homeward/bound to the kennel

inebriated in infancy #41 4/23/26

depression is hereditary-- at least,
that is what i am thinking now that
i have lost all ambition for action.
the hesitance that has slowly crept
up onto me, cacooning me from fear.

my mother was probably a stronger
person than i am. i cannot imagine the
grief that instills when you have two children
but you can keep neither of them.

letting their warmth leave your arms,
the softness of the swaddle replaced
by the sharp, icy, sterile air of the
hospital. you are to recover-- just not
from the loss.

ten cigarettes a day and a bottle of soju
a week to wash down and breathe away
the pain. addiction, too, is genetic. explains
why i am so resistant to being left alone.

i am afraid to be left alone with the voices and the bottles.

springterlude vi #42 4/23/26

the cold is seemingly inescapable
for the crocus. it will either
die in vibrant heat or
gentle snow and there will
be no in-between.

in retrospect #43 4/24/26

i am ever-[restless]; these eyes are no good
for the morning. never meant to wake up,
at least that is how i feel deep down--
that sometimes it would be better to just
succumb to the soft embrace of the mattress.

there is probably some intersection between
all versions of me, lying in wait, with bones
stiffened and hearts heavy. tracing the constellations
into the duvet, melancholic & posthumous-- flickering
in and out of consciousness-- this phantasm of a self.

somewhere between biting my cheek to feel something
and waiting for the nebulae to submit to the sunset--

it will all fall apart beautifully.

hymns sung in mountains #44 4/25/26

take me back to vermont &
bury me in pine-- orate some eulogy
from the brush, i do not care how i go.
all i want is to return to the creeks
with the metallic taste of my grandmother's
well water lingering in my throat.

set my casket in the back of bernard's truck
and let him smoke his pipe-- the tobacco
will serve as incense, to satisfy my mother's whims.
i know she will want to bathe me like
you would bathe the buddha in nectar.

i will rot in the soil next to all the others that
i miss. the sign will grow dusty in her
house-- the lonely home ever-lonelier now
that it is missing the last mutt it will ever keep.

destructive tendencies #45 4/26/26

written yesterday, posted today due to lack of wifi yesterday.

i, for one, know for a fact that
all things in my life are temporary.

that my house will crumble down one day,
and what reminds me of “home” will just be
fodder for archaeologists or perhaps oil miners
to discover and put into the rusty cogs of
The Machine. i will say farewell to what
remains of my material goods, i am surrounded
by so many after all. they, for once, will not
be around.

that my friends and family will all die one day,
and i won’t embellish it with some fakeout or
other way to hide the truth. i know everyone
will leave at some point so i will cherish what is
here now and try to mend the fraying edges.

@ the computer, 7:59 #46 4/27/26

i think i have exhausted myself
of any oppritunity opritunity
opporitunity opportunity to renew
myself into something greater-- write
something greater, be someone
that i wasn't before. [i swear, i've written
whatever this shit is a thousand
times before. maybe different words but
still.]

something about spring goes here,
then death, then renewal.

write something about motherhood,
your fear of fatherhood, and whatever
scraps of a savior are left.

come on, you can do this. pick yourself up
and just write already. keep doing it until
your skin feels like yours again and you
don't read instagram.

to be called a circus player-- [haven't i wrote that
already?] spiraling deeper into the tent [if this is hell
i knew it a while ago] until the blazes and the sharks
eat me up [because i never used to have this much anxiety]
& shred me to dust in their maws.

when all is said & done #47 4/28/26

i have learned to quit while i’m ahead.
don’t get your hopes up– the romance
that you yearn for & the stories that
you wish to come true are only
fantasy– and let them stay that way.

truly, it doesn’t matter to me. being in love,
being in hate, they are all the same if
my only rhetoric– that everything has no
set beginning nor end, holds true. so really,
it is okay if i mix up love and loss.

and sure, there is a part of me i shed with every
person that i lose leading me to wonder if
i scrape away enough skin– will i be
left with the rawest, truest me?

a true trailblazer, unfettered by fear
& brutish to the bone, but still
tethered to just enough flesh to retain
the gentle love of a mother.

