If you’re Reading this: I’m Okay
these words cut
jagged, unfiltered
scrape at old wounds
press deep into bruises
drag what’s buried into light
if you’re here,
you already know.
read it,
or don’t.
either way,
it doesn’t stop.
Questions I have
No Stone To Unturn
When I die,
no grave, no plot,
no tomb, no stone.
I will blow away—
as I came in.
The Architect’s Silence
Whose grand plan
is this?
The Wasteland You Left Me
The grass is greener where you stroke it.
My own lawn—barren.
I wanted dignity.
Something classic.
Timeless.
Your fingers trace what thrives. I dry, waiting for that rain that never comes.
Trash
Acceptable Receptacle
is it acceptable for you
i’m no longer bright and new
dull
and dirty
old
i still work the same
hold all of your sins
your shame
is that not worthy?
when
person
pain
promise
price
what will it take
for me
to
fix
my
life
Poem by a trashcan
I hold all your secrets
keep all of your tossed memories
the discarded thoughts you are too ashamed to keep
yet
somehow you still find me
VILE?
Am I not a product of you?
Your reflection?
Forgotten
Testament
I will not be remembered.
my scars—my only testament.
my feelings, inconsequential.
as am I.
If, Then, Never
if i could turn back time,
would I?
or was I predestined to be
fucked up?
admonish
I will die alone and afraid
forgotten
my sins piled up
one by one by thousands
no one will miss me
Ive tried anythings to
feel something.
anythings
other than this self-loathing beast I’ve become
I am hate personified
do not feel sad for me
please just let me feel
something
before I go
Health
THE HARD WAY
Try hard
Die hard
lies carve
my scars
well then
I am not well
well
well
Traffic Violation
Red means stop.
Shouldn’t my world
end once a
m
o
n
t
h
?🩸”
Science By Design
Absentminded by Design
can you imagine me
with no imagination?
would I know the difference?
would you?
Is it me?
the drugs?
the surgeries that carved through memory,
that rewired me
unwired me
is it the news—
doom scroll on loop, breaking, breaking, always breaking—
breaking my heart, the world, spinning faster,
what’s left
the nothingness between the noise?
was I made this way?
or did something make me
rewired too many times?
or is this just how it is now—
for everyone?
maybe I was meant to drift.
maybe we all were.
maybe no one’s steering
but if I’m writing, maybe I am
MR. I
i’m stuck in a printer
trying its best.
like living in the inner city,
you can hear the magnets undulate
suffocating this oblong tube.
A 3 Tesla hum in my skull.
“Breathe in…. HOLD… breathe out.”
Contrast—
liquid fire in my veins.
i like the scans.
i like this printer
this printer tells me:
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
for your cooperation
as fog horns sound.
LoFi Spanish channels on, but I can’t hear it—
not over the incessant and demanding noises.
knock knock
whirrrrrrrrr
woo woo
eee eeeee eeee
scan I am
Companions
Nothing Gold can Stay
They call you gold,
but leave you cold.
Kept in too-small, unclean bowls,
no one cares when you don’t grow old.
With a flush, you will go,
condolences as empty
as the bowl left behind.
For something so golden,
you are forgotten.
If nothing gold can stay,
why do they make you this way?
Pied Piper
Jesus
w a l k s
Rivers
r
u
n
Death calls.
My faithful companion followed.
Time Flies when You Write
Populating pages,
watching time decay.
It’s taking days,
I’m aging in hours—
way posthaste for my tastes.
Ink dries,
wings still.
Time flies when you write.
Climate
What is ‘voluntary’ when I’ve never volunteered for anything?
Waivers?
I do not waver
I did not sign that
I did not sea the signs that
I could have signed away
All trees on the dotted lines
and waved every life but mine
away
Got that?
Drowning for the bottom line
Subsidizing off the backs of
all the lives of those who lay
Dead.
It is unsurprisingly polarizing.
Drenched in the weight of soaking lies,
pretending I am proselytizing,
dreaming of drowning bottom lines
while they’re cashing in on patronizing.
Propagating Rayleigh waves,
unveiling every way
the globalizing, with no minding
our minimizing—
the destabilizing damages
or unmitigated
Dread.
The ice is melting,
the trebles rising,
and we eschew apologizing
to fuel our endless advertising.
The overflowing river grows,
leaving nowhere left for going ashore.
Watching while ignoring
only makes us drown in our beds.
What’s a slave to do but sit ashore,
watch the knaves sail off,
lifeboat in tow?
Impending Upending
If all the riches in the world
can’t buy us water in a drought,
what are we to do instead,
growing restless in life vests
we bought in excess,
expecting floods?
Except that,
the commercials misled us,
sheep we burn, our wool long shed—
undressed, disposable,
dying unimpressed by the scorching mess.
The gods neglect us,
despite our worship of their omniscience,
pretending to care in their self-interest.
The tides crashed at the whim of the kings,
while the crowd—
oppressed, unimpressed—
jeered at their behest,
watching them waive our debts
while signing waivers
that keep their fortunes intact.
