlearn things once idolized.

If you aren't sure what you're saying,

say it until you are.

What else is there to say?

3/29/2021

You can't just cut through the middle of the circle—

Because the second you add motion into the equation, you figure that time is on your side to fantasize, to make new eyes for yourself. The mistake we made with boss battles is that we made it a relative term. I'm not sure if that was the right call, or why sometimes when I give advice, my little trading card of "what makes life worth living" gets treated more like an ugly hand-me-down. It's what I'm talking about; that's what I'm talking about.

Somebody better start making sense to me: clearly, I can't be bothered to do it.

Sense is better if it's made, if it's intentional, so to speak (it's what I'm talking about). Remember ugly hand-me-downs? They're ugly like uncomfortable silences: that was bad advice, you didn't help. You made new eyes for yourself.

I skipped a few things, played the boss battle for its own begotten sake.

But did you catch it?

I'm not making the game either, just playing it, same as you.

Stuck in a circular zoo!

3/29/2021

I can't stay here for the rest of my life. I don't know where I am,

but I can't stay here.

A gnat that no one else can see—

I swear, it's there! Just follow me!

(No, because then that could be interpreted this way, which would imply that I actually feel like this about this,

but if that's the case, then why wouldn't I have just worded it like that

from the very beginning?)

A genie gives you a new second to wish away for every one you're wishing through. (I think that my wish was to remember [but not to know]).

You know?

Imagine hearing a person talk like this in real life; you would think they were crazy.

Put it on paper; I'm a mascot for blindness sightings, a fraud as much as anyone thinks One is, I guess.

"I guess, I guess, I guess."

Sometimes it's too hard to connect these back to the start; I'm not good at reading maps; I don't know where I am,

but I know that I can't stay here.

3/29/2021

It will just never be enough for me to settle for it. It would just bury me alive, un-dead,

plain and simple.

It would just feel too much like defeat, too much like settling, like sacrifice, like I didn't have what it takes; I can't understand when we don't see the same color. I don't even want to talk about my original thing anymore; I already don't care; I'm more interested now in how to keep myself entertained, except I'm doing good work, I think! Not a good job by any means, but good, virtuous work!

See? You can tell by the way that there are so many people I'm presumably dead to–

and what's it to you?

Wondering out loud to a friend who couldn't care less

"(Oh,) I should see them again;

I should call an old friend

and try my best to be a good one.

I've been on quite the ego roadtrip lately;

I'm sorry I couldn't join you for dinner.

I have to, have to, have to be alone.

The only thing there is to do is

figure out myself and die trying....

3/30/2021

You know, my hair is so short,

if I didn't know any better,

passing glances would tell me that

I look just like my father

did when he was young.

Boyish, crazy, stupid—

it's just hair (or lack thereof)!

Some of me is my father;

short hair never hurt anybody!

(More than what can be said

for the head beneath it.)

Mostly harmless traits:

I have my father's haircut,

his love for music,

knack for trivia, anger for me.

But you know, I don't really hear his words

rattling around in my head anymore;

I can't really even remember

the things he used to say.

It doesn't matter anyway;

my will overpowers me

in ways my father never could.

I think my short hair does me good.

3/29/2021

This doesn't feel like the flowers should be blossoming just yet.

Maybe winter still has some unresolved business that simply can't be put away and dealt with next year like the tangled up Christmas lights or an awkward family dinner. Something I need to let go of so that all the deaths can die, so I can make shapes with the sky in between all the clouds. Why don't you just filter it out as you go like a weather vane?

(It doesn't matter what the air is made of; what matters is how it changes the vane over time.) It'll be raining a lot more here, soon. Which is good news for me: I've always loved storms. The storm coming

always feels so much stronger than I am, so much smarter and larger and mightier that it makes me wonder who am I to even dare and stand another chance.

I decided to kill the old weed-killer;

though it was very hard to let her go.

I decided to up-root my old routes,

let the rain feed the flowers at the funeral.

3/31/2021

Do you think we still have time?

Do you mind if I come back later?

Is it already too late?

Is there someone I should call?

Can we take a break?

Can this move over just a little?

Should that be making any noise?

Should we just pretend we understand?

Does that mean you're ready to go?

Does this have anything to do with me?

Could we please stick to the subject?

Could you keep your voice down?

Would you hand that to me?

Would you see if it's hot enough?

Who was at the door, honey?

Who else could've done it?

Have you heard this song?

Have you ever been there?

Did you remember to take out the trash?

Did you lead a good life?

4/1/2021

My room is a little playhouse

with playthings everywhere.

I swear it was there on the table,

except now it's right here in my chair!

Where?

Well, why would I go and put it there?

I can't remember everywhere!

The playhouse knows that

anywhere and anything are just one thing

and hides it in the paisley.

Checkerboard: I don't have time for chess;

I haven't got the patience;

I get bored at keeping score.

It's not about the points;

it was never about the points.

All that matters is that tie-breaker.

And even now as I write, feeling paragraphs slip into their ellipses,

taking their rotten place in line like a lost friend of mine, through a pied-piper's evergreen pine....

Pied-piper tie-breaker!

I don't know, has anyone said that yet?

So anyway, yeah— a little playhouse with playthings everywhere.

4/2/2021

You hitched a ride from a stranger,

the lesser of two evils:

kindness for kindness' own sake.

Whoever invented the phrase

"prepare for the worst; hope for the best"

can eat it— preparing and hoping

assume that things ever last.

This is what it means to be free:

to understand that you are contributing

to the infinite.

You are claimed by staking one,

marked by making one!

There is literally no time for you to waste;

there never was, man.

It never was— but that doesn't

have to mean that you aren't!

You think that you are—

so you can!

You have the freedom to be!

Preparing and hoping is an opening act

for a show that has always been running!

You're not running— you're in a car.

You hitched a ride from a stranger:

a star?

4/4/2021

So I wrote this chorus

that I didn't really like.

I just gave a man one of my lighters

(I have a million of them;

it's not like I'll miss one.)

because he was

"tired and homesick and

just [wanted] a goddamn cigarette."

Strangers aren't really;

they're no more stranger than you.

The self is the most reclusive stranger there is to be unknown.

I'm back— and I'm cold.

Shivering, but I'm not sure what from

or what for or how come.

Sometimes, I'll think to myself when I'm cold —very sternly—

"I'm not."

Look man, all I'm saying is that somehow this is all meaningful too.

Who could say these things but me?

Anyone! Practically literally everyone!

I don't want to try to tie this back to choruses; you know what I'm saying.

You do.

4/4/2021

Isn't this kind of silly?

Come on, humor me:

isn't it?

What does it mean to be insane?

"Mean" is to definition as

definitions are to language:

more or less obsolete in its ubiquity,

ambiguity.

Is that what it means to be insane?

To be non-ambiguous?

Definition:

"not capable of being understood in

two or more possible senses or ways."

"Two or more"? I'd take just one!

Sanity: I taste it in the back of

my throat sometimes,

that patient silent tempting

pseudo-science.

You all can do what you want—

I'm never going back there.

Call me crazy, but I don't care what you call me (you should try it sometime)!

It's hilarious— seriously.

Humor me!

4/5/2021

Outside looking in,

please be my medicine.

Help me find within

the strength to reimagine

where and who I've been

so endings can begin.

Inside looking out,

please be on the lookout.

Help me average out

the mania and the doubt

and go a different route

should my wits be all about.

Eye who sees both sides,

please relay what coincides.

Help me see these signs as guides

who in return will change my tides

from those of puzzling divides

to the love and sight which light provides.

4/6/2021

Re-member and re-mind,

re-align your self to your body

and re-lay the brain to the body's design:

they tell you you are human,

then they tell you what that means.

Don't tell me anything!

You can't— I won't hear it!

I can't even tell what I can't tell,

say what I can't say!

Why are there some sentences

inaccessible to me?

What else could explain

waking up here again?

I'm a talent scout— and so are you.

Scouring the pathways for what is and isn't true. We know about totality because we are totality's assignment.

Totality's patron,

eternity's mighty adventures.

This one honestly hasn't been so bad.

Bit of a rocky start, I'll admit—

but I think that this time

I'm better at owning my mind,

at remembering my kind,

at leaving deadweight behind.

4/6/2021

Earlier today,

one of my friends told me

that the last song I wrote

reminded them of how they used to feel

listening to experimental Beatles music,

you know, when you're just a bit too young to be listening to experimental Beatles music, and there you are, taking it all in,

afraid of the open-wide jaw that your

innocent ears are gaping into.

