stulti et aurum

I'm back where I was.

I see the familiar stone walls covered with scratches, scripture, and graffiti.

The hideout from the noise.

Why listen to their gossip when you can listen to the water drip.         He

My pain felt good here.          no

                                                                                                          told me

The cold ground calling for me to sleep in it's embrace.                                         I

At the mercy of my own thoughts here.                                         couldn't

Plenty of time to think.......or die                                       leave        without  

                                                                                                dying first

Im going ______.                                                                                

I'm back where I wanted to be.

Back home in my cell.                                                                 you

                                                   don't             know

My prison cell is my mind,                                        

and the cell door is always open.                                                       anything about me.....

The prison with no walls.                                          kill myself before time does

The prison with no Guards.

The prison with no  rehab.

The prison where he's the warden.

The Inmates love me here though.                                                           

They keep me plenty company here.
                                                           help yourself to your thoughts.
this is not a happy poem.

Goblin Valley

Whitestone drew his knife and crossed his neck in desperation.
Dirty blood dripped into the canyon below.
His eyes bloodshot with fury.
His past bloodshot with pain.
His every breath was thick poison.
The life Clayton wanted had taken the first train eastward.                       
His dry lips spat a curse into the air to his once seen destiny.                            
One waltz brought to an end and another glass filled.                                            
Leaning on Liverstroke's saddle into the nights.                                              

The old colonel ripped up his last picture in his journal.                                           
His family wanted him to forget them.

The desert killed his pulse,                   
the vultures picked him clean,         
and the sagebrush buried him.    

Polaris, Betelgeuse, and friends.

You put a sticky note on my desk and time stopped.
I wrote back and my heart stopped.

My grandpa died today.
You didn't know about it, but you were there for me.
Your smile was so warm.
Your voice was so warm.

Seriously you got a voice.

Your poetry was so warm.
Your company was so warm.
And the fire was so warm.

Twenty seconds of courage and nothing could stop me.
Destiny was calling.
This legend was to be written in the stars.
The Constellations knelt down and whispered in my ear,
"Pass the note" they said.

Time stopped.
My heart stopped.
My hand stopped.
My mind stopped................but the music kept playing.
The Constellations kept singing.
Destiny kept calling.
And my life "just kept swimming".

I heard the Constellations speak.
They spoke of future.
They spoke of courage.
They spoke of you.

Thank you,
T'was quite lit.

Death with Dignity - Sufjan Stevens
Passing Afternoon - Iron and wine
Magic - Coldplay
Truce - Twenty one pilots
Wildfire - John Mayer
Love never felt so good - Michael Jackson
Paris - Magic Man
Let it all Go - Birdy
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
Alive - Empire of the sun

(Bonus Track: Palisades -Childish Gambino)

One day. Every day.

One day he looked in the mirror and wondered what the f*** he was doing with his life.

And one day she took pity.

And one day he dug for fool's gold.
The pit he dug was his grave........

One day he was seven years old.

And one day he opened the fridge and saw only white.

And one day he walked to school with his head down,

he missed the sunrise that day.

And one day his feet were as sore as his parent's bank account,

he had worked all day to help pay rent,
he was seventeen years old.

And one day they held hands,

he then woke up and stared at the ceiling above his bed for a few hours.

And one day he cared.

And one day he let himself down again.

And one day he was standing on a sinking ship with the flare gun in his hand,

All he had to do was pull the trigger to call for help........

And one day he wrote to his friends.

And one day he wrote to his family.

And one day he took his life.

His heart stopped but his phone kept ringing lonely in his room,

she was calling to say sorry.

Sion.

I'm tired of writing metaphors about  depression. 

Every time I look out a window I wish I was on the other side.................

                                                                                                                   ............

                                                                                                                               ...................................

.....

Every time I look into a mirror I don't see anybody staring back....................... .. . . ....... . . ...... ........

                                                                                                                           ........... 

I can't think right anymore.

Maybe.......

                   .........Just maybe I could do it......maybe                         

I don't want to die.                                                                        

I don't want to live. 

I don't know anything anymore.

                                                                                                                 

I don't want to live anymore.

I don't want to hurt anymore.                                                                                   

I can't die because I have to marry someone someday.                              

I can't leave her.

Would she leave me?

Where is she?

                                          

I don't even know her.                                     

I need to serve a mission.

I don't know if god is real.......

                                                ............maybe I do, I don't know.

I'm afraid if I died I would just wake up somewhere else. 

I'm afraid if I live I'll wake up in my bed tomorrow..... Different dream....

                                                                                                                   .......Same nightmare

I'm afraid if I live I'll wake up on life support.....death by inches.

What am I saying?

                     "stop writing this"

I live under a roof that's not my own.                                                      I can't print money.

.

.

