Sleep

Sleep

Let eyelids form few drop memories of dreams unfulfilled 

Let skin turn blue like skies watching shapes form in the clouds of where your ambitions used to live

Play music

Let melody mix with sentiment and imagine forfeited futures

Hear wedding bells

Hear the laughter of your children’s never haves filled with the promises of the futures you couldn’t keep

Play hide and seek

Pretend mr almighty has his flashlight shining bright into the darkest places you’ve ever known 

Searching for the remnants of the skeleton you became while hiding in your closet

Freeze

Like green lights turned red with backyard games filling silences in the shallows of your breath 

Smile

Smile like the weight lifted from your shoulders to your jawlines to the top of your forehead until it pulls your lips skyward while floating like an anvil balloon

Take a shower

Feel recycled and refreshing water run from your temple to your toes as if the feelings you harbor could lift anchor to sail away with the dirt under your fingernails

Sing

Sing cause the shower is a sound booth and mixing music with mania has become your profession 

Hide

Don’t let people see you sleep

It’ll only worry the ones around you

They’ll mistake sheep jumps for countdowns and whistles for flatlines

Pick your bed well

Find a firm place to lay your head

But sink shallow enough so the mattress frame doesn’t visibly bother others

Stop checking your phone

Turn off the tv and laptop

You weren’t meant to remind yourself of the reasons you sleep instead of thrive

Don’t need to see acquaintances accomplish your life goals while you lay in shallow bed frames snoring until the ground quakes with your contribution 

You’ve been here before

Slept in these shoes

Smiled with plastic carved caricatures in mask plasters stuck to expressionless afterthoughts

So just sleep

Sleep where the ground is comfy

And the grass excuses dew drop memories leaking with sky blue lips through pale white clouds of never haves and could be’s

Your home in your private hostel 

No ceiling

Just 4 walls and a floor plan shallower than sea level

When they ask you why you haven’t woken up in awhile

Let them realize you’re home is where your heart is

Your heart is most comfortable when you’re at peace with the environment you belong in

You sleep in basements so you can feel as low as your life does 

It’s okay

You’re done waking up

Dreams may come to an end

But not if you’re willing to invest in them

Buy yourself a burial plot so beautiful you can dream of cloud filled skies as blue as the lips you sport and the mental illness you thought you could bury

Not realizing

It was already burying you

Solar Fling

Have you ever seen a solar eclipse?

The answer should be no

It’s dangerous to make that mistake

Staring directly at cosmic cataclysm occurrence

The sun burns so bright, even the moon couldn’t hope to hide it’s entire expression

The light is said to be so strong it burns through your eyes like window panes to the corneas behind

Until eventually you’re blind to other light around you, as the world seems darker

I pause as i sit in my therapist's office

The hard plastic coated recliner is cracked like the minds of its inhabitants

The instability almost seeping into the interior upholstery

I shift uncomfortably as the chair squeaks like the gears in my mind

I finally admit “I stared at a Solar Eclipse”

I dated one

Spent my free time with a being so bright it’s impossible to look directly at her without some sort of barrier

It was usually substances

Finding herself most settled in bad tasting booze

Smoke screens thrown up with each bowl pack

She had many obstacles between her light and your eyes

Par for the course with cosmic beings

I made the mistake of meeting her at the bottom of each bottle

And rolling with each of her overpacked punches

Until I was so close to her, I forgot to wear my blinders

Stared directly into the sun of her soul and saw the darker core

The scars that hide in plasma faced sunspots and flare ups

As a child, she was courted by apollo

Picked up each morning and carried through the days horizon lines by his will

It took a little while for her to realize toxic relationships look a lot like her mirrored reflection

So she flirted with an overly brave boy who flew close to her light,

He was so blinded he didn’t see his ground fall from beneath him

Her icarus fell to earth, and she learned to hide behind storm clouds

Let depression thunder as flashes of lightning anxiety froze her

She muted herself

Tried to fade out

But stars are meant to supernova

I traded the edges of my iris for the golden ring of her profile so she could see her halo in my eyes

Put her on such a pedestal she was afraid of the drop

Began building ladders to escape routes, i hadn’t been able to see for a long time

She left me with a blindness to the light around me

And a picture perfect permanent imprint of her image burning bright through the darkness I’d begun to see, like an ironic reminder of why you can’t love a solar eclipse

