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It was my childhood, throwing clays in the field; Picking wild berries in the tall grass; The dam’s siren, and the deluge swallowing the bank every hour, like clockwork; Listening to cattle, grazing in the pasture, on the other side of the river; Stalking the woods with a .22, while my father staked the property lines; So many squirrels crucified, just to be thrown in a cooking pot; A snake without a head, splitting it’s body down the sides, its final grimace, hanging in a tree branch over the fire; A hunting party as a young boy, the smell of pierced intestines, and the crack as antler was separated from skull; Catching catfish with tree grubs, and throwing back the common carp; Like that recurring nightmare: In a bed with posts, in the middle of a field, with a blue tarp overhead, shaking violently; The cold nights and exposure; Seeking warmth around the oven; Shitting in a bucket in the corner; There was a baby bird that fell from the rafters of the new patio; Its brain looked like creamed corn.

It seemed such a simple task: graduate, work a job, find a wife, have a kid, maybe two; And now I find myself wondering if it’s too late to even try to turn it all around; I’ve got my money, and notches on my belt; I wouldn’t make much of a father, but I would try my best; And I’ll be damned if I didn’t give every single aspect of my life that same treatment; So how’d I wind up here, in a room full of hollow stares, stale coffee and broken smiles? When did life get so predictable, so boring, so effortless? Wake up, punch in, punch out, sit down, kick back; Wake up; Who decided that this was how I was going to spend the rest of my days?

I was born in a new port town where the James River feeds into the Chesapeake Bay; In my mind I can still see clearly the weathered remains of the old fort’s walls, degrading down at the shoreline; And to this day I still hold within me the grim vantage over McLean’s lawn: The imagined stench of gangrenous limbs; The implied cacophony of splintering bone and the caterwauling of men already doomed, but not yet aware; This was merely the beginning.

I never thought I’d live to see an easy woman seeking company; Enraptured by the bleating of her hungry mates; Captured between the fence and her mundane fate; Bolstered by the desires of those she cannot sate; Cold and calculating, until she’s all alone; And if she has not yet been moved to tears by irrational fears, or unfettered words spoken without trepidation; Well then, I pity her.

Isolation; It’s such a foreign concept until it comes upon you; Talking to yourself just to hear a voice; Masturbating to memories of better lovers; Keeping up appearances just to avoid conflict, discussion, exchange; Piping in news from New York, Chicago, LA; It used to be so simple, I told myself last night; But now I look in the mirror, and my eyes tell me otherwise.

Bleary eyed; Am I depressed or exuberant? Only alone in my room will my mind know the difference.

It’s hubris, this incessant whine in my head, like a beehive set in the center of a field filled with tuning forks planted right side up; Fragile, handle with care, we were sold lies of dystopian dreamscapes and made reality a living nightmare; Having sex with pieces of plastic; Wading through fetish and pools of dog water; Tirelessly travelling these miles of snail trails. Don’t expect me for dinner, I’m a little bit busy tonight, honey.

She egged me on until I was but a puddle at her feet; And the sad truth is that I would have done the very same thing. You see, it’s the struggle that haunts me; Not the easy speech of whimsy. The failure of words is what draws me, but that doesn’t translate to flowery poetry, or romantic gesture; No, you see, for me, it’s the playing of dark and light; Like shadow puppets on an unfinished cabin wall on a cold winter night.

One cannot reason with the dead, as the passed are but a memory. Those days and nights spent by their side can only be spoken in hushed tones or jubilant outcries, never re-lived. It is the one thing that I have in common with you, without doubt.

Catharsis doesn’t cover it; If you only knew half of what I went through to reach this moment; This exact point in time; And now it’s passed, I am left empty; No woman to coddle me; Without even peers, I now stand. There is no romance in this revelation, as even apocalypse would imply release. For we marked men, there are only the rigid demands of our conditioning; Right up to the bitter end.

Scars and burns up and down these clumsy hands; Faded ink, adorning flesh, reminding me to heed the creeping decay of: Beauty. Immaturity. Chastity. This eternal wasting until we are nothing but another deficiency.

Tonight, allow me to bear this burden; With you; For you; As you need; As you will allow. Let this tear be shed for you; Let this sob, and this sigh, and this wincing of my eyes, grant you a single moment in which to understand that you will never be alone. We are always here. So, when the doubt and darkness of inevitable decay overtake you; In your most private moment, simply know: I have felt this with you.

