POETRY
POETRY
An archive of my poems, old and new. I am inspired by poets like Richard Siken and Ocean Vuong, and try to bring raw emotion to the forefront through imagery and metaphor.
Rogue musings skim across your mind
like stones across the surface of a river.
The stone skips.
The stone sinks.
A thought settles.
The scratched record
The mutilated song of your soul
The ways that their eyes latch onto yours and refuse to let go;
Limpets on weathered rock -
Years into the future their grip does not falter.
Attempt to stifle your hearts anthology
It will not change the yearning that orbits you when they are near.
Oh, let this not be a miscarriage of love,
let this not be another lesson,
For they have already monopolised your heart.
These thoughts continue to flow like water,
Love continues to rest at the deltas of your mind.
Reminiscing feels like swimming in a lightning storm.
Sometimes we love the river because it is a reflection.
Sometimes we love the river because it is a place to drown.
I am eighty percent certain of most of the things in my life.
That Neptune has eleven moons.
That we are never lonelier than the hours before the sun rises.
That people are inherently good.
That some people cannot feel happiness.
That the future is doomed.
That joy is the most important pursuit in life.
That love has many forms.
That some people have the ability to make a room warm just by laughing.
That black shoes work with anything.
That drug store lipstick is better than branded.
That art has the ability to make you feel minute.
That Shakespeare is overrated.
That movies are easier to watch with subtitles.
That nothing goes by quicker than adolescence.
That the best kind of excitement is one that keeps you up all night.
That it will all work out in the end.
Forty two years of journals, some waterlogged and stained, all filled to the brim with thoughts and musings inscribed in sinuous cursive
Cigarette butts half buried in mud
Two dogs
Over five hundred books on various subjects of the world, jammed into crevices and bookshelves and overflowing onto the floor
Rusted tools that were left in the rain
Half finished projects waiting for the artist’s return
A broken kettle
A glass jar of amber chunks, some still housing long dead insects
A pair of overalls, tattered and paint splashed
A pair of overalls, clean and never used
Canvases ripped out of their frames and left to rot under a tree
Tinned sweetcorn
Five lights with broken bulbs
Six new light bulbs forgotten in the freezer
A tin of what looks like shoe polish, later revealed to be storage for marijuana buds
Countless empty bottles in old cement bags tossed in the garden, ranged from years old to days old
A variety of wide brimmed floppy hats
Dog food in the pantry
A framed family photo
Rocks outside the house for a building project that was never started
That summer we did nothing but float down the river and drink cheap wine
It was saccharine and simple, filled with the noise that blue makes and salt stained bodies
So much water; so much joy; so much life in one place
For a long time I thought that my life was devoid of love but now I’m looking around and it’s everywhere
That summer I caught happiness like a disease
The sunlight is stained with honey and the air is tinted with sea spray
Skin glows scarlet under the never-relenting sun
There’s such a lovely warmth in being alive and happy
That summer was like litchi season, sweet and temporary
The wind tangles our hair and leaves us looking deranged
I don’t understand how everything can be so light, so good
Everyone is just existing and it’s perfect
The ache of summer, limbs weary from happiness
The combination of salt water and scorching sun pulling my skin taught
Blisters form on my palms causing a sweet permanent pain
The sunburn on my cheeks glows like a red LED at a gas station
Heat settles like a blanket but we cannot bring ourselves to come inside and give up the sun on our skin
The sting of sand on freshly burnt legs
There’s something about having so much fun you forget to apply sunscreen.
There’s something about the burn of it all.
The sun lights up the window panes behind me, blindingly brilliant.
Shells on the window frame, plucked fresh from the ocean.
Shining like God himself has polished them.
The clouds look beautiful and every day is tinged with love
Gold rays stream through, holy, blinding,
and I can’t help but think that in that tear between the darkening clouds
is a sample of heaven
Sometimes the sky is beautiful and littered with pillars of light
And the glare of the sun on the water is impossible to ignore
and existence doesn’t hurt so much
Right now I want to drown in life and sunshine
I want to be enveloped by the warmth of it all
So call me back at 3am because right now nothing exists but sunlight on skin
This summer is filled with late night walks
and drinking cheap wine from the store down the road.
