I've been trying to write, but it's like the phrases that once flowed from my fingertips like molten gold have crystallized into ice. I've been trying to write, but it's like I'm the pyramids and finally, Egypt has become my succubus, who I submit to with all the willingness of a victim who loves her torture. I've been trying to write, but it's as if words are music and my vocal cords are the gummy piano key nobody plays....

Stalking the essences of a dream, I meander throughout the streets that have become rubble. It is quiet, unsettlingly so, but there is beauty in ruin. I dream of the little things. The way fiery sunlight glows against the sand-dusted buildings, the way soft moonlight shimmers on old street signs. It is hard to remember and easy to forget, but if I close my eyes, I can still taste the rice and cream that characterized my c...

Land of the brave… home of the free?That’s not quite right, but he’s not a mind for details. The whiskey slurs and slops in his stomach like a bad dream. American flag shorts. Unemployment lines color his future.The men America left behind sit huddled in the truth of their own misery. While gold litters the streets of the coastal elites, there is nothing left for them in the Rust Belt. Torn asunder by progress and conserv...

He loved Kayla in the way one loves a small child or an injured puppy. He loved her, not because she was the right girl for him, but because he was the right one for her. He loved her because she was magnetic with gossamer wings and because on Mondays she smelled like Chanel No. 5 and roses and he loved her because he was supposed to, which is really no kind of love at all. Perhaps, he even didn’t know this. It is unlikel...

The sky sat in judgment on a cold spring morning. All the people could be seen staring out of their empty shells, shells that housed warm souls and harbored dark thoughts, translucent in the light of day but opaque at night. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that night masks the deeds of day. It erases evidence and lays false trails for madmen to wander. It creates stories from air and air from words, notes from...

Disclaimer: For all of those reading this who do not identify as heterosexual, this poem is about you too. Just replace the pronouns with whatever is relevant to you, and hopefully, enjoy.  when a girl meets a boy there is a moment when they are truly equal. before biology sets in and reminds him to flex reminds her to push out her chest reminds them that they are made to fit together like puzzle pieces. nobody cares if t...

War is not beautiful. The reality of true hopelessness, of true fear, of the way a man turns when he’s faced with his own mortality has almost no redeeming qualities. The way God only appears within His soldiers at the moment they die, the tan sandy color of dust and utter demolition, the white flakes that fall from chapped, shredded skin does not interest the eye. There is no love lost between the pure red crimson scarle...

“Are you afraid of the dawn?” she asks, watching him with a half-smile on her face as he scrambles around the room, frantically pulling down the curtains. The new darkness bathes them both in soft candlelight. It smoothes out her angular lines and eases the sharpness of his jaw. But even gentle light cannot take the edge off a soul, and he grinds his teeth, while her nails tap out a nervous rhythm on her wine glass. “I’m...

It’s kind of quiet and peaceful, but not a good quiet. Not like a tranquil, Japanese garden kind of quiet. This is the eye of the hurricane, the calm before the storm; like the calm before everything you know disintegrates into ash and vanishes before your eyes. I enter my house warily, footsteps as quiet as I can make them, my hand inside my jacket clutching my penknife. Just in case. The door bangs shut behind me, and I...

I have a little sister – she’s eleven. She’s not really my sister, but, you know how these things are. Stepsister, half-sister, it all merges into one. We don’t share the same mother or father, but I love her as if we did. She’s darker than me, and her hair is black as coal. I tell her she looks beautiful, but she hates it. Jase, why can’t I be blonde? she asks. Why do you want to be blonde? I say. You’re perfect, in ever...

There’s this bitch I know, and she’s not half as pretty or as smart as she thinks she is (you know the type). Every Friday at 8 am, I have to spend my time listening to her tell me about her greatest latest adventure, which usually is a stupid fucking waste of my time, and an invitation to doze for another hour.But not today. Today, like a blue moon or a shooting star or a once in a lifetime kind of miracle, she keeps my...

Because what’s more cliché than the best friend? She’s unthinkable, untouchable until the December night she’s not. And you hate yourself for every second you spend with her, learning the curves of her body, but there’s almost nothing better than something so taboo even Hollywood has a hard time accepting it. And then one day it’s all you have left, the affair, and the best friend isn’t the girlfriend and you find yoursel...

This is the story of a boy who loved too much and a girl who loved too little.Which sounds like the opposite of what it should be, because you already know the outcome; he cheats, she dies, he dies. But it is what it is, and I will do my best to tell you nothing but the cold hard facts without any lenses at all. Just the truth, I solemnly swear.I met Nathan when I was twelve and a half years old: I met Anastasia six month...

“Riley! You didn’t actually, did you?” she asks incredulously. There’s shock in her face, but a sort of pride too. She’s fighting back a smile and her dark blonde hair waves behind her as she attempts to stop her shoulders shaking with laughter. “Yes, yes I did. I warned his punk-ass, didn’t I?” I say, grinning. I had warned him after all. You don’t mess with fire unless you want to get burned. I wasn’t like the other bea...

The cursor on the blank spread of a Word document seems to taunt me as it clicks backwards, forwards, off and on. I heard that back in the day, the same kind of mocking dance would have been played with a typewriter whose ink drips, waiting for words. The lack of scratching would have tormented those writers the same way the harsh clicks torment me. It’s 2 A.M. right now, and these are the ramblings of a madman who doesn'...