Old School Expectations-Unfinished

At birth, i was the only boy

Not in the whole world obviously, but you could have fooled my family

In a generation of daughters, I was the Sun that my uncles and grandparents hope for

A ray of bright light that was quickly overrun with oddly similar materials

I got given 4 firetrucks on my first birthday

Something about gender norms rang like sirens in each relative’s mind as they brought forth cars

I remember the first time I lost the image of the sun that shone through daughter mired darkness

It was a wednesday afternoon as my father came home to my sister 3 years senior spreading a necklace around my head

No comments made or arguments formed

But next christmas my aunt asked why I had played “pretty pretty princess” with a sister

Didn’t i know at the age of 4 that I was supposed to subscribe to binaries?

I liked the way the plastic earrings pinched my lobes and the time my sister spent involved in my life, regardless of outfit or accessories

But the moment my family reminded me that I wasn’t supposed to enjoy the “femininity” of this action

I should be ashamed

Shame was born and bred in me as each year i saw them passed.

I progressed through personality until who i was was clearly visible under layers of removed rubbel faced rumors

But I never forgot my uncles words as he explained “You’re the only hope for the mckeown name”

By 10, I had friendships stronger than skyscrapers

Each waking moment was dedicated to forging new bike paths in our already mapped out town as we pretended 2 wheels could translate to maturity

Mistaking freedom for adulthood

“I can’t wait to get an apartment with todd!” I explained at my 11th christmas, as my family processed silently the information they were being inundated with.

“But wouldn’t you rather live with a girl? What about caitlin? Isnt that the neighbor you see everyday?”

He wasn’t wrong.

Caitlin became my concrete foundation to fall back to each time my family wasnt able to cushion my descent

But months before the holidays she had chosen independence over being associated with a younger friend

The question stuck like daggers to my subconscious

I was more allowed to be miserable with my female friend than experience elation with the acceptance in male eyes

“But what if i wanna be with a friend?” I asked back as quickly as my defenses rose

My uncles face contorted into mirrored reflections of each ideal imposed on his childhood,

For a brother 4 siblings, 3 of which were also male, and one of whom was gay, he seemed more shocked than slighted at the comment

Peace Corps Perimeters

My sister lives next door to me

My whole life she’s been one house away

One phone call

One plea for help or cup of sugar

One barrier

One blockade from this duplex mentality

When we were young, my sister and I fought about landscaping.

Even the smallest things could lend themself to disagreement

Snow fort wars fought on upside down chutes and ladders

as staircases became runways for toboggan fueled aerial attacks

Harnessing frozen water like mortars as packed powder explodes to dust on impact

Hurling rocket propelled ice chunks hidden in innocent snowflake shell

We would build hills higher than arms reach to defend against sibling onslaught

Draw borders down the decks and patios as we competed for size in kingdom

Pretended we were all over the world at once, and in control of it all

Even in adolescent backyard memories, my sister and I have competed.

The competition kept evolving with our ages

Bickering about cardboard disposal and carseat priority

Competing to be right, better, first, fastest, bestest, and brightest.

I built climbing walls to the toeholds she left behind as she progressed through academics with ease

I began living in the dust of her heels and the shadow of her distancing silhouette

Felt myself slipping lower on the rungs of this hamster wheel climbing wall Resenting the heels in my vision each time I looked up to the stars

I never saw her hand stretched out to grab me

Only the one pulling herself above me

I remember the first time I told my neighbor I hated her

The most vile awful mean terrible no good very bad insult I knew existed at the time

She stared unblinking at the anger filled adolescent in front of her

Smiled

paused

And screamed holy hell as she ripped me 8 new ones

It was the first time I saw a crack in the wall we had built

She cared what I thought of her

Tears streamed down her face like lost snow packed memories of winter backyards

When I saw her white flag fly, my neighbor and I made amends with the competition we had finally finished

And the same tears stained her face as she sent me off to college this year

Knowing this winter would be our first with no christmas

No new years

No 21st birthday wishes or snow fort showdowns

No neighbor home

So I shook my head like a snowglobe trying to cloud the image

Video chatted and facebook messaged every other day

My neighbor lives on the other side of the world

And still manages to come home for backyard snow fights

She is all places in the world and controls them

My sister lives next door to me

On the other side of the world

Life Manual

3

2

1

Ready

Set

Go

Hurry up and learn to talk so you can understand the world around you

It’s easier to listen if you know how to speak, so never stop learning how to talk

Constantly evolve with generational phrases and uncovered subject matter

Begin this perpetual learning now, because it only gets harder

Don’t forget

Life is not for living, it’s for achieving

Set milestones!

