2am

Some nights are fuller than others
I came home yesterday
And laid down to disappear
It was 2am
And I felt the difference between being alone
And being lonely
I am in constant motion
To avoid one of the two

Statistics

Statistically I am destined to fade into the unknown. Sounds ominous, but let’s not do me any favors. I want it to be ominous, it will be a blink. At my funeral someone should read all of my life stats, such as:
How many times did I almost speak up?
How many times did I demand my dog tell me all his secrets?
How many times did I forget what I was saying mid-sentence?
How many times did I really try?
How many times have I listened to Jeff Buckley sing Hallelujah?
How many first dates?
How many times did I need to be seen or heard to remember I was here?
How many miles have I hiked?
How many times did I have to re-tie both shoes because one was too loose and if you only tighten one your other foot will disagree?
How many times did I pick up a guitar and play the same 3 chords over and over and over?
How many windows have I stared out of as if there was another dimension on the other side?
How many times have I wished I was a plant? A dinosaur?
How many fresh starts?
How many books have I read?
How many words can you fit on a grave?

Clip Show

There are no full scenes anymore, I only dream in clip shows and feign for the memories of things that never happened because I failed to act or forgot to wake up. I’m dreaming of demonic possession now, I’m dreaming of little whales. I’m dreaming I’m leaving again, I’m dreaming of one day being the person that everyone says I am and not saying no when somebody wants me. I’m dreaming of vines overgrown, I’m dreaming of sentient black clouds and being chased by non-descript faces. I’m dreaming of loving myself and knowing how to hold still. I’m dreaming of a deep breath that feels like home. I’m dreaming of less gravity on my soles and not being told that I look like someone that’s angry. I’m dreaming of my grandfather singing my skin free from a bush. I’m dreaming of crying. I’m dreaming of the flowers handed down, and the tears on the curb. I’m dreaming of a skull on a bookshelf, and becoming. I’m dreaming of a living house, and open doors like portal mouths. I’m dreaming of sand and abandonment. I’m dreaming of being lost, I’m dreaming of losses. I’m dreaming of broken ice and falling in. I’m dreaming of assassinations, and a snake bite city. I’m dreaming in humidity, I’m dreaming in fever streaks. I’m dreaming of big cats, I’m dreaming of practiced patience. I’m dreaming of the world as it is in my head, I’m dreaming of someone else’s eyes. I’m dreaming of everything I’ve believed in, I’m dreaming of anything I don’t. 

New Waves

I’ve been dreaming of the sea, and new waves of abandon. I’m in the house with no floors, splashing afloat. I’m in the rowboat, free from horizons. The death of the whale was surface disbelief. The death of the whale, the sea delivered me. Then came the shark, in sparkling rowed teeth. Then came the shark, and the boat was grief. I’ve been dreaming of the sea, and new waves of abandon.

Half Dead

Bedtime chaos like a Monday rolling. The sky opened quick, cracked pepper black and grey into the sky knowing it’s a weeknight grind. The dog has lost his mind, seeking shelter in the tub because he doesn’t understand a thing about the weather. I’m tossing and turning with no appetite for sleep, just a gnawing need to eat the night into oblivion. And every milligram steals me away where my body begs but my brain screams “if the average male life expectancy was 77.28 in 2020 then you’re basically half dead already”.

Lost and Found

Im always falling into things, like twenty main characters in the coffee shop, curiously alive and fizzing. A crowd of personal fireworks in little booms, quiet to the background under electric drums and caffeinated sips. A little you for a little me, lost and found.

Soft Black

A silhouette of the softest black, thrown to the asphalt from two lights at angles that never meet, pooled to a puddle dark. The new scar on the parking lot, perpendicular between white cars. I’m lacking definition, like a free-float with loose edges, open borders. I let everything in when I’m scared of missing out.

That I Should

That I should need the thing. That I should chase myself around, tired. Sticking to the edge of every thing. That I should need at all the constant queries voiced and hiding, little against my voice, loud against my life.
That I should need the thing is the fear of a Wednesday, horizon smoked from the north, and my entire future balanced itself, dry on the edge of a glass.
That I should want the thing. Because the thing delivered me, spinning An Orange and A Blue. Because I’m in love with reverie, I’m in love with remorse.

Now I Don't Go To Malls

I didn’t even want to go to the mall, but life is an endless errand. I don’t normally get followed through meaningless pursuits, but I must look extra kidnappable on Saturdays with a fresh wound bleeding black ink to my ankle. We made eye contact, two humans, utterly unknown and I saw your eyes wide with old friend familiarity. Luckily, in the biggest mall on earth you had half a mile to consider the past. Down the hall, down the stairs, in the store, through the food court, up the escalator, out the door, words out of my mouth. I called your mark and the clear confusion spilled from your face. You thought yourself a shadow, you thought I’d choose silence, now I’m left with questions, like - who was I to you? Who the fuck are you? Why are you wearing a Christmas sweater in June? Did I look kidnappable?...all of life’s biggest universal queries. Now I don’t go to malls on Saturday. I stick to the internet where I’m only stalked by manageable monsters, like trolls, and ads for things I only thought of, and porn I didn’t ask to see.

Unhinged

I want it in the way that only I can remember. Unhinged a little on the edges, blurry moments snake-like swallowed, everything at once because it’s the only way I know how to move. All at once because there there’s nothing else to breathe and even though I’ll remember today-tomorrow it was all one fluid movement through. I want it in the way that only I can unlock, while driving, staring into the spaces between raindrops imploding on the windshield with the same lyrics I’ve sang a thousand times but always seem to change. I disappear for a few minutes at a time, taking it in. I want to feel everything in the way that I wanted your affection.

Things Remembered

My body remembers all the things I need to be reminded of, like why I keep staring, discretely into the lights waiting for a prayer to find me. Holy in half-time, present and accounted for with the tabernacle bones of my youth. Stiff white memory etched with panic prose, and the cracks of every other lifetime.

Avoiding

Today I’ll practice avoidance. I’m avoiding the sun, and even though it’s cloudy it was my decision. I’m upside down on the couch avoiding the green viper sliding through my dream. I wanted to hike but the internet said the rain was acid and felt like Ohio so I’m avoiding outside too. My dog stares at me, plotting, expecting, so I’m avoiding looking him in the eye.

I'm always falling into things..like the eternity between thought and action, suspended

Borrowed Body

There must be something borrowing
 my body in the low hours
  thru the dreams I never remember
Bearing mysterious bruises I never forget
And I’m always tired
 in a suspicious way
Like my loaned-out body’s broken free
 to run divine
the night streets

Heavy Halo

Slow lucidity, as I realize the black of the grain of the doorway. Answering questions about my identity in slow speech for the sterile inquisition, and all my answers fall heavy on the air between gasps, searching for my breath. My body is a liminal itch, simply leftover, in waves of coherent disappearance as I melt into fluorescent brights under a halo of hospital signs.