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K______ E_ H____

(Sung)

This is my song for my lover. She is mine, so divine. I have loved many others, but she makes me feel so alive. Without her, I’m not me, I’m so crazy for we

(spoken)

I could go and rewrite a recycled love song, that 20 people have already thought of.

I could go and try to give you roses on a weekday, go to fancy dinners and guarantee you I’d pay

I could go and tell you that you’re nothing like my exes, just so that we could go have some really great sex but.

You’re worth so much more, and I’m not looking to just score. I know your favorite color is yellow. I know that together, we are pretty mellow. I know your favorite flowers are tulips. Tulips like the two lips that grace the presence right above your chin, girl they got me swoonin’, whirls around your lumin..escent figure. After all, you are my sunshine.

I feel like I need a life alert, like “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” Only this time I don’t want to be helped up, no. I want to be pushed further down. into your.

(sung)

I want you, and you, and nothing but you. Miles and piles of you.

(spoken)

I want you… to invade every fiber of my being, until all I’m seeing is not from a screen rather you, right in front of me and my schemes of getting you to fall into me seems more and more inevitable. It’s pleasurable seeing you smile from ear to ear, it’s infectious, in sections of my heart that I didn’t know were there anymore. They began lighting up like a circuit board…

The funny thing is I wasn’t looking for you. We were friends for years, Roommates for months, and as of now, lovers for weeks. I am enthralled with you. More than I ever have been. And if loving you is wrong, then god damn me, I guess I’ve sinned, but I’ll never confess, as I untie your dress, I come to a realization you are the best… thing that has ever happened to me… I’m hoping you’ll be the last wave to ever crest in my sea, of heartaches/breaks/didn’t have what it takes/had to put on the brakes/you couldn’t wait/could not be great/this isn’t fate, well hey maybe they were right, because every stupid move I created kept us separated just long enough so that we would crash hard and I would be saturated with your soul into my lacerations over years of broken shards of statements.

I could give you a love song. Or I could just give you my love. One is for them. One is for us.

I do. Do you?

I still wonder if it would be okay if I Venmo’d that 63 dollars I owe you from stopping my car from getting towed. At least we enjoyed Wreck It Ralph 2 afterwards, right?

I still wonder if you decided to throw out your bed, rather than give it to me.

I still wonder if it’s okay to give you the Christmas present I made you. I didn’t buy one. It’s a five page letter about me telling you my favorite memories of us together, and exactly what went through my mind during those times. It told you I loved you. It told you I was falling in love with you.

I still wonder if you know that I check my car windshield everyday, to see if you returned the things I gave to you. You know. My garage opener, my sweatshirts, my heart.

I still wonder if you think of me. If you think about the stupid fun nights we had. I still wonder if you remember me puking the first time you took me on a hike. I still wonder if you remember that you said I love you first. I still wonder if you remember that you pushed in to kiss me first. I still wonder if you remember the night where you were half asleep, and we were cuddling. You woke me up just to tell me you loved me. Then you kissed me, and slumped back down to sleep…

I remember. I remember the countless nights waiting up for you to call me, text me, show you were alive. I remember when you started acting weird the night of my roommate’s going away party. You said you were going to come, but then you didn’t. I remember that you were also going to your party for work. I remember how you said you lyfted to your friend’s house and have no idea how you got there. I remember you didn’t say I love you before you hung up. I remember you kept apologizing over every thing. I remember you stopped talking to me. For almost two weeks. I remember you said you would call me Christmas night. I remember you didn’t. I remember a lot of great nights with you.

I know I still love you, even if I shouldn’t. I know you still love me, even if you shouldn’t. I know you still look at all of my social media posts, even though you “are almost never on social media”. I know this isn’t how should treat one of your, “only friends”. I know I would take you back if you asked me. I know a part of me always will belong to you. I know that I said that in my letter. I know I’ll never get over you completely. I know that no matter what, I’d leave every door unlocked if you said you might come over. I know I miss you Katherine. I miss you

I do. Do you?

