Break-up is when you take his things
Wrap them in his jacket
And put them away,
Hoping that through this you won't think about him.
Out of sight, out of
mind.
But then you crawl into bed and it still smells like him
So you cry.

Break-up is when you lay his vest on the floor
And flatten on top of it
Collapsing.
Just to cry into it that you're sorry, "I love you, I'm sorry..."
Then throw it to the corner like it's trash.
It isn't.

Break-up is when you put on all the perfume you stopped wearing
Because he said he liked the smell
Of untainted you.
Then you vow to wear one
Every day
Until it makes you sick at yourself.

Break-up is when all your poetry turns free form
So that you won't send it to him
And your friends know it's serious.
Every poem ends the same;
Before its time
And dramatically.
Just like the last time you kissed.

He beams as he enters my bedroom
Holding a glass bottle
Bout a liter with a light label
Ether? (i was already down a hot dessert road with a pint of it in the back on the way to Las Vegas in a red sportscar)
No my son
Embalming fluid

Quickly we scrounge for money
And with almost zero effort
We had an eighth of some funk
We feel rich as we walk
And the rain falls

A good omen
As we smoke a cigarette near the retention pond
A falcon picked up a black snake and carried it over the trees

Marijuana soaked in embalming fluid
The bodies are emptied and filled to help slow down decomposition

He reads from Encyclopedia Britannica about embalming
I imagine ancient  humans sitting around a fire in the center of the dessert
They are throwing  massive amounts of marijuana on the fire
Inventing gods and dancing

They were each dipped and allowed to fully dry
We talk about all the **** our egos have snagged lately
As he packs

The hit
Like plastic to the tongue
My lungs become black in an instant
Filled with an acrid white smoke
Exhale the soul
****, that was fast
Stillness in everything
The building vibration at the base of my skull
Reverberating through me
each word
        Spirals off into thousands
Of volumes of information
The processing power
Of the machine
Capable of this existence
the psychotic episode of existence
It tries to talk
Surely it thinks it is something
How fine it is to know that it will all one day end
In an instant neither dark nor light I will die
And I have no fear of this
An instant of life
Boiling over to its brim in thoughts
To feel one moment of true ignorant blissful love of another soul
Love just another reaction to instinct
That we love to label with
Big long pages of words
And inventions to make
Them faster until everyone knows what life should be like

cough
like you could evict
the bitter thickness
of failure from your lungs
purge the fallacies you're pounded with
the shame
of cheap whiskey
and the voicemails you've saved
just to remind yourself
that you ruined things
punishment
because it feels righteous
when it comes from within
cough
and when your lungs settle
the heaviness remains
so take another desperate drag
because perhaps
this will finally be your last

the way that your hands fit into your pockets
makes it seem like you've got secrets
hiding in the creases of your palms
i wanna unravel your white-knuckled fists
and read the braille of your fingertps aloud
to a crowd of strangers

let me type my philosophies out
along the margin of your spine
in morse code

i'm the best story i've ever told

i can hear the strength in your voice flex when you laugh
something about that giggle of yours
could iron the wrinkled mountains down
and lie them flat on their backs
along the hem of the sea

i'm uncertain if your eyes are blue
or if they're grey
either way
i have to try my damndest not to climb inside
and hide
tuck myself behind your irises
and watch the gulls go by
from that distant shore

the thought brings me terror

i've had so many nightmares of being
crushed by the ocean's mighty limbs
lost forever
broken
at the bottom of a beautiful abyss

i wake unsure that i was even sleeping

       ...i found you on the dock
whistling sailor tunes

i'm doomed

It's amazing how fast the pathway

went from bursting with life,

to cold and crooked and blue,

to freezing and broken and black as the constant night.

The inner storm,
The calamity within...
The rumble,
The bang,
The drop of a pin.
The ringing in my ears,
That never would stop.
The boiling,
The melting,
The breakdown,
The pop.

A break in the clouds,
Let in rays of sunlight.
A new sense of normal,
Where all wrongs seem so right.

*******, buddy, *******...
Thinking long, entrailed thoughts
on outside, outside the party persona;
But give the witch just a moment to disembowelment.
Letting it wash over you. Letting it pass.
And the stereo of the laughing with the still of dark, of night--
whichever has me more at more mercy.

And I join the fire-fed party light,
and give myself to historicization.
Will the definitive verse make it clear,
the enunciation articulating the moment?
the many disembowelments,
too many to care

we are merely children
that continue growing.
loneliness is a struggle
but so is engulfment.
to plunge into commitment
with hopes for each day to rise with opportunity
and excitement, and for each day to prove more time wasted,
brings upon an emotional sickness known as heart ache.

a lover is to not just love,
but to follow and to lead.

however my love is wandering, lost.
trapped and wondering, is this love enough?

again my heart yearns for something else than what it's given,
yet is so afraid to remove the safety of what it already has to venture anew,
where a different kind of loneliness awaits.

feeling hopeless in a hopeful time
rendering gifts of promise useless
I admit I'm not pure, that I find moments where I'm not only the prey
but hunting, and the cycle of my torment is guided by my own self.
for lack of decisiveness, and abundance of indecision.