Update in 2026

 13 years of this goddamn thing. 

I am very lazy and bankrupt creatively. I’m married and I’m pregnant. I’m a corporate shill. I’m 32 years old at the time of this message. I’m also not done. 

I’ve been reflecting on life and what comes next. A recent conversation with my cousin has stuck with me as she is starting to explore literature and poetry. Maybe it’s my age starting to show as I resign myself to being curmudgeon about those damn kids and their TikTok but it has occurred to me that the human spirit will always yearn for creation and expression. So here’s to everyone who’s ever visited my poetry page, saw me read, gave my writing a second thought, or been the subject of my writing. All love, all is all is all we are.

I’ll get back to it. 

Or not.

Monday

Cold sores, cold wars

So old it is being told

“You’re not the one”

But I keep it to myself

The doubts I hide like a pimple

Red and irritated, ready to pop

Now wipe away the pus

Let the blood coagulate 

Let it stain like spaghetti sauce on a stovetop 

I’m covered in cat hair

I’m soaked in lite beer and spit

I’m in an argument with the television 

And she’s not listening to a word I say

The virtual lover, the guilt-free neglect

The shades are drawn, my pen is broken 

32 Below

Oh, let me brace myself

for the cold kiss of winter.

 

A heart like a hearth,

the crackling of wood fire

conjures memories of a home

since caved in from a heavy snow.

 

A still portrait of a family,

bodies blanketed by snowfall

exchange chilly glances

intercepted by the gusts

of the harsh wintry air.

 

A snowy owl perches on the debris

For a moment I ponder what it means,

before wringing the moisture from my tongue

to save my truths for a warmer day.

 

The Rain Dance

Great flood, mudslide

Love like a natural disaster

 

Great trees uprooted,

the violence of separation

I was found upstream, tongue severed

bitter food for the fishes 

I feel a nibbling at my fingertips

as I sink with my thoughts of you 

Your face like sunshine cutting through storm clouds

I miss the warmth that it brings

 

So, if you find yourself taking on water

If the lightning cracks thrice

Send our mementos up the river

and I'll be at the bend to collect

Yo Adrian, I did it!

 

Orion Lives!

 Hello everyone. This is your poet speaking. You may have noticed I haven't uploaded in awhile and frankly that's because I haven't been writing regularly. You see, COVID and the ensuing lockdowns have completely disrupted my routines and rhythm. As many of my fellow poets know this can be debilitating to the writing process. I'm also currently enrolled in school and working full-time. Turns out that eats up a lot of my time.

To my readers, thank you. I don't know who's still reading but thank you. To everyone that's seen me perform this drivel at Poetry Room, Artist's Umbrella, and various coffee shops around the mid-Michigan area, thank you. I'm always thinking of you even though I've entirely disappeared off the face of social media and the general scene. It unfortunately coincides with everything being shut down and my heart does break for all of you. I know how hard it's been on my mental state and feelings about writing, I can't imagine for those of you who organize events and live for sharing your poems. I love you all. I hope to someday see many of you again, be it on stage sharing with you or being amazed by your talent.

To poetry, I'm thinking of you. Always. You've been there for me for so long now. You've given me so much, it's time that I gave back to you.

Juvenile Poem

Hyperbole: I'm dying. Untouched,
stubborn to the dullness
that is waking up
to only regrets at my side,
now familiar bedfellows

Masturbation without imagination
A meta-like quality:
The star of a NatGeo special
A wild beast pleasures itself
for want of feeling

and I'm unconscious
my brain swelling with nameless want
Bloody Suburbia
A stalker's corpse in the bushes
bored to death

But we are not entertained
Assuming the missionary position
(is the poet not crass by nature?)
for much of our lives
on our backs
waiting for life to take us there

An Open Letter To You

The bereaved Gardener
Etching names into stone
Your face like clay, brown and firm

Two 0 One 9
It's so hard to fall upward
Failing to find myself in the storm

and I think it so cruel
dipping the doll's head in wax
a chipped tooth, a weepy eye

A boring into the earth
the carcass of an oak
limbs strewn about a sea of grass

I've been silent about my intentions
Seeding the soil with lies,
lies, lies, lies, lies, lies...

