“And I told you I had some doubts

Which I thought would make sense, you’ve walked a more rugged path than I ever could

But you explained that my fears are fiction

And although the curiosity is sound, it’s also sterile

I didn’t need you to agree with everything

But I also didn’t need you to discount my description“

So I threw on a hoodie and some baggy jeans that I like, to walk around in 79 degree weather

And I watch as people watch me walk on the anointed steps of a palace.

Walking across a bridge, wondering how far down it is to the grass

Listening to the air because I’m still waiting for a call

Each step adds another crack to the ground; I can’t help but wonder when it’s gonna shatter below me

“Things that are not and things that are

feel very close when you are far away

In this desert, I’d honestly mistake rolling tumbleweed

for an incoming embrace”

I’ve been thinking about people I love, and my memory of them

I have a sticker that I keep in my phone for Cam

And a tie in my closet for Ryker

I don’t see them anymore

But I do

(I was thinking about you again today

Feeling the weight of an avalanche in motion

during a snowless winter)

I’ve been thinking that they are still out there

The way they’ve always been

Holding grudges against their older brothers

And playing their guitar loud enough for neighbors to get mad

Tears real enough to green up a mountain

And songs that continue being sung

Who even does this.

Who appears and says “let’s go watch the sunset”

And drives past a giant yellow star, that turns more yellow when the sun hits it

And curates a spot where everyone around smells like hand sanitizer

And listens to sweet choruses of twinkles underscored by the murmuring of men

It’s romantic

Because as I sit on a bus I wonder if this is all real, or not.

As I relay the things I see and smell and hear I can’t decide if I like this dream I’ve decided to live in

Or should I have continued dreaming from afar-imagining a quiet Halloween in a perfect suburb

Is it possible to live without ever having watched the sunset

After being held captive at the dinner table on stories of china, I escaped to the bathroom to try and remember myself.

I found myself there, with a couple more lines than I’d seen before. And I remembered my lie, and I continued on.

Then when I listened to that song on the car ride home, I was scared because it made me think of you. But I also pray that you have the decency to hear that song and think of me.

I want more me time until I’m in the basement for a night and I want more you time until we’re just laying around.

What I’m saying is that I’m worried because I can’t sit still and I’m worried because I can’t move too fast.

And I’m worried that whatever “because I can’t” is, it’s holding me back

Soon, the cutthroat trout will become more than just a fish in Gods great lake. He feverishly wanders, mindlessly devoted to a journey of naught. And once the fish is deceived, full knowledge is gained by a hook through the eye, and a complete emptiness is received.

Unstained hay lay on a pig untrained. Vita’s pink ears hear divinity cry as loud as an ocean becoming dry. Life is a squish of mud on heavens floor. Life is a glorious foot amputation. Life is a carrot in the midst of celery. Vita is brought out of the sacred Garden, to the musical hanging chains where her blood stains the hay below her.

There is a space where noses become one. Where the quick felt love, like a needle entering a vein, is extended, like a dumbbell dropped into the ocean. My shadowy breath creates worms and dirt and trees, all in the sky. “It’s the Adam and Eve-Ning” you joke as hearts explode and all falls down.

I accidentally arrived 30 minutes early. I haven’t done that before, so now I need to find somewhere to sit where no one can see me, although I’m certain nobody would stop by.

Maybe I could leave, I wouldn’t have to think about showing up 30 minutes early to church, or sitting in uncomfortable seats singing songs that I don’t think are very good.

I’m thinking about sticking my head in a microphone, and enjoying its warmish bite.

I couldn’t do public speaking, I can’t talk long without any feedback. I couldn’t make music, it would either be too fast to sing or too slow to enjoy. I couldn’t be a teacher, I don’t have enough wit or charm to convince someone I am intelligent. When asked what I learned in church today, I’ll tell them I learned what I’m not.

I could leave, be a runaway-from-home kid but I’m fearful it would lead to a dead end, and force me back into that ouroboros spiral

The seats are nice, if a little worn. I filled up on gas yesterday and already used a quarter of a tank which is only really “too bad”. The sun is new enough to warm the ground, and high enough to stay out of my eyes

I stopped at a red next to a women in a white sedan. I thought about how if I was funny, I would do some kind of joke. It would make her laugh. I’d pull my phone out and put it in the world; get millions of views.

I find myself in Chicago, floating, stomach up, an inch above the water. It feels like walking.

Maybe I do quit right now. To leave this ouroboros spiral and mine a hole through what looks like the sky. Instead of admiring the tall brick building like the people out my left window, I’ll find a new glass house where I can plan to call home.

Arriving 30 minutes early

The blue shade right before the bright comes out. I want to live there, in that new emerald blue. To live in a color is to feel a feeling forever. To live in a color is to fade, quick as a heartbeat, once the far moon, is shown full

.

Like the last moments of a dying fire, or the fragment of tired that visits after a full November night. Like the sharp intense pain of a needle entering the vein, and how it is so loud and bright, and gone.

.

I guess I’m feeling grateful that cameras suck. Because the effigy created after that bright flash will never be as stark as the silhouette against my eye. A sea foam sunset could never betray me if she is only around in time to say hello and goodbye.

.

I want to live in the change, with those who will care. Those who listen to the gentle rhythmic drum inside, and decide to orchestrate the noise. For, when we are a victim of the change, I choose to do it again

.

Unfitting marble

Maybe that is why death is so alluring. Not because life is so bad, or because the afterlife could be so great. It’s that middle moment that is so attractive. Past the pain and entertaining the end. Getting pulsed through a line of nothing or something.

I wonder if somebody knows

On that fateful day

If the whole time they feel hazy

Or some other kind of way

.

Because today I feel light

Like I smoked a pound of weed

I wonder if my spirit knows,

Like a warning I just can’t read

.

Because you could never ask

Someone who’s gone

How they felt the day of

If something was wrong

.

Does a brain know

When its going to die

Like it received a message from the universe

And that God whispered, “don’t be shy”

.

Will it happen in my car

If I zone out and miss a bump

Will my head just explode

Because an unattended to lump

.

Is it just paranoia

Sucked deep into my bones

Or is it something else

I wonder if somebody knows

i just can’t get the wiggles out all the way

Deleting all of the sunset pictures off of the phone

Surround sound installed to play sad aspirations

I wonder how long it takes to scroll through 30 posts, and how much longer it would take if we told them they were being timed?

Taking another picture of a sunset

Not seeing it again until the next phone cleaning

I wonder if it’s worth being honest about things I wish weren’t true, maybe if I don’t bring them up they won’t be true.

This thing is supposed make it harder to sleep

My eyes have been really red the last couple of days

But I’ve been going to bed at 10 every night

And can’t sleep unless I’m lookin right here before bed