got deep grit

let's face the fact that
life's got grit
let's embrace it-
recite religiously the verbs
in fact words
that grate against the inner side

in our art we will make it
the loose/split/tangled ends
cannot make amends
even some suggest incompressibility
does not beg our mental agility

write it in your nakedness,
claim it in your crooked stride
goosebumped back skin knows it well
innocence coexist with guilt.

we look preoccupied, but
we live deep.

guilty love

a blackest period at the end of the sentence
"i'm dead."

what little etching awares in the microcosm
a twitch glancing the threshold of perception

a horror repeats indefinitely
what dances to the beat of poor fidelity
in the wheezing evidences a struggle without purpose
fighting, twisting
nothing

i writhe and die in my life
innocence was a haunting echo, abstract

existing to call what out
wind of change sweep over me
 

headache

check on me
silent in my room,
i'm just checking
equations but i heard
gödel questions proofs
cataclysmic death of math

a long headache in other
than my skull has done this to me
slowly so to
sneak

but check who
i am to assure all
is not lost. toss my life
when it doesn't move
when it rejoices not
when circular logical epiphanies
break.
break.

     doctor don't shine
     the light in my eyes
     it's too bright i'll
     be blinded but you
     give me pills practical
     and useless

verify, inquire of me
to observe that i am not swallowed
by an implicit suicide.
 

imagine him

shiny underwater burst leading into a complex dwelling
this is our lives under lights i've constructed
grey feather liquid ascending, you're in the back:
L-shaped in lone concrete corners

an if hangs on my tongue
it's on your mind to resign this stuff
but a spirit has spoken, a mind is broken
still, love this brother far-off
see him as child of father above

corners and angles swallow him in,
clocks are breaking and faking it
he's got not much time to chase
what he feels
is sublime
but he rests

i ask what is a true tear, what
embodies a shed fear, what it means
to let by love and to give what he gets

bus girl

the moment is still and screeching
are the strings behind the curtains quietly
reminding us of our strain

an attempt at love lateral.
across the isle i send my attention
like paper airplanes of mid-period trouble-makers
they make their smiles inside and i hide my eyes

hood 'round head, i know i'm dead from today
i've been staring straight for the sake of no attention got and
no attention wanted
the last whisper was given, known
that unknowns were overgrown...

in a second i forget how naked i am,
and the glass knows how to remind
sorely and surely with its grin negative

it's time to get off now
and i make a quick decision that i'll go first
i hobble and am not myself around you
you are a large heavy question mark
for the sake of latin characters
for the sake of my story.

stand up and walk home, i did
recite poems of being stretched long
sweet songs of detachment are vibrant
in the cramped acoustics of my car
and are swiftly absent from your ears;
oblivious to the shadows with which i rear.
 

my room

i engineer in the company of absence
as rain tatters on the window
the red lamp bulb a loud, bright beacon,
static in a dim room.

itchy green curves flicker on-screen.
late nights are spent under shadowy epiphany,
calculating cutoff corners and feeling sorry:
for myself.

estranged off off and focused
voltage laws keep me away from
subjectivity, taught like a line
to stay straight in analysis.

but it is creeping between the blinds
it: the ominous upwelling,
teetering like a giant robot struck for scrap
i hear the mechanical grunt and whine
as all systems fail with siren silence.

i've learned a lot about distractions
in my time spent fighting them
but this grabs a hold of my mind;
resolution takes last priority
when this fog envelops.
 

sore bored

this is not the beginning.
i am a bundle of aspirations and rocket launches
but my poise is poor and my gestures
make me sore.
long explanation has beaten my core

when you're not allowed to explain
you refrain (to their song) and remain detained
but i've hit that mark five-thousand times
and still never found accord in it,
never rejoiced in the upwelling of waves
my eternity is limited by what i gotta do,
for you big ugly church,
go sit outside my window.

spy on me and conclude like you do
you bunch of not-doers and so-constrained
you are gold-chained ascetics,
you are sugar on aspartame
you bring out the loudest proud
and i'm wondering about the circle of your scope
and your distortion of the lens

i'm not ready to hear your interpretation
of these shards of ideas,
you wander pondering in the after-feilds of your war
picking up the glass, finding it fit for specimen,
for evidence of how we ought to dress.

