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Storm Fragments

ENTER THE STORM ON AMAZON

I’m waiting for the day to never wake up, not because I have forgotten how beautiful the morning can be, but because somewhere between yesterday’s disappointments and tomorrow’s expectations, I became exhausted from pretending that being alive and feeling alive were the same thing. I have mastered the art of opening my eyes while keeping the rest of me asleep. I can smile with a mouth that has forgotten its language, answer questions with a voice that sounds convincingly human, and walk through a room full of people while feeling like a ghost haunting a house that no longer belongs to me. Nobody notices the little funerals happening inside a person who is still breathing. They see the body, the familiar face, the ordinary gestures, but they never think to ask what it costs to keep carrying a soul that has grown tired of its own weight.

There is a peculiar loneliness in being the person everyone assumes is fine. You become a dependable piece of furniture in other people’s lives, something they lean against when the world becomes unbearable, never considering that the wood might be splitting beneath their hands. You learn to swallow your sorrow without making a sound, to fold your disappointments into smaller and smaller pieces until they fit somewhere behind your ribs. Eventually, you forget what it feels like to speak without translating your pain into something acceptable. You become fluent in I’m tired, when what you really mean is that your spirit has been working overtime, that your heart has accumulated debts no amount of sleep can repay, that you are desperately searching for a reason to believe the next sunrise might offer something different from the last.

And the nights, God, the nights. They know everything. They know the names I no longer say aloud, the conversations I replay until their words lose their original meaning, the mistakes I have carried longer than some people carry their happiest memories. Darkness does not ask me to explain myself. It sits beside me like an old acquaintance who has witnessed every version of my unraveling and never once pretended to be surprised. I stare at the ceiling while the clock performs its small, merciless mathematics, measuring the distance between who I was and the stranger I sometimes find waiting in the mirror. Somewhere outside, the world continues its ridiculous insistence on moving forward. Cars pass. Dogs bark. Someone laughs. A refrigerator hums in the kitchen. Life carries on with an indifference that feels almost insulting when you are struggling to remember why you should carry on with it.

I wonder how many people have stood in the middle of an ordinary afternoon and quietly wished they could disappear from the responsibilities of being themselves. How many have sat at dinner tables, nodded through conversations, kissed the people they love, and hidden an entire universe of sadness behind the simple declaration that everything is okay. We are a species of beautifully disguised disasters, decorating our wounds with humor, dressing our insecurities in confidence, and calling our emotional starvation independence. We praise one another for being strong when perhaps what we need is permission to put the armor down. Sometimes strength is not another day of pretending. Sometimes strength is admitting that the weight has become too much and allowing another human being to help carry it.

I have spent too much of my life believing that I must be useful to be worthy of being loved. That I must provide something, fix something, create something, or endure something before I have earned the right to occupy space in another person’s heart. Even my sadness feels like an inconvenience, another unfinished responsibility I should have learned to manage by now. So I hide it beneath the ordinary debris of living, burying it beneath work, conversations, unfinished projects, and the thousand little obligations that keep a person occupied without necessarily keeping them whole. I become the architect of my own disappearance, not leaving the room but withdrawing the parts of myself that once made being there meaningful.

Perhaps that is what frightens me most: not that I have become sad, but that sadness has started to feel familiar. It has learned the layout of my house. It knows where I keep my memories and which floorboards creak beneath my footsteps. It sits at the breakfast table. It rides beside me in the car. It follows me into moments that should be happy, whispering that joy is temporary and disappointment has a permanent address. I know this voice is not the whole truth, but knowing something intellectually does not always make the heart believe it. A person can understand the weather forecast and still feel unprepared when the storm arrives.

Still, somewhere beneath all this accumulated darkness, there remains a small, stubborn part of me that has not surrendered its curiosity. It wonders whether there might be a morning when the light enters the room differently, when a familiar song reaches a place inside me that has been silent for too long, when someone’s unexpected kindness reminds me that I have not become as invisible as I sometimes feel. It wonders whether healing might arrive without trumpets or grand revelations, appearing instead as a cup of coffee shared in comfortable silence, a conversation in which I no longer have to pretend, or an afternoon when the future feels less like a punishment and more like an unwritten page.

I do not know when that morning will come. I am not going to insult my own exhaustion by pretending that a few hopeful sentences can dismantle years of accumulated hurt. Some wounds require more than patience; they require honesty, companionship, and the courage to ask for help before the darkness convinces us that we are beyond helping. I am learning that I do not have to solve my entire life tonight. I do not have to manufacture happiness or force myself to become the person everyone remembers. Perhaps I only need to make room for the possibility that the person I am today deserves the same tenderness I would offer someone else who was hurting.

