I have driven trucks 

With sawdust as my passenger.

There are fleas in yesterday's furniture.

Killed cockroaches,

spiders, crickets, and bed bugs.

I've gone where I am going

even when I don't know where 

I am heading. 

People who loved me now hate me. 

People who hate me now love me.

I wish it were something other than 

but all it ever is---

Upon long and windy roads. 

 

I have slept beside train tracks.

Seen the memory of love 

in a cloud. 

Slept on the floor. 

Dreams of seeds and showers. 

Tender moments of

silent proud. 

Slept on couches. 

Fucked on couches. 

In hospitals. 

Failed to fuck in hospitals. 

In cars and in jail cells. 

Yes to fucking. 

No to fucking. 

Upon straight and narrow righteousness. 

 

Counted coins. 

Eaten cereal with water. 

Microwavable meals were

hungrymanfools' gold. 

Painted tables,

peeled gum from tables, 

scraped paint from tables. 

Changed oil,

when I shoulda change tires.

Changed tires,

when I shoulda changed oil. 

Put diesel were it don't go. 

Drank liqour with friends

who turned out to be foe. 

Spat in the face of foe

who turned out to be friend. 

Upon the road 

to America dumped idealized

hopping honey hope. 

A fool. 

A dope. 

 

I have had bottles broken on my head. 

Defending what I thought was right. 

I have gone to war with sheet rock. 

What is one to do with all this 

self-entitled might?

I have screamed at demons.

SCREAMED AT DEMONS. 

Sometimes they wear your face. 

Only for them to scream in a voice

chambered and silenced.

I have been screamed 

in undertones of 

those quick to perscribe 

all that they see 

but choose to deny. 

Because it doesn't align

with the world 

that they have compartmentalized.

I have picked myself up. 

Made a man of myself. 

Fought for change. 

Drained the demons from my brain 

by using God's dagger 

to poke a hole in my membrane. 

Got better. 

Really got better. 

Truly got better. 

Was proud of who I was. 

I even thought for a moment that 

I might love who I am becoming. 

Just to be reminded that 

the only virtue these demons have 

are loyalty. 

Loyalty. 

Undercut and undersold. 

 

I have seen scars upon the children. 

The hungry pious.

Homeless Pope's.

Soup Kitchen Buddah's.

I have seen scars upon the children.  

Perfect skinned priviledge. 

Hedonistic and sadistic

justified by an unacknowledge chance 

at better dealing of cards. 

 

Clean and dirty water. 

The temperature holds no credence here. 

On this journey 

the only thing I truly know for certain 

is that one day it will rain. 

Even then. 

I never pack an umbrella. 

At least not one you can see. 

 

I have been to the cities. 

I have been to the country side. 

I have swam in rivers. 

I have swam in lakes. 

I have swam in oceans. 

Been in the aisles of Cathedrals. 

Been upon the aisle of a pier.

Been upon the stone of a sanctuary. 

I have recited prayers and rituals 

foreign to me

on fields of grass 

and on carpets of public spaces. 

With people I will never see again. 

 

For some reason a reborn tree 

gives me hope 

the way a dying one does. 

 

I have known just as many sidewalks

as I do setbacks. 

I have known just as many rooftops 

as I do successes. 

I have known just as many 

sidewalks and rooftops 

as I do regrets. 

But you will never hear me admit that. 

I know nobody the way I'd like

because I'll never let anyone know me 

the way I'd need to. 

 

I miss when I had a gap in my teeth. 

I miss when my body had less scars, 

less tattoos, 

and less stories to tell.

I miss when nightmares actually kept me up at night. \

...

Now I can't sleep if the dream is good. 

I miss when people didn't read into my poetry 

and then try to respond with the cure. 

When the wound being revealed 

was the cure to my hurting allure. 

I miss when I was invisible. 

I miss when my family woulld turn to me for advice

instead of something they couldn't touch 

like the invisibilty I was 

suddenly became dry ice. 

 

I have slept in on a weekday. 

I have risen before the sun 

on a Sunday. 

I have feared hypothermea

just as many times as I have 

feared heat stroke. 

 

I am particularly triggered 

by authorative patterns. 

I am really good at understanding 

a variety of accents. 

Whiskey makes me depressed 

but it's the only booze I can drink. 

My favorite color is purple 

and I knew it was purple when I was

a kid at my elementary school

and my friend pushed me. 

I stepped onto a praying mantis. 

I killed it and was punished because she was 

an endangered species. 

Every spring there was a praying matnis

on my childhood house's door. 

I have been on so many journeys 

that I found ways to rationalize 

that the praying matnis I killed 

had come to let me know in my adulthood that,

"It's all good, man. Everyone's gotta go when they've gotta go.

The weatherman doesn't get a say. They just let us know, 

when it's gonna snow.".

 

I am pretty sure this next part is gonna me killed. 

 

That's alright. 

