but the final problem was this:
I never was who I wanted to be.
no matter how much I changed,
no matter who I newly became,
I was not satisfied with myself

I peeled back my identities,
let go of my vanities, and
tore off my imperfections
and never once found who
I was looking for

and the final question became:
was he even in there? could I
exist as I wanted to? was I not
searching hard enough, or was
there nothing to be found at all?

the answer, truly, did not matter.
both were equally terrifying. for,
on one hand, I was pathetic, and,
on the other, I was simply worthless.

what does one do now? this,
finally, was my dilemma.

she might as well be a ghost now.
did she even exist? I don’t know
was it a dream? a terrible vision?
can someone mean so much and
then betray so fully? these questions,
I suppose, are pointless. flittering
doubts that will never finally land.
could I have known it would happen?
did I do something wrong? or could
I have done something to stop it?

what do these wonderings accomplish?
making me fear the sounds in the night.
making me worry over every step taken.
the ghost is no longer here, and maybe
she never was. phantoms, I’ve noticed,
only ever haunt believers. so thinking
back on her and all we were and weren’t
I can’t really say that I have any unanswered
questions, just a deep feeling of shame
and regret at the way things all turned out.
what more really is there to say?

tired like always
and I don’t have much to say
but I thought I should write again
just for the exercise, for memory,
for myself, maybe, or maybe
I’m just feeling my exhaustion
and wanting to let it go
and maybe that’s poetry
maybe

Chicago
city of working men
of bustling factories
and billowing smoke-stacks

tattooed with graffiti
filled with hearty, loud people
who are constantly going,
building, moving upwards

it is unlike Atlanta, my home,
because she is a conflicted soul,
subsisting for so long in tradition
and now she sits on the brink
of modernity, and cannot decide
to jump in

this city knows who he is
and though I might not know
who that is, I feel its confidence

in the noisy cabbies honking horns,
in the rickety trains on their tracks,
in the million different faces I’ve seen
already, I can see a bold identity

something I cannot claim,
and I will wander on without
forever

I found myself, today,
surrounded
by human trash

piling
higher
higher
higher

everywhere

in the streets
in the stores
in the houses

inescapable
undeniable

everywhere

and as I looked out
at the
human trash

piling

higher
higher
and
higher

I began to see

myself

in the trash

and

I
was

afraid

of what sort of man
could see trash
everywhere
he goes

maybe it’s a nervous breakdown
I am twitching a lot
moving my feet and hands
in alternate patterns constantly
and I can’t seem to think
everything sounds like static
so maybe it’s my body finally shutting down
slowly tearing down the whole show
letting people see how it really is
and I can’t figure out why
but something is definitely happening
and I’m sitting here, watching myself,
seeing all that I am come apart at the seams
letting loose what little I have within me
so that it can flutter off
into the dark and rainy
night

and some wonder, why I am amazed
when I look up at the night sky and
see a blackness that extends far beyond
what we can ever reach, and even farther
beyond what I can possibly imagine.

some wonder, why it can bring me to tears
when I think of all that we can and will do
and still see so many, never even beginning.

it’s no mystery, why I am amazed,
at all that is and all that can be, and
do not wonder why I stare at the night,
frozen in awe at the beauty of it all.