So, yes, there are nights when I am waiting for the day to never wake up, when the thought of facing another morning feels heavier than the darkness surrounding me. But perhaps what I am truly waiting for is the day I no longer have to fight so hard to exist inside my own life. The day I can tell the truth without apologizing for it. The day I stop confusing silence with peace and endurance with healing. The day I understand that I can be exhausted without being defeated, broken without being worthless, and uncertain without being beyond redemption.

Until then, I will try to remain here for the unfinished things. For the words still waiting inside me, for the people who might need to hear that someone understands, for the small and unremarkable moments that have not yet revealed their meaning. I will try to remember that even the darkest chapter is still a chapter, not necessarily the final page. And if I cannot believe in a beautiful tomorrow, perhaps I can borrow enough belief to make it through tonight.

Maybe that is how we survive sometimes: not through grand declarations of courage, but through tiny acts of staying. One breath. One conversation. One honest admission that we are not okay. One hand extended toward someone who might understand.

I am tired of pretending the darkness does not exist.

I am tired of being the person who knows how to help everyone except himself.

I am tired of waking up carrying yesterday’s ghosts.

But somewhere beneath the exhaustion, beneath the sorrow, beneath all the words I have used to disguise what I cannot bear to say aloud, there is still a heartbeat. Quiet. Imperfect. Uncertain.

For tonight, I will listen to it.

Not because I have found all the answers, but because I have not yet discovered everything this life might still give me.

And perhaps, for now, that is enough.

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The Raven’s Poison
ENTER THE STORM ON AMAZON

Every book has a beginning.

Sometimes it begins with an idea, a dream, or a single sentence. For me, The Raven’s Poison began long before I ever knew I was writing a book. In fact, it began before I even understood that what I was writing was poetry.

I grew up with my mother constantly in and out of the hospital. My parents were divorced, my sister was the oldest, and I was the youngest. My mother needed a liver transplant, and although the transplant gave her years she otherwise might not have had, the medications she took over time eventually damaged her kidneys.

When I was young, I remember being told, “She won’t live long.”

Those words stayed somewhere inside me.

Yet my mother defied that expectation. She became the longest-living recipient of a liver transplant at the time, living for twelve years after her transplant. She passed away in 1994.

I was twenty years old.

When I was fourteen, I moved in with my father. I still remember sitting in the car with my mother when she was crying and telling me that it made sense for me to go. I didn’t fully understand everything that was happening around me. I only knew that something in my life was changing, and I didn’t know how to process it.

So I began writing.

I didn’t call it poetry. I didn’t think of myself as a poet. I simply wrote down what I couldn’t say.

Those early words became a place where I could put my confusion, grief, anger, loneliness, and everything else I didn’t have the language for. Looking back now, I realize that poetry had found me before I ever realized I was searching for it.

Eventually, I dropped out of college. I felt lost, and I moved in with my girlfriend at the time. She was an artistic person studying photography in college, and she appreciated my writing. She encouraged that part of me.

But my life wasn’t in a good place.

Somewhere along the way, I became someone I wasn’t.

A few years later, I moved back home to try to put my life back together. I returned to school and began rebuilding myself. Eventually, I met a woman at my brother’s wedding. We fell in love, married, and began a life together. She had a daughter when we met, and over the years, our family grew in its own complicated way.

Throughout much of my marriage, I hid my poetry.

I kept that part of myself tucked away.

Over the years, my marriage began to unravel. My wife became an alcoholic, and somewhere along the way, we drifted apart. My father had also struggled with alcoholism, and I began to recognize patterns in my own life that I hadn’t understood before.

I also had to confront something about myself.

I was immature. I lacked the courage and confidence to speak honestly about what was happening. I didn’t know how to set boundaries. I didn’t know how to stand up for myself.

Then her daughter witnessed her mother drunk.

That changed everything.

During the divorce, my ex-wife attempted suicide while her daughter was in the house. Her daughter called me, and I walked her through what to do. At the same time, I was struggling to hold myself together.

That was when I realized I needed help.

I went to therapy.

For a year, I sat with someone and began confronting parts of myself that I had spent years avoiding. I continued writing. Slowly, I began understanding that writing wasn’t simply something I did—it was one of the ways I understood my life.

Therapy taught me something important:

You cannot change what you refuse to face.

I began setting goals. I learned to make short-term goals and long-term goals. I learned to be more honest with myself. I learned that healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. Sometimes healing means finally allowing yourself to understand what happened.

A few years after my divorce, I learned that my ex-wife had lost her job, lost her home, and ultimately died by suicide.

There are experiences in life that don’t fit neatly into words.

Grief is one of them.

Therapy helped me finally begin dealing with the grief of losing my mother—grief I had carried for years without truly confronting. I had spent so much of my life moving forward that I never realized how much of my past was still following me.

I learned that there is no expiration date on grief.

You can carry something for decades and still eventually find a way to put it down.

