Tattoos & Memories
by thinking about the tattoos
I am going to get when this is all over
is a way for me to believe
I am going to beat this.
dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial,
compressing epic extremes of humor and anguish, promise and loss,
all between the four walls of an American living room,
and four parts of a human heart.
By remembering memories
that have not happened yet
is the way for me to see
the future with me in it.
what choice do I have?
when you ride all night
on the new jersey turnpike
slicing your soul
on a wet knife,
you're bound to bleed
and leave a shadow river
in your concrete wake.
Perhaps there's a gift
in the gait of your horse,
or a curse tucked tight
in your purse—
but if you can face
the unbroken horizon
without a tremble or quake,
are you truly existing?
in the gait of your horse,
or a curse tucked tight
in your purse—
but if you can face
the unbroken horizon
without a tremble or quake,
are you truly existing?
my veins negotiate
with the mirror
and I have no say
in the matter
if I see tomorrow
without blaming my mind
on time.
Reading Existentialist Philosophy While Getting Chemotherapy
The nurse checks my pulse, a beat to affirm,
While Camus whispers in the machine.
Existence and essence wrestle inside,
But here in the hum, the hum of the fight.
Rolling his boulder, caught in the trap,
The IV drips its steady beat.
Nausea swirls in an iron fist,
Sisyphus smiles from the book in my lap.
Kierkegaard lingers, faith on his tongue,
Others wrapped in their own despair.
Revolt is freedom, the pages insist,
As chemo courses, a turbulent tide.
The nurse checks my pulse, a beat to affirm,
That I’m still here in life’s twisty term.
The absurd’s quiet light flickers near,
But still I persist—absurdly, I’m here.
While Camus whispers in the machine.
Existence and essence wrestle inside,
But here in the hum, the hum of the fight.
Rolling his boulder, caught in the trap,
The IV drips its steady beat.
Nausea swirls in an iron fist,
Sisyphus smiles from the book in my lap.
Kierkegaard lingers, faith on his tongue,
Others wrapped in their own despair.
Revolt is freedom, the pages insist,
As chemo courses, a turbulent tide.
The nurse checks my pulse, a beat to affirm,
That I’m still here in life’s twisty term.
The absurd’s quiet light flickers near,
But still I persist—absurdly, I’m here.
You Don’t Love Yourself Enough
Each new day. Each new year.
Offers the same opportunities.
We so easily defer or delay.
“You don’t love yourself enough,” he said.
“Or you’d love your nature, too,
and what it demands of you.”
Each year begins like each day.
Hopefully, you wake up.
And are given the chance to show up.
Reverbession (noun)
The phenomenon of rediscovering a forgotten artist
after someone mentions them,
triggering an intense period of listening to their work on repeat,
only to eventually fade back into forgetting them again.
Example:
"After hearing someone mention Fleet Foxes,
I fell into a full-blown reverbession,
cycling through every album like it was 2010 again."
after someone mentions them,
triggering an intense period of listening to their work on repeat,
only to eventually fade back into forgetting them again.
Example:
"After hearing someone mention Fleet Foxes,
I fell into a full-blown reverbession,
cycling through every album like it was 2010 again."
Vignes 80
no one in my life ever called me son,
but then I bought a hook and a book from Amazon
and my dopamine dreams came true
out of the freaking blue at the age of 42.
Accepting fate as it is means giving up hope.
You're better than starting an email with a 'happy monday'
You're worse than the man in the mirror minus the mustache.
You are serious seaweed witnessing underwater history.
You are a clever girl with Kentucky mystery.
Count the dangers in your hand.
Weigh the last waves that took the Vestris.
I learned how to scream in infancy.
To be all true is something no one ever is.
My throat hurts from a broken heart.
My hatchet hunts for the same reason.
My time machine runs on music.
My miracles are minor but they are mine.
Fall
She looked like autumn.
We spoke about books and the need to wander.
“Novels are little boxes of portable magic," she said.
I hope she's safe and bathed in light.
*Placeholder and empty matrix
I don't want to be marketed to in the vacuum of an algorithm.
I want to discover what I like (and don't like) on my own.
I'd rather dead gowns than sweatshop crowns.
Meet me at the GoodWill and let's make out
between the men's pants and the musty books,
where the hispanic ladies change price tags
and the ties make me want to wash my hands.
I will puke your media before I ever eat your electric sheep.
I'd rather have Central Park pretzels than fresh landfill lamb chops.
I don't want your wardrobe or what you think I think I want.
