Winter

The cold is here.
I wish I was gone.

My fingers
ache left right left
and my skin shivers,
touched by death
and the stillness he spreads.

Will I shiver through these months
becoming my shadow self
to wake in the spring,
or will I depart
with the winds of the winter,
and kiss, as death’s own son,
as one of the sorrowful cold?

Am I the Only One Afraid of Smartphones?

Someone trapped a god for me
and put him in this box.

I learn from him,
I curse at him,
I make him show me pictures of cats
      in odd predicaments.
And he takes it, my god,
with aplomb,
content to sleep in my absence
and serve in my presence.

May he never escape.

Slipping

I am slipping away
in stars unseen
in smiles unsmiled
in roads unran.
And all the things I do
jest tear me limb from limb,
leaving nothing but a boy
afraid of nothing more than failure.

Insomnia

At night
light from outside my window
switches back and forth
click click click silently.
I watch from underneath my eyelids
when I should be sleeping,
the subtle on off
a light dark lullaby.

Holes

My socks have
fewer holes than
the theology of
many people whom
I don’t like.

And yet they
both keep me
warm, but not
satisfied, nor quite
myself at times.

I would sew
up both things
if I could,
but new socks
are quite cheap.

And new people
to be disappointed
in are always
on the discount
rack back home.

Love (?)

The day I broke my wrist
you laughed at me
and twisted me more sharply
around the smallest finger
of your left hand
with a smile,
red lips, and shoes that made
an enunciated click every step you took.

I resisted, futilely, and took my vicodin
three at a time.

Selma

It always rains in Selma
they say so we take jackets
and hold them under our elbows
as we march over the bridge
where no one died
but every dream was shattered
temporarily 53 years ago.

Our greatest fear: the traffic,
not the police, or mobs,
even with a sample of heaven
walking side by side.

Even walking the history’s footsteps,
I can taste the coming rain.

Sriracha Hell

Perhaps hell is just spicy,
too much capsaicin to scald
eyes and ears and crisping skin,
the thing once enticing
now the torture blocks and chambers.

Fear the burning spice
fear the weeping eyes
hear the mourning whispers
and the coming of resentment.

Perhaps hell is no more than
a bath in a Sriracha bottle
while the saints drink milk
and praise our holy God
just out of earshot
of our spicy screams.

Children

I am terrified of children
especially the pudgy ones
who waddle through life
eating hot dogs, toast, and glue,
neglecting their mother tongue
in favor of Buzzfeed and Spongebob.
They are far from harmless:
they are the future,
and that is all the terror
I will ever need.

What If

What if I were to write
the songs I hear when sleeping?
What if I were to know
the answers I’ve been missing?
What if I were to do
the things I know I shouldn’t?
What if I missed the chance,
the only that will come?