Eventually, I remarried. I found someone who supported my dreams, encouraged my goals, and allowed me to become more fully myself.

And somewhere along that journey, I returned to my writing.

That brings me to The Raven’s Poison.

This book isn’t simply a collection of poems. It represents the choices we make—and the choices we don’t make. It represents the patterns we inherit, the patterns we repeat, and the patterns we eventually learn to break.

There is darkness in these pages, but there is also growth.

There is pain, but there is also hope.

There are things I wish I had done differently. There are things I wish I had understood sooner. But I have learned that regret doesn’t have to become a life sentence.

We are never too old to change.

We are never too old to learn.

We are never too old to become someone better than the person we were yesterday.

The Raven’s Poison is, in many ways, a reflection of that belief.

The raven represents the things that follow us—the memories, mistakes, grief, fears, and patterns that can become almost like shadows. The poison represents what happens when we allow those things to remain inside us unchecked.

But poison doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

We can choose to confront it.

We can choose to heal.

We can choose differently.

Today, I am in a place I never thought I would be. I have a wife and a son whom I deeply love. I have goals. I have dreams. I write. And perhaps most importantly, I am still working on myself.

I don’t believe any of us ever truly finish that work.

The Raven’s Poison is my reminder of that.

It is a book born from loss, mistakes, grief, relationships, choices, and ultimately, growth.

It is a reminder that our past may explain us, but it doesn’t have to define us.

And sometimes, the words we write while we’re trying to survive become the very words that help us understand how we lived.

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excerpt from “The Raven’s Poison”
ENTER THE STORM ON AMAZON


Once upon a midnight fear
She took a sip of corrosion
Debilitating manners and quirks
Fumbling through a frenzy
Gliding inside hallucinations
Staggering outside the commotions
A recollection of mourning


Stern exchanges melting
Comments and remarks growl
Sentiments dressed in black
Treasures whispering hush
Ripping dead skin with caution
Crumbling faith turns into dirt
A recollection of mourning


Hunger flexing with animosity
Greed panting with saliva
In holy matrimony with the raven
She tasted the hollow bitterness
Numb and disgusted by the poison
Infuriated with the toxic rants
A recollection of mourning


Provoked by exasperation
Anxiety wrapped around her neck
Choking on sour corruption
Addicted to the murmurs
Inhaling the virulent winds
Wounded by a malicious tongue
A recollection of mourning


A catastrophic touch bellowed
Infatuation hung as a disaster
Benevolence was a chewed up dog bone
Loneliness exhaled rapidly
Sympathy was a an old rag
Love was just mucus from a cough
A recollection of mourning

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Storm Fragments
ENTER THE STORM ON AMAZON

Apathy is an itch beneath the skin, a constant irritation no amount of scratching can soothe. It lingers in the quiet corners of conversations, in the hollow spaces between headlines and tragedies, in the tired shrug that follows another broken promise. Very few listen. Most only hear. Words pass through them like wind through dead branches, making noise but leaving nothing changed.

The itch grows. It crawls through crowded rooms and glowing screens, through prayers, protests, and desperate confessions. People nod, people agree, people move on. The world becomes a chorus of echoes, everyone speaking, almost no one listening.

And still the itch remains, demanding attention, demanding feeling. It is the discomfort of knowing something is wrong and watching indifference dress itself as wisdom. It is the ache of caring in a world that has learned how not to. It is the scratch that draws blood, the wound that refuses to close, the reminder that silence can be louder than any scream.

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I am not lost in the way people mean it, not wandering without direction or purpose, not broken by the absence of a map. I am simply unseen, standing in the quiet spaces where footsteps soften and names are spoken less often. There is a difference between being lost and being overlooked, between drifting and choosing to walk a road few recognize as real.

I move through days carrying questions instead of answers, and I have learned that questions weigh more. They bend the spine, slow the stride, demand pauses at intersections where certainty would have passed through without noticing. I linger there, not because I am afraid to choose, but because I understand that some paths reveal themselves only after patience has been practiced.

The world favors arrival. It celebrates destinations, milestones, the clean lines of progress drawn in ink bold enough for everyone to see. But there is no applause for becoming, for the silent labor of shaping a self in private. I am in that labor now, hands dusty, heart unfinished, building something that does not yet resemble the final structure. This work is invisible, and so am I.

There are days when the silence feels like erasure, when I wonder if existence requires witnesses to be real. I speak my name softly to remind myself that I am still here, that breath is proof enough. I remind myself that roots grow in darkness, that seeds do not announce themselves until they are ready to break the surface and claim the light.

I am not behind; I am beneath, learning the architecture of depth. While others race toward horizons, I am studying the ground, the fractures and the strength hidden inside what holds us upright. I am learning how much pressure it takes to become unmovable, how stillness can be a form of preparation rather than surrender.

