It’s a cruel trick he plays on himself

Breaking one cigarette and putting it back in the pack to see how many times he pulls it out

More than you’d think

A reminder to consider everything he does

including driving to the store when there are three left 

leaving a pile of packs with single broken cigarettes in them on the kitchen table

he figures they’ll come in handy one day

when he’s desperate

i’m not sure what you call this then

she wouldn’t have allowed it

she left

‘allowing’ was the issue

other than self destruction, what does he want?

he willingly gives himself up, to everything

people, drugs, puppies, mugs, silence

‘who are you?’

he hears from behind while lost in a daydream standing backside to the corner store

‘huh?’ he turns while the door closes behind her

she asks him to go for a walk

‘i’m good’ he muttered

she laughed at that

he was caught by surprise, and her pixie cut framing angular features blue eyes protruding

‘come on, man. do i have to pull you off that wall?’ 

she was getting closer.

‘no, really, you should go to another place’

as she neared, she understood and left

‘i’ll get back to you someday.’ she thought while walking away. 

I learned to write from Whitman

Scratch that

I write because of Whitman

and Dylan

not Thomas, though he knows who bores me

The other two taught me that lines don’t end

Songs can last longer than three minutes

And people will come back to find meaning

If they feel something

That’s all I want

To feel

For you to feel

Loafing and easing 

Words that gain momentum are less about what is said

And more an inspiration to continue asking questions

The why of it all

Purpose

Driving street cars with strangers can fulfill the most basic needs, knowing the intention is what builds the supportive beams and I would rather do the mundane and know the reason than climb up a mountain only because it’s in season

Why do I write?

The answer is benign and trite

I want you to hear me

I want you to notice the hand print in my cave and wonder

What made him come out?

Whitman knows what my story is about

And Bob

Well

He knows too

So do you 

my right brain left me

now there’s only logic

that explains why you’re not making sense

images are replaced by linear thinking

a clue to you

with all this blinking

natural facts

I surrender to your latest attack

the end of my nose is where my eyes go when wondering how i fit into this pugilistic flow of cat meows and furrowed brows i can’t stand to look any longer

the crowd lasted the whole way through, yelling “how dare you” and “you’re not the select few”, even dead heads take a break during morning dew, well, a few, depending on where you find your pew and sanctity it’s not in a place that preaches separation though it got me wondering where i fit in this constant battle between ideas we busy ourselves with. if we didn’t show up to say it’s wrong who would listen to the death march song? would they grow? 

or, die away, a bar band that played its last hum drum cover to two drooling drunks and a couple under covers underage consent and rules that get bent to allow us all to numb out our need to shout and be heard for the way we feel. they stole the preppy dress code and stride into our streams thinking they could mask the language of the previously unseen bastards not even owning their rank and to them we should continue to thank that we can check our own complacency. 

take for granted that solid ground and sink holes devour even the most profound thinkers of our time who forgot they need to act, not just sit alone spinning a drone to make scruffy college kids put down their phone, for a minute, and check the tone of this nation where i never felt comfortable with how we interact, yet my shit stays pretty intact with this white skin and dangling parts i can’t help but think how far ahead i start. oh, but you claim that’s a myth to keep me down and it’s nothing to do with the color brown but preserving something for those who ‘found’ this mass of land now completely unbound. i don’t see a rejoining. i can’t imagine the whole peace thing. yet, i go to the store, hit the dance floor and the chat room bravado doesn’t find me. chicken shit caustic cancers can have their ‘white’ world, and preserve their jelly minded thoughts. how will you get on without slaves? really? i mean, we can’t pretend they don’t still exist – we just don’t want them living right around us. that too will change, as this whole thing gets rearranged.

you, the deranged, may be the ones in shackle and chains. 

Inspiration is hiding under my bed and i’m too lazy to crouch down, i’ll breathe alone instead wishing someone could pull the cord and wind me up, hit record, tap into the bloody bath of botched images that i imagine when sinking into the nighttime session of pretending we’re dead waiting for the sun to silhouette my somber soul and at least double the meaning of what you glean when my eyes cross and i’m feeling mean pushing buttons and finding covers to throw over your uplifted soul. try to get up, i dare you. it’s the trance dance we found in france that couldn’t stand a chance when we latched in to this laced up boot parade will you come finally fade in letting down your guard, really sweetly, it’s not that hard to send a card and show you at least know i’m here without a listening ear to hit second gear and ride away without warning if that was the case if we left it up to us there would be no them and then i couldn’t contend with these emotions that are challenged with the light and dark and in-between path we embark will you stop crushing the sound of consciousness changing situations to set up the math of knowing we were never equal. 

justify anything

lies, lust, and onion rings 

listen to the human beings

murmur murmur murmur

rapid eye movements put me to sleep the connection to my other-side leap where haze and enemies become quite clear it’s the feeling of nothing that i can’t compare, obviously, it’s nothing 

next to the nodding that nightly makes you noxious buttering up bread hoping to unbox this tarantula patiently waiting and nimbly moving to strike at the right moment. 

i couldn’t hear her coming through the plasma sheath, wrapped in sleep waiting and wishing you’d come underneath to digest this wonder, an ache within it’s nothing i could compare to the one eyed sin of giving in to the ghost of systematic hosts when the lens i look through muddies with your view and it’s too late now to readjust they say it’s a beautiful pantone and you saw rust 

i lost your trust and can’t find the crust of your morning routine 

give me back my sanity, it’s three inches from the nightstand see a bedroom key with memories and you’re the one who walked out leaving me free, claiming it was the way i walk around at night trying to find reasons to stay looking at pictures the malady of memory when the days are tragedy clamoring for a sense of reality they all seem to have it. so, i let myself believe what you hold is not up your sleeve, but in your hand 

if not, i can find a reason why. 

