U.

Go freely like a green word
As my essential blue
Question with eternity
Elaborate the you

Defraud the profiteers of hate
The revelers of greed
Seek truth in torchlit tunnels
Set loose hope's tiny seed

You are fluidity in form
And