Days 1-6

Day 1

Honestly, those are the moments I remember least well

But those are the ones with greatest impact

The subconscious halfway there, halfway not

of reassembling neurons, atomic realizations.

Other people's sickness, reflected in my eyes,

taught me more about my sickness then

hours of therapy, lots of pills, reading

everything I can find on the subject of

when our brains are betraying us.

Day 2

If I had to thank anyone, it was the patients.

Playing cards all of a Sunday afternoon.

Half of us half conscious, those that were

were only there to detox, not for insanity.

Crack, or liquor, or shooting up god knows what.

Screaming, or catatonia. Talking or crying.

They were the healers there, not the drugs.

Day 3

I realized on day three that I was sick.

I was more then a year is digging down to that.

More then two or three, actually.

It took everything to admit to myself

that I deserved my own compassion.

After I knew I was sick,

I knew I was better, and what I needed.

Day 4

I realized that I could do more then these people.

In a different ward, supposedly more high functioning.

No one there dreamed of impossible things anymore.

They were all full of hopelessness.

Older, road-worn, sun-beaten, the world taught them shame.

I only wanted to sing until they could sing.

Show them what they were lacking

by all my high functioning,

doing things even healthy people could not do.

Day 5 & 6

Feeling better.

Thoughts on Poetry

Poetry to me is not a mode of communication in which I seek to express an experience, whether it is the experience of a happening, a thought, or an emotion. My goal, if I have one, is to express a single moment's experience in a way that that other people may then experience it.

I seek to write in things that other people look at and feel as though they've experienced them before. I want to put words to the human condition in a way that expresses my experience of the world. I love poetry that expresses not the feeling of the moment, but the experience of the moment. To me a good writer is one, that after I have read their works, I have taken a part of them and been given the chance to live through their work. One of my favorite examples of this is Pablo Neruda's "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market."

Among the market greens,

a bullet

from the ocean

depths,

a swimming

projectile,

I saw you,

dead.

All around you

were lettuces,

sea foam

of the earth,

carrots,

grapes,

but

of the ocean

truth,

of the unknown,

of the

unfathomable

shadow, the

depths

of the sea,

the abyss,

only you had survived,

a pitch-black, varnished

witness

to deepest night.

Only you, well-aimed

dark bullet

from the abyss,

mangled at one tip,

but constantly

reborn,

at anchor in the current,

winged fins

windmilling

in the swift

flight

of

the

marine

shadow,

a mourning arrow,

dart of the sea,

olive, oily fish.

I saw you dead,

a deceased king

of my own ocean,

green

assault, silver

submarine fir,

seed

of seaquakes,

now

only dead remains,

yet

in all the market

yours

was the only

purposeful form

amid

the bewildering rout

of nature;

amid the fragile greens

you were

a solitary ship,

armed

among the vegetables,

fin and prow black and oiled,

as if you were still

the vessel of the wind,

the one and only

pure

ocean

machine:

unflawed, navigating

the waters of death.

When I read this I feel as though I have experienced everything he felt, thought, every sideways connection of his brain in the moment that he saw this large tuna.

Your Room

My back on your bed

Seeking to memorize

angles in your ceiling

the joints of the walls

precise shades in your

decorations just like I

run fingers over you

memorize each hair

the bend of your back

the feel of each parcel

of skin, the tension of

each muscle movement

are they that different?

Where you sleep

becomes you.

I want to know them

both intimately.

You're Still Pixels

I took a picture

it did not capture your entire life

it took the essence of that moment

and it captured your smile

the turn of your eyes

the cocking of your head to one side.

I've heard pictures

they can steal your soul.

I think they give you a piece of it

that very moment

you will remember longer then others.

It's within pictures

that we find we have changed.

Our hair and clothes with fashion

the light in our eyes changes hue

the way we feel about the world

I've heard pictures

they can steal your soul

I think this time they've given me a piece of it.

Thank you for standing still.

Goddamnit, you're still pixels.

Mythology

About this one I can only say that sometimes the soul of poetry is hyperbole.

You wanted a new name.

I suggested something Greek,

no nothing like Hercules,

you were not that strong.

But something more obscure

something from a deep philosophy

or a name charged with mythology.

