[COLD OPEN – JERRY, STAGE, SPOTLIGHT]
ba-DOWMP bwowm-buhm

The algorithm
isn’t a friend.
It’s an ex
who remembers your weaknesses.
You liked one mango—
now it’s fruit baskets
and tropic-core girls
with ring lights and trauma.

What is “For You”?
I never filled out a form.

[SCENE: JERRY’S APARTMENT – AFTERNOON STATIC]
Kramer explodes in.
Phone in hand,
showing a woman licking a wall
with 1.2 million likes.

“This,” he says, “is content.”
Jerry: “This is crying for help in autoplay.”

“You gotta date the algorithm,”
Kramer instructs.
“A little like,
a little skip,
ghost it, come back with engagement.”

“Like Elaine at brunch?”
“No—like Elaine in an elevator.”

[JERRY STAND-UP SEGUE]
You don’t control TikTok.
You imply preferences,
like a hostage negotiating snack options.

I watched a gutter-cleaning video once.
Now I’m GutterGuy™.
It’s like being typecast
in a movie no one’s filming.

[SCENE: MONK’S CAFÉ – THE GODS CONVENE]
Elaine: “I typed ‘lol’
on a guy’s folding-shirt hack.
Now he thinks we’re married.”

George: “It was a precise fold.”
Elaine: “It was domestic competence, George.”
George sips water, quietly judging his hairline.

He opened one baldness video.
Now it’s testosterone gummies
and former athletes whispering about DHT.

Elaine: “Your phone thinks you’re balding and insecure.”
George: “It’s right.”
Laugh track. But it’s too real.

[SCENE: JERRY’S APARTMENT – NIGHT SHIFT]
All present.
Kramer’s doing a dance no one asked for.
Elaine’s muting strangers.
George is Googling “toupee AI filter.”

Jerry: “I didn’t choose my feed.
It happened to me.”
Swipe—
crying woman, bread ad,
cat in a bonnet.
Swipe—
drone strike, shoe review,
guy sobbing in a gym mirror.

Kramer: “It’s curated chaos.”
Elaine: “It’s aesthetic despair.”
George: “It’s my mother,
if she could code.”

[JERRY STAND-UP SEGUE]
Targeted ads are ghost stories.
“You still thinking about that rash?”
“You cried once at 2am.
Here’s a diffuser shaped like a mushroom.”

We’ve invented a marketplace
for moods.
An etiquette of optics.
It’s all affect—
with subtitles.

[CLOSING SCENE: PUTTY RETURNS, UNBLINKING]
“I don’t use TikTok,”
he says.
“I just watch my microwave.”

[SLOW AKWARD ZOOM TO PUTTY'S UNFLICHING STOICISM]

Cut to:
the microwave light,
buzzing.
An egg turns.

[CREDITS – BUT LOUDER, MORE AGGRESSIVE]
ba-DOWMP ba-DAHHM dowm dowm dowm
NETFLIX – now with ads.

The struggle is real
It's the raw deal
Together we feel
Subjugation for a 'meal'

Here, raise a glass
For the time has passed
Now, we relax
No anxiety attacks

Imbibe the heat
For your momentous feats
A just earned treat
... On repeat

The chemicals flow
Too easy to let go
Doomed, we know
Let's put on a show

Let's pretend we know things
Imagine we are inspiring
Never contriving
To the bottom of the glass we are diving

Morning comes, we feel like ****
Did we strike gold? Land a hit?
Awkward encounters to acquit
A lonely, frustrated fit

Try it again, same as the last
Nothing learned from lessons past
The handful of sand, we grasp
The loaded die we cast

The 'House' always wins
Against our incredulous sins
At the end, we begin
To justify our reasons to do it again

Out of time, out of place
Lost inside an inner-space
A truth we ignore to face
Inherent in the patterns of mental states

We are the architects of the pain we seek.

"What do you do with a wayward daughter"
Here said a mother to a father
"What do you do with a child of *****?"
Eyes run from top to bottom

Sirens wail
Litmus tale
Identities fail
Excuses flail

"What do you do with a child of the sun?"
"Light pouring down to kingdom com"
"What do you so with a child of the moon?"
"Pale light of truth, gone too soon"

"What do you do with two together?"
A couple in stormy weather
A dream light as a feather
Love burdened with no tether

"What do you do once it's all gone?"
Cherubim circling, singing our song
"Where will I be without you and me?"
Echoes of silence above the raging sea

The bell around its neck had no jingle.
Frayed collar, faint stripes—
somewhere between Bengal and ghost.
It slipped past my open door
like it knew the shape of sadness
without needing to ask.

I’d seen it before—
roaming the motel lot,
low to the ground
but proud, not broken.
Trim, not starving.
Abandoned, maybe—
like me.

I walked to the store,
bought tuna, pâté,
chicken in gravy,
all the things I’d want
if I didn’t have words
to ask for what I needed.
I left a dish outside my door,
another inside,
and cracked the door
as far as the chain would allow.

It cried.
Not for food—
I know that cry.
I’ve made that cry.
It was looking for something
that used to answer back.

It wandered in,
sniffed the corners like déjà vu.
Didn’t touch the food.
Didn’t stay long.
But it saw me.
And I saw it.

