I see it
          now
               move
in the corner of my eye
I swirl my head
but nothing is there
 
Paranoia creeps in
I know it was there
Something
The dog is on
high alert
 
 
I see it
          now
               move
in the corner of my eye
I swirl my head
but nothing is there
 
I’m getting creeped
Something’s off
The shadows move
like spiders
I watch the fireplace
cast an ominous glow
in the living room
 
It’s all so real
I see the eerie red eyes
peer at me
through the dark void
I see there is
something in the
shadows
 
 
I see it
          now
               move
in the corner of my eye
I swirl my head
but nothing is there
 
Fear, uneasiness sets in
like a weary point of view
My eyes search the room
on alert
I pet the dog
try to find out if
she sees what I can see
 
Something is amiss
The shadows
reach their tendons
into the light
but vanish the first
moment I catch them
in my sight
 
 
I see it
          now
               move
in the corner of my eye
I swirl my head
but nothing is there

​Covid was a journey into restlessness.  When I went to San Francisco and saw people wearing masks and I heard about the Coronavirus and everyone warned us about going—aren’t you worried about getting sick? they’d say—there was no way I could have predicted a total world shut down———and thus, a restlessness, an irritability, and an acceptance would follow.
 
I thought the world was going to end.  I was one of those people.  I was wary at first.  I felt like this would all blow over.  But that day I went to the grocery store and saw all the toilet paper sold out, I thought maybe I should jump on the bandwagon.  A store fully stocked, except for the toilet paper.  So I store-hopped in search of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  We stockpiled canned food and emergency meals.  We constructed bugout bags filled with all the necessities for surviving the most hostile terrain.  We watched apocalyptic, end-of-the-world movies and TV series to prepare—such as Contagion and Station Eleven.
 
Michelle baked bread, I walked the dog and steered clear of all the neighbors.  They were sick and I didn’t want to die.  I thought of conspiracies: maybe this is the Illuminate’s way of separating us, because a world separated doesn’t have much of a fight when it comes to global domination.
I remembered when I was told about the secret camps this government had constructed so that they could shepherd us into them when the time was right—when we all believed that this was the safest, easiest way; the government was to be trusted and we all must pile into these camps to be taken care of like pets.  We’d be pets to the Illuminate, trained and obedient because we saw no other choice.  This was survival.
 
We built an indoor trampoline for Annmarie so that when we’d shut ourselves in, she’d have a mode of unloading all her useless energy.  We cleared the living room and turned it into a roller disco.
I downloaded Spotify and started discovering new bands and downloading them so that when the shit hit the fan and the internet stopped working, I’d have plenty of music to get me through.
Michelle discovered a different sort of spirituality so that when these religious nuts showed up on our doorstep with pitchforks and torches, she’d be ready.
 
We bought vegetables from a local farm.  Drive half an hour to a bumpy, dirty, shifty road, wait in line with masks on, and one after another, we would pull up and pick up our vegetables.
We bought a camper van.  It was the only way we could travel so we took up camping because one day it might be all we had left.
We bought a new puppy.
 
Eventually things cleared and vaccines were being administered.  I was wary; we were all wary.  Do these vaccines even work?  It’s mind control.  We’ll all be slaves.  Haven’t you ever the read the book Divergent?  It’s happening just like that.
People started travelling again.  Are they crazy?
We stocked up on Covid-tests.  Annmarie went back to school and she wore a mask every day—is this for real?  She wanted to see her friends outside of school.  At the stores, people were wearing masks.  Everyone wore masks.  This is the end of the world.  It was so depressing.  We were all faceless shoppers.  We had no names.  What we looked like, who we were, hidden behind these veils.  I told myself stories that I liked covering up my face.  I don’t mind because I don’t want people seeing me.  It’s why I always wear sunglasses.  Michelle became agoraphobic and I started to drive more often.  I used to be a nervous driver and now I drive all the time.  I love to drive now.  At first I had to drive because someone had to get us groceries.
Things were going back to normal.
 