Being unfound has taught me gentleness. It has taught me how to listen without interrupting, how to carry hope without demanding proof. It has taught me that worth is not measured by recognition, and that meaning does not need permission to exist. I am becoming fluent in the language of quiet persistence.

One day, perhaps, someone will look my way and think they have discovered me, as if I had been waiting in plain sight all along. They will not know the nights spent assembling courage, the mornings stitched together with resolve, the slow, deliberate faith it took to remain here without applause.

Until then, I walk on. Not lost. Not broken. Just moving through the in-between, trusting that being unfound is not failure, but a necessary season of becoming. I am not lost, just not found—and that, too, is a place worth standing.

My books are available here .

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The bar breathes like an old animal—slow, practiced, familiar with survival. Not alive in any holy sense, just functional. Lights dim enough to forgive faces. Music limps between songs. The floor remembers every spill better than the people who caused them. This place doesn’t ask why you came in. It already knows.

Maynard Wells sits three stools from the end. He learned long ago that the end is a confession and the middle is a lie. He chooses the space where no one expects anything from him. His glass is whiskey because whiskey doesn’t pretend to be anything else. He didn’t need it. That never stopped him before.

Mara works the bar like a priest without absolution. She slides napkins under glasses the way you might tuck dirt over a grave—neat, respectful, temporary. She doesn’t ask Maynard how he’s doing. That’s how he knows she sees him clearly.

To his left, a couple dismantles their life in whispers. The dangerous kind—the kind sharpened over weeks. They smile for the room, but their eyes don’t participate. The man worries the rim of his bottle like it might answer back. The woman studies her drink as if it owes her instructions. Maynard doesn’t know their names, but he knows the posture of people realizing love has become labor.

Across the room, laughter blooms too loud and too fast. A cluster of friends leaning into one another, pretending gravity hasn’t started its work yet. One of them—red jacket, restless hands—keeps checking his phone. Waiting. Everyone here is waiting. They just use different excuses.

Loneliness doesn’t announce itself. It sits down beside you like it’s always belonged there. Orders what you’re already drinking. Says nothing. Maynard respects that. Silence, at least, doesn’t argue.

He tells himself he came here to write. That’s the version he prefers. The truth is messier: he came to be seen without being known. There’s a notebook in his jacket, thick with intention, thin with follow-through. It weighs enough to feel like hope without demanding proof. Writers carry notebooks the way some people carry prayers—unspoken, unfinished, still believed in.

The man at the end of the bar breaks open mid-sentence, spilling a story about a job lost or abandoned. The details shift, but the injustice remains solid. He gestures at empty air, arguing with something that left him years ago. No one interrupts. That’s the rule here. You let people speak until they’re done bleeding.

Maynard wonders what would happen if he spoke. If the truth would come out as poetry or complaint. If it would sound brave or just tired. There’s comfort in staying quiet. Quiet doesn’t get corrected.

Memory shows up wearing a familiar face. Orders the drink she used to love just to see if it still hurts. It does. She believed places like this were confessionals. Said you could hear the truth in how people ordered—neat if they were hiding, on the rocks if they were stalling, cheap if they’d already surrendered. She laughed with her whole body. Leaned in when she talked. Made strangers feel chosen. Maynard loved her for that. Hated himself for needing it. They were good until they made a sport out of wounding each other.

A song everyone knows finds its way out of the jukebox. Heads nod. Someone hums. For a brief moment, the room aligns—strangers stitched together by a chorus that once meant something in another life. Bars are good at compressing time. You can be young and old and heartbroken all at once if the music hits right.

Maynard writes: The mask slips here, but no one notices because everyone is busy adjusting their own. He doesn’t fix it. Overwriting feels like fear.

The door opens. Cold air follows a man who looks like he’s already lost something tonight. He orders a double without looking. Scans the room for a reason to stay. Doesn’t find one. Sits anyway.

Hope is quieter than people expect. It doesn’t shine. It doesn’t ask. It sits in the corner pretending it’s fine either way. Hope has learned manners.

The couple beside him stops whispering. The silence is surgical. The woman delivers a sentence she’s been sharpening for weeks. Clean. Accurate. The man nods like gravity has finally won. They don’t touch. That’s how you know something is finished—or close enough to mourn.

Mara wipes the bar, listening without collecting. Maynard wonders how many versions of the same story she’s heard. People explaining their loneliness as if it needs justification. As if it isn’t just another weather pattern.

He drinks. The burn proves he’s still capable of feeling something sharp. The glass leaves a ring on the bar—evidence that will be erased without ceremony. There’s a lesson there. He ignores it.

The red jacket starts talking about meaning. About how everyone is just trying to be less alone. His friends nod like this speech has been rehearsed in a hundred bars. He means it, though. Meaning doesn’t require originality. Just sincerity.