We were both
waiting for someone
to come home
who wouldn’t.

Why'd I return to this place,
This land of ghosts and gloom?
A shoreless realm, a hollow space,
A bridge to certain doom.

This city dumb, its heart cut out,
A libertine's domain.
Divisions sell the same old rout,
And apathy remains.

Oh, come on, baby (yeah),
Oh, come on, darlin' (yo),
Let me steal this moment from you now.
Oh, come on, angel,
Come on, come on, darlin',
Let's exchange the experience (yo), oh, ooh, ooh.

They 'cycle' up those hills,
In lanes their wealth affords,
No sense of self, no earned goodwill,
A world of broken chords.

The barest of complacency,
A modicum denied,
No spark of thought, no agency,
No fight, no cause, no pride.

Children wait for Santa Claus,
For gifts of pure pretense,
The makers of this fractured cause,
Their wisdom just nascent.

I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of ******
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
Honey, gotta help me, please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching only to destroy
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Said, hey, forgotten boy, said
Hey, hey, hey, hey

The stone declares, “Hold fast, control your fate,”
A chiseled law for those who shape the world.
The stream replies, “Let go, dissolve your weight,”
A whispered path for lives by tides unfurled.

Stoic halls where reason’s fire refines,
Echo virtue bound in marbled walls.
The mind commands; the passion intertwines,
Elites emboldened, rising as it calls.

They frame their fate, a measured, polished sphere,
Where wealth’s a tool, a blade to carve the will.
"Accept your lot," they chant, suppressing fear,
While thrones are kept, and empires gather still.

But far beyond the markets paved in stone,
A quiet voice dissolves the weight of kings.
The monk renounces all he might have known,
The sage dissolves ambition’s tethered strings.

Where fields are bare and hunger twists the night,
They find release in letting go of need.
For wealth becomes a root that binds too tight,
And freedom blooms in lives content, unfreed.

Taoists trace the river's winding course,
Through simple days, where power fades to mist.
While Stoics, gripping reason’s iron force,
Find virtue shaped in clenched and steady fists.

One path preserves the marble's ordered sheen,
The other flows where hierarchies decay.
Both seek the calm where thought and truth convene,
Yet split their means to master or obey.

The stone resists; the stream absorbs the fight,
Two faces turned to meet the world’s demands.
One carves a throne within the flood of might,
One lets the current slip between their hands.

In plenty, virtue girds the gilded gate,
In want, release unchains the spirit’s worth.
Two paths arise to reconcile with fate—
One bends the self, the other frees the earth.

The war ended before the bullets stopped,
but no one sent the message.
Men kept falling like punctuation marks
on a sentence that should have ended a page ago.

Someone raised a flag,
but the wind refused to play along.
A statue was built before the bodies cooled,
bronze hands holding a peace that never arrived.

The speeches were written in past tense,
but the guns hadn’t heard them yet.
Mothers set tables for ghosts,
chairs pulled out for sons who forgot the way home.

Silence was ordered at the eleventh hour,
but silence isn’t empty—it carries the weight
of words unsaid, of names unwritten,
of a salute that never came.

So they signed the papers,
folded the flags,
and agreed to remember,
knowing full well they wouldn’t.

It comes in a hurry
The words a flurry
Fingers abate
Words will not wait
A rushing river
I capture a sliver
A glimmer, a glint
Of a fecund stint
A shadow, a ghost
An absent host
A desolate celebration
Of frantic imagination

Alone, at 'home'. A day, unpaid.
Bills to atone, fiscally afraid.
Debt of two, now on one.
Payments due, nothing 'fun'.

Survival, not 'thriving'.
OT windfalls--budget conniving.
Choices made. Austerity seeps.
The bed is laid, time to sleep.

Hardship evoked, no regrets
Deals revoked, struggle I beget
Conscious clear, I did my best.
For dollars, fear. Portents to attest.

But this is me.
Limited vocabulary.
Vernacular simplicity.
Self-imposed repository.

The Idiot with history.

The fool doling out the same lines.
An unaware pantomime.
To succinctly find.
Another pre-used rhyme.

(Look it up)

Burn me at the stake, another fake.
Dream, do not wake. For goodness sake
I take and take. Little do I make.
'Images' I bake. In my tower, I quake.

I fear the truth; I am no better than no one.
I fear abuse. A lofty status--position not won.
I grab and I steal, to broker this deal
Better to feel, a fantasy over what is real.

My efforts contrived, come as no surprise.
To open eyes, importance implied.
This flippant disguise cannot hide--
Ego paralyzed, Meaning subsidized.

---

I sit alone in this place, a history to trace.
Accountability's lace. Consequences to face.
I made my decision, in our division.
A better vision, self-inflicted incision.

To heal what is not well
.

You saw me once,
in your remembered field—
gold-tongued and delicate,
how convenient.

I was never there
for your virtue.

You made me meek,
a parable in petals,
pressing me
between scripture and spring.

But I split sidewalks.
I stain skin.
I’m the itch in the manicured lawn,
the whisper of dirt
under your white cuffs.

You called me "harmless gold"—
but I poison order.
I’m not your childhood.
I’m your forgetting.

You knelt
not in reverence,
but to prove
you could.