We are ever-drunk and basking in it,
embracing the liquor stained lips and the hangover coffee.
Each day we promise not to drink tomorrow,
but there’s a bar a few kilometres down the river
and at this moment nothing feels more appropriate than tipsy canoeing.
I’m sorry if I’ve ignored your texts
I’m just drunk on summer
We walk under a cloudy midnight sky where stars are the only source of light.
Their glow illuminates bare skin and wind-mussed hair
Far away from the pile of discarded clothes in the sand.
Self consciousness dissolves into salt water and laughter
Fear forgot its name as soon as we opened the second bottle of wine
So this is the exhilarating nature of the carefree
It’s beginning to feel like we’ll never die
This ever-kind season rumbles inside of you like a warm thunderstorm
It’s somehow 3pm and 2am all at once, the scent of sunscreen is everywhere
And the air is trembling under the weight of so much love
This quixotic summer is so pretty it just about kills you from the inside out
You can’t have everything but you can have this December night, honey stained and saccharine
This place is a metaphor for something I can’t capture fully in words
It’s a diorama of the world, it’s all the books you haven’t read yet
It’s the permanent ache in my back, the feeling of fitful bouts of sleep
It’s salt water drying on skin, the stickiness of ever present sunscreen
It’s waking up with the sun, it’s butterflies flitting across the stretching trees
This serendipitous summer I am choosing to view life as poetry instead of circumstance
There is so much pain in the world but none of it is present here
Here, you can flood your veins with love and seasonal variety
In the filtered evening light the dandelions may as well be stars
And water tastes sweeter 1000 kilometres from home
Next year can wait, the tasks can wait, the discussions can wait,
The inevitable doom can wait - even if it’s only for this summer
Right now we have to learn how to shrug the world off our shoulders
And live in the feeling of returning from the heat of summer to glasses of cola on the dining room table
I think it’s going to be ok - I think we’re all going to be ok.
This season is badminton at 7pm and table tennis at 7am
It’s grains of sand scattered across my body, making thousands of tiny constellations on my still pale skin
The days are blurry, and I’m learning to drink in the warmth of it all
I’m learning to taste summer in the salt on my cheeks and the burnished sky above us
The season of an open road, an open heart - did I love it enough while it lasted?
The world has to go on turning.
The darkness has to seep away.
A blush is working its way
over the ledge of the horizon.
We watch the stars blink out
one
by
one.
Heaven's power grid must have had an outage.
The sun creeps closer,
the plum stained sky
fades.
Sunrise is a thief,
it steals the sky
and drags the stars away with it.
I never want the sun to rise.
Life has been filled with stern summers since the day it began, unforgiving, but subtly so. Rain creeping inwards from the horizon. A dirty sky, not yet washed and hung out to dry. Grey tinted. Wrong. A gap in the clouds. Golden light streams through, holy, blinding, and I can’t help but think that in that tear between the darkening clouds is a sample of heaven. A free trial, valid for 4.9 seconds. I feel like I’ve been dipped in oblivion, I cannot remember my first name, only the one I gave myself.
Strawberries don’t taste as sweet as I remember,
And my old house is smaller than it was back then.
I’ll try denying it, but I’m getting older,
And some things simply refuse to remain the same.
I used to know those people sitting over there,
But now I look their way and they avoid my eyes.
Imagine we are strangers that have never met,
Pretend we don’t remember the childhood secrets.
The swing outside the house is too small for me now,
And I’m too heavy to climb the trees I used to.
But for a moment let’s forget that small sad fact,
And watch the gold sunset, same as ten years ago.
The first tale is the one of the piano players,
the craftsmen, the jewellers and chess masters.
Those adorned with silver and ivory,
living a world filled with an excess of desire,
filled with hands fluttering over iridescent keys,
music flowing into the ears of those listening,
drawing tears out of even the driest of eyes.
A world filled with delicate necklaces
covered in silver tendrils that
wrap around a bead of ivory;
coruscating around the necks of women
who simply want something that shines.
A conversation starter, something to inspire questions
that are answered with veiled pride.
