Countryside Morning In The City Adjacent City My phone speaker competes with the hallway vacuum and good is only good if for others. A smiley plush milk carton between my legs replaces the word in my head with the image of a smiley plush milk carton. I wait for others to answer first when asked if we'd like chocolate chips in our waffles. Good can be done by anything. Even the unliving are alive by this virtue. I am cautious. There are longneck candles and the ambiance of my limbs. I know this filtered water jug is a great blessing to refill after each pour. The rusty pipes, too. This whole lifecycle of repurposing pain into righteous purpose, too. The fatigue too.
I have work soon enough. Eternity calls my name which is confusing because my name isn't “don't go.” That's yours
Magnet Potluck I'm browning precooked sausages that are supposedly 100% grass fed organic. I like that thing when there's too many cooks in the kitchen. It’s like dumping a bunch of magnets in a Crock Pot. No one agrees on smoke and steam, or a sauna can smell like breakfast, or that a grease fire is feng shui. I'm not asking you to see what I see which is why you shouldn’t apologize prefacing with an apology. We're keeping butter on a little saucer on the counter. This is the year for leveling up. For poetry to sanitize the grindset. We take only the good parts of all these silly movements
Black Market Of Ideas Is An Empty Skull The internet is for horniness, talking to my friends, and something to do while I'm shitting. Don't fall into the trap of getting mad intellectually. I don't think I’d make a very good president. I pop my pimples and my GI system is all out of whack, which I’m told means I’m mentally ill or vice versa. For a while I refrained from narrative structures that ended in vice versa paradigms on account of the inherent vice having to mean something probably lost to colloquialism. I don't look at it as straddling the fence. I can sit comfortably wherever
Nature Is Perfect So Am I Have you ever felt what it feels like? You'll know the unclogged pore by the easy flow of blood that follows. It's the same feeling as writing a poem. Billy told me something about foot tapping and other previously classified nervous ticks accounting for fast metabolism and overall well being in controlled clinical studies. I'm not biting my nails, I’m jaw resistance training. I wonder if trees think they make mistakes like we do
A Brief History Of Inventions I'm in competition between me and the toilet or between me and my gastrointestinal system and the toilet is the judge. All day you make a little language between yourself and the rest. Curious as to why a house is waterproofed on the outside only. There’s a bunch of wood and stuff in here that doesn’t play well with burst pipes. I'm never that lonely until I’ve exhausted my vocabulary and the empty bed is no longer empty until I’m in it. I lay a mat on the tile when I shower and the outside world is not a reflection of my inside world. I drink water and need a towel
Action Movies Sometimes I suspect with the part of my brain I alternatingly scapegoat and praise, I've watched too many movies. I'm always hungry to monologue. In theory it should get me what I want. All day long cows eat grass and sing so wonderfully. I reshuffle the meaning of your reaction into something funnier, more logical. I have a certain type of audacity to call this singing and it's the only type of audacity people find interesting. I'm like Indiana Jones in that I wear stupid hats and feel like I’m being chased by a giant boulder. To take anything requires an equal give, even a pound of sand for a pound of gold. I'm unlike Indiana Jones in the ways I’m sure you are aware of
We’ve Evolved Past The Point Of Mating Rituals How can anything be small batched in a packaging this CVS-y. If CVS sold poetry I would like to see that. I would reverse engineer my poetry to get in front of a CVS readership. You and me get along, baby. You call Bill and Court, Bing and Cosby and I hit you with my hat when you shit on America after moving to America and quoting all these American tv shows. But this is not an American poem. You wanted to kiss me when I dropped the nice guy act for a guy who knows stuff act. All I said was we're gonna get married and I know it when we both knew I didn’t
Jealous At Writers With Clearly Dope Muses I want to write a proclamation poem where the “you” is someone I love who inspires me to do and feel and want all sorts of ridiculous and surprising things which I share with “you” the reader in a show of the heights attained on the wings of true feeling and rigorous commitment that may inch you closer to adopting the same structured faithful existence but that's not my life and unfortunately meta poems don't really say anything no matter how fun the ride can be. I guess it's time to try dating apps again. Maybe there's something I can't see yet
Flirt Economy Instagram is foreplay for Pornhub. It's crazy how my favorite artists are all 40 or dead and the only proof they were my age once are poorly aged fashion choices haunting some back alley of YouTube. Weird when my thumb is the pulse and I'll probably live forever. When I can't tell what you're selling I get scared someone is selling more effectively. What I can’t tell you is what I’m selling
It’s Crazy It's crazy how the whole world wakes up at the exact moment I do. No one says hello to me until I’m around. It's crazy I heart strangers Instagram stories in both praise and horny. It’s crazy I do this knowing they can't be sure which one. It’s crazy Diet Coke is a drug and status symbol for those who've overcome actual drugs. It’s crazy permanent red face is a status symbol for uncles to avoid at family gatherings. No shame. I'm the status symbol for losing my shit when drums do that BahBah BahBah triplet (?) thing at the end of a measure. It's crazy we could go on vacation. It’s crazy we could make a 45 second highlight reel of our vacation and sync cuts with BahBah BahBahs. It's crazy we could leave out the good stuff that's just for us. It's crazy that there could be stuff just for us