And I understood

exactly what they meant:

such a funny little brand of solidarity—

I have felt this feeling from music before.

And I have, too; I remember hearing certain songs as a child and

describing them as "satanic";

now I pull an all-nighter on a Monday

just to get them out of my head.

Of course, I don't believe in Satan anymore; I guess I'll leave some room for doubt should Satan believe in me.

A lot of people seem to;

I sure am thankful for that.

4/8/2021

I'm pretty sure that I saw the bluest blue I've ever seen in my life today;

it was in the sky, and I stopped dead in my tracks on my way home from class;

people thought I was looking at

a bird or a plane, but it was just the sky.

I don't know, it really

meant something to me— you know?

I don't exactly get to choose what or when things do (how many times have you seen a blue sky?), so when something does mean something to me,

no matter how small, I stop everything

I'm doing and I let it mean itself to me.

"I am the only one who will ever get to see this," I like to tell myself in these moments.

"No one will ever see this blue sky quite like I do— not right from where I'm at,

not while knowing only what I know and nothing that I don't."

Do you see what I am seeing,

hear what I am saying?

Every single moment is like this!

4/8/2021

... and this is what feeling in control

does for us: creates

your own balanced life without the pain,

reasons to have more facts & calendars.

If you think you can cut corners,

your wish is its command.

Everyone's talking about it! No nonsense!

Don't forget! (How do you meditate, anyway?) It all starts with the sun.

Schools in session!

Time is more than a mirror;

like ripples in a pond,

small acts of kindness continue

on... and on... and on...

the secret is out!

second nature is the beginning.

Nobody knows what to know

before you go.

Here's a new game plan.

Picture this:

The Great Escape:

return of the subtle emphasis

interlacing row by row,

here... at last... and a first!

It's as easy as paint-by-number:

the creation of your everyday

designs on the past,

rendezvous for free patterns

born to experience.

and... that's it!

4/11/2021

Something to do with the way

people don't know their own small talk,

as if silence could slice them in half.

As much as I love talking,

often it simply isn't necessary.

Why are we so afraid of it?

I don't think that I am—

but I like to be meaningful when I can.

Intentional on command.

Supplying speech on-demand,

pay-per-view point-of-view.

Who knows you?

Rather, what knows you

better than silence?

It is a default state; to be still.

To be aware of the self-

splitting and the space in between it.

I've seen it multiply like flies

when a conversation dies:

do you reckon that's what does it?

Sit in silence long enough,

it'll surely come up.

Something always comes up,

talking small for the next biggest thing.

4/11/2021

True love, real love, one love— bullshit!

All love is true!

Why on Earth would I want to

spare anyone from that?

I'm simply not in the business of

gatekeeping love:

I refuse to put stipulations and ultimatums on how I feel for you.

I'm too much for any other person;

I'm enough for myself!

But sharing is caring,

and I feel for you—

and you and you and you!

Love is an infinitely renewable resource:

I should like to sample some of yours!

As for me, I will love you

as much as I am able,

as much as you want me to,

as much as we can stand,

nothing more, nothing less.

I don't need you to be here,

I want you to be. Love is the only thing

keeping me here; it tugs me

every which way to every which who!

That's what it means to be true!

(I love you!)

4/11/2021

Don't believe everything you believe,

know everything you know,

hear everything you hear,

see everything you see.

Believing is not Belief anymore than

Seeing is Sight.

There is something

mightier than might and

brighter than light!

I don't know what it is—

but that's half the fun!

The other half is

somewhere in the weeds;

it's reaping unknown seeds

and planting more to line your grave.

I believe in possibility,

in the enigma of being Saved

by a context shallowly engraved.

My ways are set in me

as I am set to return to them.

But we two are not the same—

one will always preceded the other!

It is for this very reason that I am another.

Leaving so soon?

Why, of course; I'm not my mother!

4/12/2021

Tight clothes, baggy clothes,

both at the same time.

Jeans are always too short—

mom jeans, skinny jeans,

bell bottoms and miniskirts.

Loose shirts, little shirts,

fishnets for the "plenty of fish in the sea"?

I'm wearing this dress for me!

I like to layer up:

crop tops, button-ups,

crochet for the everyday;

I don't change clothes when I get home.

Wear pajamas to the grocery store,

shoes that make my feet sore.

But I like them—

they make me even taller.

A t-shirt that I've had since seventh grade.

(How the hell does that still fit me?)

Up-grades, up-cycles,

clothes I never had the chance to wear.

A mismatched pair, I don't care;

who is responsible for the translation?

You think my clothes are fashion overstatements? What a reinstatement!

4/12/2021

What do you reckon that your

silhouette is? The traces you're

leaving behind? Impressions you

replace with your absence?

Everyone is always buzzing about

in their own little ways,

humming on in the background

like a song you didn't even realize

you were singing.

I can hear movement—not poetry.

Everything that I see has a sound to me,

an off-beat synesthete.

It helps me see that all of these rhythms are the same; it helps me understand

these circles and these patterns.

We think that we can see the center,

yet we only imagine "ahead".

I am continually self-informed;

there's simply no escaping it.

As another self said first,

"careful— everything is a self-portrait."

Art became more realistic once we began to understand life's shadows:

the ballad of the silhouette.

4/16/2021

I'll never say it again.

Whatever it was— it's gone now.

Except that "now" was actually

about six hours ago,

back when I held the funeral

just like these cards I've been dealt;

am I censoring myself?

Or is my self censoring me?

Lighting the path so I think I can see,

revealing reality what for how to be free?

Do those words make sense together?

I don't know; somehow I continually

never seem to know.

But I love a good show, so

play on!

We're all on this hearse called Earth;

we've all got this curse called birth

for whatever that's worth and

everything it's not—

I'd rather rot than not!

I know what I am,

and that makes me a who.

Same for you?

Then say it again!

4/18/2021

Some mornings I hear the birds

and it makes me think that

maybe they really are the thread.

One long song, longly droning

on and on before it's gone

where the rest of it goes:

what the rest of it knows!

I don't know what I know

and I do what I don't,

you know?

Go ahead, smell the orange blossoms again.

Remember what life used to feel like not too long ago, back when dandelions were just wishing flowers and you didn't give a damn about your memories.

That's when the real magic happens—

when you don't even realize it's magic.

The spell is the word;

the verse is the curse.

Some mornings I hear the birds

and it makes me think that

maybe the morning is singing to me.

4/19/2021

Okay, so this is it.

This is what it means to feel spring again.

You know, it's funny;

those leaves look exactly the same

as the ones who fell two seasons ago.

I don't think that the seasons are

nomads anymore;

I think that I have always been the one to take each day by the hand and pass the torch on to the horizon.

I think that the wind is trying to tell me something; I think that it's saying

"Pay attention!

You will never see this moment again."

I remember the snow,

and it's beautiful, too.

I'll remember you.

4/21/2021

Just to see what happens;

I think it'd be funny to see what happens.

And even if it isn't funny,

something will surely happen.

I don't want another drug;

I don't need another chance;

I've only ever had this one.

Just one more hole in the narrative;

how is this thing even floating?

Which combination —no—

permutation of sentences,

which words in which order

could possibly hope to ever free me?

I have the key! It's in my own hand!

The only problem is that every wish

is my command!

Understand?

It's funny just to see what happens!

4/22/2021

"One last thing before you go:

you are evolution.

You are evolution!

Don't wake up!

We need you in my dreams.

Give us names;

you've got to pretend that we're real

so we can all exist.

That's right, you did hear my voice on the radio— I'm telling you—

Don't wake up!

You think it's what you want,

but you're too busy wanting it to

even know what it is!

Too busy living to understand a life—

yours!

One last thing before you go:

don't.

I needs you more than I do;

we need you more than you do.

The self is Yahweh's fallen angel;

your language is his prison cell.

Don't wake up—

let your self lie sleeping!"

4/22/2021

There is no greater compliment than

to say that someone is

"good at giving gifts".

What a delightful way to partake in

unraveling the mystery!

Trust me— it's all about the ceremony.

There is a reason why "cue"

shares its connotation with that of dance.

You take the lead, lead me astray...

what's the difference?

You think that I'm not humble enough for inference?

Where is the need to be vicious coming from? You see what I mean?

Yeah, it's all just a joke—

so laugh! Give!

Love as much as you possibly can;

the mystery of love is such a better story!

Who are you

(so that I may trust you less);

who are you

(so that I may love you more)?

Give me the gift that keeps on giving:

a fresh trail of breadcrumbs!