The second tale is the one of the elephants,
The narwhals, the rhinoceros and the pangolins.
Those adorned with blood and bullets,
living in a world imbued with a deficit of compassion,
filled with hands amputating shining horns and tusks,
blood flooding the desert sands and deserted seas,
mining gold out of inexorable pain.
A world filled with echoing gunshots
in a once still and silent savanna
that is now filled with the sounds of terror and agony;
the cries of an elephant calf
attempting to wake her mother from her eternal sleep.
Despite the glow of neverending rows of ivory,
A darkness has swallowed this desolate land.
But I like rainy days
And I think your tired eyes are kinda nice
I could easily see myself spending a whole month this way
Lying in bed during a thunderstorm
Picturing the dark circles under your smudged eyes
Sometimes love tastes like a bowl of cherries
on a summer evening
like blood that is dark red and sticky
like cherry wine and
nights in the city where you can’t see the stars
or the moon
Sometimes it tastes like glass shards
in your throat piercing your oesophagus
like chlorine and chemicals
like the swimming pool has no
bottom
(am I sinking or am I swimming)
And it sounds like cars slipping down the road when it’s raining
And it tastes like the lemonade you had when you were five
And everything is completely and recklessly perfect
I know it has to end sometime
But please don’t let it end tonight
Home is clementines
and laughter
and love dripping from your eyes
like sun stained honey.
Here, everything tastes like
citrus and Coca Cola,
so sweet you could
drown in it.
Here, you can fall in love
with being alive
and adore all the oxygen
in your lungs.
You can fall in love with everything.
Everything in this tiny,
broken,
doomed world.
Listen to me sing off key
my love
listen to how much I love you
and say it back (please).
Suddenly you forget
the sorrow in your bones
and sing along
to a made-up tune.
Home is inexorable
and beautiful
and full of citrus
and sweetness.
I have blood on my hands
and I cannot remember how it got there.
I have blood on my hands
and I cannot wash it off.
I have done something terrible,
and I do not know what it was.
But let me tell you three things
that I do know.
One.
When I was younger
I thought I could breathe underwater.
I have tested this theory extensively,
and time after time I fail,
time after time water drips into my lungs
and fills them up like plastic bags.
I have to ask myself -
did I want to breathe underwater
or did I want to not breathe at all.
Two.
There are nights that the moonlight
drips like spoons of honey
off of half dead tree branches
and half dead people.
An interesting concept
- half dead that is -
that someone can live between the the border of life and death,
that they will forever be alive and forever be dead.
Infinity has never sounded so terrible.
Three.
These hands have done terrible things.
They can always do better.
But then again they can always do worse.
These hands have done terrible things
to good people (like you)
Hold my hands in yours (please),
pretend they are not stained red.
The blood drips slowly.
I do not know how to make it stop.
I have blood on my hands
and I cannot remember how it got there.
I have blood on my hands
and I cannot wash it off.
This blood on my hands is there
and it's there for good,
it will drip after me for as long as i live,
and it can never be prevented.
There is nothing more inevitable than ritual, than sacrifice.
It is inevitable, of course, but I ask anyway,
the quartz swaying like a lonely dancer,
whether it was worth it.
The pendulum swings.
The blood drips.
The old bones are stained red.
They will never be pure again.
Did you know that this blood symbolises
the life spilling out of a body,
the very essence of being alive
bleeding out along with plasma and platelets?
I think whoever is bleeding is wasting so much life.
But in the end the bones are wrapped in crimson,
and it's too late to undo it,
and it couldn't be undone even if you tried.
Hold my heart in your hands darling,
let the blood flow down your arms,
red rivers,
red streams.
Tiny deltas form in the fold of your skin,
weaving memories out of blood.
My life is in your hands,
Can you feel it?
Can you feel the cells multiplying,
the wounds knitting themselves back together,
the constant drumming of my heart in your hands?
Can you feel it beating? Sometimes I fear that it has stopped.
Do you know what the word sanguis means?
Sanguis, from which the word blood in all the dead languages is derived from
(sang, sangre, sangue).
Sanguis - pure, noble, sacrificial blood.
