You built your own gallows.
A rope & a kitchen chair.
Made the Savior Diet
of adderall & cigarettes
look junkie-chic fabulous.
A kick, a snap, &
blood rushing from her brain

It all seems so savage.

— from “A Rose for Karen”

There’s only so much bullshit one person can actually take. I sort of wonder what would have happened if maybe there was a fake smile involved somewhere, but that’s not reality. That’s not what this collection is about. That’s not what the selected works are here to show. The power of M. Tyler Esplin was his willingness to write life, exactly as life is, and not one bit more.

These poems dance like Burroughs and Ginsberg and Bukowski – unafraid to share their truth, regardless of whatever came because of it. These are conversations between friends, lovers, inmates, and acquaintances. These are the stories of someone who lived their life until there was no more. And then, unfortunately, there was no more.

But sometimes we feel like we are “lost / potential, a / wunderkind with a / habit of / reckless self-destruction / and I can’t understand how / things can be so perfect when / everything is in ruin.” It’s not all unicorns and rainbows, but such has become the expectation of life. M. Tyler Esplin just showed us how to cope with it.

Purchase your copy of We’re Dancing Like Planets Now from Line Rider Press.

death inmate life m. tyler esplin prison Romance