god says he

has a plan for all of us.

i call bullshit on that motherfucker.

bullshit

because if fate

was the one who fucked up my head

and made melancholy my whore

that motherfucker should already be dead.

bullshit

because

who would spark a wildfire in their own backyard?

the answer lies in the burning of the good book:

no one owns the world.

there is no god.

there is no poetry.

this is not a sentence

and i would take the time to explain why,

but we're all dying.

nothing is what you think.

i would say

we are all made of stardust

but i don't want to make myself vomit.

if we are any part of the cosmos,

we are the detritus leftovers

that fall off of comets-

we are worthless.

i do believe

there's something bigger than all of us

but-

i'm well aware it might just be

the weight of the air we breathe.

i believe

that energy is conserved

that we are all made of matter

that gravity will be the death of me-

but there is no theory of everything.

i have been bleeding

for five years.

i walk around with

red hands

yet no one asks about my fingers.

i have carefully carried my guts

in mason jars,

only to spill them

on paper.

no one has helped me clean up

the mess i've made of myself.

so i will spell god with a lowercase g

and no one can stop me

because there is no saving grace.

i vow to shit on the bible.

I spelled my name out

in the sand,

and it looked

like another language,

like gibberish or

Sanskrit, and I remember

you said it tasted like

hieroglyphics

on your tongue,

but that might have just been

the wine

talking.

I rest my head on my pillow

but no where to rest my

soul, I go to bed too early

but I never sleep, one of the

many side effects

of you, and they go round and

round the rim of my skull like

headache

nausea

dizziness

insomnia

thoughts of suicide.

I can't consult my doctor

because his eyes

are your

kind of blue.

On that stormy morn, on the rocky cliffs walked I

Underneath the billowing clouds, through the sad winds sigh

I looked out to the swirling ocean, there atop a wave

rowed a lonely boatman sure to meet his watery grave

furious rowing

Wind was howling

grey wave rose and

crashed upon the rocks

furious rowing

wind was howling

he was at the

mercy of God

I broke my spell, and ran down the rocky path

to a shore that was sheltered from the dark ocean’s wrath

but the foolish boatman was still far out, and my fear:

he’d be dashed upon the rocks before he made it here

I tried to shout and call for help and on my knees I tried to pray, but

my voice was whisked away, just a whisper in a crowded room

but I was all alone, a creature frightened on the shore

there was nothing that I could do to save the helpless boatman

so I watched him as he struggled, ’till he could struggle no more

He was coming in, slow, but sure that he would land

but the ocean couldn’t allow it, no it wouldn’t let this stand

it sent forth a lusty wave that broke his boat, it was so strong

and the poor boatman with the churning waves was swept along

I ran onto the rocks, prepared to save the drowning boatman

but he had disappeared, the selfish ocean swallowed him

and as I lay weeping for his life in the rain

his poor maiden waited by the window for her young boatman

whom her poor eyes would never see again

Looking out onto the serene ocean,

The waves cascading onto the shore like waves of tears,

And at once, I imagine that the ocean isn't made of water that came to be there by natural phenomenons,

But rather that the ocean was formed by all the tears that people have shed since the beginning of time;

And perhaps this is why one feels sad when they gaze into a serene ocean alone,

Because it's not a body of salt water,

But rather a body of tears,

A deposit of sorrow from mankind in generations past;

Perhaps that is why I remember all those I've lost

When I look into the serene ocean.

- Michael Hall

the leafs of my favorite novel

(leads to)

the pages of his sketchbook

the red in my cheeks

(leads to)

his converses and his sweat shirt

the frame of my glasses

(leads to)

his leather jacket

the flesh on my lips

(leads to)

the flushed surface of his fingertips

the hair bow i wear on my wrist

(leads to)

the iris of the eyes i have sincerely missed

but those colors don't compare

to the contrast of her eyes

with his

or

his pale hands running through

her auburn hair

he doesn't compare

wild blonde hair

to a yellow rose

or

a spotted foal

to the freckles on my nose

instead

he writes prose

of the galaxy

and of

being the star

in her orion's belt

of feeling the sun's rays

in every feeling felt

and every love song

he belts

he's found love

in the colors of her eyes

and i've found mine

in memories

without goodbyes

Pomegranate storms rage in shadowed past;

Sheets tossed and stained in reddest desire.

Two pomegranate seeds planted deeply,

Between hungry lips, there for the taking.

A sweetened voice whispers from the darkness

Breaking each strand of life my heart still has.

A sweetened voice crying from deepest depths

Of a passion long since buried and done.

Pomegranate rain falls from moisten lips,

Never to be tasted that way again.

A pomegranate dream escapes my mind,

Memory to haunt me to my last days.

A picture frayed in black and faded white

A final memory tossed to the flames.

A picture stained, pomegranate crimson

The one I can’t lose, as the fire blazes.

When I drink,

the ever-present pain

in my back dulls

just enough to help me forget

what it is to be human.

When I drink,

you become both

exceedingly attractive

and evermore attainable

within the same passed hour.

When I drink,

the shitty music playing

at this bar, club, hole-in-the-wall pub

takes a turn for the tolerable.

My memories of every song

I’ve ever heard become more fluid,

filling in the gaps where this track is lacking.

When I drink,

my dancing improves drastically,

both in my head and the space I fill.

The muscle spasms are likely exactly the same,

but when swung with far less reservation,

appear better, sexier, bolder.

When I drink,

my teeth tend toward numb

and my tongue unfurls to flap out

every word that’ll fly on the wind.

They propel me forward into what would

have otherwise been a night of dead seamen.

When I drink,

I become more confident, more direct,

more the person I feel I ought to be.

I’ve always been an enabler,

but only liquor lets me put the springboard

under my own feet – vaulting me forward

toward a flight that only gets more exciting

with the prospect of a bigger crash.

When I drink,

I always overlook the warning label

hidden on the bottle’s back corner.

It screams, in its loudest, tiny-print voice:

May cause delusions of grandeur.

These will be fierce, fun, and loyal,

but they will be short-lived.

The body will only turn a blind eye

to the mind’s tricks long enough to bed her.

Then he will slug himself in the gut and purge

everything that temporarily made him think

he could ever be greater

than mortal.

I have realized that you don't

need to close your eyes

to go to sleep.

oh, it is a sleep so deep,

and how I will weep

when you go into

your eternal

sleep.