You wanted something that fit in

with all the modernity of your tattoos

I guess that's because we live in different worlds.

Me, an anachronism paired against your punk

your ever-present attempt for attention

to be the life of the party drinking a best friend's breast milk.

I guess there are too many pieces in us that are the same,

and I love that we understand that about each other.

Fuck, I think after a week you could break my heart.

Only a tiny crack, I haven't given you all of it,

but I want to. You are my mythology.

I'm not interested in falling for you, I've done that enough.

I am interested in the part of you that is like coming home.

We barely know each other, and we want the same things.

You offered your unconditional love for a text message.

Every atom in me screamed for it, my rational mind said

"It is too soon for this. Play it off. Don't let him know."

I want it. You are my mythology.

Usually Silent

I wrote this last year when I was doing lots of online dating. It's not about anyone in particular.

Hello,

I didn't remember your face correctly.

I think the picture did not do justice.

Maybe there is some terror

one of us is feeling without saying.

So, I will break the tension and change

everything yet again, but that hurts.

And, you know I cannot do much

without some measure of pain.

I have nothing to tell, but I can talk

all about my unique situation

and days on end I will await

for a time to trust you with it.

Because, I can see there is a difference

between telling you I hurt

and letting you be a balm for a night

or a day or a week or month

when I have broken down

and chameleon like I go back to being

invisible and staying home everynight

where I envy the worst of those

that haunt the places where

we tactlessly search for sex.

I guess being a man is

not what I expected a year ago.

I thought it was easier.

I thought it had a tangible reward.

But, it means being alone sometimes.

It means knowing that alone is not always lonely.

It means laughing in the face of my denial.

It means saying, "Fuck fear."

And, sometimes taking your clothes off

in the middle of a party

and realizing that you are imperfect

and that imperfect is what is sexy

because there is nothing better in the world

then loving something imperfect

and watching it change,

hoping that its newest incarnation

is better, or stranger, or something.

I've had my trails of tears

and I have no regrets

except for those things I did not do.

If in ten years I cannot walk

if in five years I cannot type

and every joint and bone and muscle aches

with a fire that gnaws at my soul;

if my mind betrays me again

and I see things inside out and upside down

beyond reason and normal imagination

I guess I will know that right now

I left nothing out.

I did nothing but live.

Like a man.

Mostly.

I hope you can accept that.

I mean, there are days I can't.

And this is my life.

This is just more proof

that my primary mode of communication

is disclosure and letting you know what's wrong.

Even if I am scared of it.

I think that was a lot to say for one night.

Oh, and your face,

I didn't remember it correctly,

and I meant to say that I like it a lot.

But, I don't expect to see it again any time soon.

I am crazy and I'm broken.

But, I am in love with myself.

Which is more then I can say for most people.

Close your eyes.

Give me a kiss.

Without goodbye.

But, you know,

I would like to see you again.

My phone is on vibrate.

But, usually silent.

Within Your Body

Let me linger in your body
exposed upon your heartbeat.
Let me stand in the place where
your scent originates.
And, I shall feel the way you move
that I have watched
and have wondered at your grace.

Do you not feel these walls of flesh
set up keep us separate,
to keep this hard world out,
to keep us apart?

Oh, I wish for some door
through which to enter
and stare ardent
with your eyes at your flesh
and wonder at the feel of your skin
against my consciousness!

On the Cover of a Book of Keat's Poetry

midnight found you

wrestling with angels

and the mountains

and the stones they watched

and wondered who

they should lend their strength to

when you can caress them

unlike that being with wings

Untitled 2

Dust in my eyes

song for a famine

in my mouth.

Not the dawn,

just the doubt.

And, what have

you done now?

The devil is in

the constants.

The truth is in

the changes.

Neither of which

are things I can say.

You and I

The smell of my coffee every morning,

I know I make it differently then you.

I prefer organics, fresh brewed.

You still prefer freeze-dried

"what-the-fuck-is-that?"

I think I've only see you drink cheap beer

with your brothers, mostly

or maybe when we went to a baseball game.

I prefer red wines, hard liquors, microbrews.

It's funny how similar we are not.

I want to work in science and make art.

I don't do pragmatic things,

I don't study business or engineering.

You were in the army.

The army would never take me.