4/23/2021

You look at me and I can't even remember what I was thinking about.

Granted, that's not a particularly uncommon occurrence;

I find that I lose my train of thought

almost as often as my keys

or my mind.

But it's not a bad re-focusing;

I like it.

What does it mean to be present?

I couldn't tell you;

I'm too busy thinking about it.

Isn't that funny?

That's what I'm always thinking about when I'm looking at you;

that's why I'm laughing.

Oh, that's right:

you're here — and so am I!

There's a gravity in that gaze;

there's a joke in there somewhere—

I can see it!

Wait— what were we just talking about?

4/23/2021

I'm remembering those nights

some years ago;

cold, cold nights when I'd focus on the shivering

'till it woke me up again

in time for school.

(A train at three AM, clockwork.)

I was an imaginative kid;

I liked to pretend

that I was a soldier braving out the winter,

a prisoner in the gulag,

a blue-flamed alchemist

who perma-froze the world,

who could fossilize each moment

like my shaky crystalized breath

catching the glint through the window.

So many silences memorialized in those streetlights.

So much rust in the shadows

hanging from the trees,

scraping at my knees

like that damn chain-link fence.

You know how I feel

when I think back to those nights?

So, so warm and content:

innocent.

4/23/2021

What do you do with your joy?

Where do you store it?

I think that peace is when you recognize the longform and where you're at

inside of it.

The universe is so big,

you can't even hide from it!

Who could possibly want an escape from the sunlight?

Solace from the night?

I feel the Earth's polarity;

I hear the river's charity.

Smoothing over stones,

over time, overgrown.

Knowing things I've never known.

A joyous thing to be alone!

To filter time through your eyes and your lungs and your mind—

that breeze is public domain!

And this joy is too big to contain!

Allow me to explain:

I've won the game by seeing my self out of it; I found my joy by having

no doubt about it!

4/24/2021

Woah, where did it go?

Can I just not keep up;

am I too hard to follow?

Oh, there it is.

I just couldn't see clearly;

is there better than this?

And that's what does it—

entitlement!

"What do you mean by that?"

Well, what do you understand by it?

Desperate calls time for

desperate measures.

I am trying to unravel the very same braid

I am entangled within.

I guess you could say that I have a

conflict of interest:

part of me wants the whole;

the whole of me wants a part.

Where am I to even start?

Maybe the truth lies in picking a row,

in the reaping to know

just which seeds I have sewn.

By the time I've figured out who I am,

I'm always somebody else already!

4/25/2021

This is the best one yet—

the next best second,

the second best guess.

The first is far too obvious,

so obvious that I'm afraid I'll forget.

Just like breathing.

Do you remember the rhythm of

your lungs?

(You used to know how not to cough

even if it killed you.)

Have you ever met someone who can never seem to breathe comfortably?

It's like I forgot it was natural;

it's as if I couldn't remember weather

or not I was allowed to be doing it.

It was my shadow; always my shadow.

Always my traces, never my trail.

Who are "the rest of them"?

Does anyone know?

I want to remember the rhythm of my lungs; I want to remember that rhythm.

I just want for that cadence to bury me alive; I just want to make friends with my instincts.

4/27/2021

It felt like there were so many more infinities in today than usual,

so many more tufts of wind and

tangled eyes.

Life.

It's folding in on itself,

but in the meantime,

here is the sun.

Tomorrow, the rain.

And so on and et cetera and

in the beginning Amen.

Do you know what I mean?

I mean that your life is a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity. Do you hear what I'm saying?

I'm saying that I love you more than any uncertainty and as wild as the sea.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery— do you copy?

Today my thoughts were transcribed by the sun, gobbled up by today's shine

and tomorrow's rain:

this poem is a sampling of words that remain; this poem is

infinity's leftovers.

4/28/2021

What is the universe expanding into?

Something that contains it?

How come my thoughts can never seem to hit a wall? Where are they going?

They say it's "expanding" like the word answers its own question;

they think that space can understand time

and vice versa.

That's what really does it:

what is the opposite?

Is the universe expanding

into the opposite?

That which is not itself?

That I am not; that you are not, no less!

I regress!

Infinitely, I regress!

Back to the single point of unity from which we bear our names!

Sure as the sun rises in the East—

(it could never not be true;

it's how we define the East.)

— I regress! I digress,

re-possess, re-expand!

4/28/2021

Do you think that the phrase

"meanwhile" is such because it is a mean of all the while's,

the average of all the times who makes up the mean time?

I swear that makes sense:

I'm making it to me;

what's your issue?

What's your excuse,

and how much do you want for it?

I'll buy it— but you can bet your ass that I'll be bargaining that punchline.

You think all of this sense grows on trees?

No, sir— it has to be made,

bargained for, paid out in full.

Someone has to check, please!

And not that you were asking,

but preferably someone who's not me, please!

Meanwhile, everybody still cared about me. Meanwhile, you were happy!

Happy?

5/3/2021

How deep does the canyon run?

No, you don't already know which one I'm talking about; don't assume.

For your information, I'm talking about

how some who can't sleep

blame the pillows. He knows, she knows;

we all do: it's you! And by "you",

I mean "me". It's me! (That way, when you read it in your head, it'll sound right.)

You know what I love about us?

I love how the pronouns fade away;

I love how humans can engage in a purely hypothetical conversation with a person they've never met, another character in a story told by person A to whom B is

now directly speaking:

"... yeah, come on! You could've let me off with a warning or something!"

When B meant to say

"... yeah, come on! He could've let you off with a warning or something!"

We assume their situation as if it were first person, as if we have experienced the same thing, as if we are the same.

Maybe we are, for all that I know.

How deep does the canyon go?

5/6/2021

Are you there, god?

It's me, me.

Are you me, god?

It's god, you.

This soliloquy is my Bible, see:

it's all that I've got when the

going gets gone;

it's all that I know once the

honoring turns off

and the offering turns on.

I know you're really busy,

so I'll try to be brief: pray for me.

You are everything, you are everywhere,

and yet my notes are always to self.

And if you are not I, then I must be your equal— the one thing you can't have.

Either god could never be me

or she already is, see?

And what kind of god isn't everything?

Perhaps I am a part of you;

perhaps you know not what you do.

Am I you, god?

(How could I not be?)

Will you pray for me?

5/9/2021

How valuable it is to have these

constant variables, to have these little bits of home I can call when I can't seem to find a home of my self.

We are changing;

you don't know who you are

and neither do I but I love you and

we are both changing.

This is nothing new because

love doesn't know about time.

So new that it's old and so old that it's new— do you breathe like I do?

Sometimes I think about these battles all of us seem to be having,

between who we are and who we are not.

But then I remember I'm not in it for discovery, much less to be discovered—

I am in it because I wanted to cleanse my palate from wherever I was before this life;

I am here because here chose me to be.

And what about you: do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about how

it's good to be home.

5/9/2021

And I'll do it again, and I'll do it again.

Until the ritual dissolves,

until the mirror knows my name,

until I don't know black from white,

until I know my wrong from right,

until my memory fogs up the future,

until my eyes are too bloody to see,

until I really love me.

I would mind my mind and throw out the rest; I could troubleshoot my troubles and believe it's for the best;

I might say the right thing or

part the Red Sea; I could really love me.

What's so bad about rust?

Don't forsake your model ship!

What's the deal with saving face;

are you saving it for later?

My reflection is angry with me,

but she doesn't even know what she's looking at! Who is Me Inverted?

My mother and father put these words in my mouth; they taught me how to speak.

My brother and sister put iron in my teeth;

they understand when it isn't the end.

I've loved me before— and I'll do it again.

5/9/2021

I just plugged my alarm clock back in,

and it reminded me that I have to

time time to itself. Isn't that strange?

It's always sixty seconds to a minute

and sixty minutes to an hour,

but what does that matter if we can't all

agree to which one is which?

Meanwhile, time passes

exactly the same as it always has—

unless it doesn't.

What if time is also subject to

the Zeno effect?

What if because we are aware of it,

time behaves differently?

Now, I can only speak for me:

but as far as I'm concerned,

this is the easiest bias I've ever confirmed.

Time feels slower when you're watching it,

and a watched pot never boils,

but whatever I'm feeling is true to me,

and a watched pot invents its reality.

(The clock's a minute off;

I'll just subtract a minute from it

every time.)

5/10/2021

I think that they call it "life" here.

And that thing they're always on about,

oh, I don't know, that one's called "love"

I'm pretty sure— but I can't be too certain.