But worry not-
The sunflowers sprouting from
my chest will still turn in open conversation

The headstone dressed in moss will
speak my name in silent tongues
and I'll watch over you

a promise, this time

Vacation

Don’t.
Embrace the space between us
Familiarize yourself with vacancy
because I’ve checked out.
It wasn’t the bed bugs
moth chewed cream curtains
semen stains on a carpet
the same shade as oatmeal-
It was you.
So,
Just. Don’t.

Family

Baby brother
with hair like wildfire
eyes of deepest blue
glistening like the surface
of Lake Michigan in Indian summer-
A smile of hidden treasures
buried deep like our mother before us

You learned this early on-
not all that is found yields reward
But count those calluses
the sting of sweat
watch the blood trickle into
the wound slashed into the earth

Baby brother
you remember it well-
a broken chair the kindling to
an arson whose hearth still glows
beneath the charred remains
of a broken home

Baby brother
show me the blisters-
Continue to stand too close
to the fire and you will get burned
But learn to walk away
and only then, will you learn to heal

Definition, What a Decision

Listen close, loose change
Hear its tune in your
faded denim pocket

Sag,
a smiling waistband
hugs your hips

The tone of your skin
cream of mushroom

Your ugly,
all to my appetite

Hackneyed

A view of mercy-
admiring her,
now from a distance

I catch a glimpse-
a fleeting future
flashing before my
welling, weary eyes

She has saturated
my senses, she has
my attention wrapped
tight around her limp finger

At her mercy now,
though I fear she has forgotten.
Will my words echo?

Will we love again?

I have began to dig deep into
my patience reserve, so you
don't have to bankrupt your emotions.

Clementine

i held you like

the world was ending

but that couldn’t stop you

from slipping through my fingers 

like sand 

i wish i could bottle 

but you are meant for beaches

sunsets  with the waves 

crashing over you 

if I bottled you

the world would never forgive me 

Mugshots, Obituaries, Major Awards

I remember when 

we were all bright

and smiles extended

past endless summer sky

I remember aspirations 

long since forgotten

a look in our eyes 

now unrecognizable 

We’ll always cling to 

these memories 

sweetened by time or 

made bitter in hindsight

for nothing is as good or true

as you remember it- 

but it’s how you remember it

If I could go back

I wouldn’t -

for what I’ve endured

I don’t wish to again

Somewhere Between 007 and My Desperate Search of Verse

In the interest
of mending broken hearts
I bring you superglue and silly putty

For the one I've never minded to mend
I turn my heart to the east
but my fears lie to the west

Love is the death of duty
due diligence be damned
ripples from rocks skipped across seas

Nevermind never mine
Never you mind damn you
Lest the words explode

Like shrapnel from your chest
I will not hear a word of it
Yet even whispers cut all the same

Kiss me you fool
Celluloids illuminate the night sky
Black and white so unlike life

To live I'm sure
Death is
Whatever this is

Montauk, Bangkok
Little Italian villages
Owosso nestled between darkness

I'm uniquely qualified
To find myself hated
In every corner of the world

Yet wherever I have loved
Love
Has been sure to follow

Persona Non Grata

Step out from the shadows
and let me get a look at you, little man.

So loud, so loud, yet
trouble growing into your pants.

You say you lost a lover along the way,
a friend makes two.

Your problems are their problems,
right, little man?

If you love me...
Do you love me...?
Oh, so you don't love me.

I've heard it all before,
taking what doesn't belong to you.

Little man,
do you think you are a man?

If you say so,
shifting uncomfortably in your skin.

Little man, how will you shrink
when the world is watching you,

Taunting you
with what you're so rightfully owed?

Put yourself together,
little man.

Fading into the ether,
all these years and a
pile of clay to make of it.

Materialize elsewhere,
little man.

Wade until you're saved,
sputter about how you nearly drowned
yet your feet always touching the floor.

