Some days I wake up limp and lifeless
as if just a rag doll, waiting to be tossed around,
waiting to be discarded, because it will be easier
to remain a mildly catatonic pile of atoms, still

I look in the mirror and see vacancy
A bright red light in the dark of night
a sign that no one is home
a sign that I am lifeless

I’m not tired or sad or angry
I am just as I’ve always been
a projected flatline with no trajectory
a neverending plateau, quiet

I don’t know if the quiet makes it worse
or…

I’ve been wondering lately why I came back. I don’t even really know what I want to say anymore because it’s so unimportant in this sea. A sea of sameness, of plagiarized imagination, of unabashed and slovenly self-importance, of misplaced bravado and creativesplaining. Online writing has swallowed writing.

I read books. I know what I am going to get. I can’t read online. I can’t disable a popup or decline another subscription request just to read words. There are no calls-to-action in my books. Actually, check that, in some books, now there are. In a lot of personal growth books…

There’s no getting around it
every year when it comes
that Hallmark reminder of love lost
and how little I have left
after 29 years of aching through this day
without her

I am love lost, motherless
in the face of a world that won’t stop
my emotions cast off in a bottle
and floating back on some random shore
only for someone to open it up
and find no letter
only my lost tears

For all that I miss and all of my loss
I still dream infinitely that it’s false
that one day I will wake up
and it was all…

I am the floating wreckage
of lost words and misplaced hope
and static imagination
that held me captive for too long
while the world turned
and I stood in one place
waiting for a light to shine on me
but what I didn’t realize
is that I was always the darkest
and wouldn’t allow the light in
because I was so broken

No ship spilt me
I was made like this by death
and despair and despondence
and underneath it all
was just a quiet, sad boy
holding his words in
as if they would escape
and run away into the woods
and hide forever and ever
and as…

The time away floats through me
like an hourglass with no glass
a gentle washing of my psyche
to cleanse my own palate
and readjust my perceptions
of what this is all for

Why was I here
and did I pile too much
on top of these shoulders
that the weight made it
harder to write these words
and harder to step away

The time away is an aroma
the kind that brings you home
to inner strength and power
and actualization that this life
is only what we make it
and I needed to make it still

Still, as…

I know it’s going to hurt you,
but I still have to tell you that
I don’t miss anything about you

With all the good — the people,
the stories, the realness —
came all the bad — the hypocrisy,
the codependence, the lust —
and it’s dust brushed off my shoulder now

I don’t know if I will come back
and for me, that’s a good thing
because maybe this was a crutch,
a way to feel good, to feel important,
to feel read, to feel smart,
and the more I told myself it was for me,
maybe it was too much for me,
this mirrored…