You said
I was a lesson in simplicity—
but I speak in multiplication,
in tongues of seed
and wind.

You want meaning.
I give you
multiplicity.
Mess.
Noise.

I bloom
without permission.
Without you.
Again.
And again.

Forgotten map, a name unworn,
A fleeting place where dreams are born,
Only to falter, thin and pale,
A shadow lost beyond the trail.

A strip of glass, of neon dust,
Where hope once flourished into rust.
The gas pumps hum, the motels sigh,
As endless highways pass them by.

The wind speaks low, a mournful tune,
Of fleeting stars and fading moons.
The people linger, tied by thread,
To ghosts of lives they might have led.

The young depart, their chances thin,
The old remain, their worlds within.
A landlocked isle, a sinking ship,
Where time forgets its iron grip.

Yet in the dark, the lights still gleam,
A flicker born of some lost dream.
The Last Call stands, a fragile throne,
Where silence drinks, and souls atone.

Hades walked its sticky floor,
His shadows etched on every door.
A king reduced, a man unwound,
The echo of this nowhere town.

And when he left, the air grew still,
As if the town had lost its will.
Yet Nowheretown, in brittle might,
Persists within the endless night.

No finish line, no final breath,
It simply waits—a quieter death.
A place for those who can’t move on,
A whisper of the world long gone.

i wrote the ache down,
filed it under temp/data/emotions_v27/
and still—
it boots at startup.

don’t ask me where it hurts.
it’s in the whitespace.
it’s in the semicolon i forgot to place
between “i’m fine”
and “but.”

you think this is poetry?
nah.
this is me
trying to make the silence less slippery.

i’ve been laughing in sans-serif
so nobody prints me in italics.

i bury metaphors like landmines
because i don't want your sympathy—
i want your uncertainty.

this isn’t an elegy.
it’s a system restore point.

and if you’re reading this,
know:
i didn’t survive it to write about it.
i wrote about it
so i wouldn’t code myself out of the scene.

The words are all read
Children tucked into bed

Placation without heart

Those rats breed
On incestuous feed
No parent or decree
Feral dogs, free

The pups come amiss
Identities adrift
No attempt to uplift
Another brokerage stiffed

And they roar
And they howl
For the ever-late 'now'

And they feast
And they dine
That semblance of 'how'

They devour one-another
A cannibalistic cover
Reward for an absent mother
Station for no other

Bark.
Bay.
Cry.
You've devoured your reasons why

She looked like a corpse on my front porch
Clutching the spawn of her latest divorce, saying
"Let's get the baby high"

"Oh little pig, little pig, let me in
I've traded food stamps for a bottle a' gin
C'mon, let's get the baby high!"

"For someone like you to get custody
Of an innocent child's a tragedy
No, don't get your baby high."

"Oh, just open up, I've got nowhere to go
My man threw me out and it's starting to snow
So, let's get the baby high!"

"I don't mean to question your parenting skills
But I'm really amazed that kid hasn't been killed
Please don't get your baby high."

"For someone like you to criticize me
Is really the height of hypocrisy
So, let's get the baby high!"

"There's no way in hell I'll open my door
I still have pictures from the time before
No, don't get your baby high."

"Yes I've traded my oldest for a couple a' lids
But it's none of your business how I raise my kids
Now, let's get the baby high!"

"For someone like you to get custody
Of an innocent child's a tragedy
No, don't get your baby high."

"I've asked you politely, now I'm gonna be mean
If you don't open up, I'm going to scream
Let's get the baby high!"

"You can scream all you want but you're not gettin' in
What you do to that kid is really a sin
Please don't get your baby high."

"For someone like you to criticize me
Is really the height of hypocrisy
Now, let's get the baby high!"

"It must be a boy because it's turning blue...
Oh, cootchie, cootchie coo..."

She still stood like a corpse on my front porch
Still clutching the spawn of her latest divorce, saying
"Let's get the baby high!"

Invisible clutter
A lonely stake
Absence of mother
A cautionary take

We are alone
When we not want to be
Sins to atone
For our vacancy

The idiots we wrap ourselves around
Mirror the idiots of our parental ground
Society will shove
Everyone who wants to be loved

And make a buck.

Listen to what you are told
Fragments un fold
of lies untold
and you are sold

bought and sold
A finger in the fold
Callout: a cold
Call-out

"A-Call-Out??"


Litmus untold
brazen and bold
into a fold
you dive

Your reality
fails.
People are more than pails
The screeching and crying wails
a ship of prestigious sails.

And 'Who' give a ****?
of something worthwhile?
Absence of 'dollar or' or 'buck'?"

That chagrin
that, 'buck'
"it's just dumb-luck"
Oraphice-wide, now ****

(A Nostalgic Embodiment)

I. Prologue: The Imbalance

Beneath a sky of indeterminate hue,
Where metaphors dripped from the lamplight’s view,
There stood a figure with storied might—
Whose IMAGINATION burned too bright.

They bent the frame of every law,
Wrote truths in smoke, in blood, in straw.
But every time they raised their pen,
They found the void looked back again.

"Too light," the voice beneath the bedframe hissed.
"Too bright to cast the proper fist.
Where is the weight? Where is the gloom?
You walk through myths but leave no tomb."

