Tired eyes and apprehension.

Getting away turned out to be the easy part—it only took 12 years.

Getting here would prove to be a chaotic mess—22 years hence.

Except I never got better, we never got help, and it slowly got worse.

I could draw the parallels between my father and I

but what would that matter—you only know us from one side.

And they say that children being a product of suicide tend to show a lack of interest, almost as if nothing really matters.

Well, to be candid, let’s just say I know a guy who can vouch for that.

I mean, how do you explain being on a train

wishing it would crash, just so life would slow the fuck down?

Just enough so that even the slightest change of scenery made any sort of sense.

Is this room ok? Isn’t this house nice?

How do you explain not wanting attention because it made you so damn nervous that even the easiest task seemed incomprehensible?

Do you want to go outside? Make some friends?

Who do you turn to when you can see through everything and everyone, knowing they’re in just as much shit as you?

So inward you go—wanting nothing but to be alone.

At some point you come to realize that it’s the only place you can control.

The only catch is, that train never crashes. And everything you thought at some point would be figured out, is just another heart racing conversation you swore you’d never have again.

The only parallel I can draw between the two, is chaos.

The other is our attempt at a logical excuse.

But there is no excuse.

Only tired eyes and apprehension.

Rudimentary Silence

Only in the slightest

Contradictions find us

Taking a piss in the back of a waiting

Rudimentary silence

Little acts of violence

Testing the waters like leaving the bathtub

Full of standing water

Babies left to wander

Dipping our beaks in a pool not so shallow

Now—

Actions without reason

God I’ve got this feeling

Down like the old folks whose tennis balls are wearing out

Obligations find us

Contradictions bind us

Tight like a truckers hitch secured to nothin but

Ourselves if we’re willing

To hold someone who’s willing

To kick the creator for all the stupid shit we’ve been through

Now—

Everybody wants their own way

Standing on clouds there’s no reason to shout out loud

When everybody gets their own way

I can guarantee somebody won’t be pleased (laugh out loud)

Treason

Call me by my medicine

not by my mistakes

It’s all I have to offer,

it’s all that I can take

Call me by your reasons

my reason not to stay

And let me be the treason

to help you walk away

This Wilde Charade

The romantic in me

Wants to kick the charade

And love you less like Shakespeare—

But it’s this Portrait

Of Dorian Gray that’s damned me Wilde

I don’t dare

No reason, No pain

I don’t mean to sound defeated

It just always hurt to try

Knowing there’s no meaning

In waiting out the night,

So I take my lashes willing

Under this starry sky

Knowing there’s no reason

Or pain to justify

Aprils Fool

I wish I could have been

The air of reason

Forever calm

Before the storm

Instead of becoming

Those howling winds

Those howling winds

You knew before

But having been

Picked over plenty

Like a jukebox full

Of another’s score

And though I never

Sought to reign

Like Aprils Fool

I seem to pour

To understand one’s suffering

To understand one’s suffering

Is to understand our own,

Knowing causes pain—

But still with hope we try

To understand one’s suffering

Is to be on their side, regardless

Of the awful many cuts

Through the tenderness of night—

Their aim is (not) to heal

But still with hope we lie,

To understand one’s suffering(…)

Like fruit picked from a vine.

Streams

Whatever stream it gets to you by,

it’s still a stream—leading nowhere

to some, somewhere to many, and

to others it’s—already there.

Florida Sunset, 2018

The off-days

It’s not the job that does a man in

but the off-days,

when he’s got the time

but still can’t find the reason.

So it seems here, now, in the mornings clean light, where all that I can do is observe—in nature that surrounds—human nature take its course.

I spent a good portion of last night, mooring with the tide, tied to emotions, most of which surely weren’t mine to suffer, though, like a good little buoy I did all I could to stay afloat.

But what causes a man to harbor such feelings of faithless dread.

Sympathy? Empathy? Selfless, selfishness?

Isn’t it funny how even when no one asks us to suffer, we often choose to suffer.

Could it stem from guilt? Plausible, though I think not. Depression? No, because I could still move. Trauma? Not in this case, as it had nothing to personally do with me.

Perhaps than maybe deeper, beyond the physical self, far from age or reason, like roots grown deep within the soil, always there yet invisible to the naked eye.

So then what?

Let’s take the current state of society in which the mind is placed.

We are and always have been reactionary beings, jumping to conclusions without fully taking the time and energy to understand or explore where these irrational compulsions come from.

So the year is 2020 and we are still at one another’s throats.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get a phone call whether or not I am willing to vote. Not a day goes by that I don’t see one side of the argument ready and willing to cut the other’s throat. Not a day goes by where I don’t get the impression that peace is just dependent on war, like an inside joke I just don’t get the humor.

So it’s within this grey area that I swim where both sides of the equation continue to expel these deep seeded emotions from within.

Had it not been for the open minded, tirelessly educated guidance and good nature of a mother, I may have gone another way years ago, though still I stay afloat while the undertow continues its torment.

So it seems here, now, in the mornings clean light, where all that I can do is observe—in nature that surrounds—human nature take its course.

I know who I am. And I know my intentions are good. Sometimes our actions speak louder than words but for most of us, words just don’t seem to be heard.

But that’s no reason to destroy what you can’t control.

So for those who cannot express or explain this current state of extremes we face both alone and together, I suggest this: be a beacon of hope.

Because what we know today, with or without our help, will surely change tomorrow.

So even in my darkest hours, I know, hope will never falter, light will find a way, and tides will turn, if not now, then surely another day.

Alone and writing.