the life and times of a balloon

we're just
helium balloons,
with nothing but
balloon skin,
and a brain
and other vital organs
playing the parts
of helium.

early on
you just want to break free
of your handlers grip,
just wanting to go nowhere
but up.

so you do.

and inbetween
there are other balloons,
competing,
and rubbing balloon skin,
until friction is created.

we just want to get higher
while looking down
at the ground.

we go higher
and higher
until
our guts
and helium
start squirting out
our asses
that are tied
in knots.

and then we sink,
little by little,
until
the ground appears
closer
than it really is.

we sink.
we wither.
and it's usually
slow.

and sometimes
we just leave it up
to the wind.

and sometimes,
with the right conditions
we just explode
as we ride higher.

but we always
end up deflated,
on the ground,
nothing more than
leftover skin
without
any air.

good news

within the tiny cracks
of existence,
beneath the broken bottles
and cracked mortar,
there is a seed of light,

and if you are good to it,
watering it
with blood
and understanding,

the seed will spread,
with wings, and
a nightmare
clutched
between it's talons,
soaring up
until cracks break,
glowing.

when humanity becomes the roach

one day,
you watch,
just as the polarity
of hands
crumbles us apart
like burnt toast,
the cockroaches will evolve
into 200 foot creatures
that will seek
their revenge,
worse than any Kafka
imagination.

they will grow
and they will grow
and
within this process
their brains will bloom
into
a more intelligent form,
as
we just grow
smaller.

and then
they will either harvest us
like cattle
or
they will push us
back
behind their walls,
their cupboards,
their refridgerators,

at first
laughing at
the oddity.
then,
a few generations later,
scared enough
to call an exterminator,

they will not even admire our scheme
to survive
on nothing but
the generosity
of
the sloppiness
of
the dominant species.

just a walk

the sound
of the snow
and sleet
beneath my feet
echos
between the houses
and buildings
just before midnight.

it's loud enough
that i'm shocked
that it hasn't induced any dogs
into barking,
and i swear
it sounds like the teeth
of a 500 foot giant
gnawing through whale bone.

there's a history
in the other footprints,
in the snow
that my footprints step on
and over,
and sometimes they just blend.

someone wore chucks,
another person wore hiking boots.
i even noticed that some lady
was wearing heels.

i'm not walking anywhere,
just pacing an extended circumference around
my apartment building
in blocks.

i have my footprints to prove this.

tiny white flag

a tiny white flag
shakes
in the wind,
underneath
the empty storefront
awning.

the streetlight only
gives a purpose
to this scene.

a streetlight will never lie,
it'll just interpret
whatever the day has left behind.

i witness this,
on my green camping chair,
within my bedroom,
that i have deemed a nest,
just for this evening.

it's a quarter to four
on this wednesday morning,
and that goddamn streetlight
won't leave me alone,
like i'm nothing more
than a moth.

the tiny white flag is still there,
and right now
i just don't have a big enough ladder
to take it down.

afterwards

all
the empty
condom wrappers that collect
on the street,
every single voicemail
from them,
deleted,
that has gone to heaven,
and every other
single detail within the frames,
collected,

will collide
and mesh inside a jar
that is always open
within the outskirts
of your brain.

one day
when the voices
on the reel stops,
and after
everybody gets their
credit,

we will finally be able
to go home.

the odds

conservatively speaking,
i estimate that 50%
of the communication
that you digest each day
is just some sugarcoat
applied to the bullshit
served to you.

don't lie.
this is how you prepare
your communication as well.

maybe they would rather not see you
hurt,
or you'd rather
they not come after you
with a butcher knife
in hand.

now,
if your someone only seeking
the truth,
you might as well be open
to the idea of harakiri.

distracting fixes

distractions come
as free
and
habit forming
as the smoke
off of this cigarette,
that waits for me
in this ashtray.

it doesn't matter
how much
i trim
the people
from my everyday life,
the ones that hover
with some type of
string,
dangling
over my head.

no.
it doesn't matter.

it's these thoughts,
these texts,
the internet
on this computer,

they are just no good
for
any procrastinator
looking for that fix.

pilgrimage

if
anyone
of us
knows
who we are,
yell,
spit on a drunk
for jesus,
sell your soul
for
mother earth,
pretend
in the shape
of some great big
hallellujah.

the rest of us
will
make that all important
pilgrimage
to the next bar,
or the next preacher
of our chosen denomination,
who will give us that fix.

we will be the ones
who are walking,
lost,
searching for ourselves,
with nothing more
than
a little less wax
on
the candle.

tuesday night bar

i can just sit there,
with
a bar full
of people,
alone,
orbiting
my own space.

i can just sit there
content,
with
nothing but
an imagination
and memories
that could
choke a fellow
to death
on his own thoughts.

i see a pretty girl,
and i just don't know why
i ignored her
earlier.

i see a flat screen t.v.,
and my eyes
are only focused
on the scores.

there's nothing to it,
and sometimes
i wish
i were nothing more
than the glazed wood
affixed to this bar.

but
that girl is still there,
ordering another drink,
and the t.v.
just isn't showing me any more
scores
that i've already read
before.

and i'm not alone.
no,
the bartender buys me
a free beer.

this space,
this solitude
that i seek is never free.

then

i orbit,
with a little bit extra, i
buy myself
another drink,
and then i leave,
lost a little bit more
than before.

why monkeys are better than us

we're just cold to one another,
sitting in that wide open tree,
like monkeys
without
any food.

we lie.
we steal.
we lie some more,
and of course
it's just a matter of defending yourself with
flung shit.

and one monkey
will climb down
with scars,
larger than dead wedding vows,
attempting to land with
some type of gravity,
but really,
lost gravity
can only break
you in parts.

unknown geniuses

the problem is,
is that there a more geniuses
out there
than there are
fast food restaurants.

they sit there at night,
in their rooms,
in their jail cells,
sitting alone in a bar,
or just surrounded by
the noises
that there are no earplugs
for.

and every single one of them
can do something better than you,
enough so
to make them millionares.

but there just always seems to be
something in the way.

the progression of thoughts

image
and sound
fertilize the sentiment,
which sprouts
into a thought.

the thought
grows thicker
and thicker
until
there is no more room
to spread.

and then come
the words,
breaking windows
and shedding blood,
until
the silence
harvests the space
needed
for another seed.

a difference of interpretation

some of us
never read the owner's manual
to
our own lives.

as a matter of fact,
we probably burned it,
sometime
between birth
and highschool,

but
in our defense
we probably just wanted to
study
the effects of fire.

so instead
we learned everything
on our own,
and rewrote
that owner's manual
with nothing but our guts.

and if you ask just about anyone
they will tell you
that your guts
are just no substitute
for
standard black ink.

and then
you might nod
just to pretend that you're paying attention.

but really
you're just thinking in terms
of
the carcinogen content
of standard black ink.

sometimes being alone

sometimes,
when your drinking
alone,
in some bar,
or in
the confinement
of your own apartment,
all you can do
is think
in terms of
failed love.

it will haunt you,
turning you into
that little boy
that lost
a dead puppy
to a car,
on
the side of a road.

and sometimes
there is just nobody
whom you feel you can turn
to,
when you are nothing but
roadkill.

and then
you'll go to that bar,
and watch the two couples
in that place
face eachother,
nose to nose,
like it's some personal communion.

and they talk in terms
of politics,
of mutual friends,
of personal agendas,
and
both parties are just living by
that thread,
that connects,
that thrives
on the number two.

and there you are,
just sitting alone,
on that barstool,
watching the highlights
on espn,
wondering,
when you will become
that one
with somebody again,
with that girl.

so you go home
and your apartment is still
empty,
the paintings
and pictures still
haven't been hung
on the walls,

and the two people
whom you've texted,
still haven't replied.

you just imagine staying alone
forever,
or until
you're finally dead.

so
you pour yourself
another drink,
and write this,
a homage,
that is constructed
from nothing more
than being your final
drink.

your sum

it's funny,
when your alone,
in your room,
doing nothing but drinking
a can of beer and
lighting cigarettes in your mouth
like it's some epiphany,

you think back
in your memory warehouse
about those other times you were
alone
in a different room,
or a patio,
or a even a graveyard,
inbetween the different states.

and every time
when you were alone,
you faced those same dusty records,

except then,
the records wore
a little less dust.

you measure yourself,
by distance,
by girls,
by everything
that you almost accomplished,
and still
this beer isn't enough,
this cigarette tastes like
every single one you've smoked before,

but your head and
your heart
are in perfect unison
reminiscing
about ghosts
and
images
that crushed
and
choked
and
beat you
into the perfectly evolving
bloodied mess
you are today.

stay a kid

just stay a kid.

your job,
your wife,
your boyfriend,
the debt collector
will always be there
with weights
and
demands that will
try to bury you
when
your not even looking.

build an igloo in the snow
while drinking beer.
tell some random girl
that you love her.
shoot a credit card
up
into travel
to moscow,
or mongolia.

stay a kid.
stay drunk for an entire weekend.
and laugh
always laugh,
my god
go to your fucking grave laughing.
nothing has to be this serious.

stay a kid,
and you'll always have
just enough.

watching a blizzard

the snow comes in
like a hurricane.
they say
it's the worst blizzard
to hit chicago
since
'79.

i stand
at my bedroom window,
looking out
like some old man
with nothing but time
and nowhere to go.

with the wind,
the pattern of snow goes up
and sideways,
and it never seems to be going
down.

there's a drift of snow
across the street
waist high,
and by the time i wake up
in the morning,
it'll be high enough to bury
most any sized man.

there isn't much visibility,

and i just don't know what i'm looking at
anymore.