all things equal, 

and most of it forgotten; 

I have experienced my share

of gratitude and blessings – 

what else is there then, 

but to hold you and 

fall asleep one more time, 

wake tomorrow and not care

if it is the same, not care if the 

foundations of our world crack

and the life we have been blessed 

with comes crashing down and 

for the rest of our days we suffer 

as our blessings have caused others to suffer endlessly, 

bottomlessly and with claims to eternity. 

How nice for this joy, this sense of comfort, 

to be bookended with tragedy and dismay. 

How marvelous the moments 

that have meant everything to me and us

actually did mean everything – 

so many platonic forms dming me from anon accounts, so much potentia in never opening them. 

on being devoured

it is immensely peaceful 

to finally give up and be

nourishment for another. 

I saw myself in the mirror

and that eye-locked gaze – 

like meeting a soulmate randomly, 

became the axis for which

my world slowly turned. 

though no longer merely slowly, 

but an intensification of gravity

which breathed decades 

into mere burning minutes,

decades of grieving centuries lost 

in wayward orbit collecting space junk 

and calling it experience, calling it me, 

calling it what I was meant to be. 

decades of compact space junk

broken down, giving me a firm footing 

to stand in this nebulous bog,

primordial swamp eating me as gravity 

pulls me down into the mud of my belly. 

Jesus is my savior, 

Trump is my president

implies two worlds in

sharp contradiction.

Trump is my light in a dark room, 

Jesus cups his hands around the flame. 

Lord – protect him from my enemies. 

My enemies, my enemies, my enemies 

Lord, you set for me a table amidst my enemies. 

Though I don't have a table – 

just two bags and an oversized coat 

a hat that reads: 

Jesus is my savior, 

Trump is my president. 

I repeat the words, I believe I do. 

Until I fall asleep on the train

amidst my enemies, 

who laugh at my contradictions. 

 Beauty is completion

   always incomplete 

    being completed  

            in me 

myself in the third person. 

I strapped VR goggles to my face and 

trained a drone to follow me so I could 

surveil myself and discover grace 

or myself viewed objectively: 

in the realm of objects that is, 

the realms of things like gravity 

and psycho-chemical manifestations. 

The realm of getting satiated, 

dilly dallying, and beep bopping. 

The realm of touching lips with various 

wet microphones; the realm of saturation 

and evaporation and phosphorus cycles and 

condensation. Risings and falling. The realm of entropy. 

The realm of photosynthesis, the hypo-static domain 

of getting out of bed and getting broken down. 

mirror dance video. 

            the silliness of rocking rhythm hips 

makes it hard to accept

             that catastrophe feels closer whenever

                               I’m forgetful

last year I smoked too many cigarettes 

on my stoop without a job and wondered 

who the fuck do I think I am having 

such haughty and concise opinions about

most things especially the tacky taste of 

new money and wholesome politics of liberals.

I'm doing better now, or at least I have a few layers

of social white lies reinforced by institutions where I 

walk through the hallways and sit and talk and write things; 

layers between me and joining the reality of a world on fire. 

empty kombucha bottle. 

I mostly expected to write poems every day while falling 

in love with the person I'm probably 

going to spend the rest of my life with. 

but mundane love, love that says things like, 

"I'm open to holding the things in the pit of your stomach,"

has left me grasping for a new vocabulary – 

falling into the pit of your stomach, 

I make sure you've had enough water, remind you to take your meds, 

scratch your head where you like, tell myself  I'm real. 

january is a short daydream because: 

1. real dreaming is done at night
2. january has long nights
3. therefore, has short days
4. but many days
5. and weeks
6. but also many nights
7. and many dreams 
8. the ones at night being the realest
9. because my unconsciousness is probably realer 
10. more real than the daydreams of January at least. 

Small cold pendant of St. Mary

                        on my soft lower belly,

 

A heavy gold chain around

                my neck. 

your choices, your choices, 

                      your choices

your choices led you 

                           here, gave this to you.

your wreckless, your fateful, 

                  your long languished choices. 

You are a disaster, and 

      in God's Wisdom – 

unfurled confetti roadkill on the road

                             to God's Kingdom. 

sweet little carrion birds, carry me 

                      across the finish line, 

I can only pass through heaven's gates

                    in morsels, as misty spray 

                                                – torn apart

I decided to cross the road without looking 

                               and it made all of the difference. 

    `