Tag: Writing

An excuse for 5 am.

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I’m an early bird. I love the times at night when no one else is awake. Those are the times when I feel like the world is infinite. Like outside my window things aren’t concrete yet. Like they only settle when the sun comes up. I know that’s weird but, for me thats the perfect time to write. When there’s a halo of fantasy out that’s a perfect time. What’s yours? When are you the most productive?

The fact that my job now has me coming in at noon is the worst. Noon is the perfect time for a cat nap. When the sun comes high and bright through my window and sunlight tickles my bed. My room hits the perfect heat and I stretch out…ugh! When do you like to take naps? Can you even take naps anymore? Are there things that stop you? Take a nap. This ones on me.

I love watching movies at sunset. I know it’s weird but, the perfect time too because things aren’t so late that you’re tired and can’t focus but, it seems like you’re falling back into the fantasy you left in the morning. It’s kind of romantic in that sense. Sunset is the most romantic time to get lost in. If I could open a door to sunset any time I needed to slow down, I’d be so happy.

Are you as weird as me? Do you even think about things like this? Honestly I probably have way too much time on my hand but, maybe you’re a bit like me? Maybe you should construct your perfect day. Take advantage of the break with convention we’re all expierencing and do something for you. You deserve it. If you needed a sign to tell you to take advantage of your time today or tomorrow then this is it! Good luck, readers.

A Poem About Unfettered Benevolence

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I could have written my rage on the page

Dragged you in metaphor and smilie

Damned you in with grammar

and well constructed lines

But, I’m better than that

I’m not that guy

I wouldn’t do that

I won’t write an open letter,

listing all of your faults

Or compose poetry to your misdeeds

Tearing you down in couplets

Slamming you with soliloquy

Play you like a playwright

However, I’m a benevolent master of the written word

I won’t shame you here…

just know that I could

Hey this was meant to be a kind of funny tongue and cheek thing, I hope you like it while I finish up a few of my longer blog posts and maybe even debut a short story. Hope your week goes well damn, hope my does too.

Clippings of Conversation

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I still remember your “Hey”s and sighs
I recite your dreams
Sing your tears
Can’t forget your heartbeat
And cadence
But I only hear clippings of conversations

I remember my rage
My angst
Your sweet toxin
Our Warmth
Hours of my life swallowed up in perfect lips
Only loose thoughts reach out

I remember pain and loss
Moving forward
Death
Mass annihilation
Bounding betrayals
But I only have clippings of conversations

Our time blurred
I am not the same man
But I wonder would you love me
Would your kisses taste the same
Even with just clippings
I have more than you

2020

Posted on by Warren Dalton

2020 was interesting. It wasn’t my best year and I had to put a bunch of all the things I wanted on the backburner. I know my book hasn’t come out but, writing was really difficult this year. So I’m just gonna put down some of the good things that have happened to me.

  • I wrote more on here.
  • Got back in touch with a good friend.
  • Made a few decisions that were good to me.
  • Got closer to some people I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years.
  • I found new strength in my own mental health. Deciding if I can work being an essential worker during a pandemic then I can probably make it through some other less impactful things.
  • I went on some dramatic self-emprovement outside and inside.

While it’s not a lot of wins. I think I’ve become a better person and that’s all I think I could have asked for this year. Thank you for following me this far and I hope I can keep giving you reasons to check out my site. I’ve got a few more posts coming out the rest of this week and I want to start 2021 with a bang.

Passenger

Posted on by Warren Dalton

The car waits at the intersection way too long

The rhythm of the blinker keeps tick tick ticking

I come to a stop on yellow

And drive just a little too slow

But, it’s all to make the drive go smoothe

Check the mirrors a bit more than is expressly necessary

Don’t honk when that red truck cuts me off

Terrified by the swerving semi

White knuckles on big black hands

But it’s all to make the drive go smoothe

Glancing at you out of the corner of my eye

While streetlights paint your sleeping face

Not even singing when my song comes on

Filling my heart as each mile passes

Whispered “I love you”s under my breath

But it’s all I can do to make the drive go smoothe smoothe.

1:37

Posted on by Warren Dalton

It starts.

At 1:37 am it starts,

A tightness in my chest that starts like a bulb.

It spreads crawling, winding all over me until

Chest, shoulders, upper arms, neck.

I can’t draw breath.

But, I know what I must do!

I stagger bleary-eyed to my computer

Why didn’t I just go to bed!

My mind screams at me

Tight, Tighter, Tighten

It’s over my clothes now,

Into my seams

The only way to rid my self of this poison…

I bleed it out,

The cold knife slips into to a well-worn vein.

On the keyboard,

Splattered on the walls,

The light from the screen is tainted.

Showing lifeless blue through scarlet life

I am free.

Bloodlet from creativity

Maybe now I can turn over

Maybe now I can get some sleep.

Your Truth

Posted on by Warren Dalton

They starved you at a feast.

Tied to a chair and watched those around you

Stuffing faces and

Having over full bellies,

Rubbed.

While you cried,

 

Died,

Wasting away until you couldn’t even be tied with ropes.