me slob as i mob you. i'm
ugly as you, i've been beaten to the truth
i got no sleuth.

i got none of it in my accusatives
i've got a small sense and a narrow pane
a fast brain and a slow tension

fully messing an incomplete mess

dear bright wide blue,
i'm catching your dreams
we are building screams of joy, together
one in one

she'd cut me real deep
when it was spoken about the sleep,
'bout the way she became alone
implies she was once known known owned
oh.

oh, our poets are scraping into their souls
trying to get these nightmares out
trying trying to figure out
as limbs flail, to scale the wall of our own blindness
i'm crying for the bleeding fingernails
and the way the skin fails

i was yelling alone there,
"and we're moving all this air,
but does anybody care?"
no one heard me and i was scared
that i had dared to stare myself in the face

but bright blue freshly permeable sky
i'm diving into you, true.

relent

i want to stay awake
to catch this dream believe
to resign would decline

a screeching inner wake
crashes on the shores for the sake
of the sky, sacrifice and scar,
erode, winter comes to freeze beach

breeched the vault
i'll admit, something is spoken
unexcitable, un-chlorine

i'm thinking thick that
i think too hard
i'm sighing too far yet
i can't reach

i i i i i i want to stop saying

lose the pace
lose me
lose me
lose me

a cataclysmic something
will break the backs of ordinary words
building epiphany i seek
and shake shame sincerity
nervously

if a switch flips out
there never i'll care
for the facts of figures
running amid seattle street
with faces detailed, grey smoke inhaled
i'm shaking my possession at the aggression

i'm digging fingernails into round rib cage
hold head high, not to whiff the cold
that envelops extremities like
the way i'd want to surround you

a relentless attempt precedes

story

bad broken father lends
growing boy behalf

all ends eccentricity forward
leaves are falling with him noticing

far far far away away
i miss you my friend

     "if i died would
     you cry if i
     cried would
     you die" perpetually

hey tell it. like it is
reflecting little lines
get in the way of mymymy
moments

heavy arms outstre
tched still not hi
gh enough are labo
ring down i'm stuc
k

i'm lrkgh
-ed

before train edges off
into two months or whatever
this is a really big
hiccup

ode to disconnection

pace to
be lost
apologia lost
in the strife of
the moment blur-
   racing   finding
   catching   sliding
to meet
these words, to catch
the fragility
thrown discouragement is
ringing shattering
pang pang heart pang

i spoke up,
i was speaking
up under the
cacophany "you're
hurting me" stop
oh
as you these fragile
bones weeping
mad fuming
sad disproportionate
words flung at
at at at at

self-pity of a long note.

take caution as
i collect i
gather the shards and
contemplate their edges
"can cut skin?"
if if if
i can

clean   this   mess   up   without
leaking red that runs in
slow-motion aftermath i
question question longly
my own questioning
sudden sticking spears
back before my breast to mirror
the lines and lies
that have impaled
me in

oh, oh
   oh dear
      how the tears
        ache
to fall

 p.s.

wide stared slightly
incoincident to face as
bombs bombed into my
ears does this
lead to relentless self-
   i can't put it up

the space

what you expected of me
was not rigorous for your favor
but in reflecting your quantities
gradation adjusted
to suit a familiar situation

woes of the past converge outlasting dreams
i am faced to say anything that comes out silent
the history of affection skews our contentment

as normal days pass and i am preoccupied with
fleeting purposes, reminding myself of "everlasting"
there are guesses of new quantities for your imposition
the whiff of change; smirking to be parallel

in acquired weakness you inquire
and don't know what
but flashing eyes and voice tones come
amid your familiar aura.
in found ability i asserted a clumsy denial
a chime within pangs for your knowledge; not of books
knowing to blot out these plagues of lies.
upon your request,
have i never performed in malice?

