LoFi Nights
lofi beats at 2 a.m.
the city doing its quiet bleeding
through cheap speakers
I don’t know her
not really
just messages
just timing
just the way she disappears
and comes back like nothing happened
I sit in the dark
pretending this is connection
and not just two lonely signals
passing in the same frequency
the song loops again
soft static, soft lies
and I think
maybe love is just this
waiting for someone
who never fully arrives
and calling it enough anyway
Let 'er R.I.P.
watching Marc Johnson skate video clips
remembering I used to be able to 180 anything.
I still have a board
and push around from time to time,
but no more olleying down stairs for me.
life kickflips right past you,
and if you wince
you miss it.
Slam Poem
I'm a Buddhist existentialist.
I'm a democratic socialist.
I'm a Seinfeldian comedy fan.
I'm a Floridian by birth.
I'm a New Yorker at heart.
I'm a funny philosophical poet.
I'm a patient punk rocker per fatherhood.
I'm a busy cancer patient.
I'm an introspective extrovert.
I'm a late anxious bastard without saints,
I'm a well-read idiot.
I'm late to my own generation.
I'm never as good as I want to be.
I'm always with hope.
My Crowded Hour
everyday we spend
in this jungle
is another day
closer to death.
I am so busy,
so overwhelmed
by life that
I welcome a break.
I keep thinking
it's Friday;
I keep wishing
for forever.
I get really anxious
if I stop moving,
which makes the days
feel longer.
Death is Not Defeat
my fear leads me to read
the Tennessee Williams poem,
We Have Not Long to Love
the stakes are
as high
as Heaven
every poem,
every moment
counts
though death is not defeat
and I am not budging,
we carry these things with us
into whatever's next.
Blabber Giraffe
my eyes are set
deeper in my skull.
my imagination
sees everything.
the car seat
burns my butt.
I am a simple man,
wishing for more wishes.
Poem About a Poem
Her island poem
shook my all night long,
like an AC/DC song.
I am reluctanly
in South Florida,
but I can see her
in Brooklyn.
We both walk
with leftovers
in our back pockets.
And the dogs
of the past
chase us
like rabid rabbits.
One day,
I will tell my daughter
about lost love.
A Cup of Tea & Sympathy for Me
I think I always
wanted to be a musician,
but I never learned to play music,
so I became a writer.
We were too poor
or my mother prioritized
drugs and booze and men
over her son's activities.
When I beat cancer,
maybe I will take piano lessons,
learn one of Chopin's Nocturnes
and impress myself.
everything is death
no matter what I am doing,
I cannot wait until it is over.
wet willies were a thing.
I have never known anyone
who has benefited from a charity.
the service in South Florida sucks.
I have cancer,
every minute of every moment.
Playlist 5526
1. 7:30 by Uncle Strut
2. woah by Hillsboro
3. Dance Wimme by Spins
4. Tiny Raisin by Suki Waterhouse
5. Pepperina by Gus Englehorn
Furtive as a Flame
I am thousands of pages of poetry.
I am currently 11,752 liked songs on Spotify.
I am hands hands hands.
I am a walkable city in which you are lost.
I am blue sky and cold weather.
I am fast sad.
I am justified and ancient.
I am a silver dagger dancing before your eyes.
I am leftovers.
I am death and life.
this is for the snakes and the people they bite...
watching kids land their first kickflip,
drinking coke from a glass bottle,
or watching Bon Iver
sing Heavenly Father live
at the Sydney Opera House.
a reminder:
the world is still capable of soft things
like falling asleep on a couch
that finally forgives your weight
or a fragile person
curling into your arms
like safety was always a language you spoke
you are someone’s sanctuary
even when you forget how to live in your own skin
dipping hot fries into a Wendy’s Frosty
in the passenger seat
on the way home from the beach
sun-drunk, salt-sticky, alive
feeling the heat on your skin
arguing with the wind
pull up to the function late
a minute and a half left
and still sing the chorus
like it’s the only proof you exist
loud. wrong. honest.
and maybe that’s the thing—
you still might see tomorrow
if you stay.
drinking coke from a glass bottle,
or watching Bon Iver
sing Heavenly Father live
at the Sydney Opera House.
a reminder:
the world is still capable of soft things
like falling asleep on a couch
that finally forgives your weight
or a fragile person
curling into your arms
like safety was always a language you spoke
you are someone’s sanctuary
even when you forget how to live in your own skin
dipping hot fries into a Wendy’s Frosty
in the passenger seat
on the way home from the beach
sun-drunk, salt-sticky, alive
feeling the heat on your skin
arguing with the wind
pull up to the function late
a minute and a half left
and still sing the chorus
like it’s the only proof you exist
loud. wrong. honest.
and maybe that’s the thing—
you still might see tomorrow
if you stay.
BYOCP (Bring Your Own Chicken Parm)
The aqua green and dirty white tiles
in the handicap stall with the carved up walls
of the nondescript south Florida cinema…
I’m used to this view as I peed three times
during a showing of One Battle After Another
on the evening of Indigenous Peoples Day.
