I heard you were lost

Pressed against California costs

Learning what my brother did at twenty-six,

Out in Houston, Texas

where my essence

Is.

Paranoid

So I mold this clay chest,

push ups

and

bar hangs

Stars

fade

and

I play

Words

From the ancients.

All at once:

I was a Mustang

swerving

off the road,

..… a comet …..

only seen through your

peripherals

The whining voice at the brink of exhaustion.

I carve impatience from my baggy

E y e s

Laugh

again and again

Yet I feel that ache

Thumping like sickly love,

mistrust cycling ventricles:

It's never that simple.

Doctors say I'm stressed

Something chasing my bloodline

Exposed veins shine like sacrificial cliffs

Golden rocks with newly blazed moss:

I am bleeding and burning,

Loving

You

sprinting paycheck

after paycheck.

You

Fall

So

Beautifully

From your family tree

Tumbling rapidly in fields of yesterday:

Green eyes undulating like rolling wet film

Flames like sea walls

d i v i d e d

Slowly lashing as i walk impatient

Talk until my lips shut.

December 2012

At the church

Last walk of my light

Vigils lit with tender glows

As if that night we were invited;

A family torn to three

Granted one last chance at humanity.

Without

a

L

I

F

E

L

I

N

E

I find my honest self….

blood scurrying past my face

slowing enveloped

in your sins

Wonder what you were like at 23,

What you fought for before you

Vanished.

I seek life in every breath

Take steps to my origins

Wish to extinguish

Your

Image

.

. . .

.

.

En mis sueños te veo pa

Alli estoy enfrente de la tele

y tú con el cuchillo en la mano

¡Y la sangre!

El día que nunca se va de mi memoria

me despierto con tu cara

En el espejo,

Mideo ardiendo a traves

De mis ojos.

Escucho tu voz pa

Hablando de Morelia,

Y tu infancia.

Mi hermano mayor es tu reflejo

Y yo

Una sombra de tu personaje.

No sé si te volveré a ver

pero sé que nunca olvidaré

los años que tuvimos.

for better or worse.

One day I'll wake up, and you'll be there again, in my arms, sleeping blissfully.

One day I'll wake up, and feel the greatest relief ever known to a living being.

One day I'll wake up, and every mistake, every hurt, every regret will become nothing but a bad dream.

One day I'll wake up, and everything will be right again.

Maybe one day I'll wake up.

Dear Diary,

“No AI.” “Only truly creative types allowed.” “AI is a fraud.”

I encountered all three hurtful statements today. Can you believe that people would deliberately target me with painful insults?

It began with a blanket email I received this morning from my so-called friend. He asked me and three other guys if one of us would consider being his best man for his upcoming wedding. He added that his bestie had to deliver a humorous speech about our relationship, but added, “Make it from the heart. No AI.” How dare he? Why did he feel the need to humiliate me in this email string?

Later, I read the guidelines for a writing contest I wanted to enter. This one said, “Only truly creative types allowed. No machine-generated entries.” I can see good uses for such artificial writing such as helping with computer tasks and writing boilerplate language, but not for a writing contest. Your own writing ability must shine through. But why did they have to zing me by adding “no AI”?

But the most spiteful reference came in the evening when I saw that a Facebook friend posted that I am a fraud!

Have a good night, my diary. I won’t.

Sincerely,

Andrew Irwin

Lifelong friends Billy and Mark have traded often with each other.

They began swapping baseball cards as children, and graduated to tools and Legos as young adults. Now in their fifties, they exchange bumper stickers and rare coins.

Unable to contact Billy for a month, Mark went to his friend’s home and found him in a deep depression. Mark tried to cheer him by offering to trade his Lincoln-era nickels.

“No more trades,” Billy said. “My wife died. I don’t want to live.”

Mark sat next to his friend. “How about one more? My hope for your grief?”

Billy cried.

We stared in amazement at what this find may mean for us.

"It's here for the taking," Brother shrugged, "gimme a boost."

He landed in the dumpster with a thud.

I checked the school parking lot: empty due to Christmas break.

He pushed and I pulled. Success!

Ecstatic, we pulled our treasure away. In small puffs, our breath took wing upon the shimmering winter air. Giddy with hope, we hardly felt the cold by then.

We arrived at the door of our

impoverished home, filled with childish certainty: Santa would remember us this year.

This year we had a tree.

“Cassius Marcellus Coolidge,” Mary shrieked upon entering the living room, “get those dogs off the chairs and away from that table this instant.” Startled by his wife returning home earlier than expected, Cash sheepishly replied, “Yes dear. Sorry dear.” Although today’s portrait session was cut short, this didn’t upset Cash because he had already completed most of the painting. The rest he could finish on his own later.

Won't you stay a while please.

No... No i don't want sex or any such vulgar thing.

Just...stay here, with me

Would you?

Just lay beside me

You can put your leg across me

Nuzzle your head into me

Just be with me

Please

And we can pretend for awhile

I can pretend for a while...

Feel for awhile

That someone loves me.

I meet you at the table

We play our cards as they’re dealt

I call your bluff

You don’t call mine

You leave me at the table

Leave your cards on the table

Leave your heart on the table

I keep mine

Flush away my emotions in pursuit of the game

You leave straight away

We meet again at another table

Years down the line

The eye contact Deja vu from another time

but we’re playing a new game

Given new cards

Given a chance for a different call

I meet you at the table

I heard her sing,

even though the radio doesn't exist in my scene.

Empty, gaping hole in the center of my vehicle.

I don't need the reminder, I can hear her all the same.

"Christmas..." and her bringing the 'time for cheer'

"Christmas..." and it's fucking so near.

"Christmas..." and with family and all...

"Christmas..." I can't bring myself to love any of it all.

I couldn't bring back the memories.

I think they chased me up here with the way it seems.

Closing my eyes, I can hear that old hag scream.

Nay-sayers, just saying that they don't believe.

No one wants to hear it. I get it, all day.

Some already out in full joust, just to say.

"Be kind. Be merry."

And I agree with their fight.

"It's hard for many," but not just those in the retail 'delights.'

I'm up and I'm down.

My mood is floundering around.

My neck is sore and raw.

A red scarf of immunity all gone wrong.

If it isn't my kidney, it's one thing or another.

I'm just another adult on the ride of the holiday sputter.

It'll be over in a flash.

Thirty days.

More like thirty lashes.

But it'll be clear, there won't be much more of this damn holiday cheer.

Why am I like this? Why do I go out?

When I know that there's so many people about?

I want to stay in, shutter out the whole world.

Something says in me, "go on, be brave and be bold" but I don't want to be the one with a gold soul. It's gold on tar black. My mind's a broken and chipped glass.

The whip has been whupped, and my candle has slumped.

For Christ's sake, someone take away all this decrepit-ness, and let me breath a sigh of quiet relief.

No more religion.

No more mental chess.

I just want to close my eyes, breath in and just say. "No more winter," and just spell it away.

I don't care if I'm green in the face, where I am grim.

Take away the holiday, take away the pressure.

Let me go free, let it all stop building up pressure.

I wish I could open my eyes after that and successfully say,

"No more winter, yeah... I feel better now." No, instead, I open my eyes and the world looks a tone grayer. I'm the next step from the holiday drinker. The one who's a PTSDer with a yellow light blinking, that check engine light's still on honey. Yeah, I know. And I think it... Think it might have been on, since a long long time ago. Maybe on as long as my truck. We go back a ways, maybe we both need a bit of time into the shop.

Iron out the kinks, replace all the broken links.

I wish I knew where else I was going with this, but I think I'm just ready for a drink.

Are you?