Bills to pay, sheep to the shears; Black lungs mired in the mountain’s vice; A grim scythe swings o'er the forsaken harvest o’ fools too early taken; You will ne'er be forgotten; For it is your bones upon which we tread; And credit for your graves which made men great: We'er in union blues or shades o’ grey.

Do you remember the novelty of that very first one? Fingers interlaced, an implied, inevitable, outcome; Reduced to pins and needles, racing thoughts, sweaty palms; Feeling her pulse, as rapid as your own, through her fingertips; That disarming moment; When innocence was more than just a game for you to play.

She only wants me when I’m not myself, but who else could I be? She only needs me when I’m all used up, with nothing left to give. She only loves me when I’m all alone and the dark is creeping in.

Three in the morning; A cockroach dreams of flying.

I’m nothing but a name on a box I shipped to you, with precious stones and trinkets, and something you can use, when you’re feeling like it’s hopeless, and need reminded that I cared, never mind the fact: I could’ve been anyone sending anything from anywhere.

It truly is the worst kind of feeling: Loving from a distance. I mean, tonight I’ll be tapping like the sun’s first light on her window, and tomorrow she’ll be rocking my cradle as I fall asleep. It truly is the best kind of feeling: Loving across these miles. I mean, this morning I’ll be like the moon’s rays singing her a lullaby, and tomorrow she’ll be like the rising sun in my bleary eyes.

How I wish that she were greater than just the phone within my hand; Something more elaborate than the words upon my screen. How I dream that the days could be spent closing the distance, so these moments wouldn’t be wasted with a million miles in between.

Sol dominates; The golden altar, Talos guards.

There are dimensions beyond space, beyond time; Interwoven into this tapestry we call reality; Even as mere children, we must one day learn the harsh truth of our permanent impermanence; It is up to us, to make a world in which they who are without guile may cast the last stone into the abyss. Drawing straws; These straight lines and crooked smiles.

I close my eyes and I am empty, I gaze upon the stars within, I watch the end coming. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be anything at all. The final firing of my neurons will last an eternity, I will not be born again: I have seen everything and I know nothing.

Playground games; Children gambol in the sun.

My dad keeps the lights on. I love the sound of helicopters, flying along their patrol routes: Back and forth, back and forth; Sirens blaring at the edge of awareness, I hope they aren’t coming for me: We are calm, you stay calm; Rifle rounds fired in the distance, mowing the lawn twice a week: Back and forth, back and forth; My dad keeps the lights on.

These dreams of mine have shifted into nightmares on their own. This heart of mine is hung up, torn to pieces by unknowns. This life I live is nothing more than hanging by a thread; But never have I found a word that’s better left unsaid.

I court the night and play with her; Like clay in my hands.

Would I allow just any lover to wander into my bed? Would I allow just any scene to play within my head? Would I allow just any heart a place within my chest? Would I provide just anyone a home in which to rest?

Inferno raging; Coals beneath the pine.

These collections of moments, we’ll call them memories, I’ll carry in my head for the sake of you, for the sake of me; For the truth of consequence is a damned shame, you’ll see, when tomorrow fades away, for the sake of you, for the sake of me.

Thunder rolls from cloud to cloud; Cricket waltz.

I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, all I know is won’t be the same; So give me your hand this evening, and I’ll show you how to carry a flame.

Blood moon; The morning star stirs within.

The man with no regrets is lying through his teeth, emulating the wisdom of the man who holds no grief; A good man knows his limits and exactly who he’ll be, but I will always live with the intent of being free.

Light trickles in, illuminating slow breath; Waiting for sunrise.

As the dew drops from a blade of grass, dips my head and heaves my chest. The recycled air o’ brethren fallen ignites my ire, a primal rage. How the moments stretch and shrink at will; In the present only; Neither future nor past defined. Beneath the surface, you will unearth a man, made whole.

Stepping foot on the other side; A dead drop.

Are you in the world, or of it? Would you rather serve in heaven, or reign in hell?

The world around you; Moments between black and white.

The star that falls fears not consequence; For when the beast doth call, it will sate his loneliness.

