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.

today there will be a reckoning and one of
us will not make it out

this is our baby, but it’s their’s as well and who are we to deny them their baby just because we love it too?

if one of must go, i selfishly hope it will be you.
perhaps your toxic attitude
was the reason for my fear
perhaps your concern was
perfectly well founded and you were only speaking truth

today more than we imagined possible will take place
change is coming

and one of us is about to be voted out.

when things go the way i really did anticipate
and someone is helped out by the words
proceeding from my mouth rather than destroyed
by them

i feel a certain amount of pride
though the pride is misplaced
and instead there should be thankful humility

that somehow my asinine nature wasn’t able to leak out and slowly spread all over the floor filling books and crannies with that stuff that is sweet for the sole purpose of molding and attracting ants

but yet, pride is what rears its ugly head

i’m fairly certain…
no i definitely say it with certainty—

i’m failing at this on some scale i don’t yet understand

there are details here which i simply must be missing
and others out there who do it better than me

they understand the grind
they get the details
they are capable of sorting through all the bullshit
and what am i?

good at these other things i suppose
the wrong things?

i’m definitely fearful i can say it with certainty.

since i carefully sat and wrote something
out with more than a thought
or a passing care for producing
words on a page
full of ideas and “word pictures”
the kind that make me gag
because what the hell is a word picture

instead i spend most days barely scraping
by with a written word intended to last
more than a few moments after which it
will literally be consumed and erased from
the record.

press on they say
as though i’m not busy pressing on elsewhere
as though i am just overwhelmed with time
to play with my word output

bullshit i say.