Shh

Salacious slandering slithering stupidity?
Sanction-less sundry sandstorm,
Shivering sullenly, suddenly,
Shirking synthesis solemnly,
Simplicity shuttered,
Shuddering sorrow's sickliness,
Seeking sublime sinfulness,

Starstruck sumptuousness scathes,
Shivering skins seismically shift, slide,
Sheet slice scars,
Seared sights,
Slim sounds slip,
Shy stuttering speeches,
Sigh...

Soothing sing-song static,
Surreptitious sleeplessness.

Withdrawal

I’m dizzy with psychotropic truancy

Truth be told, these eyes can hardly focus on this screen

Jittery, jitterbugging

But calmer than usual for walking on wavy grounds aside

CLickkkk

IRRITABILITY INVASION

That clerk did nothing wrong

Not everyone moves at the speed of light

 I’m trying to listen, but I’m planning the next five years in five different ways in my head

Plans plan planning plans

CliCkkkkkk

Shiny white nail polish

Twenty-five cents or a dollar only in the circles at the top

I shouldn’t ask to fix your messy braid

ClickkKk

Now I want the eggplant with cheese and those giant sunglasses

Now I want to string dangling rubber ducks from the ceiling and throw multicolored glitter everywhere

Now I want to paste eyeballs cut from magazines all over the walls and dip my feet into Fanta

Let’s listen to the same song seven times in a row

Let’s try and sing along with a mouth full of pop rocks

Let’s draw watches on our wrists and pretend time works for us

3/25

I'll make it rain on your Macy's greed parade,
Label-made label hungry crowds fade when confronted with under-regulated trade,
So perpetuate the hungry child slave,
That...
Can't bite the hand of those that don't feed,
But that new logo tee isn't worth the fee,
Of your "freedom isn't free" bullshit decrees,
Requiring a moral competency,
Greater than your GED equivalency of a college degree,
Indoctrinated teachings,
Reactionary,
Void of compassion,
But not filigree,
Monopoly diamond,
Sky-high dreams,
Never enough reluctancy,
To shed light on shallow priority,
To pass the buck and protect the wealthy...
"Eventually it'll trickle to me?"
Well,
You've been tricked.

3/24

My thought tree behaves like a migratory fresh water salmon.
My memories are the stream,
And you are the still winter sea to which I perpetually arrive.
I await the day a hungry black bear rips it all away before I can complete the journey.

Like Dissolves Like

Lost and found in the translation of your body language,

Within you is eternal sunshine and darkness alike, on both of which I thrive,

And coming together truly defines the way two substances inter-chemically combine,

Like dissolves like.

3/21

Cramp in my foot and the combination headlock code is lost and turned over to foothold thorns in my heel side,
Where stints in my arteries become a preventative measure against heart rate, heart-race homicide homework-memorized into lipid bi-layer membranes,
Where memories have been lost to the eye-on the clock time consuming,
Consumption of channels, limiting passage and potentiation of transmission realized,
A realization of an impracticality's impractical design,
Lacking the capacity to be practical or stable and limiting capacitance causes levels to fluctuate,
Fluctuation focusing from light to dark sides of sculptures mimicking different Dionysian mimes,
A compulsive creativity driven by Lamborghini horsepower dreams,
Compelling an inconsistent dramatization and creation,
Scattered prism waves of concentration and long overnight drives with impala impulses to leave dirty tracks behind,
Rubber residues on roads more or less traveled aside,
Blowing by the temporary tunnel vision winds whipping back the mustang's mane of the mind, that's always down for a reverberating ride,
Bearing too much pride to care for the hell-fire heat exhaled from the grim reaper's last cigarette in a dead world's death valley,
Full of fear's cremation of progression's ashes.

But a true progressive is not afraid to trod along and beat it,
Because they know even if you have to eat it, you can always brush your teeth.

Huh

I’ve been gone for a few days,

Or maybe the past nine years;

Maybe I’ve never been anything concrete at all.

How do we define ourselves?

By what we love?

By who we love?

By what we do?

What papers say about us?

Who we are and are not related to?

How do you define love?

I think love at its essence is a strong positive force that draws you towards continued interaction.

How do you define happiness?

I think I know what happiness is like…

When I think I’m making the right choices to further my goals,

Or when I feel like I’m exactly where I should be,

Or around people that I feel most or even more like myself with,

Or moments of pure ecstasy.

How do we become how we are?

I know it starts with a lot of outside influence as a kid, but at what point (if ever) does it become my responsibility at my own volition?

How would I know what changes to make for the better when I’m not sure what better would be?

Maybe the only thing that’s concrete is the abysmal cinder block of questions tied to my feet.

Interconnected

Interconnected like axon-on-dendrite,

Neural network webs interweaved,

With chemical messenger bees of the hive mind field of electrical impulses.

Interactions impermanent,

Permanently selective pre-programmed permeability,

Or,

Long or short-term plasticity,

Conditionally activated receiving can even repress other signals in entirety,

Entirely altering a sense’s sensibility.