Will o’ the wisp, a perfect blue; Summer’s din.

Along the flume, my ghosts coalesce; Feeding the soul of another lover; Little does she know, forever was never my intent; As certain as the days grow cold, and the autumn harvest thins, the drumming within my chest will slow and one day cease; There is nothing to be undone until my final breath has passed.

Across the great divide passes a single tear; Scar tissue.

I never claimed to be perfect, and yet she wished it so. An unspoken promise to which I never agreed; And now she knows that unrequited part of me that took a lifetime to overcome; And now she sees with eyes wide open that I chose to return; An unspoken promise to her, now realized: I never claimed to be perfect, and now she knows it’s true.

Darkness consumes the sea’s slow ebb; On gossamer wings.

How I rue the siren’s call; She treads within these muddy waters; The morning star shines above; Torrential love, won’t you ease my mind and carry me under? From city streets and wicked deeds this heart was forged; An emptiness like no other. O woe is me, tonight the voices infect my mind and strip bare an ego so carefully crafted. There is no respite from your serpentine allure; The two sides of your mouth have worn thin enough for me to see: Wanting you is like a disease and my body has grown weak.

Striking a balance; The crow wanders between the lines.

So you want to play this game? You think I’ve never been here before? You want to be so innocent? You want to pretend that you’re so pure? You think I’ve never broken my own heart, just to see how it would feel? You think it’s easy being me? You think I enjoy being real? I don’t have friends, and there’s a reason, so let me tell you to be sure: I’ve ripped myself into seven billion pieces, so they could all go knocking on heaven’s door.

On spring’s cusp, by the water’s edge; I tread with death.

Presently, I await a knock upon my door, a rapping on my window, a smile, and nothing more. I prepared for years, and learned how to relate, but as I found my voice, you just walked away. Was it something that I said, or simply who I am? Whatever the reason, I won’t feel like this again.

Parenthetical; Lovers caught in ones and zeroes.

I always seem to fall into that hopeful place, and hope clouds observation; I become impulsive and I become deceptive; I say what I mean and I am neglected: I never know when to stop. I never know when to stop, it’s easier when I let my brain take the backseat and put my hands on the wheel; I say too much and it never means enough, but my heart bleeds for her: I never know when to stop, I never know when to stop.

An aphotic breeze, playing in her hair; The setting sun.

Romance is for children, and so I leave it to them; But reality is such an easy game to play.

From shade to shade; A forgiving breeze fades into dead heat.

I was born to be a withered husk, I was always going to end up alone; There was a time when darkness scared me, before I knew death was just the journey home.

Ravens above; Another heart caught in the undertow.

Whispers in my ear; The dead wish to live again. A soft strumming of worn out strings; The dead hope to rise. From coffin nails to slow exhales, the living wane and slowly fail. I tie my knots, I lift my sails; The dead setting off again. From Roanoke to Jamestown’s walls, the sea consumes another soul; And I’m settling down on this foreign shore without a line to cast back home; The living dream of growing old; The dead remain, trapped, in rotting bones.

Be mature and accepting; Don’t mind her silence; Let her be herself, don’t cling. Tell her you love her. Prove it: Be patient.

The oily fish; An angler’s reprieve; Taking the bait.

Faith is requisite in all matters. Science is built upon the supposition that one man’s abstract representation of the world around him was accurate. Multiple streams of information are required, lest the feeding pool stagnates. Trust the word of no one man; Blatantly ignore the cries of the masses. An’ it harm none, do what ye will.

Winter’s requiem: A solemn note, frozen solid.

Tiny little pin pricks loaded with black ink; These tiny little moments impressed in memory. It took me millions of tiny little pin pricks for someone else to see, that their tiny little story had been written all over me.

In the trenches; At rock bottom we will meet.

It’s humbling, the growth of a man; A loss of words, the taming of ego; All of the tomorrows never guaranteed. The shedding of shackles. Real shit colored in Kool-Aid, like city water for black teeth. And it’s humbling, the death of a man; Mourning shared by those with nothing else to carry on, except the yesterdays never forgotten. The shedding of tears; Millenial mindset; Cars as gifts and suburbia as a black hole.

Shill game; Sophists selling empty shells.

