Melt

No matter if Tuesday or Sunday, the words align. A space wide open. Cutting through the invisible edge in the night. They ring loose like lugs on a speeding train. With the celestial tongue playing like a harp in the light gray of the sky, before complete dark consumes. The volume on the radio growing quieter and quieter as the loose sheets on the roof pit and patter and shred through the cold wind like blades. Slicing the tiny peculiar, hand crafted, little snowflakes in half. They are meant to melt away, by design. So then why does it collect?

No matter if Monday or Wednesday, the coffee will taste bleak and her mind will whisper riddles through a tick and I will answer with a tock. Every star is built through careful timely consumption, dreading the fall, the sprint downward to humanity and our silent yet uncovered devotions. Radiohead will play, so will Dylan, so will Mathers, so will Skynyrd, and The Stones, and Al Green and anyone who has ever held on so tight they collapsed the platform beneath them. Creating new hells. New spaces for truth and worship. New lows. New beginnings. So then Bukowski speaks to you now and what happens when he doesn’t. What replaces what. Any table only has so many seats. Who sits here now? Hemingway, Palahniuk, Frankl, Poe, Aurelius, Blake, gospel, and Ill leave a seat open every time.

No matter if Friday or Saturday, collapse feels ever approaching and has never barged in. I hope that even if the ice is too thick and the wind blows through the speed of the train that you stand tall and smile against it. It’s a beautiful thing to lose yourself and find your footing.

Don’t Flinch

Look at you, bleeding all over the place, all over the driveway, people stepping in you, in your pool, in your red, in your lack of substance. Look at you. Bleeding all over yourself. You’re a mess. Clean it up. Clean up the awful thoughts with a reckless mop. Look at you. Standing up again. Why? A trail of red follows you into loss. Bloodhounds sniff behind you. Your daggers are falling out of your ribs let me help you with that. See when you take these blades out, take this cloth and clean it, or pretend to, then reinsert it somewhere new. Take that cloth and lay it out. Sleep on it. Bathe with it. Let your pores infect and your dialect drift. Let your teeth grind and let your eyes soak in the stare of the sun. You don’t even have the patience to fake a smile anymore. That gym membership needs to be used more than 4 times a month you know. Look at you, pouring some scotch when there really is no reason. No. Really. There is no reason. The reason is all gone. Ego is the enemy and if im all you have. What does that make you? You couldn’t have honestly wasted more time if you tried. I mean, honestly. Ink2Vessel? You couldn’t have died out like any other flame. Maybe you even believe the shit you tell yourself sometimes. The day job isnt enough. A place to sleep isnt enough. A book to read, a concert to attend, a funeral you avoid. Its never enough is it? Saying Hi a few times has become that hard for you. You’ve lost your grip. Your veins are empty. Your heart pumps the blood of donors that you leech on. You give away every part of yourself so what remains yours exactly? You’ve stitched up so many times why not just let some of it air out? That isnt so true is it. You still think time alone is time of peace but look at you. How many people do you think actually know you. These lands you’ve created are for the barefoot with stone for heels, dragging themselves around. Shaving a piece of the land off with them. Every step forward, taking from something else. So standing still and sitting quietly is the only way. Look at you. Milagro? Where? Have you offended enough people with your little jokes today? You still sleep with your eyes wide open and your ear on the floor. I promise, no one wants you bad enough to kill you in your sleep. Remember, you say goodbye before they’re ever given a chance. Oh and don’t forget to water your plants tomorrow.

V!SiON

I don’t feel like doing this with you today. This battle of wit and whimsy. The sinful act of love and the healing act of terror, bleeding you dry, frustrated by your inability to let go of yourself. Bleed yourself dry, yes, that’s what you do. No a few stars isnt enough. You have to see the night sky in all its glory, light one up until the smoke rises to the top and blinds you from the truth of it. A ceiling made smoky by your inability to view anything as reality. You blink too often and miss too many moments. So hazy, the landscape around you is merely one large shadow. The sun even hides from you when it can. Cant your eyes just ease up a bit? That stranger is not out to hurt you. Your family is doing okay tonight, as far as you know, isnt that enough? No. Youd rather dream up every horrible scenario to ensure your heart has been guarded the whole time in the case it does happen. It never works. Do you ever dream of anything good that can happen to you instead? Are your eyes too blackened and beaten? Is your tongue too rotten? Your skin too tight? Youd bleed yourself dry if there was any left. You allow yourself to decompose. Yet, there was once a heartbeat wasn’t there? When her guard fell and exposed her true senses to you? Her laugh that crept into the early morning and late afternoon? Is that it? No. Lets dream up the opposite and close yourself off from any glory. You’ve bled yourself dry and you cant stand it. Your stare lacks warmth, your hugs lack closeness, your vision lacks commitment, staring at 20 different avenues at once as if time allowed for that, praying for resolution, hoping the pain continues so the good doesn’t get in the way, preaching things you know half a damn thing about, coasting on luck and next week, preying on hope! Preying on hope! You have no title, no face, no claim, you drift into the back to remain unseen, you cling to whispers to get you through the night, praying on hope. Even if the smoke clogs your lungs by the time you finish writing this piece.