It was saturday afternoon in the middle of march when she came across the street to let me know how good the strawberries were that i left on her doorstep eight months ago. we met in the produce section of kwik trip picking out bananas while the gas nozzle hung in my 88 accord. i have a hard time understanding the mound of yellow arches perfectly displayed no matter the month, i must have muttered so much under my breath, surprisingly through the potassium pile she chimed in about her affinity for berries, i shot back that the ‘straw variety’ were the best. she smiled.confused that she spoke, and, i’m pretty sure, to me, i found myself caught in a roundabout with no stated direction. i spun out without getting closer to grab a hotdog and confection. safe at the counter i looked over as she fumbled through an Orbitz box and said ‘see you around’. three days later she either considered me a creep or considerate. i left a note on top ‘enjoy’ with my initial. mysterious and weird but i hate being Mark. 

i wasn’t sure what brought her out that misty day to say with so much time in the way that i was ok. at least, that’s how i took it. ‘oh, glad you enjoyed them’. it’s all i could think of after a tunnel of two family member’s burials and a lost girlfriend filled the space between our fluorescent sheltered exchange.

she shrugged and turned ‘well, have a good day’ 

have a good day? 

the corner of her eyes is where surprise lies and tears wash by an eighth of an inch wide where fear resides the most haunting and beautiful space on her body framing without symmetry her sense that captures and filters images that swirl from childhood girl puking on the tilt-a-whirl to the thrill of torture tunnel antics with her first boyfriend i get lost in the erosion of skin, the folds from wind, a crease and bend that shows where you’ve been it’s that same shape where your lips meet as we greet on windy november days not waiting to clear the street sidewalks where we listened and i noticed your love glistened the folds of your nape my fingers finding familiar spaces as my mind races wondering if you can hear my apprehension i’m breathing too close where your lobe dangles forming another perfect triangle. i stop to gaze. stepping back. your nose crinkles. it’s the connection points of your familiar five that inspire me to stay alive. society tries to sell me where my eyes should stray it’s the tucked away places i can’t quite say that intrigue me to stay. i’ve seen your baby pictures. your beauty lives in the developed creases where…..

there may be another reason someone wants this information out there, something sinister, let’s run with it anyway

headline reads ‘he shot Gray’

same old reasons money and a female

i used to know him 

it’s awkward when he comes around 

trying to balance our friendship with what he may or may not have done

the see saw that rests with taking a gun and deciding for myself if he should stay 

i knew him better than this

slow churning breeze stumbles out of my mouth with no context, ideas based outside facts concepts that i create to fit this piece and seal his fate a plagiarized pony flipped out phony who’ll sit with others and eat bologna with wonder bread and miracle whip give me something i can dip into the silence started after he pulled the trigger making the scene of the other life bigger and who’d figure it’d be you and i siding to eliminate this waste of confiding with just a jar and twenty bucks we left that place to hide out in a space where race wasn’t the face we judged one another on the value was full priced no coupon to reduce me to something you want to see this wasted vastness cast to sea it was me the translucent colliding in you mixing this energy a meeting of you spiraling up and reaching out to know i’m not alone. 

i can be obnoxious

i don’t mean it

i’m sorry

it’s just

i walk abruptly into a situation no room for natural transition. i can’t think too much, that comes later. i burst in the scene people are reacting. i hit go mode and i’m not sure if i’m acting, or awkwardly stumbling to let me out as you watch and listen politely without doubt (i think), i hear a laugh my heart slows 

you’re still following my fast finger flows 

you hold my cup when i ask 

letting me somehow bask 

in this anxious moment task of what do i do. 

i keep doing and talking, finding not stalking. 

another head nod.

holy shit are people wishing i’d quit, is this not what we do here? 

who the fuck is defining this. give me a set of rules. oh god, i just commented on a little bit of drool that started to pool on an old mans stool my eyes dart. ugh. here i go again telling you about the death of someone else i know. i stop. ask a question. i tell myself, that’s right, ask them something. i wish i could get a beer. we know what that’d bring and i can’t afford those mirrors. somehow this reality mess i make in front of you is clearer. or it’s just me you have to accept without the constant debt of asking what i did that day or night and accepting this plight that i don’t know what is socially acceptable. people smile. i think i’m doing this? be honest, am i fucking weird. i was actually curious about the smell of your beard. do people watch this show gripped in fear? back to now, those last thoughts vibrate in me as i make the three foot stumble to another acknowledging face. that was a good one, right? you responded when i asked what you’re doing tonight and then i lost track and started speaking about my life at eight and the age of reason, was that six? my dad and Styx, it was my brother’s first concert you know, mine was lou reed. 
i couldn’t remember

if the age of reason is six

you were wondering where we left off after that last tangent, right? 

i scare people away talking about the feeling of paper bags and whether time really lags or do we consider where else we could be. do you guys talk about me? is this an abnormality. because when i leave the social situation i’m high and think i followed my intuition to bring people at ease. 

night comes 

before i fade 

i consider (over and over) if i offended you with the way i made it loud when someone laughed at this panic. i can’t go back. maybe it’s ok. there was a lot of smiling. i go back. until it stops.