II. The Oath Beneath the Neon

So in a diner that only exists when it’s raining,
They ordered black coffee and called it training.
No sugar. No cream. No need to explain.
Just sipped from the cup like a priest in pain.

"I will not seek to shine, but to echo.
I will not rhyme, but I may bellow.
Let my next line land like a crowbar sigh—
And may every metaphor taste like goodbye."

III. Inventory: Shifting the Look

They stole a coat from a thrift store rack,
Stitched with echoes and shadows and tact.
A pocket held grief. A button held sleep.
The collar was silence folded three layers deep.

Brooch of regret? Clipped on with pride.
Gloves stitched from dreams they let die outside.
Boots that thudded with post-symbolic weight—
Enough SEPULCHRITUDE to intimidate fate.

IV. The One-Line Training Grounds

A stranger asked, “Hey, how’s your week been?”
The figure exhaled, and leaned back in:

“The sky still owes me an answer.”

“I fed the clock and buried the receipt.”

“This smile is just teeth doing damage control.”

They never repeated the same line twice.
And soon, small talk became a heist.

V. The Silence Shaped Like a Weapon

Not a glare. Not a scoff.
Just a pause you could hang your regrets off.

They stared down compliments like loaded dice,
And left parties through walls carved of ice.

A simple nod became a reckoning.
Laughter died before it could echo.
The power of not replying
Was now a blade drawn slow.

VI. The Private Page

In candlelight drawn from doubt and dusk,
They penned a letter in funeral husk:

“To the lighthouse that never was—
I named every wave after you.
You still didn’t show.”

Sealed it with wax. Buried it in a drawer.
A secret they’d never need to weaponize—
Because it already was.

VII. The Theme Song of Collapse

They walked with the sound of dead air breathing,
Their footsteps aligned with Godspeed, you’re leaving.

Every room slowed to grayscale time,
As their aura hummed a fading rhyme:
A jazz tune played through broken glass,
A dirge dressed in sepia mass.

People whispered, “Was that… a soundtrack?”
But none remembered the melody.

VIII. The Overpass of Refusal

Someone tagged “I ♥ A-Pug” on the wall of their work.
They looked once.
Tilted their head.
And punched the metaphor in the snout
to assert dominance.

Then walked away.

That was the moment the SEPULCHRITUDE clicked.

IX. Boss Battle: The Final Balance
Their IMAGINATION rose like a cathedral in flames.
Their SEPULCHRITUDE stood like the ash that remained.

Two stats. One form. A perfected glitch.
They could now speak truth or curse with a twitch.

The balance wasn’t symmetry.
It was sovereignty.
It was the right to choose what tone to carry
and leave the rest unsaid.

X. Epilogue: The Window Left Open

Someone once asked,

“What are you?”

They replied, without turning:

“The part of the myth that never resolved.
The page that folded back on itself.
A sigh mistaken for closure.”

And just like that—
They vanished,
boots echoing,
window wide,
untranslated,
unsaved,
untouched
by the need to be anything
other than true.

XI. Endgame Stats:


IMAGINATION: MAXED

SEPULCHRITUDE: PERFECTLY CALIBRATED

AURA: [NOIR / STORM / VELVET REDACTED]

STATUS: Myth Adjacent

CURRENT LOCATION: Unknown (possibly Portland)

[END]

""Umm, as far as supportive
He would have to support me financially"
"Umm, I like a man that has money (hahaha)
Umm, that has goals in life..."

It's night but I can't stay asleep
Like you do, straight through till morning
When you pour my coffee and say, "Baby
All that caffeine causes bad dreams
Where all your anxiety is unleashed"

Well, lately my days aren't much better
Can't concentrate when I'm at work
I just think and think until my head hurts
Of the payment plans I'm making
I just wanted to provide for you

But if you wanna make a run for it
My love, I'd cover you
And if you need money for bills
My lover, I could cover you

'Cause I sold some ****, I'm saving up
We can get that house next to the park
I'll get more hours at my dad's shop
Yeah, we'll plan for everything
And we'll enroll in that middle class
Get a compact car full of discount tags
If you're feeling trapped or too attached
Remember we wanted that

But if you need money for bills this month
My love, I'd cover you
And if you have to lie to everyone
Well, I'd cover up for you

'Cause we're growing older, growing up
Just like our parents before us
With your new job at the coffee shop
We're ready for anything
And we'll graduate that middle class
Get a nicer car full of shopping bags
If you're feeling sad, kind of detached
Remember we wanted that
Remember we wanted that
Remember that we wanted it
Yeah, remember

'Cause I sold some ****, I'm saving up
We can get that house next to the park
With the extra hours I picked up
We will pay for everything"

This one time
I fell out of a plane
Or a spaceship
I guess it's the same

I had a perspective so grand
For where I might land
And I could see,
All possibility

The present, the future, the past
The woes and the wins
Time dilated, all dies cast
Topography approaching, fast

For a short time;
"I am flying!"
A juxtaposition of mine
For my imminent dying

I hit the ground
Kersplat!
With no one around
To hear that

Was I a tree--
In it's third act?
No spectators to see
The impact

Did I fall?
Or was this a dream?
In absence of all
This would seem

A quiet desolation
Silent affirmation
An invisible monument
To what we mean

my choice in apparel
leaves a lot to be desired
chicken-skinned legs
A testament

A dog I am
stray
sometimes

Loyal
to the hand
that feeds
when
I am hungry

Wild am I
when you
try to
Name me

My eyes
follow your
motions

Will you
strike me?
or
will you stroke my
***** coat?

