life

from a couch, a shorty

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

stranded in a city made for me

the pilot who brought me here was sure i’d have a key to unlock the mystery buried in the sea of starlit sunshine that sunk our treasure it’s glowing beauty is all i remember in passionate riptides it was pulled out further and further and further and i gave up watching and decided to leave

**A draft that didn’t see light, not sure of date:

i wake up half baked and the world gives me time to add and equate the benefit of doubt due to the color of my skin a lapse of reason a few minutes to begin good intention seekers nicely imprisoned for laundering our whites, not the socks in the duffel, yet an equally angry vet wondering where the rules went with an ever changing board designed to adapt to rent its slipping away and the fear and intimidation that still sit silent in alien suburbs where they don’t see torches as necessary defense i’m the lucky one spewed out washing my skin duty delivered and i’m stuck within clambering to the next of kin where do i go? i want to help. i’m not one of “them” the great forgetting wasn’t lost on me i’m decidedly pretending i haven’t added to this. the start? polish and Italian joke books in 2nd grade, mocking street slang, defining identities by the size of their nose all the while being told ‘but you’re not one of those’ i wasn’t overtly taught to be racist, so i supposed, its who we are under the clothes that i wore in an effort to avoid confrontation i didn’t know why you couldn’t eat bacon. i should have asked. but when you’re born with privilege that you don’t even know math equation symmetry is all that’ll show.

adjust our lenses

feel the flow

all are one toe to toe

from bed, the plate is loaded

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

the line between love and unkind voices

voices that shake at a moments notice hoping we will go away during their midday walks to the food truck, ungratefully George Jeffrsoning it to the window hoping it’ll shake down a smile

it doesn’t translate

it wasn’t even close

he tries again assuming trips to Mexico count as language emersion experiences ordering tacos with american cheese

assuming

unseen eye rolls

he wraps it up and flip back his tie

you can do it in reverse order

the dramatic tie bit

or, is that later tonight

he gives the eye to a flipped gender he thinks he engendered while discussing the ‘nectar of the gods’ (his words to be sure) he’ll be gurgling with four other bloated fucks who look like him

unscrewing little black caps and discussing states and years

your status is clear and clearly defines the time you think your curfew is while you leave behind that high school sweetheart story you smile through after your first morning coffee to show you have enough sugar to kill the economy of both countries and reconcile erased travel trip nights ‘networking’

the caps piled up

your lease on life and luxury car allows you to make it home without a question from that swerve on your phone

you

you stumble in lingering with that last stop complaining she is acting like a cop while self serving yourself in the mirror through shaken and stirred lenses

she’s crying

you think it’s irrational

go to sleep

and stay there

from bed, wrapped in a towel waiting

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

cancer crushed the cornerstore front where i was soft selling my wares to those who would stop long enough to understand the value of worlds that would emerge from words they heard dripping with hyped to high-heaven hyperbolic terms, a pitch to catch every dime store dip-shit who couldn’t discern between integrity and the incessant need to flatter ourselves in the dark imagining that she would actually come home with us

or him home with me

you home with he

we don’t come home

i wasn’t so disillusioned

understanding fever pitch i walked away before the switch would kill the last necessary need to continue to feed the balancing half of this distraction

it was destruction

disappointed that you kept defending their right to feed at the same trough as the ones who gave you this cloth, stained with the way you trained them to listen when nobody else would come

a disease

innocuously took the heat for you

the lie for him

the life from them

why did you tell me you were born in July

I was at that store

when your mom, on your birthday, left you in the falling snow

from bed, a letter

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

Hi –

Thank you to all followers and those who stop-by to check out “my morning stream”. If you haven’t read the “about” tab, please do, it shares the process and project behind this blog.

In total, I’ll be looking at two years of streaming, editing, sharing, worrying, forgetting, fretting in self-conscious fits, and otherwise being a writer who feels as though they have something to share.

Delayed gratification, wrapping my head around insecurity, and understanding process are the underlying personal challenges i expose while undertaking this endeavor.

Themes that come out of my writing? Those are many and varying.

I rushed around a lot, still do some, though I’m coming to terms with my skin and abilities of what I am and who I share – what we have is one another. Not always peaceful, not always at war, and sometimes just being; yet together as we push and pull to create something greater than what came before.

By profession, and otherwise, i’m a teacher. i believe in the pursuit of being uncomfortable, taking risks, and sharing what we have to offer to continue sewing the infinite thread that passes through the tapestry of human history, as to not lose the fundamental pieces of who we are as beings.

Who are we?

People who desire love and community, people who are destined to experience loss and humility. One beat with billions of faces finding ways to contemplate and share experiences that bind us.

Thank you, again, for your support. Some days I’m embarrassed by what I publish, others proud, and sometimes I feel like I don’t know the person who wrote the words you see.

Surprise and mystery, of ourselves and one another, are reason enough to rise in the morning.

I look forward to conversation and visiting the worlds you create.

