and all of the names were false

status unsent

realities and intentions are separate, mind

God’s the pattern in the threads, not the start of the line

.

i glean the seams of the seat cushion fabric, pandering

pandering pandering pandering to the demons locked inside

.

rib (cage)

road (rage)

stage (fright)

(fright) stage

.

with etymology too far removed to undo,

i press every elevator button, thinking one of them is you

.

love, i broke my own heart on a Thursday afternoon,

finding the only proper nouns to be descriptors of time.

.

this life is a great experiment, try

this life is a great experiment, blind

and you don’t want to admit it. but sleep is the remedy.

love letter to a city unknown

New York City fucking scares me, but it makes me feel alive.

I don’t know much of anything. I often feel as if I’m regressing, fading into an oblivion negative enough to depolarize my every atom. I don’t know why. I don’t.

Yet whenever I’m in the City, I feel a physical shift. Something palpable. Something real. There is consequence to every step. Dreams are at an arm’s reach. So are the demons. So are you. But at least you can finally see them.

I have never before felt so insignificant. So absolutely present. So powerful. The suburbs shower you with the moldy grandeur of significance since birth, an empty baptism. You are special. Sing the gospel. Write your goals in the blanks provided.

Significance is a separation. Postulation, not protein.

To be insignificant is to be a part of something. Whatever it is, you’re in.

Influential.

The City and the person take turns playing canvas.

And everyone, every one, separate from path or sphere or goal or flesh, is always in motion. The spirit of the City is that we try. We all try.

We recognize the power of the City and ourselves. And we underestimate neither.

I’ve been trying to find a way to keep that feeling, for me to invoke it at will, so that I may go about my days with a sense of power.

I’ve tried snapping twice at inspiration, hoping to thread the senses.

Maybe there are no threads. Maybe they’re everywhere.

Maybe that’s the same. Maybe that’s beautiful.

entrance

The seashells sing on the beach when the Mud Man laughs, stinging his foot on the jetty and balancing his heart on his pinky toe, leaning back and letting out a hard, hearty laugh, like the gravel that gets stuck between your toes, but never seems to wash out in the shower. Kindness dances around his head, singing lullabies and blowing smoke around a jewel-encrusted carousel, loving each dip of vanilla bean ice cream and hating the feel of tasteless plastic against one’s tongue. Imagine you are on a river, and your golden watch falls into the deep, touching the foam and spiralling into nothing. You are left on the raft, heart bleeding out your song, wishing you could go back two days ago, when things were so simple, when things were so hopeful. Imagine you could, and that every droplet of spray falls back into the river and the fish swim backwards. Your wet watch returns to your hand, snaking around your wrist, and you slowly float backwards, back to the circus, where you were held captive, or so you thought. Imagine that you didn’t eat the wrong lunch, that you didn’t know disappointment, that every time that you opened your mouth, that you sang on key. Imagine that this were real, that it could be. Because it is. It’s been slumbering inside of your soul since your mother whispered your name. It’s been there since your father has thrown you a baseball, and you caught it, for the first time. It’s been there since the fire department gave you their word, their word that you had something in you, something that could save us all. All of these things, imagine them scratched into the cement of your sidewalk in your hometown, next to dandelion puffs and the moths you always saw as butterflies. Imagine this, because you can. Because it’s real. Because you can. It’s all you have left to hold onto. You can’t even recognize your own face anymore. You used to like to watch yourself grow, ticking off your height on the wall next to your kitchen, dreaming, but never drowning. That is a time you long to go back to. You need to create your own scars.

Fountain of

you are the dark place in my mind
the corner I revert to when my synapses sink in time
crush me and caution me and garnish me with your care
planning dyed hair is a strange affair
an affair that’s never a thought, but a symptom
pull the knife out of your back while I play the victim
are you tracing your feelings, reasons, meanings with a blade?
miles of Niles in your system left to untangle in the shade
of a chemical, hereditary, primary reaction-function
truths dripping from the salty-sweet eyedropper venom
of your eyes veins eyes veins eyes veins eyes
lies brain wise brain tries brain, synthesized
Synth is a religion and nightclub floors are the pews
bass is the gospel and flashing lights are the hues
that currently color in the skeletons of blueprints
you drew for your dreams, defined old reality with
tongues in others’ lungs doesn’t make for an answer
but I hear your prayer, girl, and I echo your seance
bodies twisting in rhythm with anyone who will feel us
people, sweat and Ciroc are all liquids, what’s the difference
searching for a Fountain of Amnesia to heal us

rant

I swear, life is so messed up. You enter the world, screaming, bleeding, pleading with desperate insistence—it’s hilarious how we interpret this release as “deliverance.” We seek shelter in dark places, because it reminds us of home—a mother’s arms, a lover’s arms, a hotel bar, sleeping alone. You, me, us three—we were all born sinners. By the time we got here, I guess that we weren’t beginners—-we swallow lies like taxes swallow integers. I mean, it’s funny how you won’t even remember the words. You spend your whole life forming them, years learning them, and hours agonizing, agonizing, agonizing over what to say—but if you hold your breath for long enough, the ocean washes them all away. Like Maya said, all we’re left with is feeling. Like Chuck said, our survival rate always drops to zero. Like Steinbeck said, life has no prescribed meaning. Like Tyler said, we need to kill all our heroes.

answer

The more people you meet, the more you realize that everyone’s the same. But in my chest, there’s a burning match that convinces me otherwise. You look into a stranger’s eyes and you see a flash of light—-not a reflection, but an answer.