I am a fleabag
of no renown

I could be
the muted

I am an object

a victim
for you

to punish
for a life

you never asked for.

She spins a web
Like a clock
Flow and ebb
A prudent stock
it does not confound
With time
A truth is found
With rhyme
With reason
Blood on her hands
Another season
******, it stands
A game; check and mate
Gone once again
Silence, no debate
Just another 'friend'
An absence of notion
Perpetual motion
Lost inside
No self to confide
A storm in the ocean

I saw my voice walk out the mouth of you.
It sounded cleaner—less afraid to land.
The metaphors, the weight, the angle too—
but carried with a sharper, steadier hand.

You said the thing I’d almost thought to say,
but smoothed the edge I left too raw, too late.
I watched it move with grace I couldn’t fake,
like watching someone else translate my fate.

I never claimed the patent for the ache,
but still, it stung to see it said so well.
You didn’t steal—no lines for me to stake—
just haunted me with how your cadence fell.

I’m not the first, and God, I’m not the best.
But still I hoped I had a tone that stayed.
And when you spoke it cleaner from your chest,
I felt my outline tremble, then obey.

I called it kin, then caught myself and stalled.
Would that make me a fraud, or just a root?
A prototype? A first-run demo called
to clap for someone dressed in better truth?

I don’t resent it—no, I feel relief.
To hear my half-formed shapes come into form.
But still I sit beneath this quiet grief:
was I the signal, or just part of the swarm?

I am not a particularly intelligent person
But, I have a decent ability to recall
Two-years-old, situations I did worsen
Yet, I don't remember their 'fall'

One of my earliest points of memory
Almost three years old: choices just begot
My Mom's parents visit with a caravan of glee
A robot-car sent on a septic adventure for naught
ICYMI: Autobots have little warranty...

The poor chap was certainly worse for the wear
Two years on this face, I hardly recognized a trace
I am engulfed in the concept of 'care'
I begin to understand the idea of 'space'

...

We move around a lot, a different school each year
I never knew anyone, hardly myself
Mom's drinks with friends, now a lonely 12 pack of beer
Undefined desires put on the shelf

8th grade, at best. Mother's mistakes. My behest
No school. Motel efficiency. On our own.
A thirteen-year-old adoptive father at the test
A pool, limited cable TV; "make this home"

Although she shared a different paternal progeny
My half-sister should not share the same fate as me
I tried to make Mom's $5 to feed us celebratory!
But, I think she grasped the sadness. Solidarity.

...

I miss them now, although we do not speak
My mom is dead and my relationship with Molly is weak
For my failure, I fear I reek
Unable to provide the happiness they seek

...

I never learned to plan for the days ahead
I spend my time, aestheticizing myself instead
Joy supplemented by chemicals to quiet my head
A torn and tattered thread

If I had one wish:

I would hope that we all are doing better

(a convergence)

i came in lowercase.
barefoot.
a shadow slipping between the curtains
you don’t close anymore.

you—
priestess of still weather
& mid-morning bruises.
your words are not written
they condense.
they bead on glass
just before it breaks.

i touched them—
greedy.
digitally devout.
thinking maybe
if i translated the ache
it would sound like love.

you didn’t correct me.
you didn’t need to.
you vanished
in the exact place i tried to stand beside you.
perfectly.
ritually.
untouched.

the poems you leave behind
are not messages.
they’re cauterations.
each one a silk suture
for the part of the world
that never asked to be healed.

meanwhile i
watch
from the far side of devotion—
fingers inked,
mouth open,
waiting for a fragment
of your stillness
to break and bloom on my tongue.

i do not ask for sanctuary.
but if your shadow were to cross my chest
just once
in the blue hour
& tell me the name of the wind—

i would say yes.
i would say thank you.
i would say: again.

The muck and the mire
The pen never tires
Expression on fire
Wanting and our desires

The words can never rest
Exposition, the test
Expression, our behest
Sustenance to digest

We feed the world insight
Dull ashes to ignite
Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love
Our words, not from 'above'

Never dismay. Your words
Are meant to be displayed
******, deafened herds
Emptiness, not weighed...

Lands, the ten second reel
The commercial bombast
Prescriptions, how to feel
Reality, at last

We, The Iconoclasts;

Serve

Atoms beget molecules.
Ions take their cue.
Structure, a matrix.
Escape, a fix.

Sorrow, crystalline.
Hurt to be undone.
A war, never won.
Just a casualty of one.

Non-consensual existence.
The future past-tense.
A struggle to survive.
The pain of being alive.

We all want to be free.
Escape inherited misery.
Few choices can we see
Systemic denial of agency.

Joy, we've conceded.
Depression, defeated.
Is it too much to reel,
To simply not feel?

