Williamsburg in 2008

A beautiful hipster heaven,

I was there I swear I can help

These Gen Zs understand...

There were no influencers

We danced drunk at concerts

Not on phones for content

No dating apps 

to make you feel lonelier

We just made out with

Who was at the bar with you

There was no Chanel store,

Whole Foods, Apple, or matcha core

If you were a young broke artist

You could still afford

To Rent a room without a trust fund.

It wasn’t all sad glass towers

On the waterfront

We got lost all night

Backs of cabs, blurry lights, 

Five of the same texts

Where are you going next?

Sharing cigarettes on fire escapes

Clawing for hope in recession’s wake

Williamsburg in 2008

Felt like the coolest place to be

And how excited we were

For brunch at Enid’s 

Then walk around Smorgasburg.

I was off my face

When they filmed the show Girls

In front of my girl’s place.

By the early 2010s

It was clear it was the end

Any hint of pulse or vibe

Was bled completely dry

I guess there is no way top stop it

Ill be sad when Gucci opens in Bushwick

Willytown in 2026 

Literally makes me sick and nostalgic

I’m not there but I swear

I can barely set foot on Bedford.

Transience & Absurdity

I can't do this,

I say,

as I do this. 

I Am Not Going to Die Here

I didn't come this far
to become another Florida sunset.

The palm trees are fine.
The strip malls are fine.
The humidity can go to hell.

Cancer picked the wrong address.

I've still got subway platforms
to complain about,
winter to curse,
a deli guy who doesn't know
he's going to save my morning.

If death wants me,

it can find me
walking home in New York,

carrying groceries,

late for something.

Poem

I want a break

from thinking

about death.

With the freedom of a 17-year-old and the wisdom of a grandfather, I get down and deep with Fantastic Negrito!

Dignity

the radiologist said,
"everything off from the waist down."

the nurse is still
unreasonably attractive.

I considered explaining
that under different circumstances

this would've been
a much stronger performance.

instead,

I lay there
with cancer,
a paper gown,
and the world's least impressive introduction.

some days
humility arrives
all at once.

Radiology

the nurse was
ridiculously attractive.

I was only covered
with a brown paper towel. 

trying to remember
whether eye contact
was still legal.

cancer has a funny way
of rearranging your priorities.

still,

there's a small part of me
that hopes she thought,

"well...

at least he seems nice."

Poem

so you're in Louisville
for the 4th of July...

and somewhere
between the explosions...

you're reading my poems,
this dumb blog...

I always hope
I haunt you...

I always wish

you'd call. 

Pain Is Personal

Cancer makes you selfish,
no matter who is
by your side
or in your support circle.

The body is a loud country.
It demands your full attention.

I used to be selfish
for all the wrong reasons.

I wanted more.
More praise.
More love.
More of the room.

Then I changed.
Or at least
I thought I had.

Now I know
pain is its own gravity.

It pulls every thought
back toward the body.

I am never more present
than when I am in pain.

The breath.
The heartbeat.
The ache beneath my ribs.
The weight of my own name.

Nothing is theoretical anymore.

Not love.
Not fear.
Not this morning's sunlight
finding its way across the floor.

Cancer did not make me
a better person.

It made me remember
that every moment of comfort
is a miracle so ordinary
we almost always forget
to call it one.

Low-Key Heart Arson

when it thunders,
do you look up at the sky,
welcoming what's coming,
or asking why?

when you fall in love,
is your heart set ablaze
for days and days?

these are the questions
that matter to me now.

not how to avoid the lightning,
but whether you'll step outside anyway.

not how to escape heartbreak,
but whether you'll hand someone
the matches.

every beautiful thing
comes with a warning label.

the ocean.
the diagnosis.
another human being.

still,

i'd rather leave this world
with smoke in my lungs
and ash on my hands

than die
having kept everything
perfectly fireproof.

Got to talk basketball and painting with Francis of Delirium!

To Prettier Pastures Where Receipts Don't Exist

to prettier pastures
where receipts don't exist
and angels never ask
what anything cost.

you smell
like you just climbed out
of a swimming pool
in the middle
of an apartment complex.

chlorine and sunscreen.
the ordinary perfume
of being alive.

you are Fort Lauderdale.
you are six or seven summers.
you are Saturn,
too far away to blame
for any of this.

my favorite pair of jeans
still remembers your shape.

they've been to Montreal,
Manhattan,
parking lots after midnight,
cheap bars with expensive heartbreak.

every rip arrived honestly.

now they hang in the closet
like an old photograph,
frayed at the knees,
holding together
mostly out of habit.

sometimes I think
that's what love was.

not forever.

just a pair of dungarees
that fit perfectly
until they didn't.