Make sure to find me right before I die,
I'll be behind the trust truant from the school of thought
that we both pseudo-subscribed to back when we were dumb,
but no longer young enough to blame our problems on that fact.
I don't want a past and I only want the future that I make happen.
I want the present to teach me how to be more present.
I'd rather throw my phone in the East River forever than live in its code.
Chemo Class Playlist
1. Olive by Violence Gratuite
2. Honeychain by Throwing Muses
3. If You Fall by Azure Ray
4. I Disappear by The Faint
5. Feet Keep Moving by Natural Self
6. Letting Go by Angie McMahon
Countdown City!
Today it begins, the path to the end,
A chemo port to be placed,
a countdown starts,
the hardest part of the hard part
is behind me.
A chemo port to be placed,
a countdown starts,
each step I’ll endure.
It’s a mark of the fight,
but I am no warrior,
A journey to take at my own stead.
today may be hard, but it’s part of the plan—
one step closer to reclaiming who I am.
It’s a mark of the fight,
but I am no warrior,
I am just in a hurry for this to be over.
A journey to take at my own stead.
today may be hard, but it’s part of the plan—
one step closer to reclaiming who I am.
The sadness that shatters us/the bravery that binds us back together
Several arrows later
I am still cut in half,
Haunted by the future
For I am only supposed to rest
In the light in the night
My might may have been paused
But it is not imprisoned.
Guess what I can say
About sadness and flowers?
I can wear a suit
And seduce the truth, too.
We celebrate the past
With tinnitus cicadas,
Still cut in half.
I am still cut in half,
Haunted by the future
For I am only supposed to rest
In the light in the night
My might may have been paused
But it is not imprisoned.
Guess what I can say
About sadness and flowers?
I can wear a suit
And seduce the truth, too.
We celebrate the past
With tinnitus cicadas,
Still cut in half.
1033 S. Tremaine Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90019
The ghost of Leonard cohen encourages me on the lawn
and from the balcony.
Adirondack chairs, far from home,
Roaming where the moon never sets
where people come to forget.
I eat a Reese’s peanut butter cup
and fight the urge to give up.
My pain is not unprecedented
But it is subtly unrelenting
picking and choosing when to pounce
I hide here
Adirondack chairs, far from home,
Roaming where the moon never sets
where people come to forget.
I eat a Reese’s peanut butter cup
and fight the urge to give up.
My pain is not unprecedented
But it is subtly unrelenting
picking and choosing when to pounce
I hide here
from future fear.
Bullet Farm
America is a bullet farm,
Testing product on people
Yet the people plead for more.
What a vile world we live in
When we’d rather die backwards
Than live forwards.
We have proven
That it all comes down to money
More than morals.
This poem is sponsored
By Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
And death!
Testing product on people
Yet the people plead for more.
What a vile world we live in
When we’d rather die backwards
Than live forwards.
We have proven
That it all comes down to money
More than morals.
This poem is sponsored
By Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
And death!
Satirist & Sierra Mist
Calamity!
Calamity!
What to do?
Oh, what to do?
To get cancer
While the world is ending
Is a cologned kick
In the devil’s dick.
The only way
Is through,
Not around or blue,
And certainly not down.
Irony is dead
But hopefully I am not,
So let's do this
To get through this.
This is just part of the plot,
Fingers crossed,
Calamity!
What to do?
Oh, what to do?
To get cancer
While the world is ending
Is a cologned kick
In the devil’s dick.
The only way
Is through,
Not around or blue,
And certainly not down.
Irony is dead
But hopefully I am not,
So let's do this
To get through this.
This is just part of the plot,
Fingers crossed,
for I have a lot
to live for, jah.
My body is like my middle school notebook
I write myself a life,
watching movies and shows,
reading and listening to tons of music
on order to be able to create.
Hospitals Have the Best Apple Juice
The nation continues.
I am altered.
I had seen more deeply.
Into the mechanism of life.
And love and pain.
Than ever before.
And I am still here.
For the simple, sincere things.
Commodic
She was in one of my one thousand
wild dreams last evening.
We sat on an endless New York stoop.
We laughed, I could hear her real voice.,
and a flower grew between us
from the crack in the middle step.
I tried to take a selfie,
but my phone turned into a turkey,
so I suggested we meet back here
in a future forever.
She liked that idea and agreed,
and then the dream ended.
Closure as Myth
When your song comes on,
but the bar is empty.
We are all cutting at happiness,
trying to steal chunks for ourselves.
I always wanted to be
surrounded by poetry.
Meet me in the mercy room,
I will gladly introduce you to my grief.
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