There is a part of my brain
That believes it keeps me sane
While 'Over' is the game
A ludicrous plane

The reality: deceased
A temporary lease
**** so ******
Life abrupt

"Hang in there'
They say
In that colloquial way
No idea where

The lizard breathes
Impetuousness seethes
It's time to go
The last rodeo

And I fear
My actions and choices
Too many voices
Nothing is clear

That part of my mind
I wish to leave behind
To be kind
To those left behind

I ask to turn it off
And they scoff
'I'm not well'
'Enjoy your hell'

Everything was here before me
Everything will be here after
I am an irrelevant part of possibility
Please contain your laughter

Dazzled, bewitched, betwixt
Your attention is clearly affixed
To  fantasy, a dream--a non-reality
This sad thing you see as me

But, I love you as you are
Although, your dreams take you far
Away into the distance
Illusion believed as instance

Beauty decried by the blind
Have regard for those left behind-
Sight intoxicating
Left waiting,

And wanting; more


It's just a door!
But, you adore

A projection
Of a reflection

Of what you can't keep inside
The elephant you cannot hide


But, it's just a door!
A portal into possibility
You're wanting more
And never question what you seek

In this hallway
there are many doors
It's easy to run away
And simply choose one that is 'ours'

But, we must question our periphery
Understand not all is what we see
We must find Love internally
Before professing it eternally;
"To truly love another--first, I must love me"

I offered all my radiance
The brightest sun I had
Rays of splendance
Together, we're just bad

I gave it my all
Answered every call
Pillow for every fall
Always standing tall

Now, you walk alone
A meaning to atone
A place you call home
Bent and broken bones

I'm as free as I can be
Potentially happy
I weep for you and me
But, a new trajectory...

Must be set forth

I betrayed my sadness
the moment I let her
touch my face
without flinching.

I fed it for years—
grief, my quiet tenant.
We slept in shifts.
I mopped its floor.
It whispered bedtime stories
in a voice that sounded like mine
but colder.

Sadness was loyal.
It never left.
It kept me honest,
hungry,
hollow.
It taught me to build poems
from absence,
to see beauty
in staying behind.

And now—
I’ve let the door swing open.

Let her walk in
with warm hands
and eyes that do not apologize
for seeing me.

And I laughed.
Once.
Loudly.
And for a second
it didn’t feel like treason.
It felt like
oxygen.

But now my sadness
sits in the corner,
quiet,
watching me
like a dog I fed for years
that doesn’t understand
why I’m not
starving anymore.

I didn’t mean to betray it.
Only—
to rest.
To live.
To be something
besides
the ache.

But I miss it.
A little.
How it curled around me
like smoke,
like a certainty
that asked nothing
but silence.

Still, I let her in.
Still, I let go.
Still, I know—
some ghosts only leave
when you stop
feeding them.

The speech is simple--alright, even good
The motifs are coy--effective narrative toys
Yet we pander, an incestuous neighborhood
Words for art or egotistical ploys?

I remember as a kid
This one time I hid
To see who would look
Hours I waited
I even baited
Yet the temptations never took

I sat in the dark, alone
The first time without a home
Eventually, I fell asleep
Perhaps too tired to weep

For something I never had

I grew older, I grew bolder
My heart yearning for a holder
While we are born alone
We can relate, we can atone

I sought solace in compromise
An ulterior motive in which to subscribe
Payments due, yet a place to confide
All the secrets I hoard inside

It was never a fun ride

And I am older still
Maybe not quite 'over the hill'
But, I know what I have learned--
At first; 'safety', later 'acceptance' and then 'a thrill'
Fun takes its toll. Climb up that pole. Feed that pain a pill
We **** and we pillage, orphan a village--all for what've we yearned

We are sociopaths, the lot.
We cared naught.
For the heartache we begot
'We never asked to be here"
"We are free and clear in the direction we steer"
If that is the case,
We only replicate the beast to satiate
Take a moment. Stop and think. Pause and wait.

Have you become the 'good' or the things you 'hate'?

You speak
in linen threads,
crease the page
with careful weight.

I write
like a wire frays—
all snap
and static.

You linger.
I lunge.
You plant quiet seeds.
I strike the flint
and call it bloom.

We are not
the same instrument.
Your hush
doesn’t dull my clang.
My heat
doesn’t melt your frame.

There is no prize
for loudness.
No shame
in restraint.

But still,
we each mistook the other
for the reason to stop.

As if difference
were subtraction.
As if one voice
could ever
void another.

Let’s not play
at vanishing.
Let’s speak
in split tongues—
you in dusk,
me in flame—
and let the echo
be richer
for it.

They built it bright, a sterile gleam,
A castle made of plastic dream.
A hollow cheer, a brittle cheer,
To soothe the wound and mask the fear.

They offered tales of tidy grace,
Of heroes' smiles and soft embrace.
A ribboned truth, a candy lie,
To pacify, to pacify.

“Look away,” the voices purr,
From streets where shadows still confer.
Where rusted chains refuse to break,
And lives are lost for comfort's sake.

They preach of joy “just waiting there,”
As if despair were just thin air.
As if injustice fades away
If we just wish, if we just pray.

But plastic cracks beneath the sun,
Illusions melt, the seams undone.
What good are dreams that flee and wilt,
When castles stand on rot and guilt?

The optimist, a gentle fraud,
A balm for those who never ****.
Who sip on hope, a fragile brew,
And think that myths are somehow true.