Depression

Things always get better. I know that. That is one thing I always tell my friends when they’re struggling. “I don’t know when. I don’t know how. I don’t know where, but things will get better”. It’s always a lot easier to say. I sometimes spray it, or pray it. It’s always harder to believe it when you can’t see the end of the tunnel, like everything is a funnel into a black hole swallowing you whole until it’s nullified and your brain feels fried from the inside out. You pout all along, hearing “things will get… better”. What if I feel like I’m better off dead…. You know those days where, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get out of bed. Those are the days I dread. When every wrong thing I’ve said comes ebbing back to my mind, as I sit there petrified, losing track of time, as my body has better identified with a rock, unwilling to move.

Sometimes if I work my body into a groove, I can kick myself up, and I’m able to free myself from depression’s magnet, and I no longer remain stagnant, waiting to die…. That’s a lie… Those thoughts are never confined to the four walls surrounding the humble abode which is mine, it stays within the four walls, ceiling, and floor the encompasses my mind and THAT… is where the devil spies. I’ve tried to kick him sky high but he always floats right back down to behind my eyes where the river of tears to cry, lies. He pries my skull wide, dying to see what’s inside. Flying from neuron to neuron until they’re all fried. Once they are, he no longer wishes to hide, rather, metastasize to every other region in my body he can find. He is a cancer. One that chemo can not rid from me.

They always said the devil was a beauty. Now I can truly see what they mean. They mean he is beautiful in the sense of he is the king of ripping through your saccharine heart until it gleams crimson from the blood that pours out. You may not like these pictures and images, but what do I care if you’re scared of the monster that I’VE had to live with for 21 years. It’s becoming more clear he is splitting me from ear to ear so I want to write it down before he finishes his job. Which is to take my last sob. He wishes to rob me of my life.

But I’ll be damned if I go down without a fight.

Voices

Everyone tells you how things won’t be like this forever. That even when they were at their lowest, things eventually turned around.

Everyone tells you that you are better than what you are feeling right now. That somehow, all this emptiness that plows through you will be pushed aside to usher in your feelings.

Everyone tells you about happy things. Flowers, and dog kisses, your power, and hot mistresses. Things to build you up. Compliments and sunny days to dampen the sonic waves that say that you should hang your limbs from limbs of trees, that’ll snap your neck so you sway in the breeze.

Everyone tells you about the breaking point they hit, where everything came flooding out all at once, and they were able to feel. Able to feel what was real, what’s the deal with this illness that always catches us when we’re at our best.

No one tells you about the nights you lay awake in bed, hoping to sleep, because nightmares feel better than the black hole you feel in your chest.

No one tells you about the times you are able to look everyone you love in their faces, and put on the biggest shit-eating grin, all the while telling them that things are going great knowing DAMN well that you just thought about your body hanging from the trees three paragraphs ago to release these feelings of loathing and hatred you feel towards your self.

No one bothers to mention that everything you say right now even you don’t believe.

Nobody gives a fuck to tell you that while you’re seething in your bed, wishing you were dead, everyone else has in their head that you’re not seeing red or feeling dread, no no no. They decide it’s not important enough to put in their spark notes studied presentation about your brain wanting to literally fuck itself into oblivion.

No one ever said that pain would feel so divine, because at least then you wouldn’t be lying.

You never mentioned that deciding to have sex with anyone who was willing to glance at me was better than not, because though I’d be seen as a fuckboy, or a fuck toy, that only has 7 and a half inches of use in him, and that he would hate himself for giving something he could never take back, at least he felt something more than that dark, dark blackness that would envelop his mind everytime he couldn’t rhyme his feelings away.

No, no one ever told me I would be this way.

Butchu ain’t about to see me give up so easy.

The Traveler And The Wanderer

She was a traveler and so was he

He loved adventure, and she, the sea

He crossed the countries to their shores

She crossed the oceans to many more.

He found his heart in the earth, with the roots

She found hers deep in the ocean flumes

He, with the earth worms, and she with the fish

Soon, he became the bait for all her heart’s whims.

