Rap>Poetry

No time for this emo shit no mo

Life is great when you make it so

Afterword

You know it's over when the tides go out from under you
and the world seems frozen in a crystalline form.
When you look into the mirror and don't want to be there any more.
But I'm no quitter.

I'll clench my teeth until my molars crack and I fracture my jaw
into a million splintered pieces,
smiling all the while: blood dripping, warm.

This dissonance is quickly building to a roar.
Some days I wish I could just be an invisible man,
so that everyone would address me as such.

I've lost my desire to inspire anything,
or perhaps just my capacity therefore.

Fuck it.
All I need is a pen and a bucket,
with which I may finally sit and collect my thoughts.

If only it were that simple.

all yours

An ingrained sense of inadequacy is never easily reformed.

When all you can see are all the ways people will walk out-
when your heart beats muffled for fear of being torn.

Maybe if I wasn't raised gazing out of foggy windows at departing cars;
or if they didn't say one thing and do another because they never thought
you would notice.

But you grew up detecting breakable promises,
and knew when they would, from the start.

When all you ever really thought you had were your own thoughts,
and the dark,
you get so caught up in both that you can't see things for how they are.

I'm sorry I sold you damaged goods,
but they will never do you harm.

You don't have to be gentle.
You don't even have to keep your promises.
Just don't pity me.

I do enough of that myself
and wanted to give you something besides sorrow.

Pearlcussion

What a crude instrument
this calligraphy is.

Give me some drumsticks
and let me paradiddle my sins
into a innocent snare.

It's probably for the best
that my parents never got me
a drum kit when I was a kid.

Rolling hat hits pulsing
as the kick concusses
cluster-bombs of penance through the air.

I would've punctured their skins;
then my drums would've been broken
and I would be left with my sticks.

Today a plane flew over my house.

I live less than 15 minutes away from the airport and have heard jumbo jets flying over my house my whole life, but today I wondered why. I wondered why I had to stop thinking to myself to listen to a commercial airliner shit through my sky.

My father is a pilot. He would probably be disappointed if he knew I was ridiculing aviation.

I just really enjoy silence sometimes.

2 days apart

I could never pack up my memories
and try to forget about you.

It began one summer evening
in an empty pool hall,
when you leaned into me and I took my cue.

How beautiful this life can be.

The parks, the bathroom closets,
the birthdays, the valentines,
the bedrooms, the showers,
the restaurants, the museums,
etc.

You taught me how to see in color
with your head resting on my shoulder.


Maybe we could make something beautiful,
together, some day, baby.
Just you, and me.

Brandon

(Drugs only kill those who never realize their potential;
never take methodone, kids; and if you should choose to shoot
yourself, please do so cleanly and save us all the anguish)

I was watching that freestyle you recorded of yourself
wearing a dunce cap of your own fashioning, making fun of rapping,
and could not help but laugh a little at your exaggerated mannerisms.

You were always a child at heart-
late twenties prankster, faithful son,
beloved uncle, coveted nephew,
wise brother, trusted friend.

You showed me how the funniest people were often miserable,
and that they had to cloak their wounds with jokes.
And you had jokes for days.
For daze. And years.

I remember when your mother passed two septembers back,
knowing I couldn't stand swallowing a similar pill,
seeing how it had slit your throat from the inside,
as you seemed to choke on your own saline blood at the funeral,

trying to hold back, wanting so bad to let go.
Down that slippery slope,
some pangs are residual, still.

Over the summer I saw you had been taking it badly,
mostly with bumps to the head,
and a few downers every now and then.
Then you got into the hard shit,
which i neither condoned nor condemned,
but you could hear the brokenness in your songs.

Your sister in law said she and your nephew and niece
planted a Magnolia tree in their yard
so the kids could remember your smile every summer when it bloomed.

The saddest part is
you told us you would die just like you did-
chasing your dreams-
but none of us wanted to believe you.
Now it’s about to be summer and I just wanted you to know
that we still miss you down here.