It is a full moon tonight,
there is life in your hands
and blood on the floor,
and everything is as it was meant to be.
You can fight it
all you want
but this sun-stained apocalypse
is right around the corner.
We are weighed down with the consequences
of generations before us.
We are burdened with hundreds
of mistakes we didn’t make.
We are left
with a world we didn’t ruin,
we didn’t want to ruin,
but was ruined nevertheless.
They have dug a hole for us
(six feet under)
and the only thing we can fill it with
is our despair.
This is why we are going anywhere,
instead of somewhere.
Every month we go back to the remains,
and every month we find it even emptier.
Call it what you want
- indestructible, incandescent, innocent.
Call it what it is
- an inevitable, incenable future.
Once someone told me shooting stars are angels throwing away their cigarettes before god can catch them smoking. I understand now. Self destruction comes from a holy place. You aim to disappoint because when you’ve been good your whole life there’s nothing else to do but kill yourself slowly and not let your father catch you. Angels were built to love God, not to be loved in return. So when I see a star falling from the sky and I itch to smoke a cigarette, now you know why. It’s hereditary. Hallowed. Holy.
For a place titled emergency room there’s a surprising lack of urgency. I swing in and out of consciousness. The lights are too bright. I do not know what time it is anymore, I just know that I’ve been here for a very long time and the blood underneath my fingernails has finally dried and my parents will not stop looking at me with disappointment and worry. Gentle hands dab disinfectant, making me wince with the sting. I swing in and out of consciousness. There’s bandages, a tetanus shot, a drip. I’m in a wheelchair. The ceiling lights flicker across the roof as I tilt my head back. I swing in and out of consciousness. I am wheeled to a narrow bed in an empty room. I place the drip stand next to it. Tom and Jerry blares on the television, and I watch quietly, refusing to meet my parents' eyes. I think the bandages are too tight. I swing in and out of consciousness. My parents are gone. The beeping of the heart monitor all but drowns out the sound of the nurses whispering. If I strain my ears, I can hear the medicine drip from the bag to the tube. It feels like ice in my veins. I swing in and out of consciousness.
when will the earth’s oxygen be depleted / will it be tomorrow / does it hurt to run out of air / why did we destroy ourselves / will the sun explode / will we explode with it / what’s in the middle of a black hole / is there a way out / will the poor die first / will we run out of food or water first / how long will it take for the world to crumble / will it take seven days / are parallels pre planned / did god plan our demise / is this all part of the script / is there a script / what if we are in charge of our own ending / would it be better that way / would it be worse / are there more than four dimensions / how can I visit the fifth one /
You are holy, blindingly so. The first time I saw you I realised why angels in the bible say “do not be afraid”, because love, I was terrified. Your beauty petrified me, but like a moth to an omnipresent flame, I drew closer. Closer and closer, until you were close enough to whisper in my ear all the bad you have done to this world, and how He would never forgive you. I whispered back, “God may judge you but He has sinned more than you ever will.” You sobbed silently into the crook of my neck, your wings brushing my shoulder blades. I cried with you. Did God make us a little broken? Did he make a mistake with the construction manual? At that moment I felt like a manufacturing error had taken place in my heart. God cannot give me my purity back. Once I answered a call from an unknown number and I could have sworn I heard Him laughing. I never heard from Him again. I told you this on a bleak autumn morning, crisp and stark like freshly pressed linen. You replied softly, apologetically. Told me that I underestimated your devotion, your faith. Another night you came to me in a field, reminiscent of shepherds long dead. You wept, again. Of how His lack of contact meant lack of forgiveness. Of how you searched for Him everywhere and found nothing. Of how you grew tired of talking to God when you realised the sky was empty. Angels were built to love God, not to be loved in return.
Life has been filled with stern summers since the day it began, unforgiving, but subtly so. Rain creeping inwards from the horizon. A dirty sky, not yet washed and hung out to dry. Grey tinted. Wrong. A gap in the clouds. Golden light streams through, holy, blinding, and I can’t help but think that in that tear between the darkening clouds is a sample of heaven. A free trial, valid for 4.9 seconds. I feel like I’ve been dipped in oblivion, I cannot remember my first name, only the one I gave myself.