But knowledge is violence
right, little man?

Abuse the privilege
until the privilege hits back.

Watch the little man cry about bruises
when he's left scars.

Little man,
do you think you are a man?

Little man,
I know who you are.

Little man,
I know what you are.

Crawl back into the shadows
or squirm in the light,

I don't care,
little man

No more,
no more.

Abuse

I've become afraid
of the monster hiding behind closed doors.

Eyes like a void,
blank like death.

It doesn't know better,
hands where they don't belong

bruised lip quivers for forgiveness,
curling into a slick smile

rows of jagged teeth
the thrill of the hunt

The wolf and the sheep,
predator and prey, design-

playing the roles assigned.
Entitled monsters,

no means you know you want it
no isn't enough

not for the monster hiding
behind closed doors.

Anesthetic/Aesthetic

If I could be so eloquent,
to alleviate the swelling of words
festering like bacteria in my throat.
Like a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth
Jaws snapping, teeth gnashing.

Fever dreams,
I'm in the Garden of Eden
Slapping the apple from Eve's hand,
Rotten milk drips from her bosom
Adam clutches his side,
the serpent swallows its tail.

You say I'm beautiful the way
a tattoo is ugly as it heals.
Scabs obscuring some great art.
Scar tissue, fleshy and pink.
Dead skin falling
like snowflakes -
or ash,
depending on which
disaster you bring about.

Ointments and antibiotics do not do.
I'm prescribed free literature
sweaty pats on the back
the comfort of strangers.
Self-medicating, self-care malpractice.
Glossy brochures,
the bulge of pill bottles in my pockets.

Patchwork therapy keeps me together
with band-aids, duct tape,
bits of string collected through the years.
Help me by telling me everything
I want to hear.
Gold stars on my calendar for every
day I don't think of you.

If I could be so eloquent,
to alleviate the dumb thoughts
spreading like a rash over my brain.
The blisters so itchy and unsightly.
To say,
Doc, you gotta help me, Doc.
Find me a cure for this love,
whatever it was-
an infection.

Owosso Poem/The Jordan Sovis Fanclub

"It's like what Kurt Cobain said, man, 
'Weather changes moods.'" - Remy 

Those who romanticize small towns
never had their heartbroken by one.

Places where the brightest minds
all fall to darkness.

Where the flames of passions are
extinguished by the icy chill of indifference.

Where light isn't a strong enough disinfectant
to cleanse the legacy of bigotry-
from Confederate flags to the KKK.

I was born of this dysfunction.
The cracked streets and impoverished
blocks whose sidewalks I had traced
with my feet for years, as if trying to
etch my name into the city,
anything to leave my mark.

Naivete gave way to residual angst,
contempt that familiarity breeds.

Maybe it's the memories I hate,
making times past still feel so raw.
Maybe it's bitterness.
Maybe it's the dead friends.
the dying friends,
those rotting away because of a system
that has fucking failed them-
and a community that refuses to support them.

This isn't a rant,
this is a warning.

A love letter
Dear Owosso,

Your quiet intolerance
Your White Trash malevolence,
a toxicity that's hereditary
passing down an ignorance
that's resistant to medicine.

Where the artist will die,
malnourished unless they
find fertile soil. 

Where the art scene is more
of a cult than community.

Where the only poetry is found
in a pastor's sermon.

Owosso, you made me out
of what you couldn't provide.

Where boredom equals death.

Where I learned
to never look back.

Bending the Curved Edge

Intoxicated, again.
I like the way it makes me feel-

until it doesn't.

Another round, slurring the
curses of exes in the moist air,
dampening the mood, among friends
whose sobriety I find unsettling.

You understand,
until you don't.

Who I want to be is drowned
for glassy eyes, blurred lines,
and repressed cries that take
me on a treacherous drive.

I'd be sorry if I could
recount what was said.

I'd be sorry until I'm not.

I'd be sorry for poisoning
myself if I didn't like the
sound of empty bottles
and cans rolling off the table,
a graveyard for my composure
which I'll mourn until the next round-

always on me.