Everything Is Poetry You Fucking Idiot Loud phone talkers are usually entertaining in the way AAA responders are usually cool with being tipped in drugs, but sometimes I want the delusion of safe silence and sometimes you just want money. There should be a car horn for texters that indicates I’m not mad but it's a green light. There should be a word for “but” that doesn't negate what comes before it. Poetry only happens if you happen. Not to go all rip the wings of a butterfly here, but if I didn't roll the joint look for the wallet drive to work, I would've never seen the old man laughing, tapping his foot towards traffic like is this thing on. I never would've laughed too and let him cross
Progress Poem The internet informs me that some organization I don’t care about has awarded someone I don’t know the Vulnerability Award for reasons I don’t know but I’m sure are truly vulnerable. I ask myself what it all means, our employers, our vulnerability. Everyone who once asked, proudly, socially what’s it all mean has learned to keep the question to themselves. Why waste your time when there’s bodybuilding and the unique opportunity of working at the headquarters of your favorite brewery. Progress is a conceptual thing, it can’t be measured. It’s like truth in the sense it can only be felt by those who feel it
With You I Feel Good With you I feel good like ten seconds after a stubbed toe that was stubbed a long, long time ago. With you I feel good like going to the party and seeing you’re there. With you I feel good like reaching for the last slice at the same time you do and offering it to you with true grace and humility and you grab it and split it in two for me and you and my whole conception of last and slice are suddenly exploded in a nuclear gesture. With you I feel good like nailing the balancing act of unsheathing a long sheathed charisma while maintaining a boulderous self-awareness, learned through hard years of sheathing charisma, so that I use charisma only for good, which comes only at a sustained three beer drunk, or when I’m with you. With you I feel good like laying in the grass and finding a $20 bill and there’s not even any poop in it like how the upperclassmen would prank incoming freshman. With you I feel good
like the next morning feeling bad but friends slept on the couch and the bubble hasn’t burst after all and we’re all pitching in on a big breakfast. With you I feel good like the first joke after something bad happens. With you I feel good like the Incredible Hulk pulling off his face only to reveal it was a mask all along, and beneath this mask is Shrek’s head on the Hulk’s body. With you I feel good like how I imagine rappers feel good rapping about how their teachers said they’d never amount to anything at all, but on a smaller scale, like overcoming self-doubt. With you I feel good like a smiling demon emoji after suggesting something that’s bad but actually good. With you I feel good like practicing feeling good by coming up with a bunch of different ways to say how I feel good with you that feel true. With you I feel good like letting myself get meta every once in awhile
Ice Cream Politics I know it’s wrong of me but I think you are a coward if you ask for samples at an ice cream shop. It’s unnatural learned behavior. A kid never asks. A kid chooses with their whole heart. Whichever flavor grabs their attention the most wins
The Yolk Of Advice All advice is whether eggs are good for you or not. Everyone's grandma has an old world remedy for hiccups and they’re all correct. Every decision is advice lent to a future you who will sort out which was good and bunk. This knowledge doesn’t help anything. When you left I couldn't know if leaving was good advice because you left
Walmart Americana Mama I’m a cowboy, just not like that. Laziness can be more than laziness is what I mean. I know you know at this point a sense of security is exactly that. A sense. Immaterial despite all that. Mama Imma ride out the sunset and shoot pistols in seedy bars and elope and divorce and split nothing in half twice and write songs about it all. Mama it’s not owning much and my friends, and working as little as possible. If I’m lucky Mama someone will see something in that
Peepawpants People say stupid shit nearly whenever they open their mouths (see title). Just the morning my roommate compared the the consistency of the cranberry kombucha we were all drinking to shedded uterine lining. Period blood. After I said I like the first better when I was showed the second but it was actually the first. Half of fun is stupid and we are half that. If things feel bad ignore that whole thing about comparative suffering. Memory is fiction and unconscious desire
Business, Man I’m like a wine glass that could use a polish. All around me wine spills off perfectly uncut glass. I don’t know anything. If I did I could’ve predicted subscription wine memberships. The sun goes up throws a tantrum and goes back down. The moon like a mother or father takes it. I sit up in my apartment and pitch regenerative underwear at my roommates as a viable future. I understand the latent desire contained in a meme, but I’d get bored laying on the beach everyday. Thus, regenerative underwear. Or a new service of therapists for therapists. Or one where the patient can be the therapist for a day