I went to my first open-mike in years.  I was just an image on a screen.  It was unreal.  I was condensed to a box.  Facebook had won.  We were all just faces.  On a screen.  In a box.  I had so many friends and I knew their faces but I didn’t know them—we were all strangers, living in our own filtered bubbles.  This was the end of civilization.
 
Frustrated, restless, I took to taking more errands than needed because I needed to get out and stretch my legs.  I walked the dog more often than I should have because otherwise, what else would I have done with my time?
 
Michelle started her own business.  She started selling dolls and dollhouse furniture on Etsy.
I wrote a lot.  Took a lot of writing classes on Zoom.
The camper van was unsustainable because we had nowhere to store it in the winter.  The guy we had bought it from said: We don’t winter in Vermont.  We couldn’t just up and leave.  We had a teenage girl to take care of.  We would have had to keep it plugged in on days there was no sun or else the battery would die.  So much for solar power.  We sold it to a used car lot and made back a fraction of what we had originally paid.  It was a loss we had to make.
 
I went to my first open-mike in person, and I was nervous.  I’ve never been nervous about going onstage.  I was out of practice and my anxiety was at a high.
I wore a mask.  There were three other performers, two of them wore masks.  There were two other people in attendance—they were not wearing masks.
I took off my mask when I read.  So much for needing to hide my face.
 
Off stage, I mingled.  The other mask-wearer played the fiddle, then took off his mask and never put it back on.  I went outside, took off my mask, and looked for a cigarette to bum.
This was our world.
 
More and more open-mikes, less people wore masks.  Is this really happening?  Everything’s going back to normal.  The world, as we knew it, is coming to an end.
 
We went to Maine and we brought masks with us on our trip.  It was the first time we travelled with our new puppy, who was now a full-grown, eight-pound dog.  The first time we had travelled since giving up the van.  The dog who we had named Velvet sat on my lap the whole trip while Michelle drove.  She was so well-behaved.
We stayed in an air B&B.  Michelle showed me the town she grew up in.  No one wore masks.  Things were slowly going back to normal.
 
Every time we leave the house, Michelle brings a bottle of hand sanitizer.  I used to douse both hands in sanitizer every time I left a store; now I forget to bring it with me when I leave the home.
 
Today we went to a large, in-door flea market.  A few vendors wore masks, but only a few.  People were smiling; I could see their faces as they talked.  They were shaking hands.  I watched them exchange products for cash and then go on their way.  The crowd was huge; there were so many people, so many faces, so many germs, so much happiness and joy, that it made it rather difficult to remember that this kind of event wouldn’t have been allowed to happen more than a year ago.  It almost makes me forget that these past few years were spent mostly inside, at home, with my family.
When we left, Michelle doused her hands with sanitizer and told me to hold out my own….

​When I was 19, I was arrested and charged for Possession of Cocaine.  We parked our truck in the Staples parking lot because we were meeting a friend when he got out of work and he worked at Staples.  So we left the truck in the parking lot and walked to our dealer’s house carrying my Playstation 3.  We traded him the console for a small bag of cocaine and then went back to the truck.  Sitting in the truck, we each gummed a small amount of cocaine before I turned around and saw through the back window a cop coming toward the truck.  I shouted: The police!  Andrew rolled down the window and dumped the cocaine and tossed the bag, then rolled back up the window.  The cop arrived at the truck and picked up the bag and tapped on the window.  He asked us what was in the bag.  Then we were arrested.
 
A few days later the police report came in.  Andrew and I thought it was funny because there was no way the cops could have possibly scraped the amount of cocaine they said that we had had off that tiny plastic wrapping.
 
My lawyer was pretty good.  He got me off on a Continuance without a Finding, with a year’s probation.  I met with a probation officer.  Every day I had to call a number and if my color was up, I had to drive to the Charleston Courthouse and go up five flights of stairs and wait in a room for my turn to stand in a bathroom where every wall was a floor to ceiling mirror and a cop in full uniform sat in the corner and watched me pee.  Ever since this experience I have had a shy bladder.  I assume it’s because of the trauma of having this happen that I can no longer pee when someone is watching.
 