We waited,
like waiters unpaid,
serving up silence
to the ones who take but never tip.
Their necklaces glint,
weighted with wealth stolen from our poorest—
pendants swinging like pendulums,
measuring time we’ll never get back.
Pour one out for what’s left of the Left.
Days of flying birds across the sky,
words of billionaires tied too tight
to wings sky-high,
screaming:
“The End is Nigh.”
Why do we rely on rising tides?
Led by children barely old enough to fight—
drowning in the WAVES of wars
the big bucks buy?
Singing:
“Who will find ashore, his man-sized chore
was done by a navy WAVE?”
And when we see a #WAVY Anthropocene
trending across our gleaming screens
before our species’ untimely leave—
If I had any money left to bet,
I’d bet my life on our vanquishment.
The threads unravel
Refresh the page.
See who wins.
Loss
Bluhm
You aren’t a pen—
though you should be,
for all the lines you deliver,
all the stories you write.
Repetitions—
meant to echo across the world,
reverberating, replaying,
never fading.
You are meant to be shared
with everyone,
and no one.
You are your own—
hook, line, and sinker.
You value yourself
at the price of a milligram
and a good time.
After all, sharing is caring,
and you have plenty of sharing to give.
Three is not too many—
groups are just opportunities.
But two?
Two is your limit,
bile on your lips.
The daughters of a nun should know better.
But she’s not your mother,
just a savior of children.
Your mother is unwritten.
Your father—
in a Pen of his own kind,
writing, because it’s all he can do these days.
But you aren’t his daughter.
You are an oxymoron,
explaining why the world is full of morons.
Fully aware of the conundrum this creates,
you eat just like you exist.
99-cent pizza tossed like trash in New York,
but still the best thing you’ve ever tasted.
Your impression—everlasting.
You are a swing in a child’s mind,
nostalgia for things missed,
nostalgia for moments not yet lived.
You are not pretentious,
not pretending,
unlike this poem.
You are a star in the making.
A Bluhm in hand
is worth a star on the street.
If only you could meet yourself.
An abstract painting
on the wall of some rich doctor.
Lost in translation by many,
loved by few.
Valuation: priceless.
The Saddest Lines
The saddest lines aren’t the ones
that make you cry in movies.
Not the poetic monologues on death,
nor the fear of growing old
with no name to inherit.
The saddest lines are spoken in hospital rooms,
where parents weep in worn-out burgundy chairs,
waiting to hear they can’t afford
the surgery their 7-year-old needs—
a child who never made it to his first day of school.
The saddest lines trend across your screen—
refugees escaping war zones,
only to be eradicated by the hands
that swore to protect them.
All in the name of a God.
The saddest lines glow blue at the ATM:
“Insufficient funds.”
Another night in the freezing Seattle streets,
watching the city boom,
watching it forget.
The saddest lines will never be written—
unheard voices of children
killed before they ever knew the word love,
because their parents trusted online whispers
over science.
The saddest lines are driven into his wrists,
his body too tired to keep fighting,
his nights filled with sleeplessness,
his days spent as a plaything
for the faces his mother brings home.
The saddest lines are carved in stone—
just a date, nothing more.
No one writes about the forgotten.
No one looks for the lost.
Yet still, they are here.
In the hush between heartbeats,
in the spaces where kindness lingers,
in hands reaching, unseen.
Ghosts
Why are ghosts meant to haunt us
If I die, I still have plants to water
Mouths to feed
Lives depend on me
Leave me to my routines
TRIGGER WARNING
trauma is not a personality
Silly me,
All this time I thought my scars made me beautiful
I’d burn every last one off—
if I thought it’d make me interesting
How to Write Your Pain
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| I should be helping||| I need||| help|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ah, a moment of relief!
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||why can’t||| i just||| be normal|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||is it all in my head?|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||h|||||||||||||||||||e||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||l||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||p||||||||||||||||||||||||Should I hide my scars so you don’t have to see|||
Are Eating Disorders Still In
You look at me like I wouldn’t sell my soul
to revel in all the smells,
sounds,
tastes,
and textures life has to offer me.
You become so fiercely offended in front of the group.
Fired up—
like your vegan, gluten-free, sixty-dollar pizza
is all there is ever to see.
How could I have the audacity
to refuse your homemade baklava—
the one you slaved over all day,
though I never asked you to make it?
As if I spat on the house
you spent your whole life building
with your two bare hands.
As if my decision to sit politely
while you drown yourself
in the pot and kettle they place before you
has caused you such immeasurable suffering
that the whole restaurant
must know how terrible a human I am
for not finishing your meal for you.
There are starving kids, after all.
As if I chose
to receive your piercing glares,
to sit beneath the fire of your words,
to be roasted alive where I sit.
As if I chose
to react with repulsion
to things I’ve never had the luxury to enjoy.
You pry my mouth open—force it wide.
Dump your broccoli chicken casserole in,
stomp it down my gagging throat
with the force of a flood—
violent, unstoppable, drowning me.
Why are you so surprised
when my dam broke?
As if I would choose
to slowly starve myself to death.
My body warned you.
You just didn’t listen.