Learn to crawl

Walk

Run

Sprint

Spend your days practicing writing and reading

Here’s where that talking and listening skill comes up already

Learn to interact with strangers

Social skills will never not be important

Dedicate the majority of your conscious to society and the anxiety of fitting into images

Treat this dedication like religion

Pray to the god of change at the dinner table, bathroom scale, classroom corner, state fair port-a-potty, and overcrowded concert line.

Change your look

Change your hair to get comments

Change your outfits to be seen or unseen

Change your attitude so you can upgrade friend groups

Social lives are just practice for future networking

As you’ve been learning to exist, did you forget to constantly challenge, change, add to, and alter your knowledge?

If so, the public school system is a wonderful reminder of the mediocre shape they need you to be

Read letters

Now read letters this way

Now connect the letters so it says the same thing but in fancier font

You’ll never need this skill except at the cash register

Now write papers

Write papers like this for me

Write them like this for a different authority

Learn how to write the same paper a dozen ways, and remember none of the are the right way

Keep your nose to the page like record scratching vinyl

Pass classes

Graduate and keep working

Go to college and convince yourself you are already what you never wanted to be

Change your hair again

Change your clothes again

Change your attitude….again

Change everything until the reflection in the mirror needs to be introduced to its beholder

Fail exams and papers

Skip classes and lectures

Scramble and study to pass and persevere at the last moment

Reach the golden finish line of higher education with a diploma in hand and direction in life

Start walking that path

Keep your head to your shoes and count the 68 steps it takes to get from your front door to the bus station

The 4 full stops before your own

glance the hundreds of cracks in the sidewalk on your way to work

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Remember the game ends

The game you forgot to enjoy

The game you didn't realize you were playing rather than surviving

Think back to the school days and realize none stick out

Think back to formation of behavior and question who told you how to be

Think back to the walk from home to work you took for years

Question whether there were even roses to smell

Try to remember the mosaics of the sidewalk fractures meeting along fault lines

Realize all the missed shows you never saw

Lament the lost travel chances and forgone escapes

Question the last time your smile sat squarely on your jaw with no extra adhesive

Change your hair because you want to

Change your attitude as life challenges it

Smile more

Start each day with optimism and cut out unhealthy behaviors

Take the same walk but slow your pace and look up at the world around you

Devote your time to what you love more than what you think you should

Sit on park benches rather than bus seats

See the difference between life and living

preach it to the next generation that steps off school buses onto mosaic cracked sidewalks with their eyes glued down

Teach people to learn from your mistakes

Walk back to the revolving door of life and finally stop moving as you sit on the outside waiting for your turn to spin

Take a deep breath and count

3

2

1

Ready

Set

Go

Hurry up and learn to talk

...and maybe a little quicker this time

Snapshots of regrets-OLD

Stop

Pause

Freeze

If I could control time with speech

I would have searched for the command that let me stand in a moment

Our moment

A time capsule image with the rest of the world moving around it

We could live in a snowglobe

Exist in our perfect seconds over and over like a record stuck on the best part

The only music i ever needed was your laugh

Like a melody beckoning me to join

We spent afternoons giggling like school children

And lived life in photographic hallucinations of shared foreign futures

We went Skipping from continent to country

Treating borders like velvet ropes, and facing fears like the reaper was in our back pocket

But time is not mine to manipulate

So we moved on

We cliff jumped from caverns of consciousness

Tripping between reality and fantasy

Over time the borders in the back of my mind began breaking down

I would travel from satisfied to desolate

Like I had been granted dual citizenship

Long distance relationships can’t work

Not when one has such a long distance to go

A 19 year trek across life’s peaks and valleys

19 years of traversing life lessons well enough to know, that I’m still learning

But when school gets out and my Trek is done

I hope you’re still there

And we can walk out together