we left early
couldn't've been half-past
6 o'clock in the morning
the dawn gray left dew-dripped
melancholy on the foggy front lawn
beyond your mother's portable home
we drove down I-4 singing Anberlin's "A
Day Late" and took the back route down
A1A to the secret place where

the waves whispered languid lullabies
as heat rays traced your skin and harmonized
with the ancient anthems of the Atlantic
as it hummed its gentle cadences

beams of light filtered through sandy
tresses on that solitary beach in the
middle of April
lens flares immortalizing sly grins in ways
i thought only celluloid could deliver
yet you were corporeal and immediate
a fragment of an inch from me

film clumped in loose spools around us
wasted shots used and then discarded
we lay on our sides
exchanging joy in silence
and mirth in sideward glances

barefoot along the boardwalk
beneath the shadows of mangroves
trespassing in the backyards of the bourgeoisie
feet kicking toes dipping minnows nibbling
in the brackish Indian River

J.B.'s Fish Camp was slow
that time of year
we gave manatees fresh water
watched the dolphins' distant dance as
i debated whether or not  
i should try to hold your hand

you drank lukewarm beer as our star
sank over your sunburnt shoulders
and a blues musician played
somber tunes of lust and loss that
carried us away as we ate coconut shrimp
and the breeze blew in from the bay

you wore a baseball cap with
the Atlanta Braves' crimson A and
sported a matching jersey of your
little league softball team and though i may
not quite remember every little thing you said i
can't shake the way you caught
my eye and blushed before turning your head

boats drifted past and
the sun tucked itself to sleep
and you made me promise
to let you read every ****** poem i'd ever
breathe into existence

you said you'd value them more than gold
prize them always cherish the memories
even when you grew older but
the sun had already set
its absence left a chill in my bones

twenty-three trips around the sun
just another insignificant planet
crowding a broiling ball of
hydrogen gas in one
of some hundred
billion galaxies

it's hard
not to wilt
by comparison
not even a quarter of a
century and for all i know i could
very well be dead tomorrow buried
three days hence never to walk the earth again

i am an amalgam of every person i meet
each event in this tumultuous tragedy
modifies me just as i alter the
universe with ripple effects
expanding ever onward
out into the cosmic
embrace of the
abyss

squeezed
out like paste
stretched like string
theory across parchment
paper—thin and fragile as i
hope in vain for some semblance
of significance to be lent to me on loan
if i want it i'll have to make it all on my own

but i'm growing older with every passing
moment and i'm not so certain this is
the route i've chosen anymore
i'll still carve my name into
this Earth but not for me
i'll lay down my life not
for my legacy but
for my neighbor
for all those i'll
never get to
meet

not out
of some youthful
idealism or ardent
child-like naiveté but
for an idea that's bigger
and brighter and better than
myself: universal brotherhood
peace and love goodwill towards
all lifeforms with whom we share this
tiny blue dot that we call planet Earth

and while i know i will hardly make a
difference in the grand scheme
of things at least i can say i
died a lion never living
on my knees

instead
i tried to live
my life so *******
brilliantly that even
Death feared to take
me into the nothingness

twenty-three trips around the sun
almost a quarter of a century
i won't let them steal my
hope from me i refuse
to bow to apathy i
stand strong on
my own feet
and say i'm
free

human detritus deaf to empathy
misanthropes bound by apathy
just above the dotted line we
signed our own death warrants
guilty as charged
existential and intellectual suicide

we'd rather gouge out our eyes
bury our heads in the sand
than give a moment's pause to
consider our own arrogance
**** sapiens
we carved our legacy into the globe
and we will rest in the husk
of a massive unmarked grave
a solitary chunk of floating rock
adrift in outerspace

"the fate of every successful species
is to wipe itself out"

can we harness the courage to turn away
from our vapid lives before it's too late
can we unplug our minds from the machine
extricate ourselves and learn to breathe
with lungs instilled through millennia of
evolution before we suffocate in ennui

humanity is on life-support
it's tempting to pull the plug
let Mother Nature reclaim her earth
from an entitled race of
self-destructive fools
coddled from childbirth but

there is a nascent impulse that
echoes in every heartbeat
living within our blood
to regard one another with the new eyes
science has built each of us
no longer can we trust self-styled
leaders of the free world
the impetus rests within the crux
of self-acceptance

anarchy is the litmus test

gossamers of golden silk
enriched with salt-water luster
sea-foam pebbles nestled between
warm sand freckles
gracing sunset skin

with a jolt
i wake and wish
silently to myself
for someone to just
put me out of my misery
there's no serenity in sleep
only an endless barrage of shifting
mirages half-glimpsed through
a looking-glass awaiting
my every whimsical
fear

consciousness is a hoax
a self-sustaining delusion
premised on confusing anecdotes
and misrepresented by inadequate
synecdoches that fail to convey
intended meaning

it is not difficult to trace the illustration
of truths that prove
at once illusory and immediate
deliberate attempts to assuage sentiment
before it returns in full force
terminate without consequence
since affection drowned in ambivalence

yet i somehow still
lack the cognizance to
be fully aware of my
own subconscious

i went for a drive today
the rain pitter-patterned as rubber
tires hydroplaned across the concrete and i
pressed play and sang to the mix tape

i couldn't see the moon or the stars or
you. i couldn't see more than 20 ft. in any
given direction. i listened to the cadence
as thunder crashed and thrashed H2O
across my dashboard

and for a moment there the whole
world froze, a hundred million raindrops
posed in suspension and i wondered if
this might be the way that i die—out too late
on a Wednesday night drive—and i thought
if i crashed and burned if the rain would douse
my charred corpse in time to leave a body
for them to put in the ground. would you
fly non-stop to Orlando just to see me lowered
down? what is the dollar
amount that's just too much? could i even say
i'd do the same for you?

then time resumed and rick-rocked me back
to reality and i felt a grim smile tug
me away from the brink as i passed an abandoned
church flooded out in the boonies. lightning flashed
above a lake in the distance and i realized i'd spent
almost 3 years god-free. so why was i
so worried about you?

have i been pulled apart in a 1,000 different directions
criss-crossed like stretch marks
a demon's clawed across my stomach?
i try every day to meet the eyes of
the man in the rear-view mirror but
i can't even remember their color anymore

these serotonin sentiments seem
to be sustained by sick fantasies
of misplaced affection  

dopamine deficiency disrupts delinquency
reminding me that
lackluster lusts are only passing passions

and we here are all unlucky passengers
harbingers of each other's suffering
stowaways on this interstellar starship
called planet Earth
where perception signifies
the faulty frailty of unreality
all the while
exchanging integrity for a fragrance of hope
that we might somehow terminate strife

tacit tactics can't alleviate anguish
only forestall future fractures behind
a flimsy facade of fortune-teller fairy tales
but we all know how the stories end
and no happy ever after exists
in this blissful ignorance you call a life

so when you stand at my grave and weep
when they lower me 6 ft. deep
know this promise is yours to keep

it's too late
now
i'm already gone

i’ve written countless 

poems you won’t ever read. i'm
melancholia.