this secret
sometimes
setback is
i never plan
a poem

this cold
contraction
of autumn days

our diminish
anxiety begets
a sort of scrap
& scramble

number supplies
name demons

we hoard & hide
a winterworth of
what may warm us

heated arguments
hot tears & a forge
full of all our irons
left unstruck

turn tossed
& insomnia's
attenuate fingers
tangle intent
in my intestines

i unwind three
quilts to half-
covered one
leg free finds
& fixates on

each chill still
curling around
these confused
corners of a
chaos bed

earworm

There's a sky full of lights
And none of them stars
But each white, silvery flicker's
A faithful reminder to us
Of a weight that's in youth
That makes a dick of us all
If it happened today
Then it's probably happened before
In a crowd unfamiliar
I just wanna touch a familiar face
And make friends at the parties I've feared
The likes of an age
To be wanted with truth
And make formidable love
See light in myself
That I see inside everyone else I know
It's not a lacking of spine
Nor of physical pulse
It's just a feeling of distance
Akin to a feeling of loss
Of love in the youth
Of my limited life
That passed in a violent
And ritual screwing inside
And the years unfamiliar
Are made of increasingly digital days
And I am grieving the loss of myself
With frightening malaise
When there's weightless in youth
And the sum of it's small
Just stand in the darkness
And laugh with your heel on its throat
'Cause not everything means something, honey
So say the unsayable
Say the most human of things
And if everything is temporary
I will bear the unbearable
Terrible triteness of being
Alone in my house
Frozen in time
But don't get me wrong now, honey
I am trying
There's a warmth in the eyes
And a clearness of thought
When the deepest of sighs
And the frankest of shadows are gone
We're pushing a stone
Up a mountainous waste
And the lines at the store
Look like lines on a beautiful face
See, I'm not so assured
Nor unusually strong
Or outstandingly brave
I'm more just fumbling around in the dark
For the bulk of my day
When there's weight that's in youth
And the sum of it's small
I will stand in the darkness
And laugh with my heel on its throat
And not everything means something, honey
So say the unsayable
Say the most human of things
And if everything is temporary
I will bear the unbearable
Terrible triteness of being
Alone in my house
Frozen away
But don't get me wrong now, honey
I'm okay
Ah, cast me a line
Ah honey, cast me a line
Won't you fear me tonight?
Goddamn, do you fear me tonight?
Ah, pass me a light
Ah honey, pass me a light
Won't you feel me tonight?
Goddamn do you feel me tonight?
'Cause not everything means something, honey
So say the unsayable
Say the most human of things
If everything is temporary
I will bear the unbearable
Terrible triteness of being

a decade's ghost
hangs immediate
before my eyes for
some 4 a.m. reason

pulls memories like
breath from my lungs

my lost familiar
tigerstriped & untame
on some plane

on walkabout forever
he waits for my
mind made up

or he finally mauls
us both in a cage
we might've called home