In Your Absence

I can’t quite express
The confusion and the mess
That’s been left
In your absence
Why didn’t you confess
The demons that had you possessed?
Why couldn’t you
Escape the thoughts that had you depressed?
Why was this the only way you could address
The aspects of life that you detest
that had you dispossessed?
Perhaps if you got some of it off your chest
The world wouldn’t be one man less
One man that blessed it with his presence
Now all who knew you are left to digest
News of death’s caress via a self-inflicted process
We can’t protest
We can only attest
To the pain and existential unrest
Of the hole your life has left

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Maybe

If I sit here
Long enough
Maybe
I’ll have the strength
To stand

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This poem is from the book Wage Slave, The Unpaid Overtime Edition

me at 36

i’m 36
crying and triggered
remembering when i was 8
remembering my stepfather
remembering the warnings that went unheard
remembering the pleas for help went unanswered
remembering the fear
remembering the confusion
remembering the choice to force myself to forget

remembering
crying
writing

remembering
crying
and writing more

desperately hoping that all this is somehow also healing

it’s my birthday and my family are watching me breakdown
i am stoned on weed
valium
memory
and music

tears
my ink

pain
my pen

words
my voice

… it’s time to blow out the candles and make a wish
perhaps i’ll live to wish another …

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This poem is from the book Poetry from a Dark Night of the Soul

but a feather

i am but a feather
drifting between worlds
forced to float
on the whims of the wind

perhaps
one day
i’ll be allowed
to rest

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This poem is from the book Bound To The Wings Of A Butterfly

Bound To The Wings Of A Butterfly

If I was to die, would you cry?
Would you look up at the sky and scream why?
Would you lament being shy for not asking after I?

Please do not deny.

Just know that I am forgetting my why.
You don’t need to be a spy to see that I don’t have the energy to try.
Truth is, I’ve barely enough to sigh.
No longer spry, no longer able to apply, no longer able to fly.
How can I amplify? How can I stay wry? How can I make that pie?
I’m just a lonely guy, trying to imply the need for you to reply.

Perhaps I need to demystify before I say goodbye.
Perhaps I need to clarify before I horrify.
Perhaps I need to verify before I falsify with this note left to justify the lullaby.

Don’t worry. These words are a lie, just a sly attempt to identify.
Just an attempt to pre-emptively reclassify when you turn a blind eye.
Just an attempt to declassify and diversify the constant misapply.
Just an attempt to edify you on the thoughts that multiply, the need to certify, the ennui.

I see how others get by. They gratify and deify; they codify and fortify. Believing that the Mystify will specify how they should diversify.

But not me.

I can’t believe that rallying cry.
Life has no retry.
Just a constant attempt to scrape by under a dark sky.
Just a vain attempt to signify.
Just cause and effect bound to the wings of a butterfly. 

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This poem is from the book Bound To The Wings Of A Butterfly