over

i make a mistake.
i lie down.
i think of you.

empty inside
except for this melted piece of plastic
that's supposed to be a heart.
the smell furls up my chest
and gags me.
it burns.

i wonder
if you've heard of the woman
who took a pill she wasn't supposed to
and burned from the inside out.
well, my insides are burning too
except the cause comes from within,
not out.

might as well just
recycle the melted plastic
so it can actually serve a purpose.
so i do.

i see the toll booth attendant
with whom i have a great rapport.
she is always friendly
and for a moment i feel happy.
but then the feeling fades
and again i feel helpless
and empty.

hanging like a christmas bulb
in the center of my chest
now lives a black hole
sucking up surrounding
tissue and organs.

i exist, now
as a hollowed insect
a mere crunchy exoskeleton
awaiting the foot
that will resolve me to dust.

winter

the desire to write swells up in me like a sob
or a drowning victim breaking the surface
for a life saving breath.

two words.
two words can describe an entire season:
"silence prevails"

snow turns tree tops into voids
disintegrating into the sky.
the sky; a solid sheet of slate grey
from distant snow fall.
you can feel the cold through your eyes.

everything is calm
similar to death.

ponds turn to glass, hard candies
solid pitch and onyx.
across them views of
stove-warmed houses sit
unimposing. humble, shy.
with air so cold and roads so dangerous
not a soul's breath breaks your reverie,

interrupts your repose.

reflecting

summers pass in albums.

there was "the summer of":
Vampire Weekend
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
and Dear and the Headlights.

then,
there was
Baths and Teen Daze.

they all seem nice
in retrospect;

like a movie montage
with theme music in the background.

sun always shining, non-stop smiling.

your brain tends to forget
all the bad scenes.

Shadows, like umbrellas. Reigning down.
Speckled cross pavement
Unwillingly letting through
Jigsaw pieces of light.

The clashing of light and dark
Mimicking 8-bit hallucinations
The car jumps instead of coasts
Pieces of film missing from a reel.

The hallucinatory mimicry
Brings up distant memory

But distant memory feels a lot like
Present day.

Depression is a lot like drowning,
Only you don't die.

An invisible force shoves a tube
Down your throat
And fills your lungs with pitch.
'Til it comes surging back up.

But no matter how hard you try

You just,
Can't
Die.

shock

i feel like i'm stuck in a single memory
being remembered a hundred different ways.
the same threat of storm looming in the background
every time.

I want to die on a frigid winter night.
in the north, where the snow's depth could provide
my forever bed.

life lately has provided me with
clogged drains and
dripping faucets.

if this is a sign,
it's a stinging,
tired neon sign
like you'd see in those
trashy goodwill-liquor store-dollar store combo plazas.

Wait.....
what's that feeling?
floating in the oblivion of my cranium.....

Reeling.
your body feels heavier.
looking into decades old photographs.
wishing, so badly, you could live
eternity within them.

Calmly,
you'd explore every inch of this morsel of the past.

watching a still of time.
Emotions frozen.
A memory kept,
Forever.