on foot

i could feel it in the streets
and the
sky

i clutched onto my cd player
i guess you could call that old fashioned

the one i love walked who knows how many miles to spend
a few hours
with me

in an impersonal way
i caught word that my childhood best friend
is now bereft of a father

that disease that everyone tries to prove wrong.

i would like to think that i am immune
to the anxieties of facing loss
because i see things differently than most

on nights like these,
it is easy to say and not easy
to feel.
i do not want to be the one that leaves
nor the one left

life is crazy and beautiful.

5.23

my dog ran away this morning
i underestimated his loyalty as i bolted through the neighborhood
with hot, wild tears
and he was waiting for me casually on the porch when i returned

it scares me when the world feels
small
and not unfathomably large. everything is moving so fast but it seems directionless, like a spinning top trapped in a corner

i want to breathe in the trees and stand still
and feel that the universe is indeed benevolent
and that the end of days is really
just
a beginning.

are you the player or are you the piece?

in the booth of a slightly upscale burger place
my mother brother & i discussed how the idea of religion makes us feel
claustrophobic
how we would much rather be talked with
than talked at
how A.D.D. only exists so that people can pin a problem to their shirt
and how kids are given tootsie pops to pledge to be 'drug free!'
as their parents fill them up with Ritalin
so they can get A's like the other kids.

i glanced to my left and saw a mother, a father & a son
her nails were very painted
and his face was glazed over with judgement

they had nothing to say to each other.

and when they smiled at the waiter it was not with their eyes.

The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it
But I drank it all just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste
And I wandered through the house like a little boy lost in the mall
And an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space

And I sang
Oh, What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
What do I do without you?

nothing can be bad

getting fired ! sucks

but here are things that do not suck:
-blueberries
-middle o the night bike riding
-running with a dog i am fond of through the river
-Kombucha
-learning piano(at long last)
-David Adam Bishop

something different

i must admit i am a bit mad at myself for closing my eyes and tumbling into black sleep instead of making the short trek to curl up under your breath

you loved a girl once who took a liking to me
she would say, 'girls are stupid, except for you'
you were just a passing thought that kept on passing, running through my brain like a marathoner on the move Meisner tells actors: don't inv
ent; don't deny
i clutched onto the latter

while your leg was getting crunched by a bike and your heart was getting crunched by that girl i buried myself under the loss of a friend i might have loved but never declared while you were avalanched with more shit than an outhouse
i was feeling a feeling in the corners of my toes and
the tiniest butterfly kisses in my lungs
and in the florescent lights of high school, pen to paper and head wrapped in something i couldn't touch something breathed on my neck and convinced me that what i wanted to exist

exists.

and oh, how it does.

in the words of Modest Mouse

Out of breath and out of cash
Find yourself watching M.A.S.H.
Every night on the couch
Woman says, "Let's take a drive down south
Roll down the windows and open our mouths
Taste where we are and play the music loud
Stop the car, lay on the grass
The planets spin and we watch space pass
Walk a direction, see where we get
I never knew nothing so there's nothing to forget
Get real drunk and ride our bikes

There's so much beauty it could make you cry
There's so much beauty it could make you cry
There's so much beauty it could make you cry
There's so much beauty it could make you cry