Category: 30 in 30 Poetry Edition

Introspective journals, rip the pages from my mind,
Put them down fresh before they go sour.
Raucous choir of a thousand voices that can’t carry a tune,
Can’t carry a train of thought, more likely to drive that fucker into the ditch
Than leave you anything worth the time.
I’m all excuses, and for that I make no excuses.
A greater man powers through illness and illuminates.
But a lesser one would’ve used it as a chance to give up altogether.… (More) “30 In 30 Poetry Edition, Day 9”

Some days the creative process feels like a game of Scrabble,
A bag filled with the unknown and unknowable.
You can pull bits and pieces from the bag,
The nonsensical and the vapid side by side.
Unfair as it is, nobody is supposed to sort the letters for you.
It’s a crushing level of responsibility,
The thought that you can take synapses
Firing willy-nilly from a brain
Hooked up to a heart
That occasionally beats more out of habit
Than from any real conviction,
And transform them into thoughts
That someone is looking at right now.
Knowing that I once thought about you
Reading these words,
And that now we’re linked through a memory.

Who can feel worthy of that?… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 8”

I am teen angst.
I wear this mass-produced Hot Topic T-shirt
As a statement of individuality.
I spend time practicing drawing the anarchy symbol.
I don’t know a lot about anarchy,
but my circle-A looks perfect.

I rebel because I like saying I rebel.
The looks of shock and disgust are attention.
We’ve got a losers table in the cafeteria,
You’re not invited.
None of us really like each other.
It’s easier for me to gross out all the girls,
Scare them away forever,
Than to try and hold a conversation.

If you offered me a deal,
Where I traded in all my black shirts,
Cut my hair and shaved,
And in exchange I’d have someone that cared about me…

I’d punch you dead in your shit.

Don’t you understand?
I draw my feelings in close like a turtle,
And I’d rather die on my back,
Than give you the satisfaction
Of watching me awkwardly save myself.

I am teen angst,
And I won’t change my ways
Until I’m sure nobody’s watching anymore.… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 7”

The strangest dream I ever had,
Was when I realized I was in one.
I was surrounded by demons on all sides,
Closing in, slowly but surely.
Making me wish I could do more with this last breath.
Wishing I had someone to tell that I loved them.
Wishing I had time to eat one more mango.
One more day getting in fights,
face ground against cinderblock.

Wondering how I was looking at myself in the third person.
And that was my first clue.

Wild hope sprung within me.
I might not get eaten by demons today.
I might get to go back to my life in Miami,
My stab wound was healed,
And I’d be going into 5th grade soon.
Things were looking up,
But the demons were ever closer.

I told my dream self,
“If you gasp, you’ll escape.”
I gasped. I escaped.

I looked around a familiar bedroom, heart still pounding.
I realized life on this side of the dream wasn’t much better.

When you’re the parent of a chronically bullied child,
It’s easy to tell the child the bullies are just jealous.
I was the smallest child in my class by far,
Working three years ahead, learning four languages.
I’d have traded my brains for any other body in a heartbeat.
Perpetuating a vicious cycle of antisocial behavior.
Realized life had already peaked at nine years old.
Told my mom I’d thought about drowning myself.

I often wondered what would have happened,
If the demons had caught me, killed me in my dreams.
I think I would’ve lost my mind that night.
I think I would’ve woken up half-dead.
Unable to defend myself even in the confines
Of my own head.… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 6: Demons”

I’m a door-to-door atheist.
Hello ma’am, have you heard the good news about Jack Shit?
He’s a real man, and with your tithe he can do wondrously shitty things.
He can magically transform your wages into a megachurch,
with more glory given to itself than to a God that’s probably looking down in horror.
He might be wondering what got lost in translation,
His limitless knowledge translated from Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek to English with such precision
that every bible-pounding flag-waving Real American knows it as…
The Wordâ„¢.

I’m a door-to-door atheist.
No, ma’am, I am not driven by gods, ghosts, left-wing agendas, right-wing agendas, or flying spaghetti monsters.
I am not sponsored by God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, prophets, kings, fishers of men, hunters of vampires or the Pfizer corporation.
I’m just a man, wondering why so many of you have to fear Hell or need paradise to help each other.
Wondering if you realize just how many religions preceded yours,
That human history has shown that mythology is only religion with no believers left to defend it.

I am still beholden to an invisible force, I call it air.
I can do miracles with it.
I can take it deep into my body.
I can reverse the flow, in the form of a question.
In the form of a challenge.
In the form of a plea.