post script

graced with an old composure
we sit and talk and read
the lines of our smiles
hoping nothing could be
shorter than our greeting
and grieving of the flow
how expectation passes on

visionary

reactionary visionary.
cozy in the molds of your proposition (propoganda)

flash and hide in implicit pride
catch the side of my eye

and in sorrow i yearn all feelings at once
i understand that you counter what's inside
vividly with colors and patterns

you misplace the value of personhood
and encourage the disaster of this world

oh and your edification is a joke
how it robs and defeats and stifles.

girl with new hair every day
completely modern in the worst way.
buy into heart-sleeve wearing
and i'll be forced to look away.

actual finity

ultra-modern and it's-all-the-same espousing
you mistake the framework for the constituents of the picture.

how can i say
when will the day pass

(bam bam)
(bam bam)

sarcastic art-tastic lovers
try to find the lines of the sky
hoping they can pass them by

if i could speak it would be an adventure.

(bam bam)
bam.

i could encroach
slightly to the verge of disproportion
and thunder above will shriek to find the path to ground
to meet you in the only single place you're found 

forgetful resolution amid sleep

when the past is daunting
when it hurts to remember
when longing is all that remains

it is not the only way.

a past of mistakes and mysteries
full of failed plans and fallacies
burning questions and apathetic defeat
jealousy and the pain of ignoring
the pains of forced-unweildiness
shame and carelessness

may i be clear;
i don't care about success.
just give me joy amid failure
because failure will be with my all of my days
but your triumph is most obvious in my peril
you are greatest in my neediness.

may i forget the wounds and bitterness, buried silent in my heart
may you lull me to sleep when bombs are falling
to wake me up to a crucified self
and wings with which
i fly.

this is the paradox all will be jealous for

first draft of a story i'm writing:

the arrangement of things prior

skateboarding can teach you a lot about life. it teaches patience, determination, and courage. it can also be one of the most frustrating and hopeless things in the world, if you let it. but i think that if anyone keeps at it, they can learn to enjoy it no matter what.

the skatepark was a five-minute walk away. i was one of the regulars. i wasn't the most impressive or graceful skater, but I was friends with almost everyone.

the skatepark was often the site of many community gatherings because it was right next to the park. sometimes bands would play in the gazebo. companies would have their picnics in the park.

that weekend was a contest. a bunch of lesser-known pros were going to be in it. i decided to go because my friend kyle was competing.

when i got there, nobody was skating, but a man was standing on the pyramid with a microphone, speaking to the crowd. he was talking about jesus. it made me a little uncomfortable and it just seemed weird to me. but i stayed anywat to watch the contest afterward. i started doing stationary tricks in the grass while he talked.

he said, "every one of us is primarily a spiritual being. we need to be aware of this fact, because spiritual life is more important than physical life." when he said that, i got off my board and just watched him.

he talked for a while longer, and at the end he prayed to God and asked others to pray along with him if they believed in Jesus. i didn't know what to do. i didn't do anything.

the contest was next, but i wasn't interested anymore. i went home and couldn't get my mind off of the man.

the next day i woke up and went to school. at my locker, my best friend came up to me. she asked how the contest went.

"i don't know, i didn't see it."

she looked surprised, then suspicious. "do you think i'm stupid or something?"

"no, really, i went home before the contest even started. a guy was talking about religion and it just made everything else seem not that important."

"what was he saying?" she asked.

"he said a lot of stuff i didn't understand, but one thing i remember is that he said we're all spiritual beings above all else, and that spiritual life is more valuable than physical life."

"wow, that's weird." i nodded.

past faults

name i betray
skeptic shoot it down

name.

name.

the conscience i would betray
blame
all the same
once and for all
spikes through
a history unlived

not mine.
i disown this title my title
shove it off to truth
point to love? make haste!
would it not appear another spike
another nail in the wrist
another flame at the stake
another sword to swear
or a forked tongue

name.

oh how misled
to twist and churn against
inwardly
grinding selves do be done.

name.

we locate it all back again
we wear the masks and aprons backwards
and we cook poison and stretch to conquer
but oh what we've forgotten
that he so tearfully remembers
oh the heaviness of hand, so
grotesque of his gentle yoke