Lilac and Nicotine

My dogs pissed on my bed. Twice this week.

Monday morning. The laundry code doesn’t work.

Coffee stain on my shirt two hours into the day as I drive to an interview.

I see men on the way to work staring at the clock or the glare on the clock,

Men who found glory on a hot sidewalk in jeans and sandles,

With nicotine sprayed in their hair and the wrinkles of time sag

around their cheeks,

And the dogs lost their laughter much like their owners,

The clouds rose yet again to block the sun,

The strings on your guitar have snapped,

The piano hums, the drum skips,

The lilac withers into dryness and

The water you feed it is corrupt.

The rain we savor is filtered through smoke and fire,

The cats are no longer certain about their nine lives and

The crows no longer cackle at the dead and

Hyenas avoid the shadows and the fish dive up onto land,

The snakes wish to run and

Angels wish to live with loved ones yet again.

Sinners wish for something holy and hollow,

Opportunists dream of rest and

Our children no longer dream.

End your sight and collapse into the network of your daydreams and

Watch the angels sing again!

Xposition

Theres a coating over it all that leaves a tasteless paste on my tongue. The way I hear people speak and engage with each other and dismiss each other so they themselves can be seen.

Everyone wants to be the best. Not just you. Don’t forget that.

Im glad the wind is steady tonight. This leave burns steady with it.

And your name sort of rings in my chest tonight as a reminder of the tomorrow past tomorrow but the lights tonight are all tinted and hiding behind themselves. Nothing shines as bright and nothing wants to. Steady progress is the way we are told or is it restless nights are the way we are told or is it country music is the way we are told or is it miami beach in the summer we are told or do I pick a chevy a ford a toyota or a nissan. Neither we are told. They’ll never smile for you we are told.

This is not comfort. This is not love. Or life. This is bone marrow stripped of its host. A blood vessel painfully strained from its home with no where to bleed through.

Through our journey for strength and masculinity we have derived it and demolished it completely.

You are welcome all. We are horrible and funny and protective and violent and heartless and not to be fucked with.

Just as we are told.

Mondays

I notice a lot of people addicted to themselves and not in the grueling self-obsessed way where every other sentence starts with “I”. Im talking about those who exist in a room with riddles they wrote for themselves that they can never solve. A puzzle of emotion with missing pieces and a silent self devotion. The people who wait in a crowded room to be called over and it never happens. Those who need a shot before they can speak openly about themselves. Its not easy living with yourself and I think that’s why most don’t do it.

At least on the first of April I don’t feel like the only fool in the room.  

Theres a heaviness to the air lately that doesn’t quite feel safe enough to breathe. I know we all feel it. The food tastes otherwise, the grass looks just a little grayer. Toilet paper isn’t quite as soft. Colds a little colder. Hots a little hotter. Teeth are little TOO white. I wish there were another way to explain it but you people have explained this shit to death. Explaining is just a hobby now and everyones in on it.

So please explain to me why you threw on five sprays of Dior Savauge before getting into my car and choking us all out or explain to me why those without gratitude earn it from everyone else or explain to me why literature is all smut and milk and honey now or explain to me why I should like your taste in movies better than my own. Fuck off. Whatever. Ill just sit here and condition my boots like an asshole and do my best to avoid your inflated ego cause someone said you had good taste once and you probably paid them for it.

Thoughtless Rhythm

I can never decipher if the walls are too loud or the room is too quiet. A knock on the door is enough to break the monotony even if a silent prayer waits for me outside. Right before they ask me for money-No. It can’t be the walls. It has to be the poorly poured concrete outside on the walking path. One false move in any direction can cause distortion. You have to wonder how deep that thread goes. How stepping on a cockroach might have shifted your entire day and you didn’t even realize it. There is no way for certain to know what your day would have looked like had you not stepped on the cockroach. Maybe spending time cleaning the bottom of your shoe saved you from something terrible… or something great or something mundane. Which is almost worse than either extreme.  

I was walking around a Barnes and Noble and felt pretty hollow, then I realized I was in the manga section.  

No.  

I take that back.  

Things can get too bad. Things can also get too good. Maybe that’s how things get to be so bad. When things get too good to let go, any ending, no matter how fashionable or unique makes the bad a willful leap into hell.  

You can’t be afraid of the good though. This is all to say that I need to let it unravel. Unravel slowly. When I sit down to write these stories it’s like I’m slowly removing each vein and resting it underneath a microscope, staring at the ugliest parts of myself. Each rotting cell, placing it in a dream, stirring it into a nightmare and exposing it to the elements. The raw nature of the sun and moon. To derive color and a little bit of good.  

Yes. Its true. Sometimes Im full of shit. As long as Im not full of whatever you got goin on. Your scent trail is designed to attract ant eaters and your average Thursday night dirty bourbon attendee. Imagine the bartenders recognizing you as a regular. Id rather brush my teeth with battery acid and eat leftover ramen. I want a stat that tells us how many profile photos on hinge are taken on the same Canvas balcony in Albuquerque 

Car accidents have no place in fail compilations.  

I wrote this while sitting in my truck and watched the American flag wave in the wind but it wasn’t waving at me.