Green, purple, black and blue
I'll press on your bruise
and come into you
as you squirm and twirl
and collide your insides
onto my ridged body
in a ****** worthy
of feature-length films.

Fingers and palms are your whole world
around your throat and crushing into you
between our rhythmic pulsing
and the ebb and flow of your
breath that I have in my control,
we create meaning and feed
on all of this beautiful life.

As I paint you white
and pant and fight
with myself,
I can't help
but love you.

Before dawn breaks
we're both awake
and so quietly
I run my hands
over your back.

Without words
your body turns
and those sleepy eyes
come to meet mine
in a kiss.

Forever I could live
a life like this,
with the windows open
and you right here
in my arms.

I want to be sunburnt.
I like peeling off my dead skin
and ******* in the ocean.

Three whites walk into a bar.

With a gaze like this,
***** is never too far.

Was that bench comfortable
beside the manufactured creek?
We never even saw it
for what it was;
an oft-tended golf course.

For us it was freedom,
it was cooperative solitude.
It was an infinite bed of
manicured grass to jump on.

In regards to the rest of the world,
we were gone.
We were free.
Free. Flee.

You sat there looking out on the water,
right hand tucking that pesky
strand of hair behind
your delicate ear.

I remember my mouth watering
looking at your earlobe.
I remember the breeze
gracing me with you.

The swallows flew in inverse arches,
just grazing the glassy surface.
Shattering and sending ripples
everywhere.

You still sit there in this picture.
A flower frozen in resin,
kept pure of oxidation.

I'm still there too, just...
behind the camera.

Forever destined to only look at you.

Even now, all these years later.

Destined to look,
and to remember.

That's okay, man.
I understand.

Have a good time.

little yellow flowers in her ears
and they trundled along the gravel path,
when their bellies grumbled
from a day spent lying atop
a small hill near the golf course
radiance from the setting
rays of sunlight shown
a haunting sordid undertone
that a young boy in love
just never would have known.

Continuously loathing the longing I feel
for the people I'm the most afraid of.

She grabbed my wrist and put my fingers
in her mouth to better taste herself.

Wonder where
The clocks lead.
Sunsets? dreams?
Dewy grass underfeet?
Wonder where
The clocks lead.
With fervor, so desperately
Racing home to laundered sheets.
What lies unknowingly beneath?
Pondering what it all could mean.
Wonder where the clocks will lead.
See the dancing silhouettes stretch,
Like inky putty pulled across the street.
The sped up sound of wilting trees,
The hushed whispers of falling leaves.
The hands of time hold us all between
What once was, and what has yet to be.
Wasted, watching these ticking machines,
Wondering where these clocks will lead.

Out of the womb suicidal,
fashioned a noose before I was born
and came out hanging from the umbilical cord.

He sat gripping his beer bottle in one hand
and a pen in the other, tapping it repetitively
on the open notebook before him.

That's when a little red-haired squeeze
came in and sat beside him, grazing his leg
with hers as she ordered her mixer.

She saw the great potential for love in his eyes
and started questioning his mind accordingly.
Seeking his essence, searching his being.

Yet he never shifted his gaze from the lined paper,
and answered all of her inquisitions without hesitation
because he knew what she wanted.

But she shifted closer to him and started to speak under
her breath, asking him if he has a woman waiting for him
at home. Asking more than her words implied.

His knuckles whitened and tightened around the green glass,
and the pen started tapping faster and faster on the unwritten
words upon the empty sheets.

She put her hand on his forearm and the tapping ceased
as blood red mist started fogging his already blurred vision,
seeing crimson, he ripped his eyes from the blank pages.

The bottle shattered and broken glass sank into his palm,
the pen erupted painting his calloused fingers black.
He turned and faced this intruder.

"Please leave me alone now," he spits into her frightened face,
and the crimson fog covers his sight completely, as his thirst is
sparked, ignited, and begins burning furiously.

He slams his eyelids shut and searches for Arlo's words,
searches for Arlo's eyes in his mind.
Searches and searches for her heart.

He massages his temples and counts his breaths.
He fights for his sanity in the face of doubt and intolerance.
He just wants his dear to be here..
He sighs and opens his eyes.

And he's alone again.

I wear my watch;
all of the time.

[Prose]

Long live the life of unread books,
the life of collections and trinkets.
Perpendicular to how it should've been.
Parallel with everyone's honest expectations.

Forever glean nothing, but appear learned.
Forever clean, something is clearly earned
by this claim so staked in naked dirt,
dirt comprised of crumbled aspirations
and so many pettily wasted tomorrows.

So,
so many.

The nights are growing longer and Lydia is pregnant.
I never planned this, or anticipated it in any way.
She told me over the phone on an idle Tuesday night,
I wonder who the father is?..

