We haven't met.

Here we are -

at this party -

wearing these pseudonymous masks,

sharing words,

enjoying drinks (among other spoils),

exchanging spirits.

I feel so connected to this

family

I have never met

in person.

Thank you

for being here.

Just wanted to say -

I sincerely

love you all.

Look my way just one more time

Before the clock strikes 12

Descending us into the nights darkness

This light won't last forever

Nothing ever does

Walk with me one last time

Before we drift apart into the sea

The tides sway back and forth

With such force

Like the heart does when falling in and Out of love

The wind blows around us

As we take a deep breath and

Say goodbye

For one last time...

My

index

finger

pokes

the bridge

of my nose

pushing back

the glasses

that I

left

at

home

At the end of each day, we as humans are all flawed.

Each and everyone of us are capable

Of getting angry, and sad, we're all a little crazy and far from undamaged.

But we all have one thing in common.

And this is the burning desire to connect with

Another human being, on a much deeper level, to feel love 

From that one person, who let's you know

That you were enough, for anyone.

So why is it that so many of us are alone?

We will waste our entire lives searching

For our version of that perfect someone

Who can not possibly exist.

When all we had to do was fall in love

With each other's flaws, and make the most

Of what little time we have here together. But instead, we just keep creating our own loneliness.

The next time

I hear the words

Just get over it,

I will show you

What that means.

The dogs are barking again.

I'm sprawled on a heaping trash nest of clothes and towels and papers and plastic bags. I stare at the ceiling. I've been staring at the ceiling for hours. My ceiling looks like the moon's surface: sickly yellow-pale like old cottage cheese and riddled with craters.

Each bark is like a hammer blow to my head.

There are flies everywhere. My head is filled with buzzing. Blow flies and flesh flies and bloated house flies like black motors flying. They descend on the overflowing piles of trash. They dance in and out of the open drawers of the cabinets that lie upended on the floor. Everything in the room is crooked. The kitchen sink is clogged with stagnant ooze, where food chunks float on a sea of oily grease.

Someone runs above me, THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

and the dogs chase after them barking, yelping, baying like the hounds of hell.

Things moving behind me, things moving in the mirrors and in the windows. There are voices, like swarms of flies, the voices are needles drilling the buzzing into my skin, and there are thousands of them. It fills up the back of my eyes. They are talking about me, but I can't make out what they say.

The dogs are barking and barking and barking. 

I’m standing on the table with a hammer and I swing that hammer over my shoulder and into ceiling. The dogs are going crazy as I bring the hammer harder and harder into the ceiling, punching holes, showering plaster on the carpet and into my hair and screaming face.

Have I been screaming the entire time?

Shouts from upstairs and I hear the neighbor's big booming voice as if he's right there in the room with me, “I’m going to fucking kill him!”

Stomping feet down the stairs, like an earthquake shaking my apartment. 

I throw the hammer one more time at the ceiling, where it bounces off and thuds to the carpet, and I run into the decaying, stinking kitchen with the dingy lightbulbs and grab the wooden block of large butcher knives and carry it back to the door. I tuck it into my left armpit and my right hand lands on the doorknob like a distorted fly, separate from my body.

The pounding on the door intensifies.

The dogs are still barking. The room spins in a blurry funnel of colors and noises, and the neighbor is yelling something with his fists battering the door inches from my face.

The fly opens the door. 

I would never 

Evict you

From my mouth

Playing hockey with me

Dancing into a 

Drunken state

Of bliss

K.j.a. (c) 2017

Six little miles as the crow flies, I

Just need a little distance, need a little time

Tell me all your reasons and I'll make them rhyme

Make some lines for you

Tell me 'bout your story and it could be a song

One you can relate to, one to carry on

Tell me all your demons and I can make them run

With a simple truth

Take this verse

However on earth

You're meant to

And get up

Dust off

Your feet

And move along