Maynard writes again: Loneliness isn’t the absence of people. It’s the absence of recognition. That one stays.

A siren passes outside, distant but insistent. The world hasn’t stopped just because they needed a pause. Inside, last call looms. The room groans. No one is eager to return to what’s waiting beyond these walls.

The man at the end pays, tips heavy like an apology, and stumbles toward the door. For a moment, Maynard worries about him. Then he remembers: everyone makes it home somehow. Or they don’t. Worry doesn’t change the math.

He thinks about who he’ll be tomorrow. Which stories he’ll tell. Which ones he’ll bury. This night will shrink into something manageable—a glass, a song, a feeling he never quite named. He’ll describe the bar someday and leave out the important parts because they’re too quiet to explain.

Maynard closes the notebook. Some moments don’t want to be captured. They want to be endured. He pays, thanks Mara, means it. She nods, already turning toward the next confession.

When he stands, the room tilts—not from the drink, but from the weight of everything unsaid. Outside, the street is colder and more honest. Neon buzzes behind him like a dare. He pulls his jacket tight, the notebook warm against his chest, and walks on.

This kind of night doesn’t stay behind when you leave.

It follows you.

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I want to die on my birthday, not because I hate living, but because I am tired of the arithmetic of it, the way years stack like unpaid bills, the way candles turn into tiny interrogations asking what I did with the light. On that day the calendar claps, people text confetti, and I feel like a guest of honor at my own inquest, smiling while the room waits for a speech I never practiced. Birthdays pretend to be doors; mostly they are mirrors, and I am sick of learning my face by surprise.

I want to die on my birthday the way a song wants to end on its own chord, not dragged into an encore by polite applause. I imagine the cake sweating sugar, the knife clean and ceremonial, the wishes folding themselves into paper boats that refuse to float. I imagine the room forgiving me for leaving early, the clock loosening its grip, the candles admitting they were tired too. This is not a plan, it is a metaphor I keep touching like a bruise to see if it still hurts.

Every year arrives with a receipt. It itemizes mistakes, discounts the miracles, charges interest on love. I have learned how to carry gifts with one arm and grief with the other, how to say thank you while inventorying exits. The party hats fit like borrowed confidence. Laughter behaves, obedient as a trained animal. Inside me, something feral circles the truth, asking whether survival is a habit or a choice.

If I could choose the ending, I would choose a quiet that knows my name. I would choose to lay down the weight of being seen, the exhausting labor of translation between who I am and who I perform. I would choose to stop proving endurance is a virtue. The body keeps score, they say; mine keeps ledgers, tallies nights slept in pieces, mornings stitched together with coffee and resolve.

Still, birthdays are stubborn. They keep showing up with balloons like minor gods, insisting on witness. Friends insist too, their hands warm, their eyes unsolved. Love is an interruption I never schedule but always answer. It knocks with groceries and bad jokes and the audacity to believe tomorrow is not a trap. Sometimes I let it in. Sometimes it stays.

So if I say I want to die on my birthday, hear the grammar beneath it. I want an ending that listens. I want the counting to stop hurting. I want to blow out the candles and not be afraid of the dark that follows. I want to live long enough to learn another language for staying, one where the date on the cake is not a verdict but a comma, and the sentence keeps breathing. Maybe the wish is simpler: to be held without a stopwatch, to be celebrated without being measured, to be allowed a softness that does not require proof. Maybe the wish is to keep arriving, quietly, without fireworks, learning how to stand in the year like weather, changing, survivable. If there is a gift, let it be this: another breath that does not owe anyone an explanation, wrapped, opened, kept.

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I think I am done, not in the dramatic way doors slam or glasses shatter, but in the quiet way dust settles after everyone leaves the room and the echo finally gets tired of hearing itself. I say it while staring at a wall that has heard every promise I ever made and never once held me accountable for breaking them. The sentence feels unfinished, like a chair missing a leg, but I sit in it anyway and wait to fall.

I think I am done chasing versions of myself that only exist at 2 a.m., the ambitious ghost, the healed future, the man who knows exactly what to say and never says it too late. I am done apologizing to mirrors, done negotiating with mornings, done pretending exhaustion is a personality trait instead of a warning sign. Even my breath sounds relieved, like it has been carrying something heavy for miles.

I have tried to quit before. I quit love in lowercase letters, quit faith on weekdays, quit hope whenever it became inconvenient. I packed up my convictions in cardboard boxes labeled “maybe later” and stacked them in the corner of my chest. Sometimes I opened one just to make sure they were still breathing. They always were, stubborn as weeds.

I think I am done mistaking survival for success. Done clapping for myself just because I stayed standing. There is a difference between being alive and being present, and I have lived most of my life like a voicemail no one deletes. I keep replaying old messages, listening for a version of me that sounds convinced.

