I’ve started writing poetry—not in a, “oh, this feels like a nice thing to do with my time” sort of way—it’s more like, “if I don’t rip these words from my brain and condemn them to a physical existence, I will go insane and take you with me.” The trouble with this is that nobody wants to read my poetry. I understand; at least, I think that I do. Poetry and wine have something in common. Society has put these simple things on pedestals to the point that the average person now feels intimated by them. This is so silly: neither thing should scare you away. The only thing you need to know to enjoy poetry or wine is what you like.
If you like something, then it’s good. If you don’t, then that’s okay too. You don’t have to know histories, techniques, or the toil that goes into crafting something in order to enjoy it. You can enjoy movies, music, cherry pie, automobiles, and pinball machines without being especially knowledgeable about any of these subjects. Poetry and wine should be no different and ought to be approached with the same laissez-faire attitude—unless, of course, you’re someone who is particularly interested in poetry or wine. (Then, by all means, drink up all the knowledge that you possibly can until your curiosity is quenched.) All I’m saying is: you don’t have to learn how to make a pinball machine before you can enjoy playing pinball. Poetry and wine are not nearly as serious as society has painted them to be. Approach both haphazardly, with little caution, and please by all means—laugh about them.
I began my poetic journey by writing a series of poems inspired by Taco Bell. I self published a short poetry zine called Love Más: Poems from the Drive Thru. The process of completing this project felt so fulfilling, comfortable, juicy, and good for me that, from it, a new idea was born: Wasted Words. As the weather warms, I’ll be frequenting local bars to sip and write the evening away—ultimately crafting a series of poems partly inspired by local watering holes. For each bar I visit, a poetry zine will be released: both in physical form and as an electronic download. Wasted Words at Home is the test pilot for this format. To craft Wasted Words at Home, I did everything I plan to do at the bar–but from the comfort of my own home. I had a martini and chased it with a few glasses of Clot 13 Creature 2024; a natty red wine made with minimal intervention and bursting with juicy red fruit and a hint of herb. The result? A gripping series of fifteen poems written over the course of a single evening and four adult beverages—in other words—a small, poetic exploration of my monkey brain as I stumbled stupidly from sober to sloshed.
I’m really proud of what I’ve made recently. I’m really proud of how I’ve been spending my time. But, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the lack of immediate support has been discouraging. For my first zine, fewer people requested to purchase a copy than had initially showed interest in the project. That’s fine. I get it. We’re all struggling right now. (If I had money in the bank and no credit card debt, I’d just give all my words away for free—but, sadly, we’ve all got bills to pay until we abolish capitalism.) To adapt and make my art more accessible for everyone, I came up with the idea of pay-what-you-can digital downloads. You can pay as little as $1 for a downloadable copy of my poetry zines. Genuinely, I thought that more people would be excited by this option. Instead, I’m sitting here wondering why I’m not worth a dollar. This gloomy sentiment kind of leads in perfectly to one of the poems that I wrote for Wasted Words at Home:
A Writer Asks to be Loved
Everyone loves a writer
until a writer asks to be loved
and then it’s, “Oh, not the ‘L’ word again!”
and “just because moon rhymes with June
doesn’t mean we should be together.”
Everyone loves a writer
until they’re made the eternal muse
and every poem spewed
is a thinly veiled nod to you–
“You paint me as a cliché,
Is my nose really that big?
How could you be so cruel–
to tell all the world
exactly what I said and did?”
Everyone loves a writer
until they’re staring back at you in the mirror–
“Not this horrid face again–
I’m getting older every day
and all I’ve got to show for it is words
that nobody wants to read–
Is that the reason
you don’t love me?”
If you think that poetry zines are neat, if you like supporting struggling writers, if you occasionally like the words that I write, or maybe you just like me as a person—you can pay as much as you like (or as little as $1) for my poetry zines at my little online poem shop. As of the date this is being written, there’s only two downloadable items. However, I have big plans! Check back in August and I’m sure there will be a whole bunch more for you to choose from. If I still have your attention, I think that probably means that you enjoy my writing, so here’s one more poem for your troubles:
Too
I love too much–
too quickly, tooo soon.
My heart is tooooo all in,
my lips are toooo all over him.
I speak too much,
but say tooooo little.
I’m too easily seen,
but toooo hard to understand.
I’m too exposed, too raw–
taking up tooooooo much space–
too sensitive, tooooo sappy–
Too quick to spread my legs for a man who’s never
Too tall, or too bright, or too handsome, or too kind.
But I’m too much.
So I get too drunk–
Until I’m sputtering at the moon asking if it
would like for me to share my O’s with it–
Apparently, I have toooooooooo many.
Plonk & Pleasure 
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