When I sit
I feel the stone
It is worn smooth
From years of emotional erosion
The dust grated away bit by bit

There was that time that I said to you that
I had a crush on you and you said no
So I tried to be friends but every time you
Walked past and your night-black hair caught the light
I could feel the weight lift from my chest cavity and then resettle, heavier than before

Or when I wrote down a story that I was proud of
But when I read it, the laughter in your eyes told me that I was worthless
The stone settled further, nestling itself right between my lungs, forcing them further apart and making every breath a strain

So when I create or love or speak or try to be something more than I am,
It is there
My arteries have grown around it
Vines tracing the cracks
My organs rub against it
Friction points in my blood
It has become a piece of my architecture
A monument to shame in the map of my body

When I am dead
My flesh rotted away
In the center of my rib cage
There will sit a stone

Every night when I fall asleep,
There’s a ghost hanging over me
It looks me in my shuttered eyes
And says who do you want to be

I hear his wails, his rattling chains
As I try to relax and calm down
But the ghost shatters my lights into dust
With a wave of his hand around

So I plug my ears with cotton and wool
But still I hear his cries
For when I wake up in the morning
At the foot of my bed he lies

As I go through my day, the ghost waits
As docile as a lamb
But when the night comes and I go to sleep
The ghost unleashes his dam

“You lowlife, worthless piece of shit
You’ve made so many mistakes,
And you will definitely die alone
Someone should cut your brakes”

The ghost hangs over me every single night
And right before I go to sleep,
I wonder what if he’s actually right

My thoughts are myriad and rapid 
They race around my head with all the 
Grace of a Mongol Horde and all the speed
Of every Flash from every alternate universe

And Then I Write

The Mongols become Tibetan monks,
Cloistered on top of a mountain, looking down at the world below
Quietly observing and seeing the currents of life as if seagulls
Gazing along a massive ocean, waves deep and imperceptible

The Flash takes off his red, green, blue, black mask and 
Becomes Barry again, a man prone to error, clumsiness,
A man who takes life at the pace that it should be taken
Slow and savory like the last bite of your favorite food

Inevitably, the monks don their war gear and mount their horses
Inevitably, infinite Flashes pull on infinite masks and run out into the world
My thoughts invade the empty space, aggressive air filling a vacuum,
Like when a spaceship is punctured and the atmosphere drains

And Then I Write

For a moment, there is peace 
But all peace ends.

One, laugh honestly
Don’t disguise your pain with a wisecrack and a grin
But when you feel joy bubble up, uncork it like a 
Cheap bottle of champagne shared amongst friends

Two, be kinder to yourself
You are not the shattered glass menagerie left
Behind in a rusty cage, unloved and unwanted
By none save the scavengers of the miserable

Three, acknowledge your fear
There is a sensibility in your gut that bubbles
And boils when anxiety hits you in that sweet way
That makes you question everything you are 

Four, look for love in unusual places
Remember that life is not a movie where plot happens
You have to find and try and strive and claw for everything
If you wait, everything good will be lost to you

Five, ignore your fear
Acknowledgement does not mean that you do not
Ask the cute girl out, audition for the band, eat the weird food,
Drive to the new city, find an apartment, leave your life behind

Six, there is beauty in the quiet
When boredom hits you, tunnel into it and wrap it around you
An armadillo skin filled with the heavy white noise of silence
Inside of that skin, there can truly be something special

Seven, brush your teeth every day
No deeper meaning here, I’m just paying for poor dental choices
Made by younger Matt who ate nonstop candy and had 
No concept of good oral hygiene or flossing

Eight, chase creativity
Don’t let yourself go a single day without writing or singing
There is a color that is added to your skin on the days 
Where you spring something out of your head, informed

Nine, dance all the time
You’ll spend so many years afraid of how to move right
That you will instead be left on the side of the dance floor
In your ill-fitting dress shirt and your shoes that are a half-size too small

Ten, laugh often
For life is truly filled with things to laugh at
And when your laugh creases smiles into the faces
Of those around you, you will remember why you are here

When does the soul form
When do you become who you are
Is there a process
Some checklist that you complete
And then you become you
Or is it hardcoded into your biology 
Made at the moment of conception
A cocktail of personality traits 
Shaken together in a fertilization blend

Who’s to say that we should not protect a baby
From before it even exists since we do not know
What existence truly is but we do know
That the weak are worth sheltering from the cold
Building walls made of our hopes for a brighter future

It’s hard to say what is right but when
There is a baby squirrel lost to winter
And the mother has left to go to a new tree
Who does not shed a year for what could’ve been


Stay inside. 
Don’t go out. 
The mask is there. 
Grab. 
Stretch. 
Pull. 
Don’t touch. 
There is a problem. 
We starve. 
Not from food. 
Heat. 
Pain. 
Love. 
All is lost. 
Wait for hope. 
Lost. 
Silence falls. 
We change. 
Or don’t. 
Die. 


I look at the streets below me
Crime rotting away at the core of my city
My chin poking out from beneath my cowl
Flesh cold from the winter breeze across Gotham

I look up and see you above me, pencil in hand,
Your lips taut with concentration as you draw 
A golden light filled with the shadow of a bat
I know that there is evil somewhere in my city

You may trace the waves, but I hear the 
Sounds of the people drowning in the ferry
You may sketch the skyline, but I see the 
Single mother dangling from it, fear hot in her eyes 

My night is your amusement as you create
Terror after terror to plague my city 
Poisonous gas flooding the streets
Serial killers massacring the innocent
Bank robberies filled with bullets

When I look at you, I just wonder what hurt you
What made you so broken to make my story
So bleak and hopeless 

What alley did you stare down that made you kill my parents?
What circus did you see that made you create my villains?
What person hurt you so much that you kept me from finding love?

As I think this, you draw a busful of children, blissful and free of worry,
Unaware that the Joker is their new bus driver
I have no time to think about your broken mind
I am the vengeance. I am the night. 
And I beg for you to draw me a happier life. 

You do not hear.
You do not care. 
I descend into Gotham. 




The walls are orange and flecked with ridges
The chair is cushy but slowly flattening and hardening
Soon it will be an immovable bench
Crushed by my weight

The screen is bright and empty
Filled with presentations and lessons
That all mean nothing in a world
Coping with much larger issues than
How 401k works

There is no light except for the light that
Streams through the open window
Casting a half-wrought halo putting 
Half of me in light
Half of me in darkness

The door beckons
Come outside
See what the world looks like
But the fear and uncertainty
Welds me to my seat
A bond of molten iron cooled

I try to lose myself in 
Streaming video and silly games
But I am left with only my thoughts
As erstwhile companions on this path
With the end over an unseen horizon

The darkness that shrouds half of me
Will soon take over all of me
If this isolation does not end