give us our daily plastic

it's bound with microfiber.
it isn't real.
it will bludgeon you
and hold you
when it's through
and pretend it
always loved you
before it sends the
hammer
into the back of your skull
again
with gentle kisses.

all the authority
in the world
can't make you
conform.

all the love
in the world
won't make
you
loved.

all the smiles
in the cosmos
can't bring
you happiness.

it's made of microfiber
and lint
and the plastic they pull
from crude
and it will replace your
skin,
one cell at a time.

it's conformity
and courage
and little things
that go
bump in the night.

it's a horror out there
and it intends to
give you
a fright.

it's rubber trees
and plastic grass
and nylon shirts
and falling from grace
so gently that it's as if
it never happened at all.

it's a hell of a way
to learn,
but it's the only thing
they're teaching.

cleanse the soul
with recycled
water bottles
and grocery bags
that flutter on the wind.

reach deep into the veins
and pull out the heart
through elastic cords
and weep a small song
from the madness
endured
over eons
from the hollowed out
core at your center.

they gift you
their sanity
to swallow
one sip at a time,
but it drives you mad,
nonetheless.

maybe they'll lose it too
and everything will be fine,
maddened through the eons
on fake intentions
and firm values
that were cast aside
like the containers
we buy that house the products
we want
that are dropped off
at your local dump
to be sorted and processed
into new merchandise
we'll drink down
like sanity
before it's recycled
again.

cries and curses and how to swing back

it's about fighting 
for everything 
you have.
it's about getting
punched
in the mouth
and turning around
with a smile.
it's about
the tired,
heaving feeling
at the base of 
your spine
after
they've pushed you
down
and stepped on your
jaw
and tried to disassemble
you
from the inside
out.
it's all about being
beaten and
torn and 
tried and
tormented.
this is the small 
death that juggles
the bones,
that turns the guts,
that fucks the very
soul of you into perdition.
and how many times
can you
stand back up
on jelly legs
and look them in the eyes
and smile away 
the fear
and continue on
despite yourself?
and how many times can the walls
come tumbling in?
and how many times
can you get kicked in the heart
and still feel?
it's about turning down the vultures 
and rising above
and refusing the easy way,
the easy path,
the easy death.
it's about using the words
to spite them,
to spit in the face of normality,
to remain tired
and broke
and disillusioned
and dire.
it's about taking a punch
and living through it.
it's about taking and punch
and going in for another.
it's about taking a punch
and breaking away the parts
of you that want to cry.
it's all about standing up
when there's no place
to sit down and relax
because you know 
if you do,
you'll never get up again. 

if everyone in the world 
chose to stand up,
those who lead you 
would be forced 
to sit down.

the answer is no answer, but the questions have to keep coming

i would like to say
that there is a greater
meaning
to all of this,
that someone's idea
of religion,
of politics,
of social programs,
of happiness
has pinpointed the way
we should all follow.

but that would be bullshit.

the truth remains that no one way
is beneficial to everyone.
no one has a clear cut path
carved out
that reveals the nature of us all.

there has been no book written to answer
all the questions.
no proof given to one final answer that
ties all of this together into a neat
little pill
that we can all swallow.

i have met some very convicted people
in my life,
people who swear by the answers they
have found,
people who have turned their life around
with faith,
but i just couldn't stand in line and follow
their lead.

yet we wage wars on faith,
design ways to screw over others
because their ideas conflict
with our own.

we even use the idea of no faith
to convince ourselves
that it is okay to step on the backs of others
to climb the ladder of success.

with enough buzz words,
our governments have concocted ways
to rally the forces
to convince us there is a common enemy.

they use
democracy,
freedom,
America,
terrorism,
drugs,
liberty,
God,
wealth,
prosperity,
resolution,
conviction,
abortion,
racism,
sexism,
healthcare,
housing,
along with every other
buzz word
to suckle at the
American tit,
and feed off of common
ignorance.

as long as we're all sheep,
there will never be a reason
to wander
outside of the fence
to see what the rest of the world
has to offer.

as long as we are a nation
hypnotized by social media,
by smart phones,
by television,
video games,
processed fast food,
and all the rest of the treats
they force feed us,
we'll never wake up to the
reality of slavery,
of subservience to an
out of control machine
designed to keep us
in line.

what it takes is living our
lives individually,
constantly acquiring knowledge,
refusing the easy answers,
and being grateful
for what we already have.

it takes setting aside everything else
and concentrating our efforts
on our own particular demographic,
on the people closest to us.

we're all just trying to make it through,
and it is the responsibility of each one of us
to help those who can't do it for themselves.

never stop asking questions.

gift them sorrow

write wicked words 
composed in pain.
give every bit of 
yourself over
and make it hurt.
tell them about
failed suicides,
lost loves,
the taste of the last drug
that nearly beat you 
to death.
tell them what part of you
is just like the same part
of them.
turn over the dirt
and open up the grave
as wide as you can
so they get a good view
at the bones you uncover.
make the lies truthful
and tell the truth
as if it were the last lie left
to be told.
touch your face often
to feel for the lines
that guide your imagination,
remembering how far you have come.
let the words 
lay on the page 
like a lover,
like the beaten dead,
like the child of innocence
you used to be.
give them your everything
and someday
maybe
it'll all be worth it
when you're 
gone.

this time

there was a faint smell of sulfur
as the machine cracked in my hand.
it was the sound of popping knuckles
which reverberated in my ears
as i stared down at the brass sphere
between my fingers,
hooked between index and thumb.
purple electricity flashed across
my eyes
and it felt as if
my skin
were shedding
from
my muscles,
one particle at a time.
every hair on my body
stood on end
like needles separating
from my pores.
the world spun around me,
and suddenly,
the room
in which i had been standing,
evaporated
until all that was left was a blue hum
that shot through with blinding white
and the deepest black
of oceans swallowed by space,
smearing the outlines of stars
across my eyes.
i could not breathe.
my chest would not move.
the taste of sulfur,
stronger now,
threatened the pressure
expanding in my throat.
and all at once,
there was silence.
the purest void with which
i have ever experienced.
it was an all encompassing quiet
that hushed even the calmest atom
of my being.
i looked again,
and at my feet,
playing in the sand,
unaware, fearless,
unabated,
was i
as a child of no older than five,
playing by a set of swings in the clean
swept sand, looking up at the man
he would become.
i said, "don't worry,
it gets better. some day you'll go
even pass your own imagination."
and my child as me smiled
and gave a tender nod.
i pressed the brass sphere
tightly into my palm
and the sulfur was faint again at my lips.
and there again was the hushed energy
which had brought me to my youth.
and again, i felt as if i were being torn from myself.
and again, the waves of light crossed my sight.
and again, i was myself once more,
trying to deduce the
odd object i was given
by an old man
who looked, strangely enough, like me.

autumn gold

in the long of it all,
i look back with blurry eyes
at the earliest time
i can remember.

a soft blanket
and bars around me.

a soft light coming in
through the window.

a soft stuffed bear
at my side.

in the long of it all,
i look back
and remember my smile,
my soft mind,
and the bars around me to
keep me safe.

dark paneling.

gold carpet like the hair
on a puppet's head.

the smell of velvet
smoked through my grandfather's
brier pipe.

in the long of it all,
i find myself staring off
through undeveloped eyes,
hoping to catch a glimpse
of my youth,
and i see the same bars
keeping me in,
but the room has changed.