Her first sound is the click of the latch.
This stance says its late
As she hangs to the doorway,
Eyes an escalator.
They’d like you to believe she’s tired
As they roam in shifts.
All carpet leads to the couch
Where she’ll collapse
And curl to her favorite blanket.
The room
Brimming with the blue of a blank channel
Clicked to the talking heads
Running down
Past due stories.
It’ll be an hour.
That tends to be her time slot.
And she’ll remove the last of the night-life
To ensure
her place
near the night light.
She asks her son,
“Why are you still up?”
She wants to watch her shows.
Neither sleeps
As they interrupt each other’s trouble.
It might not be all night,
But it’s every night,
Set to stab in the kitchen
With its arctic barbs
He tacked the monster on.
It paces angry to its corner
With a sneer
that’d love to prod a gash,
desperately seething
as my patience starts to crash
I remain a silent chef
Against an eager opportunist
Here the walls hang heavy,
Soaking up the swearing,
Beating down reason
In a cloud of dirt and ego,
And he’s learned enough to know
The look of my blood.
It’s boiling,
And I tip down dark
Into some strange haven
Built on buried woe.
I release a beast of my own.
Motherfucker, try me!
I will not hesitate
to spill your soul onto this floor
And leave you nursing wounds that can’t be sewn.
I will parade your pain around this kitchen
Till you are fully wrung.
And if you’re not hollow,
If I can’t hear your ears whistle,
This ain’t over.
And you’ll wish
you could shake out the things I’ve said.
But they’ll stick like poison darts
Pumping cerebral headaches
through every ounce of security
you’ve built over time.
You ain’t looking at a saint
I’m thirteen
Bus stop walk after 6
Orange lit flickering off fresh concrete
Silent air sliced by footsteps
Every truck light collects
Incremental bursts
For the lamps spilling out
Color to the morning
Plank fence right hand
New homes behind the boards
Chain link left hand
Manufactured and divided
Dawn awakens in steps
Before the bus stop
By the flooding creek
An ambushed drain overflows
My breath is a toy
A minor’s faux smoke
Over my teeths’ quick conversation
Always solo, bundled tight
My fingers inflame
Without cupped warmth
It’s energy vs. exhaustion
And cold air wakes everything up
When the last bulb burns down
And sheds it brightened beam,
There is a pause,
Where the night owls
Hold their breath
And exhale the tilt the day has brought them.
There’s the choice now
Between closed or open
And to some,
This type of open is a screen adjustment.
But I breathe deep
And tap the beat on the sheets of my bed.
Imagining shapes in the shadows
That bend in the sway
Of lights from the driveway.
And if I’m lucky,
There’s no tearful taunts,
Or wild whooping
From the porches overlooking the streets.
Its here where I become clear
With my thick smile.
Up a hill’s a hospital.
One baby born
lived two blocks down.
That was me.
Wrapped and carried
A blanket became clothes
And I learned not to clutch
To homes that switched forms
Small town to city
Some sat,
On hillsides hiding
From the roads slithering up slopes
With their magazine views
And quiet composition.
One led to an island of bridge arrows
And canopy entrances where
Soil became sand
And those red shutters
That fluttered on the wind’s command
Left their paint
To bind with passing heels.
My sand was erased
By a West Hills overlook
Where the green vines growth
Overtook and gave no gander
To the long view of water
Hidden by the forest.
Here I lived flights down past gongs
In a long room leading out to
Back deck hammocks,
Where I would let
My head hang back to see
The grass mix with vines on the slope,
Rocking under an abbreviated sky
Again I had to leave
As age eighteen hustled me off
Driving somewhere
As the concrete splits
With me
Right in the cracks
Of travels routes and cardboard.
You get older
And you start looking for quotes
To sum up times where you need sense
Make sense?
Hell I can’t even make a grin
What hope do I have for a win?
No one said I deserved it
But sometimes,
You don’t need to hear the words
To get the feeling you’ve earned it
I wish
I could burn it to the ground
And rise up from the ashes
Rinse myself down
But who knows
When that day will come
I just sit here waiting,
He felt bored and wished someone would fix it.
The beach sounded better,
A little house with seashells and lapping waves,
That’s a fix for a moment...
But where’s the money and who is gonna give it
He thought this and wondered if the girl next door
Wanted to come and hide for awhile
The vagueness of his existence
Worried him and made him peer over his text
With reckless abandon, hoping for an answer.
But in it he just felt alone,
And unwanted,
And scared,
And no one understood.
When they did he guessed he couldn’t connect
The dots between them or be big enough
To take the chance in the first place.
Every night he was in the music
Leaning forward in his chair
He became depressed,
He lied to himself,
Stayed depressed and felt alone.
When someone said how bout something else
He said I don’t know how to get there.
He couldn’t get the courage.
He didn’t want to pay for his soul.
He didn’t want help.
He stayed alone.
When this is how it is
How does it change?
It could change
Somewhere there’s a change waiting
He wants to snap it up
But then he lays his head back down
And lets his vision get blurry
Maybe its time to sleep
Maybe he’s drinking too much
Maybe he says maybe cuz he doesn’t want to do anything but pout
He wants the girl but doesn’t know the steps
He never places himself out there
He becomes repressed
And looks to explode without survival
He wants this new him to die
And the old one to surface
I remain partial
Unfettered and unbelieving
In a truth born wisdom.
I haven’t met the gatekeepers
And that guy on the street yelling
Is just another sad song for the notebook
I walk past unopened
Still smiling
Selling my cleaned up calling card
As my eyes focus
Beyond yours
Wavering till I lose interest
People see me crumble
And as uneven as I feel
I throw down advice
I see as sage like on every ear near me
I hardly feel blessed
When I seem so selfish
I see my feelings
As unfollowed and all believing
And I’m growing tired of
Walking through bar doors
To pretend that this
room isn’t shrinking
I feel without meaning
among life’s sculptures.
There’s some truth!
Now where’s the wisdom?
I’ll listen
I just can’t
Refresh my vision
Past old habits
And my vices seem to be breaking me open
With none of the relief I hoped to find.
My drug became sadness
And she doesn’t help either.
So I suck in miss sadness
I couldn’t repeat it all
But then again,
Maybe I haven’t sat with it long enough
I don’t hear quick meaning
But then again,
I kind of do.
When I don’t know the language
All I am and can be
Is an admirer.
I’d like to know the transfer
And have myself a party.
You belong in common.
To lock us
Into what we are
And might be.
I’m gushing
Though I doubt
Tendencies,
Too simple.
My meaning is long
And I never understand it all
But it can make me burst
When I discover,
Another key, which is…
You taste what hovers
And accept that collapse
Is the last stage of a snake wrap throat.
Seeing goodbyes,
As fists up.
Panic strips your stripes,
And you wonder if they notice,
If they can help you,
And you realize that you’ll die alone
Because no one can.
So you’ll wonder if you mattered,
If people’d have time
Past the flowers and the funeral
Or if they’d even make the trip at all.
Your brain wants to swallow
So you fight
And you guess giant breaths
Because you heard somewhere
They devour stress.
But you can’t keep em steady
When you’re body keeps darting
Igniting nerves in lonely muscles
Where it knows you’ll focus
On what you’ll see as not normal.
you think you’re going down
on an Unlucky heart
If you don’t pay attention to living
And fighting for a pump.
Sometimes you know you’ll be okay
Because you’ve lived the symptoms
And this time felt the same.
But there you are holding the phone
Ready for a quick 911 before you fall
But if you sit before a doctor
You’ll hear, “attack”
And “you’ll be fine”
