THE CLOSET MYSTIC

January 26th, 2026

time is a river, why swim

against the stream?

looking where you came,

ignoring

where you’re going?

time is a river—

I entered its rapids.

change

can be freedom,

change

can be violence.

but I’d rather be a rock

split in the stream

then a boulder at the bank

safe and unchanged.
January 26th, 2026

we were wrong

on paper;

hell, maybe in real life, too—

but nothing in this world

makes sense

if I’m not with you.

say it— say it,

& tell me you feel

the same way I do.
January 26th, 2026

There is a poem

trying to breach the surface,

some part of me chained

to the ocean’s floor,

fighting to break free.

I forgot how to live.

I can only remember

by forgetting.

the mindlessness of the mindful,

the folly of the scholar.

oh, the sage wisdom of the child.

stick on the ground:

a staff.

point the way.

it’s impossible

to be lost

when you’re playing pretend.

have you seen the confidence

underlying the imagined?

does the fool second guess himself?

the fool leads legions.

wisemen at the mercy

of his utter conviction.

you filled the well of the intellect,

stealing the water

of your self-belief.

yeah,

that reservoir of conviction:

long run dry.
January 21st, 2026

I stared at the cliff’s edge,

and told myself

I was only going to dip

my feet in—

so tell me:

how am I up to my neck

in absinthe?

lord, help me:

I’m drowning

in obsession,

this liquid spirit,

like the Styx,

my psychic murk,

so acidic—

it burns me, it burns—

so why

do I crave it?

the self betrayal

of the poet.

radio silence,

the artist

gone quiet.

shut your mouth,

keep the food out,

but your words

in.

how quickly

did I jump ship—

haven’t written

a poem

in months.

did i dry the well?

it’s not hard

to tell:

gaunt eyes,

hollow shell.

I stopped looking

to the future.

instead of planning

my career,

fawning

over that

bright star,

I thought more

of how to fit

400 calories

into a single dinner.

a blessing

to choose

to eat less.

a blessing

to fret

over weighing more.

a blessing

to know this folly.

i will fall

into this trap again:

still,

i consider myself blessed.

I’m not a fraud.

I never lied once—

I fell, & fell hard,

but never hid the blood.

I saw the sickness

spreading through my marrow–

the blackest ink

in the most pristine waters—

I worked so hard,

& guarded this meadow

of my own making—

I tended to the Earth

& nursed her back to health,

so tell me: for bringing ruin

to my Eden,

how can I ever

forgive myself?

tonight,

i say enough.

binge, restrict:

the coin of self-loathing.

but my life is bigger

than being bigger.

isn’t that self love?

yea—

tonight, i say enough.

i

am enough.
January 15th, 2026

In reckless adolescence,

its mayhem

and destructive wake,

I was free.

I ask you:

What is the price of a life

well-lived?

Adulthood: must it mean confinement?
January 15th, 2026

you are the hymn

that draws the grief from my ribs—

you are the baptism

the pious call “sin.”

you pull me under,

I drown in your depth—

I emerge pristine,

reborn,

cleansed.
January 15th, 2026

absolute freedom,

it used to be the goal—

until I learned,

having nothing to be tethered to

is its own kind of hell,

its own kind of jail.
January 14th, 2026

and when you hold my hand,

my heart speeds up,

but time slows down.

your head tilts, laid on my chest,

& the turning of the earth: it hiccups,

if only for a moment.

and your laugh—

oh, your laugh,

I can only die happy

if that sound

were my last.

this love: it is not quiet.

it burns in my gut,

it needs to be sung—

to shout, to scream, to holler,

“Look, world— it is her. She

is the one—

the one

who is a full Moon

on the darkest night—

or, no— she is the Sun,

and I the pallid Moon,

and if I shine,

it is but her

borrowed light.”
January 2nd, 2026

And I think poetry is our remedy,

for bottomless is the modern appetite

which wants everything, all at once.

a poem demands:

chew,

taste,

swallow,

savor— slowly.

there it is:

that fullness, so elusive.

a novel

in each word;

you jump in,

expecting a puddle,

but fall in,

swimming in hidden depths.
January 2nd, 2026

Break your life into verse.

To run on this path,

or to stop; savor,

inhale—

step,

stop—

gravel crunch, silence,

eyes closed, heart open,

holding the Sun’s hands.

step again, stop.

there is a hidden movement.

a leap in every pause.

such speed in stillness.

such stagnancy in those who cannot stop moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving—

lips move,

but frozen on the same word.

find the symphony.

make a hymn of the cacophony.

rescue each layer from its doom:

to be swallowed by the whole.

do not let life be noise:

let it be music,

and please:

stop, and listen.