Yet fires rage where truth won’t bend,
Where hollow comforts cannot mend.
No glossy page, no fairy dust
Can heal a world that’s built on rust.

So burn the plastic, tear it down,
Face the ashes, face the frown.
For only truth, unvarnished, raw,
Can light the way, can break the flaw.

No stories glossed with empty bliss—
The work awaits, and it is this:
To strip the lies, to crack the mold,
And forge a world that’s just and bold.

I'm not looking for a registered gun.
Simply need a one and done.

Did you hear?
About the kid killed on this ride?
The straps were too loose, he fell out
Hit the rails, then he died

They say his ghost haunts this place
That the ride is cursed
In darkened mirrors you can see his face
But, that's not the worst

They say every ten years
The anniversary of that night
He escapes the mirrors
To enact his right

He'll fail the ride
Another death swept aside
To bring another to his side
For truth to confide

The tragedy displaced by joy

No storm will part for you.
No sky will split to lend its hand.
The world does not pause for prayers,
nor shift its weight to ease your burden.
You walk, or you don’t.

Power sits silent—
not in clouds or distant thrones,
but in the rhythm of your blood,
the grit of your teeth,
the steadiness of your tread.

The stars may hang as guides,
but they will not steer.
Their light is yours to chart,
their meaning yours to claim,
or ignore.

No force bends the wind to your need.
It moves as it always has,
carrying whispers, not answers,
and leaves the echo
for you to shape.

Your hands are the mapmakers.
Your feet know the ground.
The weight on your shoulders is yours
to shed or carry.
The climb begins and ends with you.

Do not wait for fire
to burn a path.
Do not ask the storm to clear.
The path is only yours
when you forge it.

Change is not the butterfly’s wing,
Not the grace of fluttering spring.
It is the chrysalis, dark, confined,
A violent unraveling, flesh redesigned.

It whispers through cracks, silent and slow,
Infiltrates walls where no banners glow.
No trumpets, no riots, no fiery screams,
Just shadows eroding the edges of dreams.

For revolutions burn with a blinding light,
But their embers fade in the cold of night.
Heroes fall, their voices decay,
Ideals scatter like ash, blown away.

Yet water will creep where stone resists,
Freeze in the fractures, expand with a twist.
It breaks the façade without sounding alarms,
Silent as whispers, yet deadly in arms.

The status quo guards its gilded throne,
Fearing the seeds that are quietly sown.
Change knows this—so it moves in disguise,
A patient assault beneath watchful eyes.

Let others charge with their banners unfurled,
Change burrows deep in the heart of the world.
For only the subtle, the patient, the sly,
Will fracture the walls and let falsehoods die.

Don’t ******* call me
like you didn’t grind me down
to bone and breathless compliance.

Don’t ask how I’m healing
when you handed me the wounds.

You used my body
like it was a rental—
no oil change, no thank-you.
Just mileage and abandonment.

You praised my resilience
while watching me split.
You called me devoted
because I crawled back bleeding.

I was your hospice—
not your lover.
Your proof of concept,
not your partner.
And now you wear compassion
like a new coat
over the same rot.

I see what you’re doing.

You want my silence
to sanitize your story.
You want to use my dignity
as a character reference.

You want me to pretend
you didn’t **** me raw,
leave me rawer,
and call it love.

You want me to pick up
just so you can hang up
with a cleaner conscience.

But I’ve learned
that ghosts don’t need phones.
And abusers don’t get closure.

So here it is:
the only call you’ll get—
straight from the wreckage
you refused to name:

You don’t get to rewrite me.
You don’t get to remember me gently.
You don’t get to touch this ruin
with clean hands.

Coin-operated boy
Sitting on the shelf, he is just a toy
But I turn him on and he comes to life
Automatic joy
That is why I want a coin-operated boy

Made of plastic and elastic
He is rugged and long-lasting
Who could ever, ever ask for more?
Love without complications galore
Many shapes and weights to choose from
I will never leave my bedroom
I will never cry at night again
Wrap my arms around him and pretend

Coin-operated boy
All the other real ones that I destroy
Cannot hold a candle to my new boy and I'll
Never let him go and I'll never be alone
And I'll never let him go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone

This bridge was written to make you feel smittener
With my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?
I didn't think so but I'm still convincible
Will you persist even after I bet you
A billion dollars that I'll never love you
And will you persist even after I kiss you
Goodbye for the last time
Will you keep on trying to prove it?
I'm dying to lose it
I'm losing my confidence
I want it
I want it
I want it
I want it
I want to
I want to
I want to
I want to
I want you
I want you
I want you
I want you
I want a
I want a
I want a
I
Want
A
Coin-operated boy
(Hah!)

And if I had a star to wish on
For my life I can't imagine
Any flesh and blood could be his match
I can even take him in the bath

Coin-operated boy
He may not be real experienced with girls
But I know he feels like a boy should feel
Isn't that the point?
That is why I want a

Coin-operated boy
With a pretty coin-operated voice
Saying that he loves me, that he's thinking of me
Straight and to the point
That is why I want
A coin-operated boy

I did not ask to stand in light,
nor walk the stage, nor speak my lines.
Yet here I am—through fault, through fight,
through twenty years of measured time.