or will he be the father that i have
always repressed deep down, jaded
& stubborn, fuse short and fires already
fuming with wrath.

i am not quite sure “who” i am “deep down”.
there are some things that you are supposed to know
like your favorite color & your favorite song–
perhaps a favorite word or name.

all things that i grasp at strings to try and
reclaim. do i truly love the color periwinkle?
or am i enamored with the eccentricity of it all?
do i love that my name is filled with virtue?
or do i hate that i will never live up to
what was predestined, before me?

my friends call me a “social chameleon”,
the phenomena where you shift (semi-)seamlessly
into various social stratums, pitching up your voice
so that you can gossip with masked faces
& dropping lower so you can follow in a father’s footsteps.

if any of them idolize me, when it is past
passing, they should portray me in hagiography–
so that my ego is forever cemented as vile.

so now, finally, i am slowly phasing myself out– letting mind over
matter. suppressing instincts that i thought i forsook
forever– no matter. soon enough, i will be but a husk
of whatever i am now, and my heart can finally rest.

hopefully, this "me" will never return.

handle with care #48 4/29/26

to shatter & be shattered are / the same edges of the broken glass-- / knuckles still bloodied / left to scab over, / just to be picked open once more. / maybe if i air it out / this next time it will hurt less-- / (we both know / that is never the case, / it always hurts / the same. / no amount of sugar / can sweeten the wound. )

the true paradise #49 4/30/26

yearning for the so-called home away from home and
a thin veil for the kind of violent affection that is killing
what could be my only way out. i try so hard to emerge from
the womb, feverish with all my tears fall down my face burning hot.

i am merely watching myself go through the days, and for most people
that just is death. after all, the prayers that blissfully rose into the inky sea
are meant to console and soothe and their sweetness are supposed
guide you through slumber– so i will be there to serve as a witness.

and when the morning fog clears and i am still blooming in the way i intended to,
i know what i could have been. sinking slowly, dying in vain, staying stagnant yet restless–
held together by thorned vines and a blessing.

awakening; i know that i am soon to grow resplendent along with the violets,
so i run boiled water over my hands to clear myself of those deeds. you know that i
lied when i said that i don’t want to wake up– yes, i reach myself as far as i can.

metamorphosis in motion; a reckless child, spat back out into the fertile soil–
i finally find myself wondrous– a love done with benevolent paroxysm,
to be burnt is still to be beautiful. yes– i am now ceremonial & with grace.

and i know that i will become devout, so at last, i can rub out all the
clouded phantasm in embedded in my gums– this pain can be washed
away.

to be liberated of the title with the deterioration of the blazing sun,
no longer laggard and isolated nor desolate & destitute. this is what they call karma.

“he” has finally fully into fruition, never meant to be known for subtlety
nor serenity. he is no longer some mother or martyr, simply in perfect rest.
all the others said he would burn out in a blaze of burning impassivity–
but they also said that beauty is pain & there is pain in beauty.

but i am healed and it has been a while since i have retched and keeled,
and i am strong against my fears of being left alone with the voices and the bottles.

so i am stronger now than before, i will not die in vibrant heat or
gentle snow and i will not wait for it when it all falls apart “beautifully”--
you need not to orate some eulogy from the brush because for once in my life
i am alive. i know to cherish what is here now and not to push the renewal of
myself into something greater– i am now a true trailblazer, unfettered by fear
& i can finally sweeten the wound.

homeward/bound to the kennel #50 4/30/26

i can see it now– the warmth at the end
of the forest. i have been stuck in these shadowed
halls for thirty days– in dog years, that is probably
more like a century.

no matter– those rusted chains have
finally snapped– and my ferality has subsided. there
is something about the way the sunlight
falls through the canopies– it is the only warmth
that kept me padding along.

there remains a smaller mutt inside me that
yearns to return to the warmth of you– the security, that is.
for dogs, it is hard to imagine the how the future pans out
but i have faith in myself and in the path that
guides me.

yes, this is finally the path i belong on. that of piety
and of reclamation– i tell myself to not fret about the past–
instead, look ahead, hold hope for the fresh fields on
the other side.

so i am finally going homeward bound
/no longer bound to the vicious kennel.