Thank you,

Andy

from a stool, morning is becoming night

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

i slumped

when i saw the satisfaction you took in skipping ahead of the sunrise

a surprise

it was ours

the glow

coming up, casting shadows with caution while carefully creating cascading columns, shafts of light to shelter the catatonic owls who squint themselves to sleep

you didn’t want to be there

alone and unaware of the depth my breath would have to travel in an effort to calm my loss

the losing of someone who celebrated our awakening

you see,

i need you

and it’s a lie they feed you that we’re suppose to find this thing by ourselves

that somehow strength is found in stretching our arms and eyes without you to spy so i can surpass the butterflies that crawl and flutter through bellyaching nights to an understanding of this thing

this life

this temptation to answer the question we’re born with

the exercise of pushing limits in search of hoping, accidentally, without hurting

we can find the truth

come back

from bed, clouds are clearing

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

catapult yourself over the wall

now duck down

close your eyes

caution will slip away

look up

the peak is covered in displays of light-hearted remorse drifting by as another scene unfolds

did we forget our lines

i hope so

let’s improvise interactions that have fallen to rehearsed reactions captured by a narrator who taunts us with mundane fractions of our day lost in painfully predictable and particular fashion causing greater factions in the mental boxes we open and close with emotional roles defined by effect and cause poles that leave us both

lonely

gasping for breath

i could do anything

i can

i can stand where i once sat and forget what i once thought while dancing where my feet grew firmly to the floor

we have chances to break free once more through a sliver in the door

a sliver in my pore, stuck painfully deep no tweezers long reach can free me from carrying this piece of trying

we must

breach the gates where chain links now lock us away

push

now, push

push

stop

locks need to be opened not forced to disclose the truth of our course that lives on this side of the wall

open your eyes

we’re there

from the same fold out bed, heading home

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

step inside

where a swirling mass of geniuses once resided

where conversations began and our hearts continued

blink

now we’re trained by whistles in times of dismissal, we forgot to notice the sun was setting hours earlier as buildings got taller and bridges crumbled

there’s no way out

hurried remarks cast aspersions on the page where once consideration had a role to play we belly up and hit send threatened to upend the way we look at another weekend

where’s pollyanna when you need her

my glasses are frosty and fogged if she could take the wheel and begin to peel the reform of repeal replace my meal reseal the deal of this slimy feel to get a meal without the ordeal of carry and conceal

i know what’s in your pocket and i’m never happy to see you

let’s refine this conversation to include condensation that forms in layers above us and brings down life

Bob would ask if you could deny it*

try to untie it

the riddle

i’m waiting for the fiddle while buildings spontaneously combust and ashes fly filling coffins with dust

no one is there to carry them

just piles of us

on top of us

on top of more us

finally getting along in the breeze

*Bob Dylan song “Visions of Johanna” reference

from a fold out bed, loud breathing

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

your lies kept us together

disorganized thoughts ordered into chaos as i wonder, while the answer waits

i’ve basked in synonymous questions for a dense decade decorated in more dancing than dread

but

they keep coming up

the questions

a mark

i emphasize key words hoping to bend your ears into your heart for a reality to create a fresh start

your bafflement and approach are beyond reproach as a new spin catches up to my doubt within this empire of frustration that you love

minute to minute

facts left through the back door, carrying the means in a worn out brief case

i see an end

it’s because of the means and they don’t justify a thing

relationships don’t have a blue finish line ribbon to rip

nothing to cross

just the one over my shoulder

and i don’t believe it’s there

i do know what’s in that box stored deep in the recess of her minds mind minding your business which is carrying suitcases with starched men who drink double scotches and order them like every asshole orders a double scotch

on the rocks

i’m getting lost as you’re forgetting you tossed two mop heads and loyalty to a cost benefit that’s your analysis

did you win?

i can’t say it was anything more than a tie as this goodbye suffers in with a favorite lie

the one we told when i played with the fold of white hand sweat paper

i didn’t need to look

i remembered and rehearsed those words

not needing to bow, it wasn’t a show

maybe i’m tethered to a web of my past masking itself in the way you bask in everyone’s sunlight while guiding relationships by moonlight

maybe it’s your patience that keeps us together

maybe

from a fold out bed, be careful of pronouns

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

i zipped it shut and walked away

innocence trapped in a bag with my initials on it, an ode to a forgotten time when gifts were working to define how i’d view the world

it sits on the top shelf in my closet now

holding letters to mysterious creatures and old candy bar wrappers

i peak inside from time to time

inspiration for a way home

stuck inside, curiosities roam from peak to valley in midnight walks around a room built for two, or three, maybe four. there are enough doors, pick one you want to exit through

or, we could take them all off in fits of honesty and clear out the pretension that sits with knowing we’re somewhere they can’t be

they’ll always run free

because they get to treat the sounds that clatter from our room as little more than the raising of little ones to do our bidding when the mice shriek down the stairs they’ll be crushed by side-eyed stares and who cares if one of you light the flare it’ll only alert hyper-egos and selfish sun soaked children to look away while their loved ones are feasted on and carried to a place of infinite corners and steam shop loaners wandering into one another wondering if there is a way to grab that bag out of your closet

unzip it

and let the dreams of children fly through fanciful forgotten scenes of innocence

those are my initials though

it’s mine

that’s what they were trying to tell me

close that thing

from bed, she reached for my arm

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

sniffling through thursday i realized i might desecrate the real estate if my markers don’t keep their caps on

i’m impulsive

they’re responsible (the caps)

i kept wondering, who’s afraid of losing everyone if the time is right for me to move on and continue this plastic emotion piling up for future generations left with charlie brown sippy cups and forgotten glass jars that used to hold our consciousness

you said it was a reminder

it was your best gift

that empty jar

you told me to stare at it when you were away

it held us

i can’t remember if i threw it down or accidentally knocked it over it was mid december and the people were practicing how’d they’d greet later sunsets and cancer walking tombs

televangelists came to our door

it’s not jesus they want it’s your little girls mind to refine this garbage pail philosophy that subservience is the key

leather whips hang in the closet waiting to zipper my mouth shut and cross our eyes for something more tame this friday night