i am a ghost
faceless
nameless
washed out by camera flash
in the night

i am wooden
a hollow tree
carved out
solid
but not sturdy

clandestine

well
I guess I'm alone again

I guess this was always meant to be
my true state
that I can't handle anyone
or no one can handle me
or I just don't deserve to have someone
suffer with me on my haphazard journey through life

and this is why I can't feel religion
because singing at church
can't possibly cleanse the sin in my body
the poison in my blood
can't possibly cure me
and I fight
and I take more
because that poison's all that's keeping me alive

so now, what direction will I have?
no friends who know me
no family to outlive me
no partner to accompany me
through life's million trials

but maybe this is what I should have been looking for all along
this natural state
this proper state
this righteous state

v'always been alone
l'always be alone

and someday, after smelling the same cologne every morning for 20 years, will you feel stuck? will you want a way out but be unable to find one? or will that smell bring you comfort? will it give you your place in the world?

please let me know.

heard a car coming up the road
thought it was you,
coming to make it up to me
then remembered you couldn't drive

in my heart i am nighttime

hematite and rhinestone glittering in blackness

a string of tiny bulb lights over some dark alley

tiny, distant twinkles from cities or stars

in my soul i am something else

sunbleached, open, expanded to the horizon

black hills, salt flats, desert

deep breaths of pure oxygen

for 26 years
I've gathered information
built my brain
noticed everything

it's been my goal
to see
to understand
to absorb it all inside of me
until it is me

once you know jesus
you're ready
forgiven
you can die safely

but all that knowledge
all that building
becomes nothing
becomes vacant ether
the day jesus takes your soul
the day it's safe to die

black road plateau,
winding across the highlands
down through colorado
and eventually,
arizona or new mexico
I forget which

behind the trucks,
making slow time,
no time
ripening in the open sun
crawling down the road,
weeks at a time

a man said i'd find it there,
coasting across the dirt,
the moonlike plains of the desert
less gravity,
too much elevation,
a thinness in my blood

in a wide gorge,
the plants pricked me,
the bugs coated my eyes,
the lizards picked away at my skin
I went deeper until there was shade
and mud
and I stayed there a year

the first man I met
I gave my heart
since there was no one else around
and despite the sun, his skin was pale
and I thought he could use the blood
one day he turned to wax
and around three,
the hottest point in the afternoon,
he melted away

the second man to come along,
I gave my body
since I thought I would die anyway
his hair was long
and wound into the sides of the gorge
and one night while I slept,
I assume he blew away

the third man,
at this point a tedious phantom,
I gave my soul,
since I guessed I was dead by then
and what this man looked like
was burnt diamonds,
sooty and sparkling,
and one night there was a rain
and a sudden river carried me
to las cruces
and mocked me in my haste,
my lack of faith

if you knew me before
you'll know the ghost i've become
the lives I've consumed
the bodies I've buried

I crack apart,
too long in the heat and wild
borrowing time,
with none of my own left
wandering old roads,
barren fields,
looking for the meanest of the thieves i've known,
looking for my soul