I did what I could when I could. 

It is what helps me sleep through

nights of fright. 

 

I used to slide down the steps at my grandmother's house. 

I used to make wishes on dandelions. 

I used to stay in my brother's room until they fell asleep. 

Promising them that they'd be okay. 

I used to write poetry and hide them for decades. 

Then I was seen and I began to overshare. 

 

Would you believe me if I told you I have seen burning bushes?

They don't burn with literal flames,

but with the faces of shadows you fear. 

Would you believe me if I told you I have spoken with 

modern day profits? 

You know them by the glow in their eyes. 

They are seared with all the years

of unshed tears. 

 

I have had bruised finger nails.

Calliced palms.

Blisters. 

And writing cramps. 

I have stayed up all night 

out of fear;

out of happiness; 

out of love.

In the end all the sleepless nights 

were for music. 

 

I am jealous of you friend. 

You always got to read the books 

I was never allowed to. 

You lived life the way you 

were supposed to. 

I feel like I keep fighting

for the ideals you are supposed to achieve. 

I am just stuck in a loop of extreme achievement 

and extreme public embarrassment.

I should have studied engineering fresh out of high school. 

Instead of Cobaine parlays. 

Maybe more cocaine experimental blues. 

There is just so much violence

tapped within me. 

I don't fear the potential. 

I fear losing control.....

 

Life would be so much better

if I wasn't so damn self-righteous. 

 

One time I fell in love with a girl 

over cheap drinks and laughter. 

Right before we went home together

and sealed the ceremony of our early morning regrets

she asked me if I knew her name. 

Now I try to remember everyone's name. 

Her's sounds like the door shutting 

as she got in her uber to the other side of town. 

 

One time I almost killed myself, 

but I didn't. 

Every day I resurrect 

pieces of myself that I left 

on the other side.

 

I only hurt the people 

I love

to prove a point. 

The point being that 

I am difficult to love. 

Ahhhhhh, fuck you. 

Fuck this. 

Fuck everyone. 

The only thing I care for is silence---

solitude subtly ceremonious and serendipitous

bliss. 

If only there was a way to share that. 

I have taught people to love me. 

Only to teach them how to be lonely. 

You're drunk!

I am always drunk!

The passage of time 

is poison's most decadant

nectur. 

Boy, you are thick!

The bark on this tree 

grows with experience.

 

Speaking of trees 

have you ever heard them speak?

They tell stories that force you to seek.

Speaking of seek

have you spoken with the shattered meek? 

They will tell you stories

that don't require drugs for you to tweak. 

 

Have you ever seen a revolution?

Have you ever felt one in your heart?

Have you ever been lied to?

Have you not known where to start?

 

And so I was walking on this highway

turned gravel

turned dirt road. 

It began to bend

so I bent with it. 

It straightened out, 

so I got with it. 

And that's when it dawned on me.

All these journeys were in the pursuit of one thing. 

But I only found it when I saw it 

upon the sea of stolen hills, 

dried pastures, 

glass castles, 

and suburban dystopia. 

 

A tattered and tired flag. 

Red, white, and blue. 

Torn and waving. 

Upon a forgotten stoop. 

A splintered pole. 

A dreamless balcony. 

A number who doesn't think they are a number 

because they are not numbe---hopeless patriot. 

And I never think of all these jounerys and memories. 

Because I am too damn high upon the flavors

of sugary smiles I have seen along the way. 

But then the scent of 

my garden of neon memory flowers

shines so bright. 

That ironically enough; 

you know it's quite funny how they get ya;

suddenly you agree with everything you deny; 

one day you are this and the next day you are that;

you've gotta good head of hair 

why ever wear a hat; 

the thing that run you over doesn't care about restraint,

why would you dare to hold back?

 

But there it is.

All the wonder that slipped through your fingers. 

It declares itself 

like the water from a mouth of a dam 

you forgot that you frequented. 

A life of painful adventures is holding itself 

beyond the ugly that always shined brightest at 

the forefront of your inherent pessimism. 

To the point where you have no choice 

but to accept this mistake of an existence. 

This organzied mayhem. 

This mess of systems. 

Once you do all these distractions

of why things are the way they are; 

how things ought to be; 

if only the world was filled with more me 

then this me would be more okay 

with me;

you slip into a waking slumber

of idealizaiton 

in which the gravity of who you were 

becomes wind 

and you are nothing

but something pitched,

intentionally placed,

ingloriously precarious, 

beyond all doubt. 

You see the torn fabric 

of soldiers;

of first responders; 

of dreamers; 

of sufferers; 

of believers;

of anonymous faces

with just as many journeys; 

with just as much a desire for love; 

with just as much anguish and despair

for life's insistent loneliness. 

 

And you just take a deep breath. 

Within the exuberance;

only one word comes to mind. 

Freedom. 

And then you fall asleep 

or wake up. 

No matter what you do next. 

You are free.