 

Hopes,

Put on someone who could save you died

On dried and cracked lips

 

Hips

Only thing you thought you were good for was cock rocking and moaning

And groaning you did away with their pain

 

Rain

Came down torrential

Unintentional but, it’s all your fault,

Right?

 

Plight

Goes on unanswered everyday,

everyway you asked and pleaded

They stood up and retreated,

defeated you cried,

died felt the pain,

the rain,

and like a current you were dragged again and again.

They weren’t enough, much too rough.

They got cut,

And you were the one to bleed.

Their need the same refrain.

 

Remains,

You gathered them up in fragile arms.

A magpie in the wild,

A raccoon in the woods,

Collecting and erecting the skeleton of a life you could love

 

Shoved

Down, drowned in rivers of your own fears

Gasping for air

 

Hair,

You cut just to divest from the stress of a world closing in,

Hoping that a change on the outside

Will rearrange you inside

 

Ride it out,

Breathe it in,

Quell the storm that rages within,

 

Kin

Never loved you,

When you needed them they abandoned you too.

Shamed and Blamed you too

 

Withdrew,

Into yourself,

Into your art,

Into your head,

To your core.

 

Ore.

You found a prize behind the pain.

Didn’t get better,

You got even!

Decided to soar higher than anyone’s expectations

You believed in you,

Got through.

Thrived.

Striving to be more,

And greater.

You smashed the ceiling

 

Unfeeling,

As the glass cut you

Because you learned long ago,

That success didn’t happen without a little discomfort.

Your life started out tough,

But you know that terrain.

Here’s your refrain.

It’s all uphill from here.

You’ve kissed the sky.

And Helios touched you!

 

Used to be a victim of your own mind,

Reflect, directed it back and

Now…

You know your own truth

 

Permanence

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I have a weird thing about writing in notebooks. It’s weird I can put pixel to pixel but, pen to paper seems too permanent. I have tens of unfinished notebooks and none of them are filled. I don’t know what about it screams like once you finish it you can’t get it back… I mean I can go out and buy a new notebook but, it always feels like my words aren’t good enough for the page. Like I’m taking this space up from someone else.

I was cleaning up some of my old stuff and I found a few notebooks I hadn’t gotten to more than halfway with. Honestly, that’s a whole lot for me I mean halfway? Me?! but, it was a shock to me that none of my old childhood notebooks were even full. Did I even know back then that imposter syndrome would hit me so hard?

It’s crazy looking back on the things that I thought were important. The things that I wrote down. What girls I liked back then, my idea for Black Widowman, (This was of course before I: Knew that Black Widow existed and B. Before I knew what a widow was. So please don’t judge me too harshly.) scrawn ideas that flit through my ADHD mind while I was definitely thinking of other things except for school work.

I think besides just the imposter syndrome I have trouble taking up space. I have trouble just existing in my fullness. I have become unapologetic in the parts of my personality that’s not toxic but, I still feel like I don’t deserve the space I take up.

It’s a sobering kind of thought, really. I mean I don’t understand the people who can. Do they just decide one day that the space they take up is their own? Or is it a more gradual thing? Am I being polite or just subservient? I know it’s something I have to change about myself but, I don’t really know how so I’m just sitting here. Trying to fill this old notebook I got from an ex.

 

Happy Birthday Jacob!!!

Posted on by Warren Dalton

Happy Birthday Brother. I know it’s probably late coming and I’m hoping this finds you well and happy. How have you been? What’s the weather like? I know I’ve never been good with small talk but, I’d I didn’t ask I’m sure Mother would get mad…

I miss you. There’s no easy way to say this cause you’re gone an I’m not. But I miss you. Just because it got easier to say your name and what happened without it sticking in my throat doesn’t mean I love you less.

It’s been eight long years and so much has changed. I don’t go to where we buried you often enough and I hope my silent eulogies are almost as good as vocal ones. I’m sorry if I don’t feel you there. It’s way too quiet for you. You were loud and vocal. In a place where vocal wasn’t always great. But you were great. You were visible when sometimes I wanted to hide away. And you loved like only children can unconditionally and radiant. Being loved by you was such a great feeling.

I’ve changed a lot and I hope that you’d have been proud of me. I learned to lean a little over into loving the way you do and it’s made all the difference. I’ve drawn people towards me that I’ll love for a lifetime. I’ve learned to be vocal. To stand up for the things I believed in and in a world on the cusp of changing, I wonder would you have been there with me? I stopped being nearly so lazy and I’m working and at a much better job than I’ve had before. I’m writing and maybe not the things I always should be but, I’ll work on procrastination later.

I’ve decided to visible to be heard and I hope you’d be proud of me. That you might again look up to me as your older brother. I’d be filled with the most sincere happiness I could imagine.

You were everything to me. It wasn’t easy picking up my pieces after you left but I hope the man I am now will be enough to for you to smile upon. And as I hastily write this before work, I hope you know aftershocks of your kindness are still felt all over. I’m thankful that you have never come to me in my dreams as anger or sorrow. It’s always been one more game, one more show, one more movie and one more hug. It wasn’t easy losing you and I wish I’d seen you in your final moments but, you have given me all that I could ever ask for.

Your Brother,

Warren