The world keeps asking what’s next, as if I owe it a sequel. As if stopping is a failure instead of a skill. I want to tell them I am not ending, I am pausing, like music between tracks when the silence is part of the art. I want to learn how to rest without guilt, how to be unfinished without feeling broken.

I think I am done bleeding for proof. Done turning pain into poetry just to make it respectable. Some wounds don’t want metaphors, they want time, and time has been knocking patiently while I kept writing excuses on the door.

If this is the end, it is a soft one. No fireworks, no funeral. Just a man setting down what he can no longer carry and realizing his hands still work, still open, still capable of holding something new. I think I am done, and for the first time, it doesn’t sound like giving up. It sounds like making room.

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I’ve overdosed on goodbyes, heartache, and a darkness I can no longer recognize
I’ve overdosed on indifference, immaturity, and over used cliches I can no longer reach
But my effervescent soul craves something more
I’ve overdosed on circling nightmares, memories of champagne, and meaningless kisses I can no longer feel
I’ve overdosed on bottles of tears, catastrophic losses and unspoken conversations that I can no longer hear
But my effervescent soul craves something more
I’ve overdosed on empty spaces, dead ends, and simplified poetry that I can no longer read
I’ve overdosed on shallow dialogue, winter lies and intoxicating fairytales that I can no longer consume
But my effervescent soul craves something more

My books are available here.

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Available on Amazon!

Play the link! This is a song about my book!

https://suno.com/song/35278878-1910-4b84-9c22-6191f7d52dd1

📚Once Upon A Rain, She Bloomed

Between shadows and memory, one woman’s diary elucidates relationships come and gone, those who helped shape who she is from the inside out. Turning the rain into something beautiful, the opening petals of a rose now blooming.

Veteran poet Braeden Michaels crafts his seventh collection of poetry into a mold of vision. Like pages from a twisted fairy tale, he narrates using his unique poetic style and perspective, first dissecting emotion before reconstructing and reimagining each one.

My books are available here .

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Unapologetically Unashamed

I drown in my cravings, flames from your lips, and the desires from your tongue. I glare at my weaknesses with swollen tears. I hunger something that my emptiness won’t ever touch. I grip on to my fascinations and urges with insomniac eyes. I carry my loneliness on my sleeve and unapologetically unashamed for wanting your luscious skin.

The circle of my friendships get smaller, I make my myself distant the closer I get. I promise you, you will wish we never met. The hello’s will turn into goodbyes, I will make sure you can’t see the rain from my eyes. I will share more truths and you will want to run. Don’t be surprised of the person I will become.

I sink in my yearnings, scattered fantasies and the desolation inside. I dwell in my painted circles, faded memories and the opaque skies that leave me stranded in the bitterness. I am slightly disconnected, partially detached, and withdrawn from the cracks I wish not to see. I displace the stained hindrances and sanguine complaints within my state of consciousness.
I am unapologetically unashamed for longing for your sentimental touch.

The circle of my friendships get smaller, I tend to make others uncomfortable with the things I shouldn’t say. I promise you, I will belong in your past and know you won’t stay. I expect no response and the late replies. I will make sure you won’t see the pain in my fragile eyes. I will be more open and will tell you how I feel. In the end, we will find out who was real.

My books are available here .

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Unloved Skin

I lay here in unloved skin with a ghost surrounding my unwritten pages
I lay here in a whirlwind aching for you to fulfill my desolation with worn out tears
I lay here with shadows crying and spelling your name with my fingertips
I lay here in a cloud of passion missing your serenity wrapped around with my flames

Cover me in a blistering love
Cover me in tender confetti
Cover me in a bold yearning

“Come a little closer and don’t be afraid to feel, let’s get lost with what we know is real, Come a little closer and give me your recklessness, Come a little closer and fulfill my emptiness”

I lay here in unloved skin with an unhinged appetite boiling within
I lay here in a frenzy circling for you to entertain myflammable wishes
I lay here with fantasies exploding in luscious air
I lay here in obscurity of devotion sweltering on the inside

Cover me in a sky of hope
Cover me in tears of respect
Cover me in a weeping bliss

“Come a little closer and breathe in our scent, come a little closer and feel where our dreams went, come a little closer give me what I long for, come a little closer and see you are all that I adore”

My books are available here .

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Second Hand Smile

I was born with a second hand smile from the sunset. I walk with a tiny wheel in my pocket that won’t roll and converse with a novocaine tongue. I have a brother that uses me as a punchline in off color jokes and a sister with suspicion waltzing in her eyes. I have a mother who was buried at the Brookside cemetery under a choked up moon. I count my blessings rather than my drops of misery. Every now and then she looks at me says “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your second hand smile.”