But, I still see you when I go to work.

No matter how different we are

I am still the wax you molded

into a candle that still burns.

I think I prefer metaphors

and you prefer the literal.

Unnamed 1

You are like the ghost of some fallen angel,

an intangible echo of a soul unknown.

And, within the smallest atom of time

all known things begin to fade of their own accord.

How cold the horror of oblivion within your memory.

I breathed that perfume once, I prayed for it.

The stars looked down speaking in their tongue

(for once without their air of mystery)

I heard a rustle of snow and the distance of a year.

How odd that even in the dark I see your vision

though some far off country calls your name.

I am still deep within your memory you say.

I am still a danger you say.

But, soon I whisper, then silence echoes,

and the page is blank.

These Have Ended and musings.

I'm lying in bed under the oppressive heat of still summer air. I sweat in my clothes, I know I will need a shower before I got out this evening. Last night I was at a candlelight vigil for a man I barely knew, had only met once or twice. He committed suicide. I was there more for me then for anything else. It was powerful and moving, I almost did the same thing last month.

Someone sang Amazing Grace with a beautiful and pure voice. I cried. That does not happen often. I stood between two men. One who is my friend, my brother. The other who is one of many potential futures. I was there, touching them both at the same time. It made me think, it pulled my consciousness out of time for awhile.

I was there more for him then for me. I needed to see the fallout of the things I had contemplated. The ripples of life that that move around world. The ripples of death that follow those. I wonder now, is anyone untouched? None of us are virgins to death. This has ended.

And now a poem:

These Have Ended

O! Insatiable Archer, Death!

I see you still have arrows.

Your quiver does not empty

as the limits of mortal minds.

And, effortless, never errant,

I see this one has struck;

brought peace to mortal heart.

What crave thee, in Achilles heel?

We, defenseless against you

mourn each feathered shaft

and the soulless passing

of your empty shadow.

What epitath would you pen?

Within the entire graveyard,

evidence of your existence,

echoes only this:

These have ended.

These have ended.

These have ended.

A Man's Body

I don't know.
I could hang that up on my wall
if I found it as a poster.
It has such an unusual character
for a man's body.
Something I so rarely see
reflected anywhere except the mirror.
Your picture.

There is a freedom in knowing
you're not alone
no one can copy down an image
they've never seen.
But, you tried.
The only thing the truth
ever taught me
is that it hurts.

I don't know.
How can I hang up on a wall
what I want to lay next to me?
If I found you in a bed
I'd love you
in your man's body.
This is all wrong
I've said it in the wrong tone.
I'm just singing to
your picture.

Safe Sex

if she does not
look back
there will be no
pillar of salt
to mine regret from

if she does not
wear white
while executing
the killing stroke
everything will be alright

if he does not
close his eyes
while they kiss

if he does not
ask her to
move in

this will be a one night stand
this will be safe sex
she won't even need
to touch him

if she does not
know her mythology

if she does not
ask for psychology

if she does not
respond to his physiology

then maybe...
this will be safe sex
without touching skin

Everything - Part 1

I am up late tonight. Luckily it is by choice today, not by pathology. I can only think of that pathology tonight. The places it has taken me, the things I haven't written about it that I am ready to. I was once told that the only things one can really write about are the things one has gotten over. I do not agree. Or, at least this is not the case for me, I write to get over things, to get things out.

I don't remember too much about April last year, and my first good descent into psychosis, into that state where my mind is not my own. I know I was scared. I know I was unprepared.

There were a lot of pills. I slept a lot. It is not half as exciting or dramatic as it seems. Movies about mental hospitals are always full of the endless war on the self. The problem is, this war is rarely fought where others can see. I do not know if someone who has not experienced such things can fully understand what it means when your mind and body betrays you so completely that your actions are not your own.

You think you own your body, that it is your last safety, it is a place of escape. When all else fails that there is some inner world where things are controllable and beyond the reach of...anything. That it is immortal, Spirit even. Or, I thought that. The part that is Spirit is more well hidden then that.

I have for so long thought that other people are different then I am, that they did not experience this lack of control, this feeling of frustration over their limitations and the lack of all the qualities they wish they possessed. This was deepest arrogance, I know.