Strawberries don’t taste as sweet as I remember,
And my old house is smaller than it was back then.
I’ll try denying it, but I’m getting older,
And some things simply refuse to remain the same.
I used to know those people sitting over there,
But now I look their way and they avoid my eyes.
Imagine we are strangers that have never met,
Pretend we don’t remember the childhood secrets.
The swing outside the house is too small for me now,
And I’m too heavy to climb the trees I used to.
But for a moment let’s forget that small sad fact,
And watch the gold sunset, same as ten years ago.
I’m thirty thousand feet above sea level which isn’t so poor
Except for the fact that you live by the coast way down by the shore
So while I watch and I wait and the distance grows wider
I’ll get drunk off cheap wine until the black sky grows lighter
I am tired of writing lonely poems so instead I’ll write about how good it feels to finally be able to laugh again. How the motivation has reappeared. I’m going to hate life a little less from now on. I’m going to try to hate it less. I’m realising that there is no such thing as wasting time, that everything you do counts for something. Everything matters. I still don’t really know how to live, but at least now I want to. I am going to give into joy. I am going to laugh loudly. For a long time I thought that my life was devoid of love but now I’m looking around and it’s everywhere and I’m learning how to see it. Look at the small things, the dewdrops, the birds. They are so beautiful. There is hope now. I’m not sure what I’m hoping for but it’s nice to have something to look forward to, even if it’s just the feeling of the sun on my face. Of course there will be bad days but there will be good things too, countless of them. A day spent doing nothing is not a day wasted. I lived after all, didn’t I? It’s nice to tick little things off the list. Get out of bed. Drink some water. It’s all important. None of it is irrelevant. In some ways - isn’t it beautiful - the smallest things matter the most. There are songs that I just can’t help but sing along to, albeit off key, and I think that’s wonderful. I think it’s going to be ok. I think we’re all going to be ok. There’s always more than just the things you haven’t done. There’s everything you have done, every year you’ve lived, every person you’ve loved. There’s more. There’s always more. There’s so much that’s wonderful in this world, so much to admire and smile about. I’m taking care of myself in the best way that I know how, and that is good enough. It’s worth it, it’s all worth it. Some people may say I’m clinging to the past but nostalgia is a beautiful thing. This world is good, and I can prove it to you even if it’s only through a memory of a particular sunset. Of course my life is meaningful. Life is always meaningful, even when the days seem rather empty. And isn’t it a surprise, isn’t it wonderful that doing the things I love makes me happy? Isn’t it amazing that I can be happy? That there’s joy even when the world seems bleak? When you think about them, the ordinary things aren’t ordinary. They aren’t small. They are everything. And being sensitive isn’t a weakness because isn’t it glorious to be able to feel so deeply, isn’t it so much better to live with a tender heart? It takes a while to stop apologising for things I can’t control, but it makes me realise that I’m not a bad person. I am fundamentally good, and I am allowed to make mistakes. There’s so much time, I have so much time to love being alive and that makes my heart a little lighter. I’m allowed to feel sad, but I’m also allowed to feel happy. There’s such a lovely warmth in being alive and happy. I’m allowed to rest, and I’ll tell that to anyone who argues. I’ll try to summarise it. Basically, life is beautiful, and wonderful, and worth living. Did I say that well? I don’t know. I just think life has its perks. Like the moon, and the birds. And you. You’re a perk to life, you know?
I want to tell you everything without mentioning the storm
Without speaking of the endless rain I brought about without a care
And yet, it is unavoidable
The plants struggle above their waterlogged home
A result of the flood and the initial ecstasy it brought
So much water; so much joy; so much life in one place
Of course, the plants do not understand
Too much life will kill you eventually
Or at least bring you close
I do not mind telling you how I got here, how I dragged myself out of the river
As long as I can skip over how the river is one I created with my own two hands
What do you call it when the purple of your dress matches your under eyes and coffee doesn’t have a taste anymore no matter how much powder you shovel into a cup? Is it exhaustion? Exhilaration? For two emotions meant to be opposites, at this moment they feel strangely the same. Artificial energy pumps through your veins and you’re pretty sure your blood is more caffeine than platelets. You are so very alert and so very tired. You could stay awake for three days and sleep for three years but you will do neither. You will read until the words melt into meaningless shapes and you pass out with a flow diagram imprinted on your cheek from a blue ballpoint pen. And the next morning, when you wake up you will start the cycle once more with a cup of too-strong coffee and concealer under your eyes, ready to face the worn-down washed-up world.