...Probably some other man that her love
has taken a hold of, the poor sap.
I somehow wish I could warn him.
Warn him of her...

Regardless we chat of our endeavors since being separate,
or since being alone in my case.

She tells me about her travels and the wonderful people
that she has met along the way, with the airy, bubbly nature
of someone who has found what they've been looking for
their entire life.

In response I consider my lonesome state,
and silently agree with myself that misery
was a much better option than her forced
and bittersweet optimism.

I ask her about her future plans,
and daze out upon her response:

Not even hearing a single word
she says, I imagine a cold ring
of steel pressed firmly against my temple,
and the density of a pistol grip in
my palm accented by the two-pound
weight of a quick-pull trigger
behind my index finger.

I can feel the gun in my hand,
I can smell the expended powder.

Yet still she speaks,
as If I weren't already dead.

Man, I **** my pants this morning.
At least I didn't wet the bed...
...again.

When clouds move aside
and let the rays shine,
life seems to be smiling.

Radiant teeth are
a mid-June sky
biting ceaselessly
into my eyes.

I miss my truck and
I guess a piece of me
still don't give a ****
about the rest of me.

But that's not true,
I'm trying to change
these soiled linens
on my bed of rage.

Let the dust settle now,
I'm approaching the age
where time grabs hold
and ceaselessly shakes.

When first we met
I thought that you'd
save me.
Now I know that
you were just sent to
betray me.
Crazy.

When I placed my bet
I never thought
it'd be
another twelve days
spent down in
my basement.
Shame me.

Crazy eyes
blame me,
shame me, please just
don't tell me lies.

When first we met
I told you to
shame me
all the time.

Now these days
just flow by
all the time.

Gotten too proud,
too full of ourselves to
walk that line.

That used to divide us
all the time.
Shame me,
blame me,
baby.

Circlet of yellow petals
ringed 'round a freckled face of seeds.
Auburn and rose gold,
ever-flowing rivulets of green.

My flower smiles in the dawn,
when the new light touches
and drapes her in radiant balm.
She's always smiling at the sun
with nary the slightest whisper
or hint of an obfuscated qualm.

That fickle sun never says goodbye,
and even on moonless nights
she turns to face the eastern sky.
With her eyes full of the stars above,
she knows that tomorrow will come
and carry with it a brand new sun

to once again set her sights upon.


My sunflower
shining so true,
I know why
I love you.

The coils become
three inches from
the stem of a smoke
in the ashtray broke
at the cabana tonight
Vince dimmed the light
and I'm sober whilst
he serves me drinks.

She told me no,
that she wasn't ready.

But behind the bowling alley
these things didn't matter to me.

So I slid my hand into her pants
and my fingers into her.

But it was okay because
she loved me.

Howling, sighing, and ripping through my hair,
the wind smells of salted air.
Crashing, breaking, and exploding on the rocks,
the spray of the waves soak my socks.
Refracting, reflecting and blinding me of sight,
the last dregs of day give way to night.

My mind is silent, and my heart is calm.
My neck is stiff, and my nose is cold.

I breathe deeply, and without qualm.
I accept that my youth is growing old.


But I'm alive.

*******,
you, the person reading this on the other end of the internet,
and **** your poetry too.

Tightly coiled,
still slightly steaming
in the chill of the December wind,
what I've made is a symbol
of my life on the road,
smelling like eggs
gone bad.

Better off not setting foot
on her snowy inclines.

Wouldn't want to slip.

Don't feel like a climb.

Would rather just stay the **** inside,
from this safe distance I can yet admire.

The rain drips.

It paints splotchy little designs.

I hope it helps to
put out her fire.

He had that appointment
yesterday morning.
I stopped by to switch cars
and see how he's doing.

Mainly to switch cars I guess.

Walked in and found him asleep
in the big chair in front of
the even bigger TV.

I hollered from the kitchen,
I didn't want to take my boots off
or walk across the living room.

He woke up.
We chatted about
big nothings,
the appointment never came up.
We joked and laughed
and smiled and then
I went home.

I guess he's fine,
I mean, I guess we're all fine.
Until the day we aren't.

It's been harder for me lately
to look him in the eyes,
not just him either.
Everyone in my life
that loves me,
my gaze glances off the floor
and walls and windows.

It's always easier
with someone who I'm just meeting,
someone not invested. I can look right
through their glassy windows
all day long. Intimacy among strangers.

I can't even speak much
anymore.

Everything I need to say just
gets stuck in my teeth
and I end up just rambling about,
mouth spewing
inconsequentialites
through a big smile.

More beer, I'll stop thinking about it.
Just one more night.
I'll deal with it
tomorrow.

I'm not worth the mention,
tell me:
How are you doing lately?

I quit tomorrow
yesterday failed
don't look for me
I'm already gone

Elusive futures
evading my touch
lend me hope
in times of such
sincerity