You see, I felt geriatric at the young age of 21. I felt as though I had been betrayed by my body. I could accept that betrayal on some level because I still felt as though I had my mind when my body failed I could prognosticate endlessly, and my brain, so used to working overtime, would only sharpen and discern.

It's difficult to sort through the very nature of disease. Chronic pain and fatigue slowly sap your mental strength when you are constantly attempting to refuse them entry to the core of your being. The funny thing is the core of your being, Spirit, is never touched by these things anyway. All of your pain, mental and physical anguish, can be let through every imagined boundary...and never touch anything. It's funny, the very thing we do everything to resist isn't nearly as ad as we think.

It is late, and my mind wanders.

At 21I knew that I did not have terribly long to live, I thought I would die by 30. I do not believe that anymore, but I had every reason to think that was true. I would only know pain and pills and weekly shots and the depletion of B vitamins leading to more pills to restore some equilibrium. The daunting task of holding together and keeping a happy face. Toughing things out and being a Man. I did not think I could do it for long, to exist on only willpower is impossible for any great length of time. It is the feeling of not having eaten enough for days.

The thing I have always loved about my life is that whenever I lose faith (and, I think perhaps I use this word differently then most people would) there always comes something along to restore it. When I give up on the love of other people, that is when I feel the greatest love from other people. When I give up on being able to provide for myself, that is when I am most able to do things for myself. Maybe there is a secret in this giving up I've yet to learn.

I graduated college in 3 years. By the end of it I had a bachelor's degree and a chronic disease. According to a man I once met, they both last a lifetime.

People with rheumatoid arthritis have a higher then average suicide rate. This should be no surprise. As I said above, it is daunting. But, these sorts of mental illnesses are made no better by expectation of their eventual appearance. Mine, of course, was a whole different beast.

For me, the most important part of all of this is that I failed to have compassion for myself. Looking back I had not learned that I was just as worthy of my own patience and compassion as everyone else. I understand this better now, though learning it was a hard road.

More later.

My Womb Would Echo

I look down the hall

to where my descendants do not sit,

hear the echoes of my genes,

the fall of my footsteps,

see the unholy-waiting-for-dust,

the future of my body.

(It is a tomb of malfunctions

like the future of my race.)

Were I a woman, my womb would echo.

Instead, with a man's body I am solid inside.

My heart beat is muffled, cannot be heard.

At a quarter century, I realize

that there shall be no flesh of my flesh.

No accidents, no broken condoms,

no forgetting birth control,

no failed tubal ligation.

Were I a woman, my womb would echo.

Instead, no one will hear, or think twice,

that I will choose to be barren.

Most men would be happy

to know there was no chance of child support,

or being trapped in a marriage.

No first words or steps,

no bad drawings on the fridge,

no chance at brilliance or pride.

Were I a woman my womb would echo.

Instead, I found an empty place

in my man's heart, in which I sing.

I Go Without

I kissed your apocalypse face

left a note on your door

on the wrong side

for you

I left without words

you were sleeping

watch you doze

my love

Repeat this cycle for now

but soon you leave

and I go without

Everyone Goes Northwest

Old triggered memories
every time I turn around
we're laughing in the park
dancing with no rhythm
don't hold my hand in public
run through downtown
while drunk and wondering
will I make this train?

Every old restaurant
attached to a filament
something lights up
and we're here talking
while I'm a mile away
half the distance measured
in good and bad memory
aren't we all just solid
aren't we all just dreamers

And, O, how there's half this
empty or full, I don't know
just a feeling draining
its self away into my words
Now a love of distance
we're both better now
everyone goes northwest
without me

The Psychology of Nihilism

Stopping on just this side
when past that no one can see
just bright lights and guessing
like a prism or a book
different interpretations
the psychology of nihilism

Halfway a thousand times
you still don't reach
but could fall over the edge
no parachutes or bungie cords
are we ready for that?
the psychology of nihilism

Maybe it's all in our head
and we're just dreaming
waiting for oblivion
the meaning of life
was never a promise
but an attempt

Different Circumstances

I don't know who you are
But I feel you are my kind.
Sweet like knowing a comfortable house
A bed to rest in or a long dream.
Were we in different circumstances
I would make a love with you
That Helen of Troy would envy.

