Today

Today, it's hard.
I do not want to deal in metaphors and similes.
I do not want to deal in smiles and pleasantries.
Walking home from her house, I lost myself.
Or maybe I lost myself at 8 years old,
digging that hole to hide treasures I never had.
Not today.
I do not want to deal in alliteration and hyperbole.
But sad songs of lost love punctuate this line.
I spend all day in my head looking and trying.
So if answers lie within, why I could not find her
how I could not find me?
A swift glance at lost and found and
a quick search in bulkiest dictionaries
could not define me.
There are so many walls I could not breach.
Trapped inside my mind and outside her heart,
I did not expect myself to be.
No, I beg, not today.
I do not wish to rhyme.
Did I really not drown that June and
did I really not forget the voice of that
10 year old friend I never saw again?
I rue the affection I could not get
from myself and from

I said today, it's hard.
I did not want to write today.

Balance is an afterthought

Tempest nature of these shadows

Temptresses her way into the yin

Grey suits with gold bows,

My temp dresses.

The world passes her,

On a wallowing wheelchair

Turning open paved paths,

Into impasses.

Hassles of a quiet mind,

Frequent floods and draughts,

Yank its way from latter letter,

Features of a watering hole.

Shallow afternoons of this wintery weather,

Hanging my coats and hat to a little too left,

Balance is an afterthought.

File drawer

Here's the thing I'm longing for:

I try fixing my mind sometimes
Crumpled up memories
Salts and smells and honey and broth
Instinctual avoidance of miseries.
Fix my mind defaced
by these cracks by these
silent somber earthquakes.
Fix so my second breath
does follow the first.
So my dancing fingers stop
beating the drum and hum
of indistinct melodies leave
my lonely thoughts alone.

Remember how we used to
long for this throbbing rain.
I left my papers in these files
disordered and left the drawer
disjointed and jumbled in its natural state.
It stirred and simpered my longing today,
the thunderstorm.
will it tomorrow

449

There are still just two genres that exist.

Masks, three or a thousand. Who's counting?

I made these leg weights in art class, bogging me down.

Six foot and then some, still couldn't dunk.

I wear this mediocrity suit as a uniform, 

so ravenously strong, its bulletproof.

I've practiced silence since school to keep my hands from shaking.

To keep my words from breaking, I carve caves of limestones and labyrinths in my head. 

Between crossed legs and wasted days, I'm a busy man.

I'd do it all today but I don't. I like to blame myself everyday just as an assurance of tomorrow.

Last night I couldn't decide how accurate is "dramatically dull" a critique.

So, can you too describe your ceiling in brief?

I Write

I write

For wet concrete blocks and

Empty park benches,

Of ugly winter sweaters and

Unsaid forgotten thoughts.

For limp leaves and bright socks,

Lukewarm hearts and filthy weather.

To fill blank pages and 

Lonely memory slots.

To drink down daily nights and

For faithless sanity's sake.

I prefer

Pouring bleach on blood stains,

Melancholic life over dream constraints.

Flatlands over magical plains,

Observing grey everyday.

I prefer 

Enduring tragedies over

Fleeting calamities.

Come ask me why.

I write 

Brimming grins over 

Yearning lives.

Come ask me why.

Digital Dirt

Love me more when I'm gone.

When you cannot see me at last, 

Living one thumb flick away.

When you can finally look past,

My insouciant nods,

My obnoxious quips.

All the wordless confessions 

That I could never give.

When you cannot find,

The picture that didn't exist.

But it seems, you are

Satisfied with that ode, hidden

In a pool of polemics.

Or when you cannot go back,

To the night that never was,

To the pause that wasn't filled,

Pity, nostalgia, unjustified regret?

Welcome to the hole in my chest

Write on those bluest walls and skies,

Some morning coffee powered lines.

Think of those vaguely false times,

You were laughing at my pleasantries.

Forget my misgivings and disguise

Our uneventful lives into a dream.

Be slightly saddened 

if you knew my name,

But shed the thought if it lasts 

More than a TV ad.

Love me more when I'm dead.

That's all the love I deserve.

Everything I hope to get.

I Wonder Why

I wonder why

They don't call me insane

Dreams flair then flicker then flop

Realities change, traffic lights the same

Some carry on and some just stop

I wonder why

The grand marshal's dead but race is on

Bold brick walls and smooth silk sheets Still could not hide the dawn

Every day I wake for this blunderous sun

Every day I smile. My mirror does not

I wonder why