Did you know that every receptor for smell is unique?

And that there’s also one for everyone you meet?

So everyone holds the potential to hijack that sensual plane of your existence hormonally

And hormones are actually the most powerful molecules, a physiological skeleton key,

Opening the floodgate doors to a Pandora’s Box,

Causing a largely unmediated emotional response.

We can hardly fathom the degree to which together we are ensconced.

Interconnected like axon-on-dendrite,

Each of us a thread in humanity’s cloth interwoven,

With no way of knowing how we are folded or when we will fray. 

3/12

Watching the sunset,

Reminds my heart that it’s real.

Every beat,

Is one less repeat,

That I’ll get to live.

Each point in time,

Is as here as here gets. 

Stop waiting to really exist;

Here is now and now is all that is left.

3/11:Edited an older one

You carved out a sphere of influence right at my central belief in nothing.

The visceral nervous nerve strings left behind are knotted rubber bands and thinking about you causes them to stretch and snap me back to a reality that you no longer inhabit, even peripherally.

I’ve never been so conflicted and confounded, so close to abandoning the lone lighthouse post I never thought I could yearn to leave;

You are the Hulk Hogan to a cotton veil of will power that I pretend hides my intentions.

I think that if I douse them in alcohol the smell might scathe the directing scent the hound of my intuition follows.

Though the rocking ship rum burns in my empty stomach, it can hardly overshadow the hunger pain with your name on it.

Withdrawal is worse than the bender and you are no exception.

3/9

1) I wrote my name at the top,                                    2) I wrote my name at the top,
    Left the rest blank,                                                       Bullshitted every question,
    Waited ninety minutes,                                                Unrelenting for ninety minutes,
    Handed it in.                                                                 Handed it in.
    I'll take the zero,                                                           I'll take what I can get, though,
    I deserve the zero,                                                        I deserve nothing,
    I am a zero.                                                                   I am nothing.

3/8

My guardian angel was eating a breakfast sandwich in the beach parking lot.
He wore dark sunglasses.
I sat on the hood of my car with my knees to my chest and stuck my tongue out at him.
After staring into the bright sunrise light for sometime, I pulled away and his red jeep only followed me to the next intersection.

I ended up home.
Shared a cold shower with a half-dead spider cricket that crawled out of the drain,
Listening to Radiohead,
Making audible gasps of shivering discomfort.
I had to use a flannel shirt as a towel because I forgot to reset the drier yesterday.

I was still tipsy, topsy, turvy.
Spread the flannel out on the floor and laid down, spread eagle,
Stared at the ceiling titty's unprecedented halo glow.
My naked ass was perturbed by the tile temperature so I jolted my knees to my chest and kicked my legs in the air to imitate the spider cricket.
More violently thrashed,
Got on my knees.
Shoved my face into my hands and dragged the skin down around my eyes, bugged out eyes,
Groan.
Lonely Boy upbeat dance party while I brushed my teeth and swayed.

Burping hurt,
I thought I gave myself an ulcer.
I ate twenty antacids and salted white rice out of cardboard and Polish black tea.
Told my boss I was coming in late,
I got there and he told me to go home.

Jameson

Reach for your cold beach glass green translucency,
To see through calmer eyes, ride smoother tides,
That don't bother waiting for moon landing lies...

Don't you know every hour can be a happy hour;
When your watch conveniently dies and you're always set at a quarter to five,
It's easy to turn that dour frown upside down,
To a cosine smile when you flip the sign around,
From anonymous to at least,
I'm honest-with-myself-autonomous,
On the contrary to your desert drought ideology,
My psychology has always led me to get more than my feet wet,
So go ahead and place that bet to set me up against your better judgement.
Coming from a house of worship built of cards and on coins,
Preaching your path is the only end of a lonely road,
But no road is one way at its essence.
And even though I look both ways before I take a swig,
I know it is I who judges myself primarily.

Weed it Out

The seeds of doubt were planted with fertilizer.

Little green yellow-bellied leaves sprout dendritic branches with connections overgrown,

Roots so deep concrete can’t  hold its own,

If only I could reject what is sown, reject what is sown.

Clasped hands over obsessive compulsive ritual lands,

Circle dance circuits wound up,

Like a perpetual motion music box only needs one trigger to go ballistic.

Pesticides can’t place this pestilence aside,

Resistance to sense and sensibility genetically modified,

Subsidized by past seasons gone awry,

Evolving to better withstand sanity’s drought.

Mother

I'm willing to hope for the best, but accept the worst,
Though I won't let you look in either direction.
I'll cook you dinner, make your bed, and offer any affection,
Just stay in the present.

I remember the kids in the halls being wary of where the tiles met;
If you stepped on a crack you'd break your mother's back they said,
But now, if filling all the cracks would put you back together,
I'd pave the roads day in and day out.

I know one day your time will come like any other.
You gave me life and for that I am forever grateful,
I only wish that I could return the favor.
May the light at the end of the tunnel,
Be the first light you see through new eyes.
I love you, my mother.

