Soggy cafeteria fries

When I was young 

My parents would sometimes travel 

To visit family or friends

I would come with them on the ferry ride,

and beg for quarters to waste on the arcade machine 

Those long trips looking out at the blue horizon 

Will be ever affixed in my memories 

And the objectively terrible flavour 

(which I relished nonetheless) 

Of soggy cafeteria fries 

And congealed packet gravy 

Still lingers on my lips

pancake breakfast

From the very first time we awoke together,
I only wanted to make you pancake breakfast
Outside our window, passing every weather,
Until we, heavy lidded, fall into embrace and rest

Would I could, I'd set the timer to reverse,
Fix every burned edge and doughy hiccup
Every golden flapjack would be well rehearsed,
And laid softly to await your sweet syrup

And we, like eggs, so gently turned with butter,
Bind together, tumble over, never to burn or stick
Salt and syrup, we mingle as do enchanted lovers,
And lay down upon fluffy pads of joy and bisquick

Amid the warm memory of hazelnut coffee,
Two love-made plates are growing cold
And amid the bruise-blue spatter of berry coulis,
Is printed the message of my heart and soul:

I only wanted to make you pancake breakfast,
Until we, heavy lidded, fall into the embrace of death.

dark window

3 am, the sound of gunfire crack! crack! so loud it breaks the air pirouettes between the stark brick and stone the trees like shocked dancers caught in a twisted rictus and then after a long drawn breath, a breath drawn in so long it presses at the lungs to escape crack! a third ring of that dreaded bell she is listening by the window hesitant, cautious, but yearning to be aware there is only darkness out the window, darkness and that sickly orange glow of streetlights all is still in the cool West Broadway air but somewhere nearby a woman is crying a siren's scream swells hauntingly by and fades away into the city where it goes she can't be certain but somewhere nearby a woman is still crying

#2017

Like my status if you're feelin blue
Cuz some fool you love didn't see it in you
Mistreated your feelings but you still stuck around
Cuz heartstrings are stronger than any other bonds

Leave a comment if your heart's ever shot fire like a comet
Crashing through your world to make you sick enough to vomit
If one time you thought you were a hard enough to wander on your own
And you didn't know you had softness until you stayed up all night texting on your phone

Shout-out to the ones who learned even inspite of being burned
That love is like respect--seldom given, often earned
Even though you learned a lot you'd always thought you'd be alone
But before that night you had no clue it felt that good to feel at home
And now here you are, days weeks or months later
your heart's no longer singin cuz lovers always seem to turn to haters
Even though you know they'll always be a piece of you
Sometimes predestiny ain't enough to make one puzzle out of two
Sometimes shit gets complicated and hearts will end up broken
Sometimes even though we meant to say it, we wish we'd never spoken

Share if you're aware that what is here won't always be there
But you know that love is better for the sake of being rare
And even if you care enough it doesn't always matter
Cuz all these tangled moments leave the human heart in tatters

So like my status if you're feelin blue
Cuz some ghost you love couldn't dare love you

Lost Woods (song lyric)

discord, mayhem, dismay
in these concrete streets
where I wander on my weary way

darkest shadows
they are calling me away
so into the woods I go

deep beneath the canopy
no sunlight among the trees
the only lonely light I see
a tiny little spark

demons, devils, devas,
ripping away
all the pieces of that tiny glimmer

nightmarish horrors,
why did I ever wander
into these darksome woods?

sometimes, you gotta get lost
to find yourself
out in the woods
sometimes, you gotta get lost
out in the woods
to find yourself (so get lost)

deep beneath the canopy
no sunlight is left in me
the only lonely light is gone
but in its place I wrote a song
I wrote about the moon and the setting sun
I wrote of all things I've said and done
I wrote about the only lonely light
and I brought it back to life....

sometimes, you gotta get lost
to find yourself
out in the woods
sometimes, you gotta get lost
out in the woods
to find yourself (so get lost)

the blade

the blade runs deep, the sting of its swift withdrawl

extorts cruelly the vibrant ruby creek to stain my skin

with the eternal colour of anguish

(which may dim but never vanish)

and how am I left to react

in a stark moment of bewilderment

I could crumple and scream  

I have done so before

the strength to endure is greater

than to stumble and falter

so familiar, those disenchanted shackles

that have bound my wrists so many times before

but this day, I have grown too tired of my own weakness

too furious to bear another moment in disgrace

a man whose cringing fear would dare not face

the searing, sticky, itching strife

that runs like a rusting, blunted knife

from my sternum to my stem

I will stand, for the first time

in tears yes, but joyfully wept

not of cowardice but determination

at last my foe shall know humiliation

many years from now, I will feel it

in the cold of winter, the scar will rise and swell up

and I will see the stain again as if the wound were freshly cut

once again reminded of the agony

and the blade that cut me free

That’s the Spirit

You know how it is.