Time to Find Home

Son of another world,
we crossed paths
while I was slowly declining.
I did not know,
neither did you.
There is something about you
a mythology I built.
A drawing out of poison
or release from something.
I feel as though I am
a stranger in a strange land.
Maybe it's time to find home.

Meditation on Escapism

If there is one thing I am no good at, it is escapism. I hate it. There is something in my nature too utterly stubborn to ever allow me to just sit back and relax. I need to act, to fix, to move forward, to beat myself or my feelings into submission. I cannot simply ignore something. It will tear at me, and I'll struggle with it until there is something won. It's funny how I never consider how much it costs me to win.

I've been doing a lot of fighting. I've been trying to beat so many things into submission. I've been convinced I'm doing everything I can to live the life other people are living, the life I think I should have. Really, I've just been hurting myself by not living the life that only I can live.

I've been dwelling on the most permanent form of escapism, suicide. Today while walking to the coffee shop to read, I began to understand that suicide is just another form of escapism. I've been looking at it as release, but really it's just an attempt to escape things. Perhaps it does work. But, it is in the same way that alcohol or drugs or sex or any number of another ways we escape pain work. There's nothing to be learned from it. It means an end to that learning that we are here to do.

I feel better now. Perhaps a bit macabre still, but better. I've finally recognized something that's been holding me back, that's been keeping me from moving forward, and for me that recognition means reclaiming the parts of my world that I was giving up.

To Terra-form

There is something in your visage
in the angle of your jaw and beard
the points of your mouth when you laugh
in your scrunched up eyes when you smile
that still calls my name. (or is that a hallucination?)

I reckon my life with you as the start
of the newest one, the one I'm not settled in.
I don't blame you anymore, there is no blame.
The only thing to be had in its place is peace.
But that's not as easy as hallucinating you, again.

And this is another fossil of feeling.
Maybe they are better left buried - fuck.
leave them underground until they're old enough
to be used to fuel something else, to terra-form
and use you as another beginning, and another end.

Catharsis 1

If things were simple and I could not imagine
all these things I feel that I am missing tonight
If I were not a poet, not a romantic, not a dreamer
and I could ignore what could be or have been.
If I slept well alone or summoned the strength
to cook for myself and eat alone every night.
If I could dream of a life where I was alone
and not grasping for an unattainable possession.
If there were androids for me to fall in love with
and understand for all their simple programming.
If men could be a known quantity not this heart
rending wondering if they are telling the truth.
If I could settle for anything besides fire
and lightning and a balm for addiction.

A dreamer I'd continue to be.
Right now, I hate poetry.
I hate this mind and body.

But, I am trapped and tired.

Pablo Neruda

If only the passion with which
Pablo Neruda writes were to
be found in every kiss, every
touch, every fluttering eyelash.
If only all lips were the shape
that he implied they should be
and all hearts beat as hard
as he said his beat to see her.
If only I summoned that
natural intensity, that unbridled
that lack of boundaries,
that home-coming to a lover.
If only I did not know who
Pablo Neruda was, so that
I did not know what I am
now missing to not be him.

I used to hate hate.

I used to hate hate.
But, at a certain point
when I had learned to love fully,
I began to understand its place.

I do not forgive myself my hatred.
But, I accept that it is like love.
A river, in which one can drown
or in which one can learn.

I used to hate hate.
Until I learned how to hate myself,
and judge myself for
all of my perceived weaknesses.

I used to hate hate.
Now, I don't touch the stuff.
Like an alcoholic in a liquor store.

Like the Moon, Girl.

If your dreams, like the moon, girl,
rise and fall, only to be overshadowed
by some brighter light,
dream them only harder, brighter.

Let the moon then shine
like a blazing comet at noon.

Bring it down from its lofty solitude
to burn the impurities in the hot atmosphere.

Then your dreams, like the moon, girl,
shall change the tides.

And, we all then sail at your behest.

Long Before I Met You

Long before I met you
I learned to rest my arms on the clouds
I learned to sit in silence
I learned to bend my knees
I wore this body supple with senses keen

Long before I met you
I only dreamed of things I didn't know
I only dreamed of having a different nature
I only dreamed of being held so well
I wore my dreams light upon my shoulders

It's been a long time since I met you.