I’ll bring it back tomorrow if you need me to, and I will give you some time if you need me to, and I will let you know when I’m home if you need me to, and I will come back (if you need me too).
So walk slowly through the rain. Do not run. Let it wash your sins away. Tomorrow can wait, the tasks can wait, the discussions can wait, the inevitable doom can wait, even if it’s only for the thirty minutes it takes for the clouds to weep. Stand outside, let your bones soak up the rain, nature’s laundromat, free of charge.
Is it normal to feel every single cell flowing through your body? Is it normal to feel your heart every time it beats, every time your aorta forces the blood out of the chamber of your heart? Is it normal to feel the veins inside your muscles? Is it normal? Is it ok? I don’t think it is. I think something's wrong with me. I’m not one to pray, but here goes:
Lord, send me a mechanic (if I am not beyond repair).
Would you press your cold hands onto my face? Would you tell me I’m not a ghost? Please, I need to be told that I’m a living, breathing person and not just a vessel for pain. I want to be more than this, I really do.
Oh, to repent your sins to the ever listening ear.
You want to fall to your knees,
You want to call yourself a theist
but you don’t believe.
And I love this place
And I hate it
And it’s beginning to feel like I’ll never die
And that scares me
I turned eighteen last week. This is the first birthday that you didn’t call me. While I wait for the call, I’ll go into town. The problem is, you’re at the corner table of every bar I visit. I’m always running from you. I’ll carry on running until my grief meets me at the bottom of your favourite river.
Listen, don’t you want to pretend it was all a dream? Don’t you want to be alive in more than memory? Can you hear me? Can you come back?
If I asked you to go to the gay bar, would you?
To see the joy, the strobe lights, the artificial fog
To watch people dance away their fears and purge themselves of their weekly sorrows
The skin-on-skin, the lips-on-lips, the hands-on-hips-and-maybe-further
Shot glasses overflowing on a sticky counter
Drag queens’ heels clicking beneath the din of the music
It’s as if the whole room is vibrating, your heartbeat has more in common with techno than you realise
Everything is loud, and lewd, and luxuriously familiar
(You will not believe how many faces you recognise)
Vodka stings the crack in your lip and you decide there’s nothing better to chase it down with than the tang of lime juice
(In for a penny, in for a pound)
Oh and yes it may be excessive and gaudy and overindulgent
That’s the whole point baby, so I’ll say it once again
If I asked you to go to the gay bar, would you?
Before I woke up today nearly 100000 people died
And three days ago I broke your heart
That’s weighing on me more than death
I dropped your heart off the highest tree in the park
I changed my handwriting for you
Bus ride to nowhere, hair made of rain
Why won’t time dissipate
Sometimes I have pearls for eyes
Sometimes the horizon is further than the frame
Brick upon brick, car upon car
Traffic on a summer’s day
Wheels turn, springs stretch, buses drive onward through a once-green mountain
Fossils become fire lighters, struck by a match
Bad habits turn to forest fires
All in the short period it takes to smoke a cigarette
Burning is a waste, despite the light, despite the warmth of it all
Ash does not make as comfortable a bed as you may think
You won’t go through another orange light without thinking about me and the way I tap the dashboard twice
Isn’t that wonderful, even if we don’t make it our memories will
Because oh god
the sunlight was like a torch shining through a sliver of amber
And the air had never tasted the way it did in that moment
Like honey and cigarettes
(Is it cynical to say I haven’t felt truly happy since?)