I’ve tried to turn off the waterfall and dive into the river of flames. I’ve tired to stare into my silent villains and face my inward wars. I’ve tried to run from the screams but I am still in this seared skin. It feels like I’m never going to win.

I was born with a tattoo of a tear on my left cheek. I fumble through the streets with my blood not moving a centimeter. I have a snapshot of my apprehension and a voice that no know wants to hear. I have a mother that appreciated the words I tucked away from the heartless universe. Every now and then she looks at me says “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your second hand smile.”

I’ve tried to shrug off the heartache and walk away from senseless battles. I’ve tried to keep my swollen chin up and to listen to the fireflies in the pitch black. I can keep running in this burnt skin. It feels like I’m never going to win.

I was born with doubt flickering like a light on the inside. I stumble throughout the darkness gripping on to the glow. I have fluttering secrets and camouflaged my excuses to try to erase away the damage. I have a mother who wore a grin throughout her scowling hours. She defied being defeated nor broken down. Every now and then she looks at me says “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your second hand smile.”

I’ve tried to lose my biographical sighs and replace my intuition with logic. I’ve tried to step into my perspective and turn my head to see another view. But all I can feel is you. I have no where to begin. I’ve learned to accept that I just won’t win.

My books are available here .

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Tears of the Wind

I photographed the cruelty spoken from your lips
I no longer needed your warmth
I photographed the lies that reverberated in your façade
I no longer needed your touch
I photographed the memories that had cracks with less meaning
I no longer needed your approval
I begin to dream wide and fell in love with the colors of my passions
I photographed the emptiness and your signature dipped in carelessness
I no longer needed your comfort
I photographed the deceit and the war in your stubborn eyes
I no longer needed your backbone
I photographed the distance you created from the lack of affection
I no longer needed your devotion
I begin to see my strengths and embraced my weaknesses
And you faded into the tears of the wind

My books are available here .

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Tear’s Autograph

I’ve kissed your mysteries with amplified eyes
I’ve kissed your dead secrets with bloodshot lipstick
“And now the love story takes a curve, seeing I won’t be the last and was never the first”
I’ve kissed your metaphors with agony in my throat
I’ve kissed your afternoons with scalding black coffee brewing
“And the now the love story cuts me deep, I’m not myself and see you in my sleep”
I’ve kissed your tragedies with a sea of glitter covering up your sins
I’ve kissed your lying mouth with my ignorance sealed
“And now the love story is coming to an end, now my life can truly begin”
I’ve kissed your piano concerto with whispers fluttering in my ears
I’ve kissed your villain with accusations stripped and shredded
“And now the love story fades into my past,
no longer do my tears have your autograph”

My books are available here.

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Forget me not, my sweet fears
I found untouchable verses within my discomfort
I found veracity within the crevices of the dark
I found my reflection staring into my tattoo of courage
I found emptiness deeper than this bottle

And my tears dry up and it’s time to stand up
And my anxiety carries a heart beat
And my passion bleeds forever more
And my endless ink soars like a blackbird

“Take my hand, I can no longer do this alone.
I can admit, I can no longer do this on my own”

Forget me not, my sweet fears
I found my imagination spinning out of control
I found my recklessness ripping me at the seams
I found my identity buried in a grave with a bouquet of havoc on top
I found my revelations reading scripture

And my tears dry up and it’s time to stand up
And my anxiety carries a heart beat
And my passion bleeds forever more
And my endless ink soars like a blackbird

“Take my hand, I can no longer keep hurting myself,
I can admit, something inside needs some help”

My books are available here.

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Electric Calm (Johnson Stills)

I’ve been walking through an electric calm with a crucifix woven into my chest. I can barely breathe but can feel tranquility gripping to my veins. I can exhale all my errors while my shadows can caress my fears. I’m gasping for my curse to vanish. I’m suffering with a small taste of compassion.

I can hear the angels crooning in my equilibrium. “I’m done am crawling, falling, and stalling because I’m ready to run. I have a light that’s more brilliant than the sun. I am done trying, dying, and crying from the destruction of my past. I am a born again miracle, white glaring spherical, with clarity sparkling in my photographs.”

I’ve been stumbling through an electric calm with vibrations whispering on my tongue. I can barely speak but feel drops of grief sliding down my throat. I can inhale all the suffering while my spine carries my turmoil. I’m letting go of the affliction. I’m dreaming for you to forgive me.

I can hear the monsters growling in my blizzard of indecisions. “I’m digging you a grave, your hesitancy and damnation will become your slaves. I’m the chain on your lilac bones, watching your heart turn into stone. I will watch you choke and convulse with a grin,
I will be your unblemished sin. You will continue to swallow your glass of emptiness and feel reckless.”

My books are available here.