Insomnia

Tossing and turning,
The sandman lost my address,
Please use GPS,

One Man's Urinal is Another Man's Altar

FADE IN:

INT. BAR RESTROOM- 1 A.M.

Two men enter the unforgiving, harshly fluorescent lit restroom shortly after one another through chestnut-wood saloon-style doors. One of the bulbs is slightly flickering. The porcelain wall tiles are dingy white and those closer to the ground have gathered calcium sediment. There are only three urinals and the toilet is occupied. It is close quarters. 

NOT-SO-BRO, early-30s, clean-cut, short, slicked back, black hair, wearing black Docker's slacks and an almost-black-blue button up shirt. He has pale skin and a naturally lean build with a slowly growing paunch. Left the office late, lives nearby.

PREACHR-BRO, late-20s, donning a medium-brown man bun, a red tank top, and ripped jeans. He has a mandala tattoo on one shoulder and some tribal work from his back peeking out onto the other. His skin is lightly bronzed and his muscles are huge. Has been partying with a cluster of bros for a few hours.

NOT-SO-BRO'S POV

He hears the other man unzip next to him and is tensely trying to avoid eye contact.
Peripherally, he can see the man's unorthodox scanning:

                                                                PREACHR-BRO

                                                    Have you felt the Zen, bro?

                                                                NOT-SO-BRO

                                                                (clears throat) 
                                                     No...uh...I'm not really into that sort of thing.
                                                      

                                                              

                                                               PREACHR-BRO

                                                    No?
                                                    Lighten up and let the light in,
                                                    You're way too stiff, it's just not right, bro
                                                    I used to be troubled just like you bro; here's the secret:

                                                    Well ya gotta lift from like nine to ten, bro,

                                                    Drink lots of beer with lots of men, bro,

                                                    Lay the cock with many a hen, bro,

                                                    Yeah… uh… just repeat steps one through three forever 
                                                    and again, bro.

                                                               NOT-SO-BRO

                                                   

                                                            (His eyes shift awkward and confusedly)
                                                    Uh...okay...thanks... 

                                                    
PREACHR-BRO zips up and as he heads towards the doors he looks back at NOT-SO-BRO:

                                                               PREACHR-BRO
                                                     
                                                     Yo, have a beer on us and I'll show you the way,
                                                     Catch ya on the flip side bro!
                                                     (eyes wide, he playfully sticks his tongue out and quickly                                                                     flicks his hand in the "hang-loose"sign)

                                                               NOT-SO-BRO

                                                               (sheepishly off-put)
                                                      Aren’t you...uh...going to wash your hands, BRO?

                                                               PREACHR-BRO

                                                             (smiling nonchalantly)

                                                     Oh…yeah…amen to that bro! 

NOT-SO-BRO finishes as PREACHR-BRO washes his hands. He lingers, waiting for         PREACHR-BRO to leave:

PREACHR-BRO exits.

NOT-SO-BRO walks up to the sink, also white porcelain and stained with rust near the drain. He places both hands upon it and leans forward to the point at which there is only a few inches between his face and the mirror. He sees his green eyes, the same ones that his mother always said were his best feature, but now had rings left behind where the planet sized stressful days had continuously orbited. He sees that his bushy eye brows (once joked about being more of a forest than a bush given all of the stragglers) are becoming littered with silver, overgrown like the ones he remembered touching on his grandfather's face when he sat on his lap. He sees the light creases in his slightly rounder cheeks from times he used to smile more or maybe had more to smile about. Overcome by this sudden vulnerability, he blinks a few times and shakes his head to shake out the realization that maybe he could benefit from a few changes. But the feeling lingers. He washes his hands even more thoroughly than usual and splashes water on his face. For the brief moment he is drying off, he considers that maybe letting the light in lightens the load without lightening the load: maybe he could make more time for the gym and get some chicks and even maybe work less and live more.

NOT-SO-BRO exits.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:

INT. BAR-MAIN ROOM- 1:10 A.M.


The bar is dim, but not dark; the old ceiling fixtures lend an orange haze to the intoxicated shifting shapes. It's comfortably populated, leaving enough space to get a drink at the bar without grazing a shoulder, but dense enough to fill the gaps between those experiencing a solitude that would otherwise be solitary.

PREACHR-BRO is having a vivacious conversation with the other bros at a table just off of the bar counter; his hands and half smile are gesturing something vaguely sexual and the companions are laughing along in affirmation.


NOT-SO-BRO enters.

NOT-SO-BRO leans on the wall adjacent to the restroom. It gives him a fair vantage point of the crowd. He scans the crowd for PREACHR-BRO and begins to approach the group. At the instance he hears the muffled amalgamation of their laughter, his eyes point down once again, making every effort to avoid eye contact. As he shuffles past their table, he shoves his hands in his pants pockets. His left hand searches for a five dollar bill while the right clasps all of the loose fabric it can gather. Head down, he leaves the five on the counter.

NOT-SO-BRO exits.

FADE OUT.

End scene.