O Poem O shift notes O almond or oat O cut early O now thirsty O defrosted bread O out of bed O biological clock O hungry cock O Reaganomics O shifting tectonics O store mouse O floor house O miracle of life O sharpening knife O gay straight fling O mysterious third thing O brawn O fawn O brain O pain O pizzazz O pizza
First Fall Here’s the deal. I thought I wouldn’t need to buy eye shadow ever again after I got punched in the face. I thought I stumbled into some sort of loophole for those willing to go the extra mile (get punched in the face). My mouth bled and I thought that took care of lipstick too. Then it cleared up
Don’t Call Me Stupid (Call Me Dumb) I watched a meter maid propose to another meter maid, on shift, and I thought well nothing matters now and drank a fifth and got fired and got divorced and got disowned and got destitute and got horny and did it all over again. This time it was two project managers and I was one of them
Favorite Drink Out in the wild prairie of the pharmaceutical neighborhood puffy vests and successful happy hours aesthetically signify a thumbprint door lock unlocks for the necessary R&D man hours behind a dope high five. The announcement of their arrival is a creak in the door like anyone who dare enters the hybrid ice cream cocktail dispensary. I ask one Garrett “Is there a pill yet for newness? I’m afraid I’m awfully addicted.” He said, “I see you launched your winter menu”
I’m Not Asking For A Trophy Please remember sometimes, somewhere I am an upstanding citizen. Even if sometimes, out loud, I say “there’s really not enough bar fights these days.” Despite the latest advancements in be miserable forever technology, I paid my taxes last year. I never hit up exes when I’m horny. Last week, I took my dad out for lunch and enjoyed it. Even if he hit on an equally uncomfortable waitress who was too polite to show how not cool the whole thing was, on behalf of me. No matter what I do my stomach is fucked and my nose is a federal reserve I don’t know what to do with other than huck out. My rent goes up, I think there’s mold in the air and I can’t prove it. My parents are a day closer to that terrible time in my life and the odds are getting
worse every day. Still we get along
Bird Sanctuaries It looks like it feels good. It must, right? I wonder if magnets feel when they’re being magnetic. A bird lands on your hand. You bestow food. Microdose God. Unalone. One with nature, the universe. Whatever that means
Icktastic In Connecticut I’m asked how many dudes and I say hello to someone’s back. Some days I feel born to egg a former employer’s house. I’m strategizing maximizing juices with beakers, safety goggles, bunsen burners on the account of future illness. How funny is trying at all. On the way up to Boston I have a sneaking suspicion that big buildings are teeth in an even bigger building’s grin that’s laughing at all of us crawling into its mouth. How funny is not trying at all. Heading home is like confetti from a hamster’s cage. My parents on the lawn throw a big sheet over me and beat my body with hugs and kisses. How funny we all are. Everywhere I go there’s talk
of TV shows and weather. I like this. I like tiny reprieves. I like nothing a whole lot
Lavish Ravish It’s a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven. What if fantasy football was football. There are certain decisions above my pay grade, like the size of donut holes and which day National Jean Jacket Day will fall on. If you’re not making bank, I’d suggest starting with a concrete foundation and rich friends. People say stuff like in the grand scheme of things, things aren't so grand. People love to not sleep with people who don’t own bed frames. Things that move slowly are suspicious, like grass. At any moment it could could go the other way, then what would it all be about? They say you should zig when they zag but frankly I don’t know if I’d know a zag
if it zigged me right in the face. I own 1000 lawnmowers
Whoopsie Daisy A liquor store sign with a sense of humor goes a long way towards a total sense of absolution. It’s scary to think this could all end over a midnight pee and a carpeted staircase. I didn’t even get my law degree yet! Now I’ll never understand the game. Whoopsie daisy my whoopsie grew a daisy. Pluck it only if you’ll fuck it. Please excuse my language. It’s the only way I know how to communicate. If you elect me Husband I’ll ensure every frog gets a banjo to beckon a princess to kiss them into princes. To fix the pond problem. I’ll manipulate the housing market with drone strikes. Love always ROIs, baby. I’ll create a new kind of notification that doesn’t mess with brain chemicals. And when things get bad, remember I didn’t get my law degree. It’s all my fault
Goon Squad 4eva I’m being selfish when I wish your flight gets canceled or explodes before onboarding. If you want to impress people who demand impressions, say the threat of violence is violence and necessary to romance. Smart people love gibberish. I love partying with my boys and the ‘04 Sox. My living room can be Florida for at least one night. Only one way to find out
Surfs Up Do Do Brain What if I told you this book is about I have to kill you. Would you cover my shift then? I keep the pay too? Life isn’t series of gambits, rouses, and riddles, but it’s fun to pretend it is. In a heart rate kind of way. What does difficulty mean? Most days feels buttering bread while learning to surf. I write cause I want to. It’s like learning to surf because I want to. You read this like learning to surf because you want to. If you don't then put it down and tell your teacher I said so. Then cover my shift. I’m trying to surf
Fin (Dorsal) Cats are really good if you want a dog. A old coworker had this shirt that said Seek Discomfort which I think means wearing a shirt that says Seek Comfort. I love hitting a red light so I can return to the important work of someone might rear end me and I'll get a new car