Their language doesn't allow for it, see:

certainty implies the lack thereof;

all of it does.

It's a very strange setup.

I've never seen anything like it:

they've got too much riding on these words, they're counting on their numbers

too much. There's this thing they do called "translating"— it's where they take the Truth and dice it up into

a million little pieces, then try to piece it back together. And get this:

no one can escape from it, because they are pulled into the illusion against their will from the moment they are born.

They think they have "wills";

I don't believe they realize their own origin.

They infer death more than they know this so-called "life"; they'll never make it past these one's and zero's;

they chain-react like dominos.

5/11/2021

No, I'm not right; you agree with me.

Truth is not on my side,

It is I who is on the side of Truth,

and vice versa.

That is to say that it is

not you who is right, but you who are made right through Truth.

And what about you?

Do you feel as if you're lying

when telling the truth?

It's your paradox of choice:

do you aim to acknowledge that which is real, or that which matters to you?

What even is the difference?

If the difference doesn't matter to you,

I've got very neutral news:

I am happy for you.

If it does, join the club:

I don't know any more than you do.

Still, I am here, and I am tired, but

I am seeing this thing through.

I don't know when I made that promise,

and I don't even care— it doesn't matter.

I get to choose what does and doesn't matter to me; I get to interpret the Truth.

5/12/2021

I've said every last possible thing I can say; I'm positively sure of it.

Except I haven't said this new one yet—

I haven't done that; I mustn't forget!

What else is there to say?

How can I say it in a different way?

Just when is tomorrow;

just when is today?

I'll say every last thing that I can,

down to the very last drop,

until they have to pry the

marrow from my bones.

Stop! Something new is happening;

I can't stop it!

Where are all these things coming from?

Caught in a whirlwind of new directions:

what now? What next?

But it feels good, like I've finished a

very long race.

Against what? Against whom?

Against myself, against the tomb.

What can I say? I'm positively sure of it.

I've said every last possible thing

I can say.

5/13/2021

I think Camus got the metaphor all wrong:

I think you roll the stone to the

top of the hill for the view.

For the things you are shown;

I didn't do it just so that I could do it again.

And another thing:

it doesn't roll backwards.

See, momentum is realer than any platitude; love is stronger than any gravity and that's what keeps us moving forward.

On the top of the hill, I am weightless.

At the foot of the hill, I have nowhere to go but up, nothing to do but shed my self

over and over again (that much is true).

But the terrain is different every time—

I'm doing something new.

New because you never know how deep the valley will go; you never quite know what the next peak will hold.

But heavens, that view.

Only when you're up so high can you imagine that God might be real and

real jealous of you. What's some lousy metaphor compared to that view?

Who's this Camus?

5/14/2021

This place carries all of my secrets for me,

buries them six feet underground, borrowing skeletons, renting out coffins.

It was always so peaceful here.

Still is.

This is what life looks like when I'm normally not looking: this is what the trees sound like breathing and the birds sound like singing.

And the weight of the stones, of the monuments who signify all but who is left beneath them— life almost

counteracts itself; the Earth bears this burden with no need for intention:

the intention is the need.

A bluejay, a crow, we three surrounded by people we'll never get to know.

I like to return here every so often and do a little housekeeping; I like to sit beneath the willow tree and let the spirits know that the weight of their graves means something to me. I remember them: if only for their dates and names; if only for their peaceful place; if only for their secret fates.

5/15/2021

Why do you believe that there is asymmetry between the past and future?

I think you believe it because you're dumb enough to think you're in the center.

We're all getting older in the same direction; I don't think we are in the center.

Sometimes I think the whole damn thing

is a Rorschach test.

(Who's blotting the ink?)

It's innocent enough, isn't it?

"What do you see?"

I see a very small blip on the radar;

I see an anomaly monopoly;

I see myself. Every time, every where,

no matter what or who I try to see.

And the world is my self seeing me.

How's that for asymmetry?

5/15/2021

Both could be true—

but I've been building either possibility up so impossibly high;

is this what the Tower of Babel was supposed to be talking about?

I don't even remember

what the ground looks like.

Only what it feels like every now and then;

only when I'm here again.

Suppose I don't overthink the cycle.

What happens then?

Well, you never make it that far;

you're always too busy building the ark.

You don't need to hide from what you are by burying yourself in a blueprint.

Narrow down your enemy

in broad daylight!

Tightrope walk from one theory over to the next— but don't look down!

Starting over'll knock the wind straight out of you, life straight in to you.

Try to sink your teeth into something realer than you are, but the realer things

always leave me black and blue.

Both could be true!

5/16/2021

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I sing

along to songs because I know that

I'm singing the harmony

my mother would sing.

Summer's just begun (it's over)

and I am still so young (I'm older)

and don't you think that I should know

just how the world works yet?

I'm just about; I'm just about.

(Now, if only I knew what.)

I'm about to begin another ending,

just about halfway from there to here.

I won't know it when I see it;

I am seeing it presently.

Imprisoned by the present moment—

momentarily!

I look around; everyone is

twitching something lost.

I don't think they're aware of

the way they are moving.

I don't think they quite hear the

tone they are tuning.

I take my harmonies sweet and low,

just like my mother before me.

5/18/2021

Okay, so I could say something that bites its own tail, or I can point out another witty way it doesn't make sense.

What do you say?

Care for another round?

Sometimes I turn to my shadow just to

tell it I don't know.

I am sick of pretending

like I'm not a mirror.

Do you reckon life mirrors something else?

Do you forget that space and time

aren't two different things?

Do you believe who you are, that you are?

This is the only third thing that we can do: ask questions.

A lovely little chain of breadcrumbs clinging sweetly to uncertainly so that

we may never eat our words.

Oh, I forgot about this one:

it's the kind you can only ever get to if you promise not to think about it too much;

it's itself for its own sake.

Why'd it have to be snakes?

5/19/2021

What's so bad about a little bit of religion?

It's this assuming something to be true.

But the simplest assumption

is no assumption,

and I'd be damned in heaven, too.

So you think that you know

what we're up against,

so you just wanna be the protagonist.

Don't you see?

You could've never been

anyone different.

It could've never been

anything different.

Or is that just what's easier to assume—

because it's already true?

With no other context,

the present means nothing.

Assume your current state to show

you're really not bluffing.

Huff and puff every signpost down

so that you can pretend like

the Bible is more than a butterfly net.

Don't forget: I'm on your side. I want it to be true, too— just not if I have to assume.

5/20/2021

How might I verify truth without

knowing it?

I know all kinds of things that aren't true:

I just don't know which ones they are.

Maybe instead of knowing something to be true, it could just be true, and I wouldn't have to worry about knowing.

I do not think that truth is knowledge;

I do not think that truth is a feeling:

I believe that traces can be found in both.

Perhaps everything is true and it is my mind who creates this delusional

true/false dichotomy.

Maybe everything is blameless and everything is blamed; maybe reality is shameless and its observers only know to shame and be shamed.

But "maybe" isn't truth either,

just my closest approximation.

The only truth I've yet to find is lost in possibility. I believe in possibility—

not enough to make it true, not enough to worship it— but enough to keep me from thinking I know anything.

5/21/2021

I am in a machine in a machine

in a machine.

I am a machine am a machine

am a machine.

It isn't by my design;

it never was mine to find.

I know your type, your kind:

we redefine.

We see the prize then compromise.

And what else are friends for?

I love you more than what love

could ever hope to mean in a

machine

machine.

5/21/2021

I always leave room for my doubt

and for cream;

I always glaze over the way that

things seem.

I always stay up when I really

should sleep;

I always make promises I'll

never keep.

I always look twice when I'm crossing

the street;

I always stare down every eye that

I meet.

I always keep track of the

hours wringing dry;

I always give time to take time

to get by.

I always imagine that life is

my game;

I always pretend that I know

my own name.

I always hear strangers and wish they were true;

I'll always be good to you.

5/21/2021

Ah, that drunken stare into the mirror—

the one where you meet your own eyes

for the very first time; when you once again realize your mind is a person

in a mind.

Why do we think eyes

reveal anything about us?

Does it have something to do with all of that "window to the soul" bullshit?

When I'm drunk in the mirror my eyes are an animal's: they are foreign to me;

I wonder what I'm thinking about

(not unlike I do with housecats).

And I'm smiling at myself;

I'm baring my teeth— am I reminding my self that she's happy?

I am happy! Just look at those canines—

I'm possessed!