I didn't sleep last night. Maybe I should go to bed. My house is a castle of cardboard boxes. We're moving and don't know where to. I'm staying. Never mind. I don't know.

I don't know.

"I'll skip lunch tomorrow too"

Don't comment #stolen like you want to steal my feelings!

That's the first time I've used an exclamation point.

This poem is the first time I've used an exclamation point.

and I'm done.

Don't post on your blog on little sleep.

My eyes are red and wet allot.

I can't sleep.

takeawalkanddontwearshoesandcursethemoonbecauseyousurvived.........................

I have friends.

I have family.

You can't see me.

You can't hear me.

Heaven is a distance not a place.

Nerf Wars

Our uniforms were different

Our faces the same--young and scared

Our mothers the same--old and weeping

We saw each other and did what we were told.

We sparred for hours till he drew his blade

The closing of our lives drawn on by our dying breaths.

His weight on the knife as is slowly sunk into my chest.

Blood filled my mouth.

Memory filled my mind.

Take me home.

Momma?

He did it because he was told to do.

I would have done the same.

Our uniforms were different,

but our faces were the same--young and scared.

Old love doesn't rust

They say old love doesn't rust.
Maybe old love is all I want,
to live and to die holding her hand.

When our biographies are written,
I don't want our marriage to be referenced as a date.
Like our marriage started somewhere?
As if it will end somewhere?

When our Obituaries are read,
I don't want the dates and places.
I want a poem to you that says what we never had to tell each other,
because the love was always there and we never needed proof.

Maybe I want our love to rust.
A new vintage character on the paint job.
Always aging and changing but never the same.
I want our rusted hands intertwined to be that proof.

When I look out the window when I'm 75...
I want to see our rust tilling the garden.

I want to see the rust that is...old love

Twyebuck River days

Little fishies in the murky water.

Little kiddies on the muddy banks.

The sunshine didn't come from the sun those days,

and the skipping stones carried our wishes with them.

Life on the Twyebuck was sewing a patch in my overalls .

Life on the Twyebuck was tallgrass in your mouth.

Life on the Twyebuck was the berries in the bushes.

Cops and robbers and no wussies allowed.

Digging for worms while our fathers dug in the mine.

Mother's supper bell rung high with the sunsets.

Honkey-tonks, Banjo's, and chew for the evening.

Life on the Twyebuck was a little house on the prairie.

Life on the Twyebuck was too early to bed and too early to rise.

Life on the Twyebuck  was casting a line, and catching every time.

The Teacher made dunces of us.

The sun shined but we stayed in the schoolhouse.

The chalkboard carried cursive.

The switch never made the joke worth it,

and the shady trees made the dog days longer.

Life on the Twyebuck was younger in my heart but old in my memory.

This for my old man.

The man was burned.
He stood as his father once did.
Remembered pain ripped into his ribcage.
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his life held in the balance.

The lullaby he sang his son tilled his ears.
Under the harvest moon again talking to himself.
Whispering lies to himself.
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his mind held on a tightrope.

The buried horse-master's words still hung on his throat.
"Older than the trees, younger than the mountains,
and still gripping the reigns without a pulse."
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his son's life depended on him.

The black water before him fogged and all.
His broken frame upright and angry.
His heavy eyes laid to rest
He was baptized in the river Styx,
and his life was given purpose.

Clayton W. Whitestone (American fork canyon ca. 2016)

He came home smelling like campfire.

Strummed for a while and forgot it all.

Sang for a while 'till he got tired of his voice.

He never heard a crackling fire after that.

Blanket on his back and his worries forgotten.

A night lit by coals and stories.

Whitestone felt like fool's gold again.

Close enough to happiness,

but never the real thing.

This is what he said to me.

                                                 Waking up in your coffin.

Screaming and scraping.                             -

The felt covered insides underneath your nails.

                             "No air for you now.     -

                                                        No air little boy."

                                         "Sick little child living to die "

                                                                   -

                                        "Feeling faceless yet?!"

                     Swearing to end it all at one point.

                                      Living to die eventually.

Deep black.                                                  -

                 "Deep black with nobody to hear you little boy."

                                                                    -         No light.

                     Blood in my mouth and teeth scraping the wood.

                                                     "Scared yet?!"

       Frozen by death now.

                                             Every regret held at my throat by time.

Covered by seven feet of dirt and seventeen years of pain.

Can't move.

Can't breathe.

                          Can't shout...

NO more screaming and_

                                                           scraping........

You_

                 can't.

                                      "Feeling claustro-

                                                                  phobic yet?!"

                                                          "Feeling phobic yet?"

The day you were born was the day you were sentenced to death.

                   Your parents dug your grave.

                                             Born to find meaning, then lose it all one day.

Born writing your durge.

                                                                                               Born shaping your ebony crypt.

Feeling Nothing yet?

"Welcome home little boy"