One time I was at the Courthouse and I tried to pee but I couldn’t.  So after a while I stepped out and had some water and sat down in the waiting room again.  They let me try a second time.  Still no pee came out.  The cop in the waiting room told me I get one more chance and if I am not able to pee, then they will say I was positive for every drug.  Well, I tried a third time and thank God, I was able to pee.
 
10 years later I found out that for all the drug arrests in that period of time, the charges were dropped.  Apparently the two women in the drug lab were discovered to have been lying about how much drugs people had had in their possession.  It was a big scandal.  Now it all made sense.
 
Yesterday I received a check for a very large sum of money.  It was said to be a settlement for my troubles.  I guess that money makes up for my shy bladder.

I remember
the good ol’ days
for what they really were
 
It took awhile
but overtime
the truth sunk in
 
The good ol’ days
that kind of thinking
an excuse to go wild
 
But what were they but us
trying to escape something
we couldn’t quite grasp at the time
 
I thought we were having
so much fun I could not
let go of the party
 
I hated myself so much
I needed to escape all the time
I diluted my reality
 
The good ol’ days
Were they really that good
to want to go back there
 
It really is romance
at its finest
a retrospective illusion

​When they went right
you went left
You danced
to your very own beat
 
with a style that
could not have been
duplicated
A Boy brought up in
 
a society of clones
You did it
your own way
and no one could have
 
taken that away
When they went up
you dove into
the underground
 
A language of your own
you spoke fluently
A life of your own
you created so diligently
 
No one could have
told you what was what
Where you lacked in brains
you made up in
 
creativity
All the uniforms of your peers
you tore holes
in our culture
 
No one could’ve told you
the right way
because you’d always
do it your own way
 
You were my friend
and I danced with you
in the flames
You taught me so much
 
about life
——but somehow
it wasn’t enough
because that needle’s
 
calling was too strong
for you to resist
You thought it was
the only way
 
to coexist in this
freakish world
where left was right
and up was down
 
You tried to carve
a name with the rocknroll
you played
but you were too late
 
to make it
You lived in a veil
of misery
a shameful voice
 
of oppression
You were disillusioned
from the day
you were hatched
 
Born a tortured soul
Died a tormented genius
—but it was
much too late
 
————but you tried
so hard to
persevere
You were loved
 
You were you
And you died
too soon
If only you knew///

1.
Another night
I watch the sky
and the moon
and the stars
dance for me
over the used car lot
as I smoke
a pack of smokes
and I’m choking
because I did too much
I went
to too many place
 
 
2.
Another morning
Time withers away
as I stare at the slashes
in my veins
I look at the razor marks
follow the crevices
in my arm
as my eyes go wide
 
 
3.
The sun rises
over the parking lot
Stars explode
in the distance
Millions and millions
of years go by
before the stars blink out
Galaxies destroyed
One down
An infinite more to go
 
 
4.
The night is bright
with mischief
The moon is full
orange and glowing
It looks kinda hairy
with a sheen of silver
A vapid façade
wipes away the guilt
I stare up at the sky
The stars like fire
burning up the dark
I wait for
this moment to end
and another one
to begin
 
 
5.
I fall on my face
The stairway
never felt so rough
The concrete even rougher
I flirt with her
at the back of the train
She says goodbye
I stagger down the lane
Out the door
I trip and tumble
and skid to a stop
So many times I
rode that train
Tonight it must be angry
 
 
6.
I watch the cars
rush to destinations
Where are they
all going
It’s a sacred street
I stand on
awash with
lights incandescent
Slanted alleyways
swagger between buildings
I’m sitting on the corner
watching
the tough guys mingle
 
 
7.
In the parking lot
we share a bottle
In the park we
toss and tumble
In the woods
I get bit by a tick
The next day my dad
removes it
with a dab of scotch
 
 
8.
In the morning
I feel soooo
high like I’m
standing in the sky
looking down as
the rivers of fire
flow like lava
Streetlights shine
Carhorns howl
I’m on the moon
watching
the manic commotion
of a flaming city
I feel the clouds
They touch my skin
like a soft blanket
I pull it over my head
The ground too
is soft like sand
I’m in the womb
I let myself
drift off to sleep……….