Ghost stories and painted sleeves
Shopping cart baby, listen to the leaves
Veins full of water, heart made of glass
Plant a seed inside it, make it a vase
Listen up baby, I’m singing a tune
I’m singing of love, I’m singing of blues
Cave full of satellites
Skin full of bug bites
Itching and scratching and begging for reprieve
I’m sorry I lied, didn’t mean to deceive
Lipstick like a knife wound
Listen to the sounds of midnight birds
Jewellery flowing out of every pore
Ninety nine bottles of wine on a wall
Feathers scattered like ashes
Bass flows through every bone
Like cola on a summer's day
As out of place as a powerpoint at a rave
Rosé coloured glasses rest on the bridge of your spine
Sleep muddled sheets on wooden slats
Don't you think the psychedelic lights are beautiful?
Don't you wish this twilight could last forever?
Gold tinted beer in a Midas can
Feel the slats beneath your feat of greatness
Shoelace like the snake around your chest
Wind around me aimlessly, car on a slip knot bend
Listen darling, all I want is to be loved
And even then, to be loved is not enough
I want to be adored, the way they are with their thousands and their hundreds and their masses
I am part of that mass, I won’t admit it but I follow them like a bee after pollen
I am a man obsessed, sisyphus rock and rollin’ three times a day
Want to sound like a sailor, a firefighter, a swimmer, a slacker
Instead I sound like nectar, when I would rather sound like rocks
Hey, I’m with you you know
I want to help you, I do, but it's also selfish
I wish it wasn’t, I wish I could say it's from the goodness of the heart
But each vein screams for flatness and a face made of stone rather than cotton candy
I stand tall but my ego is taller, or at least it wants to be
In reality I am made of fishbones, stripped of my flesh
I do not feel like a body at all, I feel like a ghost
Whose soul is bound for the bottom of the river
To live amongst the lobsters
Born to be boiled alive
Fake news baby, exit sign
Leave the door open and let me drink wine
Or at least let me sleep and record my experience
I want mindless TV and beds and blankets
And I want love the way they have, I want hearts and arrows
Not cupid but rather the pause-slash-play button
Affirmations on the daily, said to my lover
I am not embarrassed, I am not getting hurt
I’m trying to pretend I’m not invested at all
I have a selfish dream of flying, and I am ashamed
I’d like to say it’s gentle
Yearning, living, wanting, surviving
Listen to the sound of an errant heartbeat
Know it will forever change
Be someone different, someone new
Wish I knew more about the river
Wish I named the fish I loved
Feeling like the universe is a plastic bag
Run by a computer, or god, or whatever
Hope it does change forever
Lemonade and splinters are lifelong
Lately music hasn’t been hitting the right notes
And the wood grain of the floorboards looks fake
And my uncle’s still dead
So that hasn’t changed
Sawdust and sparks bring him back
Sometimes sun rays are so beautiful
Like tablecloths upon the world
My laptop won’t stop dying
And I won’t stop drinking cheap soda
So we will run out of breath again
And our lungs will turn to stone
Medusa baby, snakes and stakes
On the long road home
Boil a kettle, drink too much coffee
Do they know I’m a caffeinated mess?
Want to be an icon, on par with mine
To the young sad creatures who feel alone
Spitting out ideas, the quality goes down
As the quantity goes up
Long road to fame is riddled with rivers
Desires to float and desires to drown
Long live the wicked, dead with the liver
Forever a drunk on drunken applause
Boxes are easy, grids in my life
Three times a day, drawn from my brain
Out of the frying pan, into the ocean
Cool and collected, calm as a raven
Inky jet black, like the video text
Closed captions for closed eyes
Cotton and canvases hold like glue
Everything has changed but not enough
Impossible goal, posts keep on shifting
Disappointment follows success
Waiting for another ten thousand eyes
Captured in the game, never to win
Progress is slow (if it’s progress at all)
Waiting for nonexistent packages at my door
And being denied the liquid of truth
Sip from the fountain, start again
Day by day resolve begins to dissipate
Will I make it past the end of next summer?
Will my promises be empty and my heart even more?
I hope not, I hope for mushrooms and oceans and full fuel tanks
And people I know and people I don’t
All together in some type of dance not confined to bodies
And love, sweet love, drawn as if rain from clouds
Draw my blood, look at it glowing in the vial
Show me the needle and watch me leave the waking world