Spent Sunday in the ER

the vending machine
ate my dollar.

the guy across from me
kept apologizing
to nobody.

they called my name
like they were reading
a raffle ticket.

got stabbed,
did a CT scan,
no morphine.

I walked out
with another bracelet,
another bill,
another sunrise.

hell of a way
to spend the weekend.

An Ode to Eternity

The river does not hurry
toward the sea.

It simply keeps
becoming itself.

The heron lifts,
the wind forgets my name,
the trees continue
their slow conversation with the sky.

If eternity exists,
perhaps it is not elsewhere.

Perhaps it is this,

the world offering itself
again and again,
without asking
to be understood.

compartmentalizing grief in order to keep moving forward

when you have cancer,
you grieve your own self...

it's chaos and absurdity made flesh.

to keep going,

keep working, 

keep living,

I have to put cancer

in little compartments

in my mind,

while I keep life

in little compartments

in my heart. 

From books to basketball, Ryan Kattner is like our cool distant cousin who comes to visit like every five years!

Poem

We talk about fate
the way gamblers talk about luck—
as if naming it
might make it stay.

And I'm here,
trying to pin it to the page
before it disappears,
trying to make something, anything permanent.

out of moments
that reminded me
how beautiful it is,
that nothing is.

6.6.26

Cocaine and Kelly Monday.
Bayside and Taking Back Sunday.

For a few hours
we were the main characters,
forgetting how small we are.

I was her sugar baby,
sweetened by proximity,
and we called it fate—
that careful lie lovers tell the stars.

Even the South Florida heat
seemed willing to let us have this one.

The sky holding back

it's daily summer violence. 

Bayside opened the show

like a beautiful wound, 

the kind of music that reminds you

there are people walking around

with entire graveyards hidden in their chests.

We waved at Nick, the bassist—

whose done my podcast twice—

ghostlike recognition

between stage lights and distance.

I wanted them to play longer, 

but that's the problem with joy:
the moment you notice it,

you're already measuring its ending.

The other band arrived with their emo anthems,
as the club soda sweated in my hand,

then somebody collapsed in the crowd.

Death has terrible timing;
it always arrives
in the middle of the song.

But EVERYTHING continues,
which might be the saddest thing
or the most beautiful.

Fireworks erupted above us
without warning—
white flowers,
brief stars,
little explosions against the dark.

For a minute
it felt as though the night
was showing off.

We got shirts,

and got the hell out of there

on our own terms.

The night grew complicated
in the simplest way,
and later than a long time,
but worth every minute.

I wanted the moment to last forever.
Instead it has become memory,
and memory is greedier than time.

So I preserve the fireworks,

the music,

the ambulance lights,

in this poem,

with the brief terrible knowledge

that the moment (and the music)

is all that matters. 

Pickled Cabbage

Former Mess, Current Miracle

I used to be a disaster
with a pulse.

Now I’m still here
and that feels like
a technical win
against the odds.

Getting Emotional Watching the Knicks Parade

The city's on my TV again,
confetti caught in the summer air,
and strangers are crying
like they finally got something back.

I used to walk those streets
thinking I had forever.

Now I'm in South Florida,
watching a championship parade
and feeling homesick for versions of myself.

The players wave from buses.
Everybody looks invincible.

I know better now.

Still, when the crowd starts singing,
I sing too.

For the city.
For the years I lost.
For the years I might still get.

And for a minute,
with the noise turned up loud enough,

it feels like we're all champions
of something.

I got to bother Kevin Smith's daughter and her band, Cinnamon!

Weaponized Hope

the scan says one thing.
my fear says another.

I let them fight it out
in the parking lot.

then I sharpen a little hope
against the curb

and keep it in my pocket
like a switchblade.

not because I'm certain.

because cancer expects surrender,
and I'd rather stab back.

Hooly

flinging heartbreak around 

until it becomes an art medium 

set to ’80s new wave, string-swollen hooks, 

and aughts Britpop. 

I was strolling around Crown Heights at golden hour, 

a little book-drunk and hopelessly infatuated with a girl 

who’d “I used to work with” 

when I realized: this wasn’t a love song,
it was a limerence song, an anxious attachment anthem.

The late fashion designer Alexander McQueen once said 

there’s blood beneath every layer of skin, 

and barely concealed
under the cheer was a scrabbling, clawing desperation.

Here am I  

a boy clinging for dear life 

to one perfect moment 

for fear that another may never arrive.

sneaky peaky death

death keeps peeking at me

from behind books, 

from the back of movies theaters,

from social fucking media.

it is everywhere,

reminding me of TIME!

death pops out of the medicine cabitnet,

finds me alone at restaurants,

follows me to the bathroom,

being all coy like it is inevitable. 

oh, precious time,

reminding me I am alive (for now).

death keeps dancing 

in the shadows of concerts,

in the corner of my office,

everywhere I try to hide.