I am this animal possessed by awareness;

I am this body possessed by this mind who controls this body who is possessed by this mind—

and I just lost the staring contest!

5/22/2021

My string of fate is my fishing line;

the yellow wood has reddish spider webs

all over the ground that make it hard to

tell where paths diverge.

Why do you believe that your future is guaranteed? (Because all you've ever known is continuity!)

Do you hear the bells rolling?

What makes you think that they're rolling for you, that they'll do it again?

Time is not your friend

anymore than it is your enemy,

and everything, everything,

everything is natural.

It is all too easy to worship our tendencies: don't fall victim to miracle workman's comp! Sometimes, a thing is just a thing and a string is just a string—

but that doesn't mean that it doesn't mean itself!

Mean yourself, intend your own intentions,

direct your misdirections!

Act now, don't wait—

don't add weight to your strung out fate!

5/23/2021

We all get to perform, to participate, to exchange, to deliberate, to debate,

to commemorate, to live.

And I don't really know what that means anymore than the next guy— but what?

But I don't know man, but it is what it is,

means what it means,

will be whatever it will be.

How incredibly delicate this moment makes us out to be; how perfectly suspended like a ball in midair:

the perfect point of equilibrium that not even gravity can get its hands on.

We are always on that ledge; we are always smug with prideful pasts and scared of fallen futures.

It's a very subtle thing, just a slight slip of the tongue and the entire meaning of everything could be turned on its head.

Say that we found it, whatever that means: suppose we discovered the truth.

How will we spread the news of the world?

Don't you see? You don't see!

I don't know, but we get to be here!

5/27/2021

I think I should like to go swimming.

I think that I should like to swim out to sea like I used to as a child.

Honestly, I'm surprised I never got caught in an undertow; I've never known when to quit. When to leave well enough alone, when to rest. I love swimming: being a part of the ocean's give and take, moving with the rhythm of the water, understanding the wholeness of that motion.

It's a magnificent cycle.

The only way to survive is to learn that goddamn rhythm inside and out, forwards and backwards, through and through.

I love you.

(Whenever it rhymes, I'll say it.)

My favorite strategy is to see the wave coming, and keep my head above the water for just a bit too long before I take myself under and let the wave claim its ceremony. I'm swimming— consciously, presently. I can see the next wave from here— I always keep an eye out for the storm.

5/27/2021

What's this?

Do I not know what I say,

or do I not say what I know?

My job is too easy:

surely there must be something more than just saying whatever comes to my mind

(where is it coming from?),

whatever my self comes to find,

whatever's not mine.

I was going to say something else,

but I got so excited to say what I wanted to say next that I don't even remember what it was.

There are no pauses as I write this;

this is what I have to say:

I'm saying it.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

But what about when it isn't?

It's not my job to interpret, I suppose;

but do you see the irony in supposing?

Why can't I get out?

What's the password; how do I

guess myself? How do I not know the difference between guessing and self?

What is this?

5/27/2021

Sometimes it's almost as if some times get in the way of me experiencing all of them for what they really are.

Sometimes I wonder if there's really such a thing as "what it really is";

I wonder if it just is.

I don't know what that means, but it feels cheap.

It isn't a satisfying answer;

it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Sometimes I can taste my own mouth,

hear my own ears, see my eyes, so on.

I am aware that I am aware;

I am scared that I am scared.

I am filing my taxes.

Do you know what I mean?

I am participating in the ritual;

I am sometimes always never actually.

Can someone please remind me what money is; can somebody pull all the sometime's apart for me and make them make sense?

I hate sense; I hate sometimes.

I don't— need them more than I know the word for "need".

Yet I only sew this Sometimes seed.

5/27/2021

I'm pretty sure that I believe in something.

I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty sure that something's going on around here,

and I'll never see around it.

The curve is far too steep for me to ever see what may or may not be.

It's that question; it's that same damn question I remember from my youth:

what is the truth?

Forget about the truth, man:

just pretend you've already won.

It's in your name; do you reckon that means that it means something more?

Keep the score in a scrapbook:

don't take it too seriously.

There are points, but I don't see you making any of the right connections.

Which direction should I be?

I'm purging all of these words out of me;

I'm seeing what else I can say,

what else I can see,

who else I can be.

Believe you me!

5/27/2021

It's medicinal, I'm self-employed.

It's habitual, I'm answering to myself.

I am answering to that ritual.

And what's so wrong about that?

How many people do you know

who know that they don't know so much so that it hurts them to grow?

Suppose that one might say:

well, what's the point in growing?

What's the point in knowing when I'm the only one who seems to know;

what good is understanding when I'll never stoop below my own threshold?

What else is there to show?

I know who I am, at least;

that's something that so many never know. The trick is you embrace the parasite; the trick is that you act like you acting like your self and then the self becomes whoever you want it to be.

I control me; my self controls the body.

Who's who?

I'll let you know as soon as my

pharmacy gets back to me.

5/28/2021

I think you might be who you think that I am; I think that I am who I know you to be.

Everyone is commenting on themselves with reckless abandon:

you're the goddamn Wizard of Oz!

Hiding behind some shitty little curtain,

you were never high and dry!

You just let your balloon fly too high—

and by "you" I mean "me", obviously!

Do you know what I like about smoke and mirrors? It's harder to see and

it's harder to breathe;

there's more tension.

The air is taught with opacity;

the space between you and me

and me and me.

Who'll be the first to choke on

the smoke and mirrors show?

Personally, my money's on you:

I'm going against my better judgement and betting it all on my own reflection.

I'm on my best behavior, you know—

I'm off to see the wizard!

Care to be me, or join me?

5/28/2021

I wish that I could somehow own the chirping of the crickets;

I wish that I could write a poem more moving than the night sky.

Raw data is always more beautiful than anything I could ever come up with.

I guess that what I'm saying is

I wish I could spin straw into gold or make a fairytale out of the sound the wind makes through the leaves, but somebody hundreds of years ago already tried that, and it's due for another reboot soon.

I wish I could copyright the moon from this specific angle, just to take part in the mystery that lies in the millions of miles between that which is and

that which can only be seen by me.

I wish that I could patent my eyes and all that they see; I wish that I could sell you my pennies for thoughts and pretend that their currency originated from me.

I wish I could tell you my story objectively like the crickets sell theirs

to the cool midnight air.

5/29/2021

Oh my god; oh my God;

of course you are safe here.

And I know exactly why you'd imagine it wouldn't be— good god; I remember

exactly what that was like.

It's so obvious to me that you are safe here in the same way it must be

so obvious to you that you are not.

I am guilty until proven innocent;

most people are to me.

And I am guilty, too—

make no mistake.

I am a criminal as much as I am a prisoner; I am my liberator as much as I am my debtor.

I never intend to transgress;

this is what you should expect.

But I swear to God, the same one that promises you are safe here—

I am changing for the better.

Good God; I am trying for the better.

Do you see how "I" is capitalized?

That means that I know how to love,

and that means that so help me God

you are safe here.

5/30/2021

Small talk about how many sneezes she's sneezed in a row over the years.

Babies are passed around like hot potatoes and whenever a silence fills the yard, attention is immediately drawn to either an animal or one of the

hot potatoes.

Older folks narrate their actions through rhetorical questions directed towards the hot potatoes; younger ones stare at their phones in much the same manner.

I consider bumming a cigarette off of one of the fathers, decide against it.

I think that the reason why people focus so much attention on these animals or these hot potatoes is because it's easier.

Everyone who isn't talking becomes just another spectator, tracing their eyes

back and forth like they're following a

tennis match over an abyss.

"My soul is tired, man."

I guess this is what five hours' worth of

awkward pauses translate to.

5/27/2021

Information is neutral.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

All of this is just sensory input—

so don't shoot the messenger!

Blame the data instead;

it'll help you sleep at night.

Why don't you reinterpret your statistics just one more time,

or how about we force more life under a microscope?

Will that reveal a new trope?

This newness we believe in, it's a fallacy:

they're the same scrambled signals

met by ancient lonely receivers.

I think that we forget how small we all are;

I think that it's just nice

to be a part of something that is already true,

whatever it is, whatever that means.

Maybe truth is in this neutrality,

the absoluteness of that which can be perceived

by the likes of you and me.

And a million more things that my eyes will never see!

(Though, if I had to pick a side,

I'd choose my blind side blindly.)

5/23/2021

You've got to keep my pace,

because I'm not slowing down.

All I know is to go, go, go!

I am myself is me.

And we three are far too busy to be

slowing us down for the likes of

anyone or anything surrounding.