You meet Her in some random place, far away from home. She is beautiful, exciting, multi-faceted, entertaining and, more importantly, She is everything that you’ve been craving. She is coy, and somehow She always seems to be averting your gaze. You ask Her a few questions about this and that, and the sheer sound of Her voice is enough to make your mind wander to the most fantastic places.

So you take Her to the best bar you know and offer to buy Her a drink, thinking it might loosen things up. But in the light fluttering brought on by the alcohol you say or think or do something that sets Her uneasy, and then there’s distance. She is still there, of course, hovering about the room, but never spending too long in your glance. You don’t know it, but She’s just as interested in you as you are in Her. Which is a lot.

But you are care free, so you spend the night socializing with your wingmen, and you have a great time. At some point, She leaves, but you don’t see Her go. You just carry on carousing until you pass the point of making sense. And that’s when you set out, broke and probably in the middle of some god-awful non-summer season, on some hour-and-a-half long journey to your bed, which might as well be on the moon.

And then at 3 am, when you are staggering home stoned, drunk, and alone (or so you think), your mind starts to wandering. Primordial, rarely seen combinations of chemicals splash through your neurons at irregular intervals. Colours and shapes take on new meaning in the early morning darkness, and then you start imagining things up. Another bunch of chemicals tumbles into your synapses and you get a flash of memory—bright as the dawn and nearly as glorious: shadow of an idea of a glimpse of Her face. It causes you to skip a beat and stop on the spot.

And so you, being a perfectly normal drunkard stumbling through suburbia, start singing at the top of your lungs. In honour of Her.

Repetitively. Out of key. It’s always something people might otherwise enjoy—like Beatles, in this case—if it weren’t being drunkenly brayed out to the street and darkness on repeat for thirty minutes. And then, when you’re almost completely out of air at the top of a hill, the most peculiar thing happens.

Everything changes.

It’s always the same; or very similar, anyway. The sound of an orchestra fills your head, and the moon cracks out like a brilliant silver yolk from a curiously puffy-looking egg, its light transforming the houses and the trees or whatever you’re nearby into cyclopean shapes both ominous and alien. And then an enormous dragon (or some flying thing) swoops out from behind a tree. You’re so drunk that it doesn’t really come as a shock. More of a pleasant surprise, like when you see a shooting star. So you just keep singing, like everything you’re seeing is emanating from your voice. You probably look (and sound) like a stupid cock. But that doesn’t occur to you. It’s very late and you are very intoxicated and high on something else.

And suddenly She is with you, and you’re running incredibly fast through cloudscapes, singing about showing each other the world, and oddly it’s in perfect five-part harmony. There’s a choir over behind that dragon (or whatever).

But before you’re able to kiss Her, you realize you’re not in the sky at all. You’re in a deep forest filled with everyone you’ve ever known, but they’re Ewoks. And although you’re totally unable to understand the words that are coming out of their mouths, you somehow know what they are telling you. They are slowly being killed off by something in the air. And it’s coming from the plants. You have to save them! But can you?

You think it’s a bit like the plot from The Happening, which you recently watched just to laugh at Mark Wahlberg’s confused expression, but then the trees come alive and start dripping ichor, and it’s more like Lord of the Rings, only if it were directed by Guillermo Del Toro, which would totally have been sweet. Too bad he didn’t direct The Hobbit.

And then She comes back to you with your first pet dog, Rusty. His breath is strong and warm against your face as he leaps to hug you, as if you and he had never grown old. Suddenly you’re all on the moon, and She introduces you to a Ninja Princess named Mina who rides a magnificent golden stag and throws shuriken tipped with poison that only harms the unjust. Plus she is totally sexy. And you think all of that is fucking awesome! So you ignore the similarities to other pieces of literature and just go with it.

So you decide to team up in her quest against the harsh and unjust empire of human kind. But it is only then that you realize that you’re actually a soldier with commitments to King and Country, and there is a great war across the globe against the evil robotic empire. In this grim world, all of the people you have ever known are being mowed down by machine gun fire shot by warriors made of steel. Bombs fall from the sky. Buildings collapse. Few survive…

And then, when all seems lost, you’re actually saved by this Ninja Princess named Mina!

That sounds like a few other stories too, but it’s okay. You’re alive.

But wait!

Rusty is still in the building! And She is gone. You run back in to save Rusty, your dear friend. You find him there, but then you remember that he died a long time ago. He is dust, but those sweetly strange-smelling memories... they’re still alive. It seems like you might be able to escape when the world crashes down around you, and your eyes finally open.

And just like that, you wake up with a sore head and a hazy recollection of the night before. You roll over in your bed, and She is gone. Maybe She never came home with you, but you know you met Her at some point. The pillow still has Her smell. She was here.

You can just barely remember Her face and you’re not sure you ever even knew Her name.

Inspiration.