This plea comes courtesy of 13-year-old me, living in rural Kentucky.
Terrified of coming out, with brimstone in my left hand, fire in my right.
If you believe what you believe because you chose to, not because you were supposed to,
Understand that I’m doing the same thing.
Because we both made our choices,
but I respected yours.… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 5: Door-to-door Atheist”

Anticipation
The feeling preceding the letdown,
Impatiently waiting for your spot at the top of the slide,
Just so you can fall back to earth.

When is it not pessimism talking, but experience?
When do I get to say I’m not pessimistic, just well-weathered,
Turned cynical by a world that’s equal parts reality TV marathons and polarized politics?
It’s Election Day, you know.

Why is the poem in my head always superior to what you end up seeing?
Anticipation.
If I put shoes on my elbows and knees so I can run just after learning to crawl,
Is that close enough?
Am I enlightened yet?

If I think the mind is a well that will never run dry of thoughts, materials, poems,
Am I naïve, dangerously optimistic, or just wise beyond my years?
You’ve done four poems in five days, good for you.
That’s worth a gold star, for sure.
What about five weeks? Five months? Five years? Five centuries?
In the year 2379 will I be a brain in a jar hooked up to a word processor,
Processing pickled knowledge that I output as ASCII with an EOF control character when it’s apparent that I’ve run out of ideas?
Isolated and disconnected from the world that’s changed, changed again,
but yet is still nothing but fucking reality TV marathons and polarized politics?… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 4: Anticipation”

How come people don’t like my LOLcats?
Got a blog full of thoughts people walk past.
Got a Wall, but it’s all full of mama’s trash,
“Love you, son! Walk the dog after drama class!”

Tweetin’ bout my life like FML,
All my followers are gurus with a book to sell.
Playin’ out like a bad skit on SNL,
Watchin’ the clock tick-tock on this life in teenage hell.

Can’t join that live-action role-play, no way,
Pops would rather I fit in and drink that Jose, okay.
Stop writin’ songs and bump that Coldplay, so safe.
Sip that Kool-aid after roach haze throat aches.

Startin’ to wonder if I’m not a freak;
Why else would my old man want me to not be me?
Would he rather I was that prep that pops E
With a fake-ass tan and some lame-assed beats?
If I hear you reminisce again then Im’ma scream,
I know in high school you got more ass than a toilet seat,
I know you’re disappointed that I don’t repeat the feat,
I know you hoped that you could do it all again through me.
I hope you realize that I’m not you and you’re not me,
But I’m through taking this in stride, I’m not your enemy.
I’m just an adolescent looking for a friend to see
in me, the me that I once seen in me, the me that wants to be,
be wanted constantly, respected honestly, but now it’s God and me,
in that Magic: The Gathering in the sky,
kicking it on cloud nine, told me that he liked my rhymes,
but that he had a doubt I ever felt the line
I wrote about there being no easy way out and that was fine.… (More) “30 In 30 Poetry Edition Day 3”

Why yes, I will have another Baconator, you’re so polite.
I’m really feeling that last KFC gravy shot.
Do you mind if I wipe the grease off on your cat?
You do? Well then. I’ll be on my way.

I find the nicotine rush is much more intense when I stick a cigarette up each of my nostrils.
I am the Marlboro dragon, with the power of emphysema.
Kind sir, will you light the cigarettes stuck in my ears? I cannot reach them without singing my hair.
You won’t? Well then. I’ll be on my way.

You know what cuts down the burn after Tequila shots? Bath salt snooters.
Those crafty cats at the labs just keep evading the law.
If it’s legal, it’s gotta be okay. God knows the Government is watching out for my health.
I feel fucking fantastic. Excuse me miss, I’ll give you twenty bucks if you’ll let me chew your nose off.
No? Maybe an ear? No? Well then. I’ll be on my way.

What the fuck do you mean I can’t have a large Coke with my Double Down?
The great state of New York thought I was responsible enough to own and carry the pistol that is currently dangling from my middle finger.
Maybe Bloomberg is afraid it’ll keep me up past my bedtime.
Maybe I offend him with my chubby existence.
I think we can all agree, this is the most important step to making me skinny.
Oh, I can still grab a Big Gulp? Sixty-seven ounces of Coke for a dollar? Later.
I used to drink 20 ounce Pepsis, now I only buy Big Gulps. Triple the volume for 30 cents less! Thanks Mayor.

I can see you know best how to keep me healthy.… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition Day 2: Conversation with a fatass.”