I am not lost inside myself quite yet (though it is true that sometimes I prefer to be), yet I can't help but selfishly prioritize.

This time is mine, mine, mine.

Teach me, show me then see me

then leave me to be me!

This needing you all talk about is much too specialized for my liking.

Who do you need that isn't everybody?

Who could it be besides anyone?

There's a little bit of someone in everyone!

This is all so dreadfully boring, isn't it?

People will always be themselves before they are yours. Otherwise you're either doing chores or keeping scores—

and I couldn't be bothered to keep up with any of it if it weren't for love's

keep pace sake!

5/31/2021

I've lived a good life:

right here, right now,

and god willing, I will continue to do so.

Do you know what I believe in?

It's actually quite simple:

Gratitude.

It's the antidote for suffering,

my reason for living,

a giant "fuck you"

to everything that has ever dared to

stand in my way.

Everything happens for a reason?

Beautiful, and I'm thankful for it.

Everything is meaningless, and yet I'm somehow here to label it as such?

How peculiar, I'm so lucky.

Everything is an illusion?

So what, and I'm thankful for it.

Luck is earned; gratitude is self-evident.

I've lived a good life, right here, right now,

and god willing, I'll be thankful 'till my dying day, and then the worms will be thankful for my final offering:

a life well-earned, well-lived.

6/1/2021

We didn't say goodnight

'cause we don't need to say goodnight

because I know that you both love me

and I'll see you in the morning.

I'll sleep just like I'm dead  or something closer to it,

and then you and I will go pick something out for your graduation while you sleep in late and go to work next afternoon.

And I'm realizing that love is so much bigger than I thought it used to be,

so much larger than I could ever possibly hope to comprehend,

and for once in my life, I am okay with this.

For once, I don't need to know

how it works in order to understand.

I don't need to know how it works;

I already do.

We said it when we didn't say goodnight:

I love you.

I love you too.

6/2/2021

I leave my charger in my car

because I never know where I'll be.

The porch light wasn't left on for me.

I guess that means I'm not coming home tonight; I wonder where I'll be.

I don't think that loneliness is the right word; it's that same feeling you get when you look out over a mountain range

or something. It doesn't hurt,

but there's this weight that my body doesn't know what to do with, some sort of presence, and I can never tell if it's

working its way out or breaking its way in.

I don't know where to begin.

But even in not knowing,

I know just what to do:

make my dotted line on the map,

blip by blip, breath by breath.

I feel sorry for things that haven't happened yet.

There's a wicker basket on the front porch with no address.

I briefly consider the side quest, decide against it, go to bed.

6/2/2021

I'm not hallucinating, just seeing things that aren't really there.

Well, they're there, but it's only because

I allow them to be.

You see, I can make a blank page say whatever I want it to say;

I could turn five minutes of silence into a portrait of you in an hour or two

if you wanted me to.

I could say anything under the sun

or over the moon just for fun;

it's just that sometimes,

the things I have to say are not so

kind to me once I have said them.

I'm not hallucinating, just hearing things

that aren't being said,

reading into scripture that would otherwise never be read,

pretending my self to be dead—

but it's all in my head. I'm not hallucinating, just feeling the things that I've always felt, just dealing with cards that I've always been dealt, just praying for this iceberg to melt.

6/3/2021

Admittedly, I think about my past self

quite often.

I wonder what she's up to,

how she's doing, if she's

getting enough sleep

or perhaps a bit too much.

I wonder if she's proud of me

for no other reason than the fact

that I am now left here to wonder back,

wandering back to my younger eyes:

to the dizzying lies that I spoon-fed myself. I wonder if she needs any help.

I wonder why I couldn't tell any sooner than I did; I wonder

where that sweatshirt went.

I wonder how her time was spent,

and if she feels me watching.

Back when my bed was against the other wall, when I didn't know who to call,

when I wasn't sure how I was going to get

through it all.

We made it to here; I love you and you hate me but we made it to here,

and we'll do it again because

there isn't anything else we can do but wonder.

6/4/2021

This isn't how I feel,

it's how I used to feel a few minutes ago.

But of course, now that I'm putting it to words, it was never true in the first place.

These aren't how I feel,

they're my closest approximation.

But of course, that's assuming that I know myself well enough to

guess what she is thinking.

This isn't how I feel,

I just like to play with words.

But of course, you can't play something that isn't a game of one sort or another,

and I've always been a sore loser.

These aren't how I feel,

they are my commentaries

on the present moment.

But of course,

I can only ever know my present moment,

so naturally there's some bias.

This isn't how I feel, it's who I am.

Understand?

(But of course, I don't expect you to;

that's up to you.)

6/4/2021

I've always thought that I'd make a

bad mother.

The question of "why"

isn't so much important;

what does this make you assume?

I've never had very good balance

(my ankles are far too weak; it's genetic),

so I don't want to learn how to roller skate.

I'm embarrassingly terrible with numbers—

which is unfortunate, because math is so endlessly fascinating to me.

I just never got a good foot in the door with it —terribly unfortunate—

I was damned from the start.

I fell in love with music too soon,

before I could realize

that it was all numbers, too.

And I absolutely cannot stand working when I'm aware that I'm doing it,

when it isn't passionate,

when it's not for my own benefit.

I don't know how these things are related,

but I think that they are. My mind pulled me to one place and then to another;

I'd make a bad mother.

6/4/2021

Even as a very small child,

I absolutely hated the feeling of my own wet hair touching the back of my neck.

I'm not really sure why;

I think it might have something to do with the fact that at some point

in between now and then,

I decided that my back was always going to be against a wall.

I'm not trying to speak metaphorically,

I'm saying that I used to feel like I was always out in the open, and then one day,

I fixed the problem by building this wall behind me to put me at ease.

I imagine it— so much so that it is as automatic as breathing to me.

It is always behind me; I can feel it as if

it was physically there.

It's a bit like how my ears ring all the time,

but I only remember it

once there is silence.

I think it must calm me down,

like a short haircut.

And it's harmless, probably nothing worse than whatever you're telling yourself,

anyway. I've done well by that child.

6/4/2021

It's so funny to me that some people would genuinely prefer to be

quietly confused.

It's like they won't even let themselves in on the joke, like they're too afraid

of knowing what they're even afraid of.

There is nothing to "figure out":

you know what it is!

Why pretend otherwise?

Haven't you heard? We're clueless!

Do people forget that scientists come up with theories; do they not remember that

numbers are symbols?

Your knuckles are white; you need a nightlight. So do I —don't get me wrong—

it's just that mine is in embracing.

In translating, in relating.

It's hard for me to see where others are coming from— which is funny,

because as of right now,

scientists' best guess is that

we all came from nothing.

Isn't that something?

Who am I?

Well, I suppose that I'm who's asking.

Isn't that funny?

6/5/2021

I don't know if anyone else feels this way,

but it's almost as if the sun makes me forget that we're in outer space,

that I am a part of the universe.

I find it a foolish endeavor to romanticize the stars. That's not to say I haven't partaken— only that we are all fools.

We will never be able to accurately describe this cycle in which we are entangled. But I knew that already,

so I didn't, and both are just as possible, yet neither one makes any sense.

As in, our senses aren't able to flip the script for one reason or another,

so it must not be true because

it both is and isn't.

I don't expect for anyone to understand me anymore; that would be incredibly hypocritical, for one thing.

For another, I don't think that understanding puts us any closer to the truth. I don't really know you;

I'd rather just be with you until I can't tell the difference anymore. The universe clearly doesn't need our permission.

6/6/2021

I have these sneaking suspicions that I try really hard to ignore.

I'm not sure if this will be the poem where

I actually get to writing them down,

so just know that I have them.

I don't know what they're rooted in:

I can't deny my own biases,

and I don't know how much of this is wishful thinking or if a small scrap of my intuition survived the fall after all.

Well, and maybe "wishful thinking"

isn't the right phrase.

Maybe I've just been stuck on this

same train of thought for days.

Oh my god, I just wanna write a song.

Isn't that funny? Why do I feel like that will solve all of my problems?

Well, it's because when I'm writing a song,

I forget that I have any.

Maybe I'll never write another song again,

I can't help but think to myself.

You know the craziest part?

That's very possible!

I have this sneaking suspicion that anything is!

6/6/2021

Are you going to the party

at the end of time?

I just got my invitation in the mail today.

From what I've heard, it's going to be a real who's who—

what do you think I should wear?

I have this ring that my grandmother gave me; I miss her everyday—

and she's still living.