I used to do coke in bathrooms like this
but now I make sure to wash my hands
and hold my breath back to the theater.
Luck lingers like popcorn fingers,
in the handicap stall with the carved up walls
of the nondescript south Florida cinema…
I’m used to this view as I peed three times
during a showing of One Battle After Another
on the evening of Indigenous Peoples Day.
I used to do coke in bathrooms like this
but now I make sure to wash my hands
and hold my breath back to the theater.
Luck lingers like popcorn fingers,
but I go about this a bit different,
and instantly the place smells of garlic.
I once snuck in a shrimp cocktail,
a forty and a gram of blow,
but today I just bring my own chick parm sub.
It's a double feature:
The sheep detectives was a surprise
Devil Wears Prada 2 was decent.
I once snuck in a shrimp cocktail,
a forty and a gram of blow,
but today I just bring my own chick parm sub.
It's a double feature:
The sheep detectives was a surprise
Devil Wears Prada 2 was decent.
I still have cancer
and I could've used
more Hugh Jackman.
Do I Still Get To Wake Up In The Morning?
I grieve Bobby Cox,
though I thought the baseball legend
had died years ago
Watching filler shows,
like The Rookie,
because they're easy
Scrolling for doom,
during,
finding green guns
Curious how 1999
feels like ten years ago
but 2020 feels like fifty lifetimes
Why me
comes to mind
as I grab at anything.
Skinny Love at Last Call
And the song comes on the jukebox,
and the whole dive bar goes still,
like everyone suddenly remembers
someone they failed to keep.
I remember breakup songs
and makeup sex
in stairwells that smelled like mildew
and bad decisions.
Walls thin enough
to hear strangers ruining their lives too.
I remember bartending brunch,
doing coke until my heart felt biblical,
giving free fries to friends
like generosity could stop time.
I thought my twenties were permanent.
Like neon.
Like hangovers.
Like being wanted.
I remember rainy nights in Brooklyn,
missing the last train,
trying to get the Rumbler back into the city,
freezing on the platform,
wanting the night to never end
because daylight meant reality again.
I remember not knowing what to say
when she said, “I love you,”
softly,
with that fragile Kentucky sadness
that made me want to disappear
before I disappointed her.
Now I remember everything too late.
Standing on the Lower East Side,
watching my reflection dissolve in bar windows,
trying to hide
from the life that kept happening without me.
And Bon Iver keeps singing
like heartbreak is holy.
And maybe it is.
Maybe some people are born
already nostalgic
for their own lives.
and the whole dive bar goes still,
like everyone suddenly remembers
someone they failed to keep.
I remember breakup songs
and makeup sex
in stairwells that smelled like mildew
and bad decisions.
Walls thin enough
to hear strangers ruining their lives too.
I remember bartending brunch,
doing coke until my heart felt biblical,
giving free fries to friends
like generosity could stop time.
I thought my twenties were permanent.
Like neon.
Like hangovers.
Like being wanted.
I remember rainy nights in Brooklyn,
missing the last train,
trying to get the Rumbler back into the city,
freezing on the platform,
wanting the night to never end
because daylight meant reality again.
I remember not knowing what to say
when she said, “I love you,”
softly,
with that fragile Kentucky sadness
that made me want to disappear
before I disappointed her.
Now I remember everything too late.
Standing on the Lower East Side,
watching my reflection dissolve in bar windows,
trying to hide
from the life that kept happening without me.
And Bon Iver keeps singing
like heartbreak is holy.
And maybe it is.
Maybe some people are born
already nostalgic
for their own lives.
meme.rot_18
Endless darkness surrounds us
as we approach a boundary
between what can be known
and what waits beyond it.
Fear loosens its grip
and something quieter takes hold,
a kind of awe
that feels almost like surrender
Ambition stretches past survival,
past reason,
toward something unnamed
but impossible to ignore.
The unknown pulls at us
not as a threat
but as a question
to understand
is to move closer,
and in that movement
there is a strange courage
woven into curiosity itself
as if the act of reaching
is already an answer.
as we approach a boundary
between what can be known
and what waits beyond it.
Fear loosens its grip
and something quieter takes hold,
a kind of awe
that feels almost like surrender
Ambition stretches past survival,
past reason,
toward something unnamed
but impossible to ignore.
The unknown pulls at us
not as a threat
but as a question
to understand
is to move closer,
and in that movement
there is a strange courage
woven into curiosity itself
as if the act of reaching
is already an answer.
Run for the Roses, Run from the Truth
Watching the Kentucky Derby,
thinking about a Kentucky girl
I used to love
I had her once
or something close enough to lie about
the race ends too fast
like it always does
and she’s gone again
in the noise
like I never had the nerve to keep her.
thinking about a Kentucky girl
I used to love
I had her once
or something close enough to lie about
the race ends too fast
like it always does
and she’s gone again
in the noise
like I never had the nerve to keep her.
Rupi Kaur's Flowers
i bloom in lowercase
soft-spoken, afraid
petals opening
like a wound learning
how to be called beauty.
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