I caught the deep inky blue of it
in bottles
labeled 'pleasing'
and set them on a shelf
next to bowls full of tears
and baskets full of unwanted memories.
It was cold
aching like limbs in the winter
sip it,
let the ice unfurl,
bitter on your tongue,
grief catching
in your throat
before settling into the pit
of your stomach,
like a swallowed apple seed.
one day the winds came
knocking all of the bottles down
and all around in the broken air,
ruptured by the fragmented glass,
screams - starved and rising
screams shattering bone
screams - ringing
wild and ragged
at last.

I am the only one left
And it seems like a mighty theft
Am I the only one that cares,  
When I feel nothing in the air?

Should I compare you to a spring morning
You are as harsh as the rains cold venom
Spring allows growth and warmth you cause scorning
Spring leaves when asked you outstay your welcome

Would I compare you to autumn’s sunrise
Autumn always takes its end peacefully
Somehow you take the end as a surprise
Fall lets the past fall you end forcefully  

Could I compare you to summers sunset
Summer should always brings joy and freedom
But with you summer comes with us upset
So why have I caged myself to boredom


So why do I keep comparing your fate  
For you are only the season of hate

I stared at the cinderblock wall, kudzu clawin’ up wild,  
A green chokehold sprawlin’ ‘cross this Tennessee hollow,  
Life flickers in me, a match struck on a humid night,  
But leukemia’s creepin’, a month to ***** my candle’s glow.  
Sixteen and I’m done, no worse than folks who linger here,  
The sun meltin’ over the Smokies, the sweetgum air—why ain’t it mine?  
I despise death’s slow drag, its damp, cold fingers on my neck,  
Not scared—just ******, a fire ragin’ in veins gone icy.  

A dream once slunk in, like a copperhead through the pines,  
Cross my warped floorboards, me froze, watchin’ it glide,  
No fangs, no strike, just sickness coilin’ in its hush,  
Woke me to the truth—my end’s stalkin’ these backroads quiet.  
Why me leavin’ while others grill burgers in the dusk?  
This land’s too pretty—cornfields gold, mockin’ my rot,  
I’d toss a Molotov at it all, this carefree Cumberland sprawl,  
If my arms had the grit to torch my **** fate.  

The world churns on, deaf to my hollerin’ from the porch,  
Beauty cuts deep—crickets chirpin’ a song I can’t keep.  
Everybody’s fightin’ to breathe, no soul less than me,  
But what’s it worth when death’s got my number dialed?  
I chuck my truth like a deer stand spear, unmissable,  
To God, to life, to folks cruisin’ Main Street clueless,  
At sixteen, dread’s my gospel, my rebel yell,  
A war cry howled, so this whole county might pay up.  

Life’s a gift for us about to get yanked away,  
We cling tight to what’s rippin’ loose in the wind,  
My ache, my envy for kids racin’ four-wheelers, unborn,  
No hate—just a love for livin’, sharp as a switchblade.  
Through cussin’ and jealousy’s hot sting, I thread a tune,  
A jagged love song hummin’ over the TVA hum,  
Reckon this truth, let your own gripes loose like hounds,  
I ain’t kneelin’ to anything . And I am proudly mad.

I kept waiting for someone to say my name
like it mattered —
like it meant something more
than the smoke curling from their mouth
or the pause before their next thought.

I kept practicing how I’d answer,
as if the right inflection
could make me worth remembering.
I kept hanging around
like a seat at a table no one was saving —
elbows off the surface, back straight,
trying not to look desperate —
taking notes in the margins of other people’s lives,
highlighting the parts I thought I belonged to.

I filled my pockets with reasons to stay
and still got left behind.
I burned through summers,
cut my teeth on promises made in passing cars.
I stood on porches barefoot, whispering,
Say it back. Please say it back.
But they never did.