Oh, and these pants I got made fun of for wearing in the third grade,

and maybe that shirt I always thought about wearing, but never actually did.

I don't think we'll need any shoes;

something about holy ground or whatever.

Anyway, I think I'll wear my face when you were laughing at that joke I made one time, and my shoulders from a few years from now with all the sunspots.

Legs are a tricky one:

should I go pre-scars or post-tattoos?

Oh, I know, I'll do one of each, and my torso from when it last felt good to eat.

I'll pack my healthy liver and my wrists before I'll get carpal tunnel.

I'll bring my neck bruised and my hair knotted like it was when I'm a kid,

and just for sentimental value, maybe,

I think I'll go ahead and keep my lungs the way they are: it was always a fun game, trying to figure out when breathing would be difficult or easy. And I'll keep my voice the same, too, so the people I love will still be able to recognize me.

I think the valet takes our minds at the door. I sure hope I picked a good

parting gift.

6/6/2021

Some things are true about me for the sake of convenience; some things are true because they have to be; some things are true because they so obviously aren't; some things because I haven't got anything better to do; some because I want them to be; some because I don't know any better; because I don't want to double-back on my own plot; because I can't remember what I already forgot;

because I fought for so long to be something I'm not; because I'm too lazy to figure out who else I am; because they help me understand what I would never understand; because my schema's my security blanket; because I can make and then believe in what I've made; because it's easier than going back to the drawing board all the time; because my mind is outside of me and I am outside of my own mind; because it's better to be kind; because I don't like wasting time;

because I like to rhyme.

6/7/2021

Hey, I'm sorry it's too late,

but I was wondering if anyone wanted to explain to me how this is the default state,

how this stagnancy overpowers my fate,

and how silence can sound

like a broken dinner plate.

Hey, I'm sorry I ended up here again,

but I was thinking about how

maybe I should take a break,

how I'm not sure how much more giving I can take, and how I can't tell if I'm dreaming or awake.

Hey, I'm sorry that I can never tell

which tone to take,

but I've been working on this theory

that I need someone to greenlight,

about the way the days don't feel so right,

and how sleep falls into me each night.

Hey, I'm sorry to do this to you right now,

but I'm not sure what I'm doing anyhow,

and I feel like maybe I should know by now, and how and how and how and how.

6/7/2021

If you zoom out far enough,

the machine appears to be completely motionless, and this is what I mean

when I tell you that I'm dizzy.

If you do X, Y, and Z,

you will see precisely what ever you wanted to see, and whenever you figure out what that is, get back to me.

If you hang upside down long enough,

you can trick your eyes into an entirely new point of view, and the second I figure out what it means to see through,

I'll get back to you.

If you squint too long at any one thing,

you'll begin to notice its unraveling,

and this is what I mean when I tell you

I'm refocusing.

6/7/2021

We're not so different, me and you:

we do the only thing we know how to do.

Our teacher is an input throwing curveballs at a sinless slate;

our lesson is an output that

functions at an alarming rate.

I think I've seen you in the mirror before,

but I didn't have time to properly react;

I could only realize it after the fact.

I think you've seen me when I wasn't even there, left my traces in the air who stales like breadcrumbs left in pairs.

We're not so different, you and I:

we both can name one alibi.

Our guilt is pure and heaven-sent;

our innocence is innocent.

I know who you are,

which is to say that it's anybody's guess,

except the more I get to know my self,

the more she knows me less.

I'm pointing at myself,

but who is choosing to do so?

We don't know!

6/8/2021

How long have we been wrong about practically everything,

and what does it even mean to be practical in a world where we had to make up the word first?

It has always been strange to me that we had to make up the words first.

Something exists, I'm positively sure of it.

But then, if I'm really so sure,

why do I feel so funny about it?

Pointing at language made me feel better for awhile, but then I realized that language is a paradox that I will never be able to escape.

It's a bit like how we can only describe the world around us using the world around us, how my mother passed her words down to me and now I'm forced to yield to them and wield them however I see fit.

I have eyes, and I can use them to see.

But something tells me that sight isn't all it's made out to be.

Some things will naturally always be undetectable; how can that be?

I'll never know just how long

I've been wrong.

6/8/2021

My mother is a banshee.

She waxes and wanes on the kitchen floor,

calls me "lorlorsita señorita muy bonita"

in her singsong voice and that is

how I know to make sure that

the kids get to school in the morning.

Jerks the steering wheel and almost kills all four of us, it was raining, my first time driving, and I couldn't see a thing.

I got a tattoo to cover up that scar on my shoulder. It was barely even noticeable to begin with— just a scratch, really,

she didn't mean it —and so I censored her miscalculation with a compass rose,

to remind me that I know where I've been and I know where I'm going.

Still, there is this wisdom that I can't deny,

this solemness about her, this sobriety.

It scares me much more than

her lack thereof.

Almost as grave as the one she tried to fall into, but in the end guilt made her

breath smell like toothpaste again

and the banshee was forced into hiding.

6/9/2021

My head perks up at every little thing that moves, like I'm some sort of animal poking its head out from the bushes.

And just how am I any different, exactly?

I try not to think about evolution

for too long; it feels bleak.

Perhaps because it is the truest thing that anyone knows: we are all animals who got wise enough to know we are animals,

so much so that we sometimes forget.

Do you hear how we say it?

We say that we evolved from them,

as if we are somehow not the same,

as if time is not the only thing that separates us from and

binds us to each other.

My body doesn't yet understand that

I have bigger fish to fry.

I wonder if my amygdala mistakes the faraway train as some sort of predator,

or if I someday will ever be able to

pick apart nature from machine.

6/9/2021

I am number seventy-one.

At work, I mean.

Which isn't me, I try to tell myself.

I am not number seventy-one,

I just so happen to be the

seventy-first employee hired on.

And speaking of numbers,

gas is so expensive right now.

(I wonder how much money I've spent taking the scenic route home,

the scenic route to nowhere at all,

for that matter.)

I have all of these tallies running in the back of my head all the time,

like an ear-worm, but worse:

This is how much money you have.

This is how much money you need.

This is how much money you want.

This is how much of your time is your own.

This is how much time you've sold.

For the rest of my life, it's like this?

Yet I am wealthy without a dollar to my name: for the rest of my life, it is like this.

At least the crickets seem to sympathize.

At least I am not number seventy-one

in their eyes.

6/12/2021

Okay, so you look like a woman today. Better than looking like your father

(but not by that much).

"Wow, you actually look like a real girl!"

And maybe I do; is that so bad?

Who is it you're afraid of;

who exactly are you talking to?

Better me than you, right?

Better black and white, right?

Yes or no, sex and rape,

Man or Woman, live and die, right?

Okay, so you feel like... you,

but sometimes you look like your dad did when he was a kid

and that's another strike against the two.

But that isn't to say that it has to be—

you're free.

You've already won; it's already happened; it's happening all the time,

you just don't see it because you're completely surrounded by these pesky other selves your friends keep finding.

We're not disagreeing:

we're looking at the same damn thing.

Okay, so I looked like a woman today.

How is that a "me" thing?

6/13/2021

You know, sometimes I think

I know what death is.

I watch my own cadaver in my mind's eye

from the universe's point-of-view,

and I understand that my mind's eye

is the universe's point-of-view.

There will always be a me and you.

We are here now, and we will be here forever.

Eternity doesn't scare me;

I'm already doing it.

I think I've finally found the

peace in oxygen.

I think that I know what it means to be infinite;

I think I know everything.

I always did, of course:

we all do.

And it's inexplainable,

but it's pretty that we even get to try,

that we even get to die,

that we ever got to live.

One day, death will take me

and I'll give, and the universe will smile

at that cadaver just like it already is.

And in the meantime, love is this:

6/13/2021

She left her Bukowski book at the bar

along with a million other selves I never had the chance to meet.

But that's okay; we're on this one now,

and sometimes when she smiles

she betrays her burden of anguish that I've studied all these years.

And I love this one, too.

The one who looks at me with eyes I've never seen before,

who reminds me that we are both

new and new and new.

I love you—

and before you ask who's who,

just know that I might not

see you every time I know you,

but I know you every time I see you.

Particles interacting,

timelines chain-reacting,

and out of all of those billions of atoms and seconds, the universe found itself right here, right now.

You're on this one now,

and I'm right here with you.

6/13/2021

It doesn't matter how long it took you to get here,

so long as you're here.

So long, it took such a long time.

(My whole life in fact!) So long!

I'm off to see the wizard,

and I've heard that he met Goldilocks!

