No matter the expression
across my lonely face
know that underneath
I feel out of place.
There's an ocean of lava
crashing against my shell
boiling up inside
this small version of hell
caught within my lungs
so I can hardly breathe
afraid if any leaks
you'll turn around and leave.

Almost is a word often used
with negative connotation
Synonymous with
nigh
nearly
not quite
When the thing you strive for
is just barely out of reach.

"He almost caught the train"
"She almost fell in love"

In this case, it's different.
What I would give
for an almost right now...
"It was almost too late"
"She almost didn't make it"
"We almost lost you"

though you and I
have yet to travel
very far on Earth
through the night sky
I’ve lost count
of all the stars traversed

I woke up
a year ago today
innocent
unknowing
And went to bed
broken and heavy as stone.
They say that when
you lose someone
that day is forever
the end of your old life
and the beginning of the new one,
the life without.
Each day learning
how to cope with
the gaping hole
that was once filled with her.

I lit myself on fire
burned my life to the ground
and overnight it vanished
without making a sound.

I got an award
For being the stupidest young boy
With a wax soul
And impressionable.

I thought I'd find something
Nestled here amidst the trees
And I did,
But in no halls but the hall of god
Speaking to me
Dancing between the leaves
Singing with every whispered breeze
And yet when I stepped
Past the threshold and into the
"real world"
I was sold
A maniac of utter delinquency.

Everybody there
Waiting for their turn
Auditioning for the favor of hearts
They'll never win
Can't see
Laughing and wondering
Reading without comprehension
Sticking their *** in the face of the classics
Lap dogs licking the milk from
Professed *******
Thinking they'll be next

Its not resentment--
Is it fair to be bent
Towards dollars that've never been spent?

All those silly parks
Divided from the civilized lands
Frontiers of the past
Left to be little staging areas
For that invisible hand

Kids go on spring break
Take pictures between the towns
Maybe a stop along
On the way
To Vegas
Deep in the desert where it'd **** any other day

I cannot escape the unfathomable beauty of that place,
Living off the world in a way God said
To toil and love the pain
In a way nobody does

I am guilty of pride and
Stuffed like a pie full of anger
Cooking it into solid joy
And trying hard to scrape the cancerous crust away
All the dark sides we avoid

But screaming the heat away is good
Thermal induction is the name of the game
Entropic fizzlements like bubbles in the wind
Sublimating all that ever stood.

Yet soon enough I'll be born anew
And what I leave behind
Lifted up
Nautoloid shell
With a sparkling abalone interior
Someone will place on their shelf
And think,

"I wonder where that thing had been."

at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a ***** poem
somebody told me not to read ***** poems
here
it's too late.
my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.
and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since beome tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.