The Lonely Live Goose
Silently soaring through the sky
Like a bird of prey hunting solo for breakfast.
But you won’t dive.
You only attack on the ground.
Chasing runners and bikers and preschoolers on a nature walk.
Being Scared is the Dumbest Thing | 2nd Generation
That dark room is yours, and yours alone.
Its shadows are by your design.
The monster under your bed is just the fears you haven’t felt yet.
Don’t worry about them now.
They’ll find you soon enough.
While the Rest of You Slept
A prayer. Asking for the things I can no longer influence. Recognizing what I don’t and never will control.
Drunk & Jaundiced
He showed up drunk. The stumbling, the slurring, the hitting on the bartender in a perverted, nonsensical way aside He looked good. His hair had thinned. His belly had grown. But there was a New Wave Confidence appeal to him.
The Smug City Snob with Nothing to Show but Three Tattoos
Through the winding hellish passage from city to the Western Suburbs
I realize I must not be depressed enough.
With time to kill, I pull into a Wheaton Chilis for a drink.And there it is. The Feeling.
That empty feeling of mediocrity and directionless arrival in a place that could be anywhere
Where the people could be anyone
Where everyone is no one.
A Series of Questions to the Tune of “Talking to Yourself”
Is this a typewriter?
Is this a way out?
Is this something I can stand to swallow?
Is that a blowjob reference?
A Desperate Display of Nothingness
Your near-dead heart is running at a million miles an hour
Desperately trying to keep your head from collapsing in on itself.
Trying to prove you are valuable, interesting, worth the hassle.
Building an Apartment
The apartment is coming together.
A hodgepodge of childish scribbles and posters.
Hand-me-down furniture with a teenager’s baby bite marks sunk in— A permanent reminder of aging youth.
Cicada’s Swan Song
It’s a deafening sound.
The screams of passion belted out
from the bugs with the giant eyes
and wingspan of a Prius.
I Built You, And You Served Me Well
I was looking for you—exactly you.
Dark wood, plenty of drawers, old-timey, affordable.
My smile nearly broke my face when I found you on display in that Las Vegas Office Depot.
Three hundred bucks was the top of my budget.
You were well worth it.
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.