Was bound by

"not quite this" and "not quite that"

so much so that he couldn't even tell

what he was looking at!

How do you come back from that?

Well, that's just it, I'm afraid:

you don't. You can never go back.

But forward welcomes you just like

it always has, will always do.

Nothing is waiting for you;

there is no real such thing as waiting.

It's a marketing scheme;

you're selling yourself to a tomorrow

that you will always lack

and can never buy back!

I am alive to love—and that's it.

I was not put here

to worry or to worship or to wait—

Because I wasn't put here at all;

I'm just here; and what a blessing it is

not to care about how long that being takes!

6/13/2021

If only there wasn't that butcher shop

right down the street

that sold them for so cheap—

seven pounds of flesh for only

an eye for an eye.

But you can never seem to get

the wings anywhere;

they've always been poached long before the angels ever reach the store.

Some people try to pass their halos off as jewelry at pawn shops,

but I've never been good at

discerning things' true values,

so I tend to leave those alone.

The truth is, they're killing off angels faster than the Catholics can pray their

Hail Mary's, but it's unfortunately a very quiet crisis, sort of like climate change

or anything else going on in the world that you know you should care about except you just can't seem to find the time.

Sometimes I find the angels' evil eyes along the riverbanks; they like to disguise themselves as weathered stones

to keep the sinners entertained.

(Yet even still, I don't believe in fairies.)

6/15/2021

I can't believe that everyone else is anywhere else but here, where I'm sitting.

How unfortunate for them!

A shame that they can't feel the brand of peace the wind is carrying through the rustling leaves of this oak tree.

You know, so many animals will live and die never knowing a thing except for the timing of the soil and the rhythm of the sky, and I can't help but envy them.

To be rooted in the Earth,

to grow inward and outward!

I've never seen a tree that looked afraid.

They are free to simply be and leave the interpreting to the gods

who gave them their names.

I think I could learn a thing or two from you, you who moans and creaks and sways in gentle breeze, who watches the moon wax and wane and knows nothing of pain that can come with

knowing one's name.

Yes, a tree is a thing left to be!

(With any luck,

the same will one day be said of me.)

6/15/2021

I feel the countertops sprouting

and the air is sounding yellow.

Every day, like clockwork,

the sunbeams strike the dust in such a way

that would make Jesus weep—

too much life in His eyes.

Dead skin and shaky legs and a

reason to keep on trying.

You're dying.

But so is everyone else, so one more cigarette won't kill you

until it does.

That's what I'll never understand:

the tipping point.

When does one thing become another?

I can never tell; the air is far too yellow

for me to hear anything else, and now

there's a rose garden on the countertop,

and any next thing I do could be my last

but I try not to think about that.

Most of the time; I don't even know

how I'm spending it.

The rest of it fertilizes the clutter on the table

and tinges the air something primary.

6/16/2021

I wonder if the people who make

wind chimes just sort of cut the pipes

willy-nilly or if they actually take the time to tune them to length

like a bonafide instrument.

Sometimes I take strangers' word for it because it's easier than being right,

and sometimes I'm not sure what the right answer is and that's how I end up feeling

most of the time.

I try to do things before I even have the chance to think about them because deep down I know that I never even had the chance to begin with, and I find this weird comfort in acknowledging that, as if surrendering to the process is the same thing as having any sort of control over it.

Kind of like how right now, I'm writing this without even thinking about it, pretending that I am protecting me from myself even though I was always always always

going to

end up

here.

6/17/2021

There are no rules,

only the consequences who shape them. But don't those point to some sort of underlying structure?

There is no cause,

only the effects who inform it.

But I don't like what that tells me about victory, about defeat.

If I had to guess, there's probably no such thing as those, either,

except I sure do miss having

something that there is such a thing as,

something to hold onto.

Suppose that's just my ego talking.

Suppose that the easiest solution is no solution, that there are no such things and just things, that rules only exist to pacify the afterthought, that the only thing separating cause from effect is time.

There are no causes or things or rules,

only the metaphors who break them.

6/17/2021

Why is it that in time,

everything true is made false?

I think that this is a side-effect of the illusion:

sight blinds us to the sea.

Air is a fluid, too.

And some atoms are packed more tightly together than others,

but through time and over it and in it,

all of them have their turn in the sea;

all returns to the sea.

Go ahead, use any scale you want;

time accounts for all your

hypothetical detours.

We are stuck inside of our minds,

inside these torrents of electricity;

our very selves are a series processes,

not unlike waves in the sea.

As for the sun and the moon and the rain,

it's no business of ours to explain

how the water is birthed and reborn and renamed.

Imagine how much more complicated

the water cycle would get

if water knew it was wet?

Don't forget— we're human beings.

It isn't our job to understand yet;

we’re just in time to spend it.

6/17/2021

I could just as well choose to write cleverly,

but I also get the sense that

I've been there and done that

to the best of my ability,

and so for now, it fancies me

to comment on the way that things

appear to be- because I'm not too terribly interested in whatever the rest of you see.

I do not wish to contribute to the collective; I'd rather invest in my own reality. That's step one and step two,

so what's three? Application: to be.

Pursuit of knowledge is vanity—

and look who's talking!

Two and two together

will never divulge anything more

than a symbol.

What does knowledge ensue

but a rabbit hole of truths?

What does genius imply

besides a self who's unwilling to die?

I'm an idiot because of "I",

and a fool for loving simply!

And more importantly, I'm as happy

as I'll ever be, presently,

no thanks to some clever other me!

6/18/2021

The present moment will never be over.

I remember first feeling the presence of time when I was three years old;

it's the same one I find myself in right now.

It's a global phenomenon:

maybe the numbers change

depending on the place,

yet it will always be now.

Time wasn't made for me,

but it was surely meant for me

since there's no other way I could be.

Just as the sun tricks the sky pale blue,

so the eternal present is made true.

I'm glad I can spend it with you.

6/18/2021

I'm not very good with numbers,

so it's hard for me to wrap my head around the calendar.

Continuity never favored me;

I don't return the favor.

Five or six clocks are hanging on my wall,

but they don't have any batteries;

I just like the way they look.

I try to entice myself into keeping track of time with my art-a-day calendar,

except it's been on the same Van Gogh

landscape for days

—not sure how many—

it isn't worth the addition.

I'd rather flicker through time like this lightning, let this thunder wash over me with its latency, be.

But then, the charm of

unpredictable weather

doesn't hold any water

when we're not together.

Come be my weather girl;

I'll crunch the numbers

and you can invent our umbrella.

6/18/2021

Oh, what to do with this love that I feel

for so many of you!

It was never for me:

I feel it for free

so it needs to fly freely!

I will never understand why some

tether their love to kite-strings,

tangled in knots by the wind's tricky wake. Give-and-take?

What a waste!

Give-and-be, look-and-see!

Love is all around me;

does it matter which kind?

That's a very thin line to be worried about

when your love gets so high

that it's over and out.

I don't doubt how I feel;

I don't care what I mean.

I love you, and that's that—

no strings attached!

6/19/2021

Don't get left behind before you're dead. Don't speak your mind unless you're ready for whatever comes next.

I'm deterred by design and I'm better

at best. Which way's west again?

Oh yeah, I don't care, we made it up.

And the same thing goes for the very same prose that I'm working with here.

I'm working here; show some respect if you can. If you can't supply my demand,

I understand. It isn't easy being constantly on-call at the will of some scripted

catch-all. Yet here I am, and so it is written. Be sure to play along at home,

or else you'll bite the hand that's bitten.

Forgotten but never forgiven; yes, I know the typeface. And I'm sorry for pretending

I knew better when I didn't.

Acknowledgment, at some point, is the only one left to make.

I've earned all my mistakes, I'm just not sure which ones to take for granted and which ones I would take back.

Let deaths die; that's my advice.

Live instead and die when you're dead!

6/19/2021

I'm less than a woman

and more than a man

stuck in no-man's-land

facing fears I never planned,

the ones planted by parenthood

that did more harm than

good intentions could ever stand.

Here I am:

too physically whatever I am

to be called a man,

and too mentally "out of hand"

to ever have the upper hand.

Woman: I've heard of her.

Misunderstood before she even

had the chance to understand;

beat black and blue by wedding bands who hide the pain by high command

while we remain in the witness stand.

On the other hand,

this slight-of-hand-turned-who-I-am

makes for some pretty backhanded

introspective contraband:

I'm so much more than a woman

yet I'll always be less than a man.

↑Back to Top