C20H25N30
There’s a throng of dark matter storms clustering at the base of my spine.
C20H25N30 is encoded in the cord I decided to plug myself into when I
was 15. Jami told me that I was waking up. That it would give me answers
to questions that I didn’t yet know to ask. I still get confused when I relay
the signals back and forth from my brain, to my spirit. I become hell bent
on finding out, for sure, that’s there’s a difference between the two.
I want there to be.
I can’t really tell you why-
Because I want to die…
But I also want there to be an Eternity.
I just want to be comfortable in it.
Unlike this pock marked skin, I’ve been trying to find a way out of
since I began to understand that it’s just a cage that throttles back
my perception of what the Universe is and can be.
I’ve watched the rain become wind.
I’ve tasted colors, and heard the sound of love bouncing off smiles
that were truly meant for me. I’ve held their laughter in my throat.
Savored them like fresh fruit from a garden that can’t be reached
by mortal hands. I’ve felt what it’s like to be inside a woman,
that was inside of herself. Truly connected to the cosmos in a
way that only teenage dreamers on classical psychedelics can
imagine, comprehend, or even completely remember.
But now that I’ve burned all the Bible pages, I had left inside of me.
I’m left with the darkest parts of the path to Nirvana.
(With no serotonin or dopamine left to light the way.)
The hard shit.
The existential fear that exposes the worst parts of who you are.
The kind of thing that passes through your mind, and you promise
yourself that you’ll never say it out loud.
It’s too damn scary.
These are the words left between myself and God.
Our inevitable conversation at the end of my journey.
The Dark Matter (at hand).
The storms at the base of my spine.
The anger I’ve suppressed.
The nightmares.
The shame.
The primal instincts that make me want to deny his existence.
He’ll crack my back and let all the flood gates open.
And I’ll cry.
Angry, and afraid.
Wondering why I got to see such beauty.
Only to be left with the fear of being the reason
it all fades away.
Our Grey Sunrise
She’s anticipating colors that will
never rise in the sky- not here.
Not on a morning like this,
while sullen clouds are already
slitting their wrists. Coughing
up their torment and spitting
up nature’s hypocrisy against
the windshield that we took
shelter behind. We sealed ourselves
up in that metal coffin, let the wheels
turn into the ditch and laughed.
I thought it would carry us through.
That the mud in my eyes would help
me see just clearly enough; to forget the
truth of why I let go. Because that’s
what she wanted. We wrote poetry
on the glass with our fingers-
watched the blood run down and
fall onto the leather I always kept
so clean. I always kept all of it, so clean.
She hated that. “Nothing lasts”
“Certainly not this fucking heap, you
love so God damned much”
Smoke danced its way through the
air vents and began to fill up the cab.
We were curled up on our own little
dance floor, too tired move. But we
held each other as the fire began to
sing. “The only thing that’s missing
is my fucking sunrise. I just wanted
one more. The orange, the red..ye- “
Her voice was gone, but her mouth
still moved. Like the tires in the mud,
Relentlessly trying to make its impact.
I closed her mouth. Pressed my lips
against hers. Wiped the words from the
glass. “Our secrets, our grave. Our grey
Sunrise.”
Side Effects
Her eyes are muddied from the weight of
of side effect warnings.
Prescription leaflets scattered across
The table- worried that the man she loves
Will become something she does not
Recognize.
She’s familiar with the night terrors,
And depressive episodes.
The “jokes” of suicide.
But she wonders if she can take
The decedent nature of an
Overprescribed love.
He can be so beautiful when
He’s free.
“Does he really need all of this?”
She opens the pillbox and injects
The coming week with a new
Myriad of chemicals.
Counting, and praying-
Hoping that she’s not an
Accomplice for killing the
Spirit of a man who she
Knows is better than his affliction.
In the morning she’ll make him
Breakfast. She’ll pour him a glass of
Orange juice and watch as he takes
In the alleged cure.
Hoping he doesn’t wake up and
Become somebody else.
That he’ll still love the way she
Holds him at night.
The fact that she is always there.
He smiles.
“Thank you, Hun. This is great.”
Slipknot
I touched the face of God-
Only to be bitten by the snake that
Robbed us of Eden.
I watched his face. Legions of lost
Souls twisting in and out of focus,
Morphing into the next crooked
Visage. But his voice was always the same.
Silent.
He didn’t need to speak.
His words had always been rooted
In some dark place inside of me.
A curse that was destiny.
Passed down through eons-
The daggers in my eyes twisting
The promise of damnation if the
Price isn’t paid.
There’s a reason people say I’m
An old soul. I saw the beginning-
The extravagant colors dancing.
Becoming. Entrancing. Tying up the
Gift in a slip knot.
And I felt the ending. Being pulled
By the hand of man. Just to see
What happens.
Smashing Pumkinss
We were bloody.
Bearing the weight
of a gaping moon like
young Titans-
full of arrogant imagination.
We ran, hellbent.
House after house
playing tricks-
casting spells with
veracious foolishness.
That first pumpkin was
my stepfather. I watched
as his carved-out grimace
became the nothingness
I was determined to fill with
chaos.
I screamed the lyrics to our
favorite Hatebreed song down
every street. Letting the Universe
know that no matter how insignificant
the World thought we were.
We would be heard.
All of us, brothers.
Bound by dark matter-
the silent replies to our
prayers that we’d never
admit to sending out;
Together we didn’t need
Him, The Devil, or anyone else.
We were fearless, because we had
each other. And the might of bond,
not in blood shared but spilled as one.
Parents tried to chase us.
Reign us in.
We laughed and taunted-
swinging our pillowcases
full of savory sin with a sense
of joy that only a lost boy could
even begin to understand.
Hands covered in slime, and seed
thundered together and sent out our
cacophony of delight as I tipped over
the HOA’s Porta Potty.
Red and blue lights flash.
Someone has had enough.
We escape into the woods.
Sit on the edge of Willow Creek,
and light up a bowl of dirt weed.
The creek was shallow that year.
But our hearts could fill it up.
All that life pulsing, racing through
our ephemeral- jack’-o-lantern husks.
Smoke signals went up that night.
As we exhaled our silent melancholy.
I think we all had some sort of hope
there, in that place. That our rage
would be sated. That we would be
enough to keep each other safe from
what we could already sense
was encircling us.
We never wore masks.
Not until we got older, grew apart.
And began to see we had to hide
that primal nature inside ourselves to
keep the moon from breaking our
backs. Because, we don’t have
each other for that anymore.
But I’m pulling mine off tonight.
Have a good look-
The scars. The worry lines.
The bloodshot eyes.
That same grimace I tried to destroy-
lighting up the room as if it were
carved to scare you away.
But I am no totem.
No walking masquerade to incite
any sort of terror, or joy for that matter.
I’m just another pumpkin head-
candle dwindling…
Waiting to be smashed.
Dumpster Fire Press 