I fester in the center of
an army of nerves
running wild up and down
my bitter spine
My blood is like acid
It eats through my skin
leaving my bones bare
and charred
I got angry fungi
growing behind my eyes
It’s got me seeing
red that grows like
a rash across people’s
faces
My ears are picky
They only hear the stuff
that makes me sick
I don’t know why
this is living
I’m swimming in a disease
that drives me to hate
I run from the shame
Look for other options
but my brain
is sick with mold
I stick to the solution
Seek out other resolutions
But I grew so disillusioned
that my only answers
seem to be lighting
a misanthropic fuse

​The glittery night sky
falls to pieces
where the street poet lies
He’d fallen there amid
a crowd of bystanders
watching in awe
The sirens bring color
to the grayness
shattering the city streets
 
Mesmerized faces
Tears dripping
Children crying
The streets bring a
whole new edginess
to the life of a poet
A girl had asked him
to write a poem
about dancing fairies
 
He turned around
Stealthily popped a benny
Went to work on the poem
He had been working too hard
Done too many drugs
Drunk too much booze
The world swirled and a
tornado of colors
washed over his vision
 
He clutched his chest
His eyes were red
Rolled back in his head
He started to shake
The girl looked at her mommy
“It’s just part of his craft,”
her mommy said
“He’s channeling the words
from something higher than life”
The girl smiled as the poet
 
dropped to the ground
rattled and shook
his mouth spewing foam
Her mommy clutched
the girl’s hand
and pulled her off
into the oblivious mob
Someone shouted:
“He’s dead!”
 
The earth stopped spinning
No one knew why
the poet had fallen to his death
He was working too hard
Hustling all night and day
He had no home and this
was what the poet did
His golden typewriter gleamed
beneath the full moon’s glow

This is useless
Everything is useless
Words are useless
Ideas are useless
Point of views are useless
This poem is useless
I don’t why I’m writing this
because my current state of mind
is useless
Believe me, nothing
matters
except the gravestone that will
become demolished
when earth is knocked
out of existence
or when the state
wants to build
another Starbucks
That is useless too
Coffee is not your friend
It’s a devil that will make you feel
like your life is worth something
Liquid cocaine
But are you really awake?
when you’re only partaking in
useless rituals
I drink a lot of caffeine
and it’s useless
because I can’t stop sleeping
My thoughts are useless
They only prepare me for
a useless reality
in which we bide our time
to be hurled back
into the useless maelstrom
Religion is useless
Time is useless
It’s all so horrid
like a lucid disguise
A veil we wear to
keep out the darkness
that storms our minds
Life is useless
and so am I

​Tears dripping
on the inside of
my heart that feels
way too much guilt
Sometimes the
pressure of always
having to be perfect
is jagged as a
knife.  Blood smears
my vision as I try and I
try to do it right
but all the time
I end up wrong
I got the pistol
in my twitching hand
and I hold it up
to my aching head
Only way to be
perfect sometimes
Only way to
make things right
Never be a burden
Next time
I’ll do things right
But this time
for me it’s
GAME OVER
I think about
dying way too often
for the average
person but I can’t
help these yearnings
from blossoming
into a black rose
I watch each petal
transcend from this
life to another
The thorns are dripping
pink-eyed confusion
I hurts me too much
to be a delusion
I’m so useless take me
to the farthest point
from this world I’ll
disappear in craters of
the moon I’ll find reprieve
all alone on the run from
the bondage
the repression I feel when
I’m tied up and scolded
Fuck they burn          my eyes
feel like barbells my head
feels like a crater
and my mind is just
a waste of space