He gave up his life on solid ground, to follow her with endless bounds

Soaring far from the place he called home, he found his love outside the zones

of his comfortable dirt and comfortable trees away from twittering birds and flitting bees.

He fell further in love than ever before

Unfortunately she couldn’t love anymore

She became obsessed with ebbs and with flows

Came closer to the edge as they came in droves.

He noticed her love drain from him into the sea foam

Still, he refused to let her be home

He was alone, and she was not

He then came to one final thought

He’d become one with the ocean’s waves

Hoping she’d notice, and their love would be saved.

He was right, she did, and fell in love again.

They sunk to the bottom. Now that’s where they live.

Jealousy

The sun

The rain

The blue sky above.

The flowers you pick

The things you love

I want to be them

For they are they are things that see you

They want to be you

I want to believe

That I can see

You again.

I see it all but can’t touch

For it isn’t me that you want

I see it all, clearer than day

But you’d never give the time to say

To say

Hey.

This jealousy is beating

And eating away at me

Until

There’s

Nothing

Left

Triumph

I’m afraid… Of clowns. I mean look at those weird lookin’ fuckers. Why are you crying? Why are you smiling? Why the fuck are you angry? I’m afraid of a lot of things actually. Spiders, ants, snakes, rejection, being in a relationship, being single, my dad, my dad is a pretty scary person, sometimes when he got drunk he beat me. But don’t worry! Because he apologized in the morning! And I was always told apologies are only valuable if felt and I mean I could feel it deep down. Maybe it was just the aches my body cried out to me from the night before.

When I was younger, I wasn’t afraid. Because I mean if I was afraid that would somehow in my father’s eyes make me look weak and he would beat me and I remember overhearing several conversations he had with his hick motherfuckin sorry excuse of friends about how they only beat up faggots. I didn’t want to be a faggot and disappoint my dad because damn man, he is who I’m supposed to aspire to be when I’m older and I dealt with this from the time I was able to utter my first word and it’ll continue to haunt me until I speak. My. Last.

I wish someone had seen the signs and said “I’m here for you” but no one ever did so when I was seven I decided that I finally had had enough, I told my dad that he wasn’t a man. I don’t think I even finished the sentence before a beer bottle swung to connect with my pale, young face. That beer bottle broke and left a scar right here. He then stood over me and continued to beat me until I was sure I was going to die. But I said NO. Why?

It’s true, he broke me down but that didn’t mean I was broken. I couldn’t let him win this time. I picked my shattered teeth and broken bones off the ground though he continued his assault across my back and said YOU DONT CONTROL ME ANYMORE. I spent three days in intensive care. I can’t remember much. Only two things.

Playing Donkey Kong on an old Nintendo 64 that a doctor brought in

and

2. My mom saying she would never let this happen again.

I haven’t seen my father in six years but he’s always going to be behind me. But that’s where he belongs. Behind me, in my past. He made me one thing I’m proud of today. A survivor. He showed me just how strong I can be.

I wish I had more to say but really these same four words flash in my mind. I’m here for you. Every single one of you.

Not To Be Blunt

Not to be blunt… But if you only think about yourself, you’re a fuckin asshole. I mean how self absorbent can you be? Last time I checked Homo Sapiens are in no way related to a sponge or a fucking tampon. When your head is out of your ass, make sure you come and talk to your friend who is waiting.
Me, I’m your friend, not your reflection.

Not to be blunt… But I’m pretty sure as a father, abandoning your three year old kid with a mother that has to work four jobs to make ends meet is not a good idea. I mean yeah, his brother is four years older but think about it, a three year old kid, near white walls, and crayons? It’s practically an empty canvas for Claude Monet or Andy Warhol. The mom comes home and tries to scold the kids but in those deep brown pits in her head where a vibrant soul should be yet is only met with a cold, dead glare is not very convincing. And let me say, a troublesome kid being raised in the south side of Chicago is a recipe for “fun”

Not to be blunt… But when a bullet whizzed past the head of a fourteen year old gang banger it pissed him off, not scare him. CRACK CRACK CRACK. Shots ring out but you only feel the rush of a punk ass motherfucker dropping dead because your homie putting a bullet in his head. That same gang banger is the one who held his friend in his arms while he bled out on the alleys of downtown Chi-Raq. A funny name for a beautiful city. Makes you think doesn’t it. That bullet that your friend took? It was meant for you.

