and the history i’m listening to on
japanese war tactics during world
war two is depressing as hell even
though there are some good things
to be learned from the chaos. nuance
is hard to hear or learn tho from a
sufficiently bad situation so instead
we write it off completely which feels
better morally

so i go back to work and i put my
shit back together and i
bumble along till something
happens to what i own but cant
make go
make it go for forks sake

tonight we rise up
i dont love the reasons
i dont love the means
but i can no longer stand by and wait
non-violence is ignored
my neighbors kill, and i refuse
but i cant fault them

weve been killed, displaced, in the name of their god-given right

it may just have to be
like this

—

it’s like hawaii. they have no right to it. but theyre there….
we have no right to this
but conquering isnt new

though it may be passé

they may not like it and i can both understand why,
and fight back. you kidnapped my family, my neighbors, you meant harm for harms sake

loss is loss. i get it. but

not like this.

you throw everything in and go for it
pack it up and ship on out
and settle down and make friends
and fail
at what matters
and you sold all your shit
because you thought it’d work out differently
and now you have to start from scratch
even though the decision was
obvious

settle down and make friends
it’s not failure
at what matters

I hop up on the ledge because when I’m up here I can feel

and then harness
the potential energy.

i’m afraid things are too grim
to believe you’re there watching
but not yet bad enough
to plead to you for help

i’ll avoid the fears
and push them down and just hope for
the best
that this change isn’t actually happening
it’s all going to be just fine
if i ignore the problem it will go away
or maybe i was just overreacting in the first place
give it a few more days. a few more weeks.
everything’ll return to normal in no time
it happens to everyone. no need to panic
i could but i won’t but i could

give me long enough in go mode
and i’ll lose my ability to do anything but go.
i can put my head down, i can crank.

with the right attitude i can produce anything at breakneck speed

anything but art

and the rise
lacks shine and polish and that’s
okay for me because I can’t
realistically brighten everyone’s
day when for some of the folks on this
call it’s very late in the evening

park the bus and checkout
to narrative not mine, distracted by comedy

you are making these
choices and decisions and
holding these values you don’t
actually want to believe in because
you’ve surrounded yourself with people
undeserving of respect and you’re building
a fortress of sadness unsure that a shack
of happiness is a thing that can exist
because the long you’re in the
company if these people the
less clearly you see

i hope they’ll say “his prose
was better than any of you fuckers
dared to appreciate in his lifetime
so do your part in his death”
and then stare with a straight face at
the audience who came to mourn
and giggle on the inside as one
last
terrible
inside joke that wasn’t really funny

don’t drown
don’t drown
don’t drown
the waves are higher and you’re fatigued
beyond a reasonable limit. time to stand
still and stay afloat and relax your arms
and never give up but stop the fight
don’t drown
don’t drown
don’t drown

off the wagon again
as feels right given the circumstance
of the burning world

loss of the things that define(d) me
and the lack of feelings about the loss
now define me

no that’s not true
i’m angry as fuck that that was me
for so long

who i am can change, but what I do
must
change or all those who love me are in for one hell of a shitshow

holding everything I can see so
loosely it could all fall out of my hands
and loose enough I would be okay with that
just standing here. arms full. barely holding on

because gripping too tight is too big a commitment for things so unsure

a few thing here, in this pile, look so shiny, I’d love to pocket them
but that would be to assume they won’t eat through my pockets and fall to the ground when I’m not looking

no

I need to hold it so loosely it could all fall out of my hands

zen. I tell myself.
fucking zen.

the hardest thing about knowing too much
is understanding the impact it may have on
those you’ve worked your ass off to support

but you push through because you also
know that often you don’t have all the info and there have been doezens of times thus
far where you knew what was coming

the doom

and it never came.

the hardest part about knowing too much
is dealing with the pain you will someday
inevitably cause

there is a positive outcome for everyone if we just push long enough, hard enough, and don’t give the fuck up.

can I hang in there and not give the fuck up?

of a thing i’ve labored over for a long time now
and while it’s not yet a reality—the reality of it is sinking in
the foolishness of what got us here
the failures and the lack of sleep

we’ve built a thing of which we’re damn proud
and it will be time to lay it down and walk away
and we thought it was years in the future
and now it’s increasingly clear that it might be weeks

the failures and the lack of sleep and
the foolishness of what got here are
never far from my mind

sleep will come though, i say with some confidence
because long before the thing itself ended
resignation came.

a poem is all i can manage
the morning fog denies me anything more
as it grows thicker in my head

a big step up comes with a massive serving of humble pie
and this time it’s mixed with pecans and sweet potatoes
so i’m probably not going to be able to avoid binging on it

there is a way i feel about
things i cannot control and
when i put my arm out
hoping to stop what’s in motion i
find seatbelts were created for a
reason and reason is usually in
the way of doing what’s actually
good

so i wake up again and head back in, stuffed full of pie
and carrying along my now worthless broken arm in a
sling across my front trying to look professional

professional: a difficult look for someone who has learned
to live contorted in to a pretzel with foot firmly stuck in
mouth.

professional: a difficult look for someone who has learned
that fighting overconsumption of self-induced humility is a
lost cause i’ll never win.

professional: a difficult look for someone who never wears socks
and finds the thought of underwear overwhelming.

but this is a big step up. a big step up they tell me. for reasons.