every morning i wake up with the taste of blood in my mouth

and an unsettled feeling in my stomach

and i wonder what i was doing while i was asleep

who i was eating

we went somewhere and someone told me they got a job at a beer bottling plant

this could also have been a dream, but bear with me and let's say it happened

it might seem hazy because i was drunk

which is ironic because in this memory

i was warning our friend

about someone who went into AA

after being a canner for Coors

and being paid in alcohol

everyone's always getting too far into something

and getting lost

i have another friend who was just found in Tennessee, homeless, dazed,

having burned through something like $10,000,

which had been left to him in a will

and my own brother, my own family

the stories i could tell you about them

and myself

now i just sleep and wake and there is no shock between the two like there used to be

and i can hardly tell

one day from the last

i just keep pumping away,

hoping you'll find the answers to your problems,

hoping i can help you find some relief

so i can believe it exists, somewhere in the world

relief, i mean

weeks like years

days like weeks

marked only by nights of full sleep

and empty mornings

sleepwalking naked through my room

and laying face-down on the carpet as respite

i awake with aches and stiffness

into the hazy blackness of 5 a.m.

to conquer another day

while my mind is still a few years back,

stunned into to stupidity

at the passage of time

rhythms rise and fall, trancelike

lulling me past hours and minutes and seconds

and i "live"

following some invisible piper

leading me on

and on

and on

october death

i push my shopping cart out into the mid-evening

of the parking lot

the air has a comfortable briskness i haven't noticed in months

and on the edge of each breath i take,

there is the faint scent of smoke,

that seems always coupled with a slight cool breeze

i think briefly back to firestorms

and the weight of that ash, inescapable

now, my eyes glance across the sky, out of habit

but the only clouds are remnants of a two-week storm,

monolithic and back-lit by the first pinks of sunset

as i cross the parking lot toward my car

a monster of a vehicle lurches toward me in reverse

the tinted window or the desperation of life obscuring the driver's view

i angle away without incident

but the thought stays with me

that at that moment, i would not have minded dying

and when my life is terminated,

i hope it is on a day like today

artichoke

super-empath

that's what they'll call me when they tear me open

and dig down into the deepest place behind my breastbone

out will come all the emotion that had lain blue and glowing and dormant,

gravity forcing it down to something small and densely packed

and totally out-of-commission

the feeling part of me that lies frozen under the ice that flecks my blood,

the coldness that is so strong within me,

will be out and exposed and beautiful

but for now, my fortress of ice and stone and emptiness,

all things unliving, unfeeling,

is who i am,

controls my actions

and there is so little of anything within me

that i have built up my outer shell to hide it

to mask that absence

but i haven't done it very well

and the glaring void still shows through

when i get tired of making the expressions,

pushing up that energy behind my eyes

to look like

i'm there

and here's the terrifying truth:

i smile and react

but i can't feel it

it's just an act

to look normal

to hide the fact

that the world

has taught me

how dangerous

it is to care

empathy is vulnerability

so much more to me than the outside
but we judge by what we see - i do and i know
it can't be avoided

years i've wished i could let my hair tangle
grow out a beard (a hormonal impossibility)
and sit in the trees

better to be friends with the wilderness
the earth itself
than to hold faith
in the fleeting whims of humans


i don't need much
and i'm never lonely
(or, rather, always lonely)
and i think slowly
enough to savor those days

instead, money lies on my mind
like an unloving god
ubiquitous but unattainable
and grinds away my days
into blurred, detached memories
into dust

literal summer depression

third-class passenger on a sinking ship
watching the lifeboats go to those who have more
who, because of good bloodlines or cunningness in business
or wiles enough to marry up,
began ahead and will finish ahead

gray, unbearably hot days
like a post-apocalyptic backdrop,
really just the normal weather in this dusty valley,
cloudy but swealtering,
always on the verge of a rain that never comes

all summer is dirty pools and gritty hamburgers
leftover time and waning ambition

i've been asking for help but never seem to find it
and each day that passes when i watch someone else
slide through trials and stages of life, unscathed and confident,
weighs me down even more
weighs me down against the roughness of life

it shreds and tears at me
and someone said to never give up,
that i can do anything i put my mind to
but those were lies and tricks to keep me busy
to keep me out of the way

and the world is finally wearing me down
and i spend my days,
too tired to even sweat,
watching that boiling gray sky

and at night i lay on the floor awake
while the bugs that infest the house crawl over me
and pray, without faith,
that if no one will help me,
at least they won't persecute me
and maybe i can just leave,
disappear into another life

it's a strange feeling to lose faith in someone
you previously trusted, unfalteringly

to know they are fallible and have failed you
and will therefore continue to fail you
(failure doesn't happen just once)
and all the time you held out hope for them,
believed in them,
was wasted, foolish, naieve time

to have some person become almost a stranger to you -
that comfort of their presence torn away
until they become just another acquaintance
with whom you happen to have shared many experiences
(and even those are tainted with the sugary flavor of gullibility)

it's happened with everyone
and still i am duped into believing there will be someone,
well-intentioned and strong enough,
to not let me down

and each time someone else fails
my heart, once so healthy,
calcifies and cools
a little bit more