And though you may become embroiled in affairs of life, liberty, and happiness; And though you may fall prey to worries, troubles, and the promise of brighter days; Simply know that your entire life will amount to nothing more than the very moment before your inevitable death.

Ownership, the slow exhale; A rusty blade.

There’s rain moving in from the west; Thunder; A steady ebb and flow of the season’s change: From wet to dry, from light to dark, ever so slowly spiraling into and out of itself; As if the sands of time were simply postcards littering the streets of some saccharin sweet, contrived, final destination.

Elevator music; At the end of a long, dark road.

Far from prying eyes, the prisoner sitting pretty in the confines of his own mind; Segregated, defenestrated, separated from general population; On the surface calm, betraying a maelstrom beneath the cool exterior of a shattered head; In his eyes, the dormant flame of animation, so adeptly masked, beaten and bleary; Embracing the finality of his imminent demise; Finding faith in the final moments of the wretched excuse he called a life.

Never giving up, beats the slow and steady heart.

Mind may linger upon words and still; She twirls me around her finger to get her fill.

Russian roulette with a semi; Automatic.

Some days my eyes see my hands without recognition; And most days my voice never comes out just right; I choke on words review them over and over in my head; But sometimes, just sometimes, someone else knows what to say.

And I can still remember that night, so strange, so beautiful. I knew not what was done, only that I had done it. I knew not what to say, for words would be such trifling, trivial things. I simply basked in the dead heat of a foggy early morning. I simply saw what it was that my mind had chosen to ordain. And I asked myself: where will tomorrow take me that yesterday hasn’t already?

In reflection, the moon plays second fiddle to the stars above.

You will never know me, no; You will never see, no; You will never know me; Yet, you will always be; Someone that I left behind, and someone that I missed; Right up until the moment they unclenched my balled up fists.

It’s a moment we few will understand; The moment that truly makes a man. A three pound pull, a fraction of an inch of steel, separating the ether from the world that makes it real. If God had a plan would he reveal it to you? If Lucifer’s words were right would that make them the truth? If to Maitreya the wand'ring soul must tithe, is wisdom there for us, or are we just grain beneath the scythe?

The wringing of dry hands; Hours passed on the state’s dime; No therapy, no kodak moments: Save the ramblings of an unhinged jaw, sate the violence of a senile soldier, savor the fifteen minutes of sunlight, real unfiltered sunlight; Will the kids be alright, or will they simply be? Taking comfort in names and numbers.

Sinking feeling; These pockets filled with empty words.

And so here I sit. Again. Alone. With only my memories left to entertain me. Sometimes I wonder, should I have gone out with a bang? And so here I sit. Again. Alone. With a hole in my head, of my own creation. Dependent upon nothing but this moment. And so here I sit. Alone. Again. Without even a word to say to you.

Minutes, hours, even days; Structured, subjects by another name; The memetic tempo, the lion’s gaze; A slow dance down a filthy drain.

Under the moon nearly full, she says: Only time between us.

This is the place we know so well, the one that no one sees; Alone again, but not confused, wearing thin from self-abuse; The walls are painted red; The bed like sheetrock; Never truly quiet, though nothing’s ever said; No one likes what no one has, and pity tastes like salt; No one knows when no one cares, because it’s always no one’s fault.

When I look up at the morning sky, watching flocks of songbirds moving in from the west; Hearing crows calling out, poking fun at the squirrels; Feeling the cool breeze off the gulf, carrying the coming storm; I know the pine sway softly as the soul at the center of my being. I know the moments in which I am moved to tears are coordinated by forces beyond my control. I give myself to my faith in the world around me. I trust my will will carry me beyond the present moment. For there is nothing worse than the death of the mind, and fear is the mind-killer.

This old pine grows; New efforts shot into thin air.

A broken sigh falls like leaves from her head hung heavy, and in her eyes, the injured gaze of beauty misunderstood; When tomorrow comes, she’ll not be the same, for her lungs will have heaved with the defective breath of a shattered heart.

Nothing ever changes; In absentia the heart grows colder.

It started as wonder, then worry, then waiting for the next moment to arrive; A giddiness I thought was lost, a lightness of spirit that left with my innocence; And it’s strange because I never knew I could feel exactly like this for someone exactly like her; Yet my amazement only grows with each word exchanged and each sigh of repressed, raw emotion.