Not to be blunt… But when life becomes so meaningless, sometimes it feels better to get the shit beat out of you, because then at least you’ll feel something. You’ll fuck because it feels good, you’ll fight because it feels good, you’ll smoke and drink and shoot up and pop pop pop drugs because it feeeeeeellls good. But when’s the last time you wanted to feel good because it felt good? When’s the last time you told your mom you loved her? When’s the last time you loved? Lived? Learned what it was to be human? When? What happened to that little boy who cried because he couldn’t have his mommy at school, or ran to the ice cream truck, or jumped on the trampoline with his brother or colored on those walls in your duplex because GOD DAMNIT I WANT THAT KID BACK.

Not to be blunt… But I’m blunt, because that’s all the world has ever been to me.

Sunday, November 20th, 2016: A Memoir

This poem does not have a happy ending. I could rhyme a million ways to describe how I felt. I could be poetic to describe to you that my heart is leaving, it is shrinking, pulling a reverse grinch and growing smaller. I know things will get better but damn it’s not happening now so it’s time to write, to listen, and go speak with conviction. I could use flowery language that’ll never live up to Shakespeare as if these emotions I have just suddenly appeared but they didn’t, they were dormant waiting for a catalyst to come along and shake them up to the surface. I feel broken. I feel hurt. I feel deserted, lost, empty. I feel hopeless, like this dark tunnel that I’m in will never be flooded with light. Maybe if I burn my own skin it’ll illuminate it a bit but that way will only allow self destruction to seep in. Maybe I could build a bomb and blow this tunnel to smithereens but the only thing that will be affected is me… When I don’t want to be bothered I’ll let my phone die.. sometimes I envy it.

I could tell you these tears are fake, and just for show. Or I could be honest and say they’re real from sadness which is the only emotion left in my soul. I was happy.. I was proud of the man I’d become but how can I look at myself in the mirror now? I look down, my knuckles turning white from rage I look further past and see I’m pushing 120 on the freeway while it rains. I brake. Then I break. This is not the life I had intended for myself, propped up on a shelf, thinking about how I’m everyone’s self help rather than helping myself. My belt, sturdy like my bones… this is what will be remembered as my throne. Now this noose, not as loose around my neck, did I tell my family I loved them today… check. I know I will leave this world in shock, one last thought as my descent makes the chair rock… side to side my body swings… this is all that’s left of me.

I told you this poem didn’t have a happy ending, so why are you so surprised?

At least when they find me they won’t have to open my eyes.

K_______E

she had blue eyes, like glaciers, and he was the titanic. Heart like a lion. smile, big as

Kalamazoo

everyone else saw it, but nobody else knew. taken for granted, and so was her heart

And

Soon, after time. She began to believe, Love wasn’t kind. All things in life weren’t fine

Though

the boy was, and tried to love her so, he tried to convince, all the world wasn’t woe. his

Heart

was too big, and swallowed him whole. he gave her a piece of it, hoping that she’d hold

Earnestly

proving that he would relay, every nice and beautiful thing about her to this very day

Rectifying

his thoughts, on a judgmental notepad, he began to see, why life could seem so, so bad

Increasingly

though, he hid behind his mask. the one that made her smile, without a second glance

Never

would he tell her, the struggles that he’s faced. Happiness cost so much more than grace

Enough

cried the boy, begging for a break. knowing, like atlas, on his shoulders was all the weight. He screamed out of pain, yet held it all nonetheless. Then came her, holding the piece of his heart with a gentle caress.