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That’s the way the addiction grumbles
That’s the way the drunk stumbles
That’s the way the moon serenades
That’s the way the elephants walk in the parade
That’s the way the politicians talk
That’s the way the predators gawk

That’s the way the innocent dream
That’s the way the raped scream
That’s the way the fears surrender
That’s the way the cold remembers
That’s the way the lost are found
That’s the way the veterans weep to the sounds

That’s the way the truth should be told
That’s the way the lies are bitten and sold
That’s the way the victim cries
That’s the way the quiet feel inside
That’s the way the impregnator stares
That’s the way the son of a bitch cares

That’s the way the glass is poured
That’s the way the children are ignored
That’s the way the perception is skewed
That’s the way the label is crude
That’s the way the society thinks
That’s the way the one percent drink

That’s the way the air becomes stale
That’s the way the skin becomes pale
That’s the way the poets write
That’s the way the day turns into night
That’s the way the heart breaks into bits
That’s the way the last puzzle piece fits

That’s the way the thunder growls
That’s the way the thieves prowl
That’s the way the light disappear
That’s the way the dark becomes crystal clear
That’s the way the luck falls
That’s the way the anger crawls

That’s the way the perpetrators finger points
That’s the way the hippies smoke a joint
That’s the way the teacher dresses
That’s the way the students make messes
That’s the way the winners gloat
That’s the way the captain steers the boats

That’s the way the rich treat the poor
That’s the way the small companies closes its doors
That’s the way the snake rattles
That’s the way the beast fights in battle
That’s the way the cookie crumbles
That’s the way the insider fumbles

That’s the way the performers act
That’s the way the sky becomes black
That’s the way the song is heard
That’s the way the villains see the words
That’s the way the view turns into stone
That’s the way the virtuous become alone

That’s the way the branch breaks
That’s the way the dealers make mistakes
That’s the way the world divides
That’s the way the humans collide
That’s the way the people see
That’s the way the universe will be

My books are available here.

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Dandelion skin,
your consequences hang from your eyelashes
your backbone has an invisible crack
your tenacity wallows in the closet
your cheeks are filled with solitude
your apprehension feels like a heart beat

Grace from within witness’s a glimpse

“I can’t hear what you are saying, I’m too
busy fading”

Dandelion skin,
your affliction surrounds you like a cloud
your sheath carries an uneven stigma
your serenity is deep in your lungs
your perseverance sleeps with obscurity
your illusion is smeared and splattered

Grace from within is numb and worn

“I can’t run from the silence any longer, I can finally see parts of me that are stronger”

Dandelion skin,
your uncertainty plays hide and seek
your strain trips over your kindness
your sway crumbles in your defeated fingers
your delusions disappear in the fog
your trance whispers in the shade

Grace from within has the answers

“In this garden, I will blossom and continue to grow, the grace from within will finally show”

My books are available here.

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Rendezvous’s Sin (Marcus Sandow)

She identified me an uncoordinated head shaking wallflower. I was dressed in awkwardness and mentally out of place. I use to strut into Jackknife Cafe with a buzz cut with my neon shirt with the jagged words “If you take a chance, I got a little something in my pants.” She glazed at me like a I was lunatic with pick up lines I bought from a used car lot. Our conversation drifted sideways, jumped into a canary yellow cab and headed into the Low Ball motel. Three sentences were muttered as my hand slid up her skirt. She chuckled at my clumsiness, thin frame, and off colored jokes.

I lit up a cigarette as she sipped on a bottle of Crown Royal. We played like snakes in the sky-high grass. Our tongues tasted like Satan’s favorite sin. I caught a glimpse of her blue eyed ink on her backside. I couldn’t whisper nothings in her ear. I crooned a satirical lullaby within the motion. I was her escape and she was my escapade. She was a luxury in my intoxicating eyes and I was her convenience from her view. She serenaded me for hours as we cracked the headboard and the sheets wore an exotic aroma.

We exchanged crude humor, fashion statements, and upside innuendos. Miraculously I shared a few confessions. I’m a contextualist, religious free, libertarian, and fond of simplicity drenched in beauty. The comfort creeped in like a stalker. She, Lisa Ann, laid her cards on the table. She’s finishing up nursing school, working at a thrift store, residing with her retired mother, and seeking a straightforward relationship. The peacefulness took a nap as we shedded our likes, dislikes, philosophies dipped in hunger, and a thirst for curiosity.

I didn’t anticipate the afternoon rendezvous. Expectations were dim and the walls in the room saw me grin from ear to ear. We parted ways as if our skin would touch again. I walked around town with a jukebox playing in my head and loved the New Jersey breeze more. Unfortunately our eyes met again on the somber sidewalk. I greeted her with joy and was reciting her name. She acted as if I didn’t exist and we never met. Instantly the warmth turned frozen. I continued to walk as the buffoon she met. I shoved my dignity in my pocket and never wanted to hear music again.

My books are available here.