My Distraction Caller

My Distraction Caller


On the couch
the elevator doors open,
I can hear them through the flimsy wood.


Silence and the light tap on the door.


Looking up and then behind me out the window
I scurry to get some pants on;
I've been too lazy with myself
and too proactive with my occupation
that I look the poor but promising wanderer part.


The light tap again
and I pause.


I just wanted to be alone tonight
but what are friends for
but to keep you company
and your mind off things.


We'll play the games
and bitch the bitch
and laugh about the things
about the people closest to us.


And when you're gone
I'll go back to my spot
look out the window
and then continue my search again.


-Matthew Koutzun

The Fall

The Fall


I'm walking the streets again at midnight.
Not in the same fashion as before.


I'm leaving friends in the night
and not sneaking around with some amore.


The fallen leaves remind me of the times spent outside of apartments
and in cramped closet bedrooms on a tiny mattress
that we cramped and comfortably jigsawed onto.


I'm walking the streets again at midnight alone
Not in the same fashion as before.


I have bags in my hands instead of yours
and they bite in with weight instead of levity.


The lamps don't light the night enough
and I'm drowning in headphones
playing the moodiest stuff I can to hold onto a feeling.


I'm entering the apartment I keep letting go
because I'm losing the notion that I really have to keep it neat for someone.


I stay up online searching for something
although I never know what it is.


The bed is large and looming
the sheets scattered and sloppy 
from heat and window cold


I'm sleeping again
glad to be in the night and away from it.


I'm walking the streets again
kidding myself we find these things twice.


-Matthew Koutzun

Tiny Bull

Tiny Bull


Tiny bull
rampaging and striking the walls.
Locking horns
and grunting smoke
from nostrils
cartoonish
and boorish at best-


Let's dance.


I've cape
and donned the garb
and my manhood
pressed securely
in obscene sight
will only drive you madder
for all your conservativeness-


Let's brawl.


Dart forward-
I'll lunge.
Move quick-
I'll snake quicker.


Tiny bull
destroying mecca
I'll tie your ankles
and pin you down
and leave you here
to rot-


Let's dine.


Your meats too tough
we've left you now
victor spoils
and fan fare
and forgotten games-


We've played.


So tiny
not worth it
I have bigger bulls
to conquer-


I'm gone.


-Matthew Koutzun

Donning the Beast -or- Honouring the Monster and the Horror

Donning the Beast
-or-
Honouring the Monster and the Horror


The wolf is restless in me.
It wants manifestation.
It wants the mask to be donned
And for me to stalk the woods
to touch myself and others
and rip into the encounters
and darkness that it wants to remember
and let alone.


It was captured
and tamed and tasted blood again
oh tasted and revived
and hunts the forest like a tramp
sprawled and naked
tethered and released
and reaching- aching
for the meat it eats.


Oh the bones are showing
and the meal could be done
but not till the marrow is dust
and everything is striped.


Oh wolf in me,
run wild, run free
and say the vulgar
and the sweet
and the nectar that summons.
And lay in wait.
It will come,
Let us wait.
Prey will come.


-Matthew Koutzun

My Run on Thoughts of You

My Run on Thoughts of You

Fuck I still love you.
Though everyone says not to.
You live across an ocean but even the dates I've been on I sabotage because I think that if you were to know I'd lose any future with you.


I wake to a bed
and hide the pillow cases that smell of you
so that they aren't mistakenly put in the wash when parents come to visit so I have some constant of the things I gave back to you to "forget".


I thought of keeping them
so you'd come back
but I can't be selfish with your time nor your freedom you seeked thousands of miles away filled with experience and new adventure.


I don't want no hard feelings
nor you to have bad feelings from this.
But I long for the support you gave me and the support that I can't find from the people around me and the comfort of knowing you said things to save me.


I- I- I-
and I focus on me again.
Come back and let me be selfish again.
Let me be selfish and take some of your time.
Both of our youth can be combined to make an adult decision here.


I thought I was an adult
but I'm not and I wish you would tell me I am.
But my buts are confusing me as the contradictions are probably now confusing you so please stay but write so I have something to hold onto since you've blocked me on each path to you through texts, calls, and instant messengers- I hold no hard feelings for it, except that I miss you're words and hope you still feel something for mine, and that they don't lure you back here, but make you happy that you can still hold a place in this heart of mine that never can take you out no matter what people say and the pillow i keep to feel another beside me since I cannot sabotage it's affections that I substitute for yours not in desperation but in memory and dream- dream- dream- dream- and run on trains of thought.


Goodnight,
I sleep now
to search the night.
Eyes closed-
mind awake,
windows open
doors locked
and always welcomed.


-Matthew Koutzun

Damn Metaphorical Box Metaphors

Damn Metaphorical Box Metaphors


Trapped in a metaphorical box
is worse than the mime that made it
but it's not imaginary
nor is the claustrophobia it creates
of it's lack of support
or crushing walls of being able to see an outside world
that one cannot touch with invisible bounds.


Walls made with time and change
and hands that press up and brush against them 
to finally see what was forming around
and colliding and expanding
and coming in again
to press on the face and make you face
the lack of support
the bottom of the box has.


Bottomless box
of walls that we support ourselves with
holding ourselves up and losing strength
and faith
that maybe the bottom is the escape in the safety of what the box keeps us from.


Deception and inception of the thoughts you've given
how I hate the indecision and the decisions we can't make in political correctness.


If I had it my way
it would be a bandaid
ripped off and tossed away
and now onto another 
but the transition could be a long time 
before finding the new crutch.


I'm too young to be trapped
in something going nowhere and just for money
when I should be growing and learning.


I won't go down in flames or dramatics.


Just a small letter
and a leap somewhere else.


A leap anywhere.


Even down.


To the bottom that will eventually be there.


Because bottoms are never bottomless in these boxes
and to end is to begin again or so they've said.


So they've said.


But they've said that before
and I'm around in circles again.


Box,
I'm seeing past you.


I'm seeing nail and grain.


And I'm escaping.
I'm slowly leaving.
I'm creeping out so you won't notice.
But I do.
And you will soon.
When you need another.
And you realize you forced me out.
Oh I don't get paid enough for this.


-Matthew Koutzun