I was home in Westwood.
I was home in Camp Lejeune.
I was home with one love.
I failed at childhood; failed stat
Desperate for home anywhere I lay

Darkness accumulates in the moonle
spilling from my mind, adjoining c
I await, no time to have defined s
that I stand strong against the co
Heat... the wretched heat... I st

Pestering funnel of delinquency,
hovering in the stratosphere for a
from where we lit the lake of fuel
Spewing and billowing off to the n
forecasting trouble in the lands o

room whitewashed
walls sanitized
me
in a room
broken brain

The orange train screeched
around the bend, carrying her.
I knew I had to act quickly
in my expressions of affection.
I anticipated her every move,

Where do I let my hopes hang?
In the air with scents of flowers
How do I let my emotions reign?
Among animals I am not brave enou
Why do I share the shards of my p

The first time I heard the word p
She slammed my head against the wa
And I stared straight back into t
Fuming with fire, scorching the ho
There was nowhere to run, nowhere

The chronic, liquefactive necrosis
Except the immortal soul carries o
with all its accumulated scars and
Whose soul is upon my life, to wei
heavily the inflammation of loneli

You think it’s fear you’re drawing
but continue to relentlessly corne
and you’ll realize fear was a guar
a mask seeking to deceive,
a prelude to the seething energy o

I live on the knifes edge
where if I stray
even a millimeter to the left
I am convinced
that any and every flaw

First thought not about ethnicity,
but rather, that someone
could exist between identities,
but society is constantly rejectin
Identity is spiky, it’s painful,

I lock the door,
to keep out the demons.
They come in,
when I’m sleeping.
My brain——- wide open.

you can learn to build a castle
living within it
even surrounded by family
whose love is broken,
you have to remember

There is something uncomfortable
about calling this poetry,
when it is pain.
It would be further awkward to edi
defining it as work, refining the

Ambivalence was taking the power b
Without ever looking back, but the
Ambivalence was the guilt preventi
was the same guilt I was taught to
Ambivalence was people calling me

I feel as though
I’ve landed on a beach,
as an invading,
occupying force.
Only to find the land

The waves crash over the barnacle
Crabs and small fish tangle in a b
The air and water meld as one cont
Each are in pursuit of their own m
Birds hover over the seemingly una

Within the dead of those we choose
lies a truth forever gone.
Within the dead of those we choose
choose to hate,
or never cared enough to know

If a demon appeared at my window
I would laugh and say what world
are you trying to find and who
are you looking for, me
are you looking for me?

I drive through each forgotten str
Where the daily trash upon the cit
And mark on every body I meet
Marks of violence, marks of chroni
In every defiant act of every Man

I was open to trying.
I was open to overcoming,
and I found you running away.
I don’t know where to stand,
to make you not afraid of me.

What happens
when my ADHD is unleashed?
Or is it anxiety
confused as attention deficit?
My ideas now flow

I wanted it out of my head.
To see it, cage it, shackle it,
reduce its power in abstract form,
tame it by silencing its shifting
I wanted to smell it, hear it, lis

Dear Mom,
I can’t even begin to tell
how you might have reacted
to the letter I sent.
It was not intended to be hurtful,

I opened my page and saw that my w
They carry a secret message, a por

I would love love love to get back
I fought fought fought to be the b
I ran ran ran through miles of inv
I stopped because it was controlli
Each step of all those miles – tra

She said: “Is there more to your
Is being a Marine not enough?
I wanted to be a firefighter.
I wanted to save people’s lives.
I like manning the 50cal machine g

My mind is a million miles away fr
How’d I get all the way over here
Is there a train going back?
Can I get back by 6am tomorrow mo
I gotta be in the icu,

The leaves drop every fall, yes th
Their genetic residue, like a mill
marking the thousands fallen befor
The next of kin leaflets, bare the
Death is no escape from imperfecti

Sit awhile and play, refrain from
just long enough to sing, what mig
the cords in my brain, that connec
Don’t forget everything that made
before you were weak, and know, ev

I found you at last.
I do not need to see your face,
or know your name.
I just need to know that you were
that you came from the same place

It doesn’t come through governance
it has existed all throughout.
It doesn’t come through war,
fear and revenge masquerade as lib
It doesn’t come through money,

I cry alone
cuse I don’t want you seeing me in
I’m addicted to this face of a Ma
and all the masculinity we taught
Rewriting the pain of war and brok

Like I promised,
I still love you,
not for the principle of loyalty,
but because I yearn
from the deepest

River is always changing,
with a crack coming out of the cli
the river from the cliffs,
down to the beach,
carved out in an alcove,