The nightingale shares four steps with a rose.

I think I’m going to kill myself; not today, not tomorrow, not even next week, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to start smoking. I’m going to have a drink. I’m going to eat eggs and bacon every morning. I’m going to fall in love with someone who doesn’t love me back. I’m going to take everything far too seriously. I’m going to piss off every person I know. I’m going to speak my mind in a room full of enemies. I’m going to be unhappy; and when my time comes, with me upon that hospital bed, I’m going to pull you in close and tell you this is all I ever wanted; and when you start crying, I’ll start crying, and we’ll both know I was lying.

Life is what you make it, said the spider to the fly.

What is past, but a collection of moments impressed upon the ethereal membrane of the collective consciousness? What is present, but the single inhale of a ragged breath? What is future, but the unforeseeable consequences of unforeseeable events?

Deliberately you drift from word to shining word: Intent to decipher the deathless understanding of the author’s heart wrenching through another night alone.

In times of trouble, you may feel the desire to reach out to your peers in a meaningful way. I implore you to consider your own motivations in this scenario as fully as you consider theirs. In the confines of an echo chamber, the least common denominator of human consciousness is promoted for the sake of the collective peace. While you may desire the deep and meaningful connection of unfettered truth, you will not find it in the contemporary drivel of the uninitiated minds. You will step away from your time with the unenlightened with a feeling of existential dread for the plight of all humanity. But that is not real. No, what is real is the struggle you find there. The striving of those encumbered by misconception and sentiment. The inability of the figures of authority to appreciate the essential truth in the opinion of the outcast. You must be prepared to step off and make your own way again when you come to odds with these minds which cannot understand their own motivation without attribution of malice to the mouth that spewed it. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you would like to find a place with these perceived peers, and if that is the case, then I wish you well in that endeavor.

I could break down for you every event that brought me to this point in time, and trust me, I want to, but I hesitate after fully considering the implications of such a traumatic exposition on your psyche. And that, for me, is the the essential truth of all interaction. How can I tell you how hard your journey is going to be without triggering your disbelief? You who have found me here, are looking for something, and I cannot identify whatever that is for you. What I can do is help you to establish a metaphorical framework which will motivate your personal curation of the available information. Through this method, we will come to an understanding of what it means to be a human being in the verbal sense of the word. So what am I saying? Well, I suppose in a way, that is for you to decide.

My current intent is to prepare you for all of the ugly ways in which you will be offended by every finer detail of every little story that you are forced to process in your lifetime. You must not allow yourself to become exhausted by this inundation with vulgar and potentially harmful details. It is your responsibility to be the change which I am unable to conceive, and I beg that you approach that task with a compassion colored by the purity of your altruistic objective. There is a healing power in rectitude of self that cannot be overconsidered. Here in this confine of mind you will find every tool required for you to do great things– If only you can handle the pressure you will have to put on yourself!

I will not lie to you, there is no great celebration to be had at the end of your striving. All that you will find is the satisfaction of being superior. And I see here I’m losing you, but allow me to qualify my previous statement by admitting that superiority is a hell unto itself. You will be alone and you will be frustrated. You will find yourself desiring the simplest pleasures more than any other. But if you are capable of attaining superiority in the first place, then you will have every instrument necessary to rectify your continuing failures, moving forward.

Do not fear the weakness of the flesh, it is there for you to enjoy, just like everything else. The only difference between the superior and inferior force is that one finds its way back to the top after being toppled. So bear in mind that your superiority and practice of spiritual perfection are not some cross you must bear in asceticism. It is a lifestyle like any other, and you should learn to live and enjoy it as much as humanly possible. Because you are only human, after all.

Ideology is a measure of pain being processed and expressed by a mind incapable of any other coping mechanism. The practitioner who has not yet realized that he is grieving a loss, will hopelessly circle the drain until he experiences another dissipation of his boundaries. He will try with all his might to find value in that which is invaluable. Eventually, he will be forced to accept that the loss he was grieving was his own loss of control over the outcome of his own life. That is neither here nor there, in the grand scheme of things. What really matters is that the ideologue learns something, anything, worth caring about. And though he may be insufferable to sit through, at least he will be able to deliver some measure of truth to the audience. In this case, I use the term audience very lightly.