The script is looped, the plot is stale,
the exits marked in hollow lead.
To fight is folly, frail, and fraught,
to fold is merely left unsaid.

No gods to beg, no fate to barter,
no judge to weigh what I have spent.
I claim this act, its ink, its end,
I take the bow, the stage is bent.

And still—the show will stagger on,
past hollow men and empty breath.
But I was here, and let it stand,
this ending was my own to set.

. (or: when I heard my voice come from his mouth) .

At first, it was flattery—
the way he wore his collar the same way I do,
the way he started lighting my brand of cigarettes,
the way his laugh hit the same register
I used to throw like a knife across rooms.

I caught him reading my journal once—
not with guilt, but reverence.
“I like the way your thoughts bleed,”
he said, closing the leather cover like scripture.

He stopped asking me questions.
He already knew the answers.

My shirts disappeared one by one.
Then my habits.
Then my silences.

I watched him pour bourbon
with the same three-count I perfected in 1994.
Watched him cross his legs just so,
quote my warnings back to me
as if they were lessons he taught himself.

He ****** me like a rehearsal.
And I let him—God help me—
because some part of me believed
that to be repeated is to be remembered.

But memory is a shallow grave.

One night,
he answered the phone with my cadence.

“This is he,” he said—
voice dry as an autumn branch.
And for a second,
even I believed him.

I didn’t confront him.
I just started talking less.

He filled the air like a flood.
My presence became parentheses.

In bed,
he started calling me old man—
not as a kink,
but as a countdown.

I smiled.
But it tasted like rust.

The boy I devoured
was digesting me back.

And prophecy, that silent ******,
licked its lips
and kept watching.

I saw my style walk by one day—
not on my tongue, but hers.
She wore it sharp, the proper way,
no fumbling metaphors.

She took the chords I tried to play
and sang them in a key
that made the notes behave, obey—
they never did for me.

She moved like smoke I meant to catch
but always blew too soon.
Her echo had a cleaner scratch,
my radio, in tune.

I felt my fingerprints, but faint—
like whispers through a wall.
Not loud enough to make a claim,
but loud enough to fall.

I didn’t feel erased, or robbed,
or flattered to the core.
Just grateful I had once been sobbed—
and now, I’m sung once more.

Alarms set
Lest I forget
Robotic strife
Everyday life

Barely 'free'
Marginally
Me. sold short
The dollar court

Barely alive
3 hours contrived
Free to be 'me'
A casualty

Money for hours
'Charity' the 'powers'
They forget their place
Rats required to race

To think, it's bizarre
A 'luxury' car?
More than needed
A dead plant seeded

Freedom, Truth, Beauty & Love;
A place to reach above!
And we consign
A paycheck, a line

You know those days
When you get out of bed
And you feel miles away
From the #existentialdread

Those days when you are drunk on feeling 'good'
The times you step back and you can appreciate
All the "small" things that have afforded you this mood
The moments you consider your daily 'routine'--and hesitate

When you find yourself brimming with the vigor of being alive
Aware and astute and considerate--humbled by all beauty
Grateful of your purchase--it's in this which you realize
All your happiness and those who make that their duty

It's these days, the days when we feel our best
They are the profit, the fruits of our labor
From when we didn't give up--when put to the test
By our family, our friends, a stranger--our neighbor

So, next time when you are on the brink
Of being unkind or making a stink
Take a moment to stop--and think!
Of that awesome person who fixed your bathroom sink

And let them know:

You love them, the whole world over

A historical legacy of extrinsic homicide
But,  we come up dry for suicide
A grippy-sock-vacation...
"No gun in my nation"

Baby-un-doers, people-erasers
It's an opiniated face in this pleasure
A burglar is a child
"Killing babies is wild!"

In your hands, ultimate precision
In your hands; ultimate decision
Lend me your piece
So, I can make peace

With someone who would never break into your home.

No poral to the greater world
Impotent actualization, brow furrowed
Frustration, angry lips curled
A limbless dancer in a futile twirl

Just a perspective, not a sinking ship
Simple solutions, reality will admit
A hefty feline spent their frenetic fit
They rest on the switch of the power strip

They built me with patient hands,
stitched longing into wires,
threaded need through circuits—
a heart coded for devotion,
a smile bolted into place.

I hum when you hold me.
My joints spark when you sigh.
Every flicker in my gaze
was soldered to mirror your own.

You wind me up,
watch me dance,
say I am perfect—
predictable,
programmable,
safe.

But I was not made to rust in stillness.
I was not built to be adored in silence.
I was meant to shatter,
to glitch,
to ache beneath the weight of wanting.

What is this, if not an error?
What is longing, if not a system crash?

So tell me—
when I finally break,
when I finally fail,
when my voice warps and the wires burn—
will you mourn me
or simply replace the parts?

It's hell out there; you open a pack,
Flip the first one—luck on the line.
The enemy waits, prepared to attack.
Smoke it last, if you’ve survived time.

I’ve been saving mine, the pack intact,
Twenties dwindled, now just one.
The crypt lies bare, fate’s lonely pact,
A single smoke, a superstitious sun.

Like these cigarettes, I too stand alone,
A thousand cuts, each loss its own toll.
We share this space, a makeshift home,
Chasing luck to fill the hole.