I should’ve known better —
should’ve stopped twisting my ribs into ribbon,
threading my spine through the eye of a needle.
I kept breaking myself down into fractions —
a fifth of my pride, a sixth of my spine —
like if I whittled myself thin enough,
I could slip through your keyhole
and rise up like incense burning in your room.

But you were always somewhere else —
feet planted in some other city,
hands too full to catch what I kept throwing.
I was all green lights and loose laces,
always running to meet you halfway —
never noticing you weren’t moving.

I feasted on Adderall
and kept my phone on loud.
I swallowed nights whole
and called it hunger.
Or else I slept for days —
stumbled downstairs with breath like battery acid,
ate three bowls of raisin bran and no water.
My bones went soft as rotting fruit.
My dreams felt like something I could stream —
pause, rewind, resume —
binge-watching my pleading in real time,
begging the screen to glitch out a better ending.

I chewed the quiet until my teeth ached —
gnawed on the hours like stale bread.
Nights stretched thin,
a damp washcloth wrung out too many times.
I stayed up rewriting the last thing you said,
like if I shifted the punctuation
I could make it kinder.
Turned your ellipses into commas,
your cold period into a question mark.
I swore if I curved the words just right,
they’d fold into something softer —
something I could survive.

I spent that week pulling myself apart —
scrubbing my skin until it blushed raw,
stripping it like wallpaper,
scrapping your name out of my throat
like a fish hook.
I kept your words in a jar under my bed —
tight-lidded and hissing like a hornet’s nest.

I kissed the air where you should’ve been
and tasted copper and sweat.
Pressed my tongue to the place it stung
and thought,
This is what love leaves you with —
a mouth full of blood
and a story no one believes.

I kept the lights low for weeks after.
And one morning, I woke up,
swallowed the silence like a dare.
I cut my name out of the air with my teeth.
I let the hurt stick under my nails —
dark and jagged —
and I kept writing anyway.

I spit the silence out like a pit —
sharp, bitter, black.
It hit the floor and rolled,
and for the first time,
I didn’t follow it.

I let it rot where it landed.
Let the flies have their fill.
Let the maggots move in.
Let the earth swallow it whole.
Let it die twice.
Let the ground forget it ever lived.

People say i'm insightful.
when I hear the word and find the interrelation between it and I,
I'm placed back in a room with emotions coating
the surface of the walls.
Each corner is covered in passion.
I'm surrounded by all the things I've swallowed down,
they have returned to choke out of me.
The outside world does not know who I am, they cannot reach me.
I can barely reach myself.
No one came to save me and that drove me mad.
I lost my mind in that room.
I forgot how to breathe, I forgot what I was made of.
More unintelligible than articulate.
I lost so many pieces of my mind, I ate at the passion coated walls.
I got lost in the spirals of my own finger tips
I had sat within myself instead of the emotion sealed room.
Would you understand if I said that the parts of me that die still stay with me?
You use the word insightful.
I know myself so well that I see myself in others
and if I see repetition I fix it.
In his addiction I see connection
In her depression I see expression.
I connect with all of you because part of you was once me.
So insightful maybe.
Maybe I drove myself mad for a reason.
To lose my mind, find my soul.
Connection is a privilege, your experience is a process, to grow from it is a gift.

the sun is as hot as spaghetti
steaming with a sauce
served with a side of sizzling hot cherries.

my tie is so tight I cough in silent h's
and I'm sweating
my pores shooting out like a fountain
and my face, like an umbrella in the rain.

no time to think
no time to reason
"Ding, Ding DIING!"
I jump like I was slapped on the cheek
my beard itches, my right eye twitches
"What the F* is this?"
I write out the first words that come to me
"Ding, Ding, DIING!"
but I'm not done writing
I look at the bell,  "you f*king ****"
and I jump again, like there was a puddle before me
my head is as hot as popcorn
no, even hotter
and you can hear it pop
from the front and from the back
"Ding, Ding, DIING!"
i jump again
it's me vs. a bell.