thoughts from
the bottle I want
everyone & everything
no one around loneliness
imprints into sand
a hand desperate for a body
(originally published in G*MOB, Spring 2022)
Month: August 2025
Trust
I did not listen to my inner
monologue when it told me
to stay home and watch
The Novice. I went to Trace
Brewing when it was bright
but you sat in the dark
when I needed light. I
said one drink, one drink
only, then on the two-block
walk back the clouds
were down, they felt
attached to you and
I kept stepping on
plastic bags and
scrunched-up napkins.
To arrive home I had
to bisect my conscience
and wait: how much
of myself to give
after giving?
The water tower
in the distance
a perpetual blue
balloon.
(originally published in DoubleSpeak Magazine, Spring 2023)
Cyclicality
A son walks into black sand.
The pit contains multiples.
Milky Way spiral–
our beam emerges from the arm.
What surprise and perfume until the end.
Long before religion’s birth.
(originally published in Communicators League, Fall 2021)
… Is a Memory
a leaf in hand, a chickling…
eyes cold with earth, the black-
gray sketch of wrinkled fingers
where breath rustles not leaves
but time itself…
broken pencil tips
(originally published in White Stag #SPIRIT Anthology, Fall 2023)
Beach House Concert: 2012/2022
Maybe I’m not as angsty.
Don’t need to drown
in the drone of lost
love. The haunted house
no longer my dwelling.
My ghost still the past
but not possessed by
obsession. The passage
of time a lapis lazuli–
ten years of wisdom
in which my sadness
may look the same,
but now able to withstand
a storm without music.
(originally published in Stickman Review, Fall 2022)
Rabbit
Went to Thursdays with
a friend who quit boot
camp but hates this bar so
left. I am good at waiting in
darkness, alone, drinking.
Other friends come but are
clung on by creepers. I Woke
Up Today by Port O’Brien
plays and suddenly we’re on
the precipice of another Ohio
summer! I high-five Rabbit
AKA High-Five Guy who is
an Eagle Scout. He buys us
shots of Crown and Coke,
then throws his glass into
the air, aiming for the roof.
But there is a hole in the roof
and the glass follow’s gravity’s
stringent rules and shatters
on the kaleidoscope everywhere.
The bald, black-eyed bouncer
points a finger and we are back
on the streets, the future still
shards in our powerful palms.
(originally published in The Beatnik Cowboy, Spring 2023)
Late-Summer Saturday, 2021
we walked a horseshoe through the Strip
ginger whiskey coffee whiskey honey whiskey apple whiskey
no matter what I always see this brand-new city
slamming glasses into a blue-skied table
what’s passed around we finish swiftly
while friends attempt to maintain some order
never too early to rush into a burger order
time being what it is
we consume all we can
(originally published in DREICH Magazine, Fall 2023)
Summer Sputter
I like the way you hug you squeeze me
like an almost-empty ketchup bottle to
wring the last sputter of my worth. We
spent one laborious summer in the sun,
almost burnt in cigarettes. You walked
your boss’s dog and your boss walked
you on trails we walked by the river.
Walked us. Communion with
the trees, canopy shade, we looked to
the river, in those moments endless.
(originally published in Backwards Trajectory, Spring 2023)
The Sword of Light
This fixture you forgot
on your back patio.
You say you are confused–
how did that turn on? It has
been months since I last visited.
I say the light is a metaphor
for our friendship. Big plants
sit in chairs in your brown-fenced
garden. Don’t know how close
to be anymore. Never get too close.
A tomato vine peeks from a planter
above you. Gardening’s a hobby,
inching toward the thirty you fear.
An August birthday during the lost
summer and you toss a squeaky
blue ball in my general direction,
more wildly as the night goes on,
and Lola retrieves it every time.
You say she slept upstairs with
you for the first time. We joke
she didn’t fall immediately, that you
had to tell her to turn the television
off, stamp her cigarette out. With our masks,
I only see your eyes smile. I hope you notice
mine. It is dark, as it has been for months,
and we try to stay illuminated, despite
these killer particles suspended
somewhere in the talk between us.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)
Low Note
bassline we covered
our ears to not hear– baby
blue guitar strumming black
hair, fingers on scalp, face
on chest I would have held you
longer in the hotel, a phone
call to the future saying shit
changed because we
bloomed into the black
mold of cheap rooms
(originally published in Perceptions Magazine, Spring 2022)