Inappropriate Claim

Haunted by my own reflection

By the shape of my teeth

I am a walking reflection of fragments

That were woven together with love and certainty

I am becoming uncertain

A nervous ship washes along my shore

Within the grains of the wood I make out my age, to the day

Clouds roll a top of the sinking feeling in my guts

Where I stand, I feel the sand between my teeth

I address the sky and it’s inappropriate claim of opportunity and reasoning

Begging for a conclusion that won’t make a fool of me

I want to leave it to those who gave birth to me, hoping it’ll

snuff out the turmoil, bring it’s intensity down to a simmer

Bask in a Smoke Show

Colourful tentacles unravel
from a nook that resides just
inside the forehead and down
a long dark corridor that
might've had an exit sign
once upon a time but now
houses all of my great ideas.
I rummage through that nook
looking for my next project.
Some half thought of,
some half started,
some just static waiting to take form.
In this nook all of my
colours light up individual
cigarettes and bask in a
smoke show of epic
times daring one
another to create
something and
to expand their turf
a little further throughout
the contours of my mind.

Medicinal Candy and the Right Connections

Dr. Degree with a wall full of medals trying to dip their hands right inside of you and electrocute some of your sanity. Revive you with all of the right capsules filled with Windex to shine whichever spot you choose to let them see into. Descriptive attitudes from a third party, a party you didn't attend, shines light from a mindless mind as it tries to recalculate all of your time. Not a red cent to bring you home just a pocket full of medicinal candy and the right connections on the telephone. A veil of living created with ingested plastic for a life that is in more of a demand to be feared than relaxed in. And if you don't plant the flowers for your life than what would you have grow?

Drenched in Each Other's Sentences

There as departure took place there was
fragments of the conversation clinging
to the whites of their eyes. The iris
eagerly acted like a sponge, trying to
slurp up the words that had just been
spoken. There was a moment that
wasn't documented when the spiral
of thoughts and decisions floated
out of the mouth of an almost lover
and wrapped themselves around the
other like the offering of a jacket
at the slightest notice of shiver.

The shiver wasn't a sense of coldness
but calmness and a severe attack of want
on the physical self, an outer body
experience noticed but not documented.
A fleeting sense of attention as tongues
flick out what the mind is conjuring and
biting lips and batting eyelashes
more quickly because you don't want
to miss seeing each and every syllable
tumble onto the table between you.

Departure winds up, seems to be getting closer
with each ignored tick of the clock.
Farewells and See You Again Soons
keep murmuring voices within your
lungs from gasping out and collapsing
the house of words just built around you.

You go home with a settling fire
inside your mind and new thoughts
churn and excitement grows for
another time for you to share them.

Night welcomes you both, separately,
leaving both drenched in each other's sentences.

Fallen into a Gallon of Milkshake

Fallen into a gallon of milkshake with the driest of hands. 

Summer nowhere near the crust of brimming wanderlust.

Sugar highs to pass the time.

Take. Take. Take. Take.

Connecting the dots from dreams
I might not have even had.

Am I living?

Looking into things that might not be happening.

I feel free.

I feel confined.

Feel. Feel. Feel.

There is too much and not enough all at the same time.

To confide without changing the vibe,
without changing the state of mind.

Truths, or just thoughts in general,
things that aren't even finalized

often come to punctuating things in an untimely fashion.
Writing conclusions
before I've made proper introductions

Match Ink Flow

Proof reading thoughts to check for insanity,
no red pen to highlight the clarity.
Mismatched fonts because
everything is scattered,
who dropped this box of calligraphy?
Cocktail napkins to soak up the ink and the drinks.
The drink is the coach's pep talk
and the body obliges.
Hearts tiny teeth release the clutch
 it causes on the wrist,
and full disclosure is exposed in ill-lit spaces
while wearing ill fitted clothing and trying to
scratch an itch that won't quite quit.
Feelings made concrete in tiny squiggles
and suddenly what you do not say could
mean everything and doors close
that you didn't know where opened and
ink floods pages that eyes cannot
see so that minds cannot be made up
before beds are decided to leave.
And moments are fleeting but you
pen down the ones you don't want to go.
But wickedness is the minds game
because nothing will ever match ink flow.

Many Hiccuping Kitten Moons Ago

Monsters under my bed, but there is no underneath,

the box spring is on the floor and the floor is the ceiling to a

happy couple telling each other about their days, 

with dirty socks shuffling against their floor.

Which in return acts as the ceiling to a man 

who hasn't slept in days.

His floor is littered with half started letters, he can't help

but want to tell her everything on his mind but the drugs

aren't helping him focus. His phone rings, which

is the soundtrack to his neighbours who reside

just below his creaky bed. They don't mind,

they're stoned and rummaging for food in cartons

that expired many hiccuping kitten moons ago.

The building is heaving with isolation as it

houses these people and their feelings, their thoughts

weigh on the drywall. The building is a dirty diary.

People walking in and out of each other's lives.

Making contact, diving and dashing.

A tidal wave of metro living and nothing

to do but bask in the light of the internet

and pray that someone is going to accept

the request and not press the buzzer

unless it's the quick exchange of pizza for cash.

And then back to the mad dash.

Cut the telephone wire, I fear you'll 

hear exactly what I'm trying to say. 

Teeth Churn On Ideas

A surprising light dashes from a place without coordinates and spills across skin that encases molecules and vocabulary and thirst and desire. Eyelashes beat at the same pace of a liquid heart that bubbles with heat and toys from a pocket below the belt. Lips full and lush, lit with a fire, stay still and silent as teeth churn on ideas that form into sentences and lay across the tongue begging to be transported into your skull by the percussion of kissing and the demands of wandering hands. Allow this exploration.  

Saucy Saucers

I long for the days when saucers weren't absent. 

When teacups rested gently on top of their friendly 

companion and often alongside a delicatable cookie.

 

I daydreamt the day away with visions of tiny

little teaspoons clinking these robbin's egg

blue saucers and creating such a beautiful sound.

 

I wish for tea parties and tiny triangle sandwiches. 

There was a time when women dyed the bread. 

I want to eat purple cucumber, diagonally cut sandwiches.

 

I just really miss saucers.

They weren't a major part of my 

growing up or anything, but I think the gesture of them is nice, 

their existence is rather beautiful.

Am I Ready? Squeeze Me

I want to get dressed up and go to the grocery store, 

one of those 24HR places, 

buy dog food, for a dog I don't have, 

in my party dress and leave a trail of glitter on the linoleum and make wishes in the produce aisle. 

As I squeeze avocados that I won't buy. 

I just want to know if they're ready 

because I don't know if I am or not. 

Would someone squeeze me to see?

Are you ready, I'm ready. Squeeze.

An Actual Pep Email

In these times of great pony shows, do not buckle at the added pressure of insignificant defeats. The tidy equestrian will ride you into the ground and send cyber chain letters to stir a pot of tepid manure and surely push you in. Allow him to waiver on your 'must-have' mare qualities, but bully him with the stallion he thinks you're not so that he can continue to waiver on your perspective. Be mindful that President Donkey and his favourite foal are allies of the worst kind and as Nick Carraway said to Gatsby, 

'They're a rotten crowd! You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.'

Like Books on a Shelf, Spines Touching

Muffled laughs are extinguished by
the guises of cold brew and faded lipstick.
This is the moment that could move mountains
if they were outdoors,
but instead,
cramped in the nook of a hole in the wall,
like books on a shelf,
their spines touching.
The beer can amplifies good times
highlights rosy cheeks.
Which can be misinterpreted
as blushing or embarrassment.
Silent innuendos spill over
eyes in a vice grip.
Each encouraging the other without a word.
Silent dares.
A silent game of tag.
Both very much it.

Choosing Your Emojis Better Than Your Produce

There are people who are having more honest 
conversations with strangers then themselves.  

There are also people who spend more time
picking out their emojis than they do their produce. 

There are days much darker than nights. 

There is a moment in time that I haven't gotten to yet.
When I do think I might let it pass me by.
Mistake it for a different moment that I have yet to experience also. 

Can I put whip cream on my bagel
in public and pretend
like its the best cream cheese in the world?

I think I can. 

I think I might. 

And wash it down with the coldest glass of chocolate milk. 

Morbid Mourning

Apart of the cattle today.

Herding from one mode of transportation to foot.

Following in succession behind another bloke

who looks just like me, might feel just like me,

might even be going to the same place as me.

He looked a lot more worried.

I was worried, but about the weather

or maybe if I was running late.

Or maybe I was worried about the

expiration date on my milk in the 

community refrigerator. 

Had I remembered to start the dishwasher?

I thought this morning, while I trudged along,

apart of the cattle, tagged, no name.

Heading off to some corporate pasture.

Stocked with fresh paper, pens, tasks.

I thought.

If a random act of terrorism; 

mother nature,

bodily defect, 

god?

happened right then and there,

while I was in the limbo of concrete,

between outside and inside,

the hovering space between subway and mall..

If something happened right then and there.

I would instantly be apart of this group.

Remembered and forgotten, instantly.

I thought I could go, now could be the time.

It could happen and I would be a newspaper

headline, a number in a list, a name on a stone.

These things happen everywhere.

They could easily happen to me.

I wondered this morning

what the toll would be.

And would it be higher because 

it was negative forty one degrees.

Cloud Bandage

I'll move over and share my warm spot with you. 

I think that might be the nicest thing I have ever offered anyone. 

The day breaks the sky when everyone is sleeping.
But does it mend while we are all awake?
Is there is a giant bandage made of cloud floating above us. 

If the grass is greener on the other side
why did that observer come back to tell us?
I think we are missing a piece of the story. 

Punctuation and Punctuality. 

They sound a lot a like
but I can't tell if the exclamations
are late or if the question marks are right on time. 

Sandwich Shaped Shadows

Light fills teacups and casts sandwich
shaped shadows on the empty plates.

I've been running late most of my life.
Even though I cross the street when I really
shouldn't cross the street.
The steam that comes up from the sewer grates looks spooky.
I peer right in close, in case my future is laying
there in the vapours.
I've only caught sight of oncoming traffic.

The snow today looks like dandruff.
Dandelions should be able to appear all year round.
It would give us all more courage.
I've noticed things, but nothing in particular.

I play air instruments in my air band.
Technically we are always on tour.

I can never get my windows as clean as I'd like them to be,
so the light is always distorted, I try to write my name in
the way it catches the speck of dust floating around me.

That same dust that gets inhaled and stuck inside me.
The dust never really settles, it just rests until a force
much larger than itself carries it upwards and onward.

What Big Vocabulary You Have

The mind is an interesting cocktail shaker of power.

Batteries not included.

No hands.

No brakes.

You know you're crashing.

I crashed into a tree once.

Splinters in my teeth for days.

I tried to put back all the pieces.

I couldn't figure out how old

that tree had been.

I reeled on it for sometime.

Cornflakes is a concept I can handle.

Flowers, what sup with that?

Are they just Earth's laughter.

Cliffhangers in stories sometimes

make me question my abilities. 

I guess that's why they are called

cliffhangers. So you can decide

if you're going to make it or not.

If, literary, I decided to let myself go,

Would all my pent up vocabulary dissolve?

Television Shoulders

a television rest on your shoulders, 

where your head should be, 

it spouts all of this information dressed up as facts. 

an oreo stuffed with words, begging me to buy. 

there is a siren's song coming out of your ears.

i can't help but want to get closer to it. 

feel the static of your new face on my fingers.

sparks fly and i'm on cloud nine,

televised isolation blooms. 

during this tell-all-time of reportive conclusions, 

we leave all ends loose and all beginnings solid.

the only fact checking that is happening is if i'll agree.

the only information being communicated

is the fast kind, the kind that will leave.

Chronic Whip Cream

Most of the time I order things that come with 

whip cream just for the whip cream.

I think you might be catching onto me. 

That I am always casting my eyes around, 

trying to peer inside of things that don't have insides.

I think I've misplaced a piece of me on the streetcar 

and I am hoping that when it returns to me, 

it will tell me all it has seen.

I am emotionally invested in all the wrong stocks. 

I've fallen in love with tangible items that will

never love me back, this might be the easiest kind of love.

I cannot see the MTV moon man from my balcony, 

but I squint and try real hard.

The notifications that come to my phone, 

notify me others are dancing and making 

funny faces no where near me.

I am a chronic snacker, 

large meals are daunting and demand attention. 

My focus is fleeting and I can't love the macaroni the way you do.

Milkshake Quake

please eat this cheeseburger

i feel sorry for your bones

they do not feel the weight

of life upon them

they rattle in the wind

a sordid song

please drink this milkshake

to make the bones

quit their quaking

and leave specks of
your nail polish under
my pillow so i know you'll keep coming back