poems (2019)

Not for children

I published this collection in 2019, back when I had a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head: work, school, Taoism, zen, girls, Spanish, jazz, mortality.

Whenever I had time, I’d sit and type out my thoughts on a 1950s Remington Rand typewriter that I call “Earle.” I found Earle one day in 2016 while browsing Village Antiques in Dearborn. I bought him for $27.

Anyway, Earle and I would hang out sometimes and I’d hit him and hit him and knock him around, and after a long night of manic revelry, I would gather up the wreckage and sort through the scraps and sometimes, deep in the thickets of my nonsense, I would find a string of words that shortly but sweetly managed to express exactly what I was trying to say.

Those strings of thoughts became these poems.

from poems (2019)

CRAZY

Sometimes I wish that certain people were dead
And others would live forever,
That I could torture my childhood bullies
And redo lost fights with past lovers.
Sometimes I hate strangers on sight
And sometimes I love them.
Sometimes I talk to myself,
Sing in the shower,
Cry for no reason,
Skip washing my hands,
Squash bugs and smile,
And ogle sexy cartoon characters.
I wonder what dogs and birds are thinking,
Why mosquitoes bite,
Why I snot,
And why “goose” are “geese” but “moose” aren’t “meese.”
Sometimes I’m terrified but I smile
And I’m happy but I hate it.
Most times I fear or worship myself.
But craziest of all is not that I know I’m crazy,
But that you think you’re not.

ALONE

I am
Most
Alone
Among people.

HIDE

When it’s all too stupid out here,
I hide in books.

LOVE(D)

She is beautiful
She is smart
She is fun
She is exciting
She is different
She is sweet
She is compassionate
She is magnificent
She is in my dreams
She is on my mind
She is in my heart
She is my love
She is my air
She is my earth
She is my light
She is my life
She is my everything
She is gone.

FAME

Just let me know
when my fifteen minutes are up.