Poems

Lucid Trap I learned to lucid dreamThe technique is simple, practicedReality checks throughout the dayCount your fingers, read a clock In the dream I counted ten fingersConfirmed I was dreamingAnd took control of the terrainThe way the tutorials said I could I built a mountainFlew above itBreathed underwaterWalked through walls The power was absoluteThe dream […]

Liars loomed doom full moon cheap saloon gun cartoon sad raccoon last cocoon rusted spoon whispered tune wrong platoon dry prune high noon Slick trick lipstick slit quick blood thick grin sick pill sick click click twitch flick drip brick trip pick need fix knock, Nick run, Rick Give me a straight jacket, set it

Left on Read The phone lit up at ten past nine with everything you had,a paragraph of raw nerve endings, every line gone madwith the specific desperation of a person going under,the kind of text that splits the quiet open like thunder,I read it once, I read it twice, I set the phone face down,I

Last Slice Standing There is one slice of pizza left inside the box,and me and my conscience are engaged in paradox,I already ate three and I’m full by any measure,but the last slice sitting there is its own specific pleasure,it’s getting cold and it will go to waste, I reason,and wasting food is wrong in

Last Words Never Said Your boots still sit by the doorYour co still clings to the drawerStill hear your laugh in this ghost townThey lit a candle, sang your titleNo one talks about the fightThe pills, the tears, the endless nightLast words never saidEcho loud inside my headShould’ve seen the cracks in the masqueradeYou were

Learning to Cook I learned to cook in the year after the divorce,Which is either cliché or just the forceOf necessity applied to the situation —A man alone in a kitchen, the narrationOf the divorce requiring the acquisitionOf the skill that had been the partitionOf the household labor he hadn’t held. I’m not a natural

Kindness In the void where the expectations run thin,kindness is the most subversive thing,not the greeting-card rendering with the pastel overlay—the kindness that costs something and shows up anyway. The hardest kind of kindness is the one that nobody sees,that doesn’t get the credit and doesn’t get the keys,the kind extended to the person who’ll

King of NothingI perform above them—presence a favor the room should be grateful for,each doorway my witness,arms crossed, judging their jokes, their songs,their outfits like I was commissioned to find their doom.No one appointed me jury,yet I appointed myself in the silence between their laughter. I dissect their flaws in my skullso I never have

Kafka at the Counter Kafka walked into the DMV and took a number sixty-three,number sixty-two was serving and the sign said do not flee,the clerk looked up and said, I see you have a form to file,Kafka said, I have been filing since before the aisle. The form required a form to get the form

Into the Abyss The walls don’t close so much as tighten in the way that certainties do,Where every old familiar comfort has been processed into residue,The dark isn’t dramatic — it’s just the absence of the argument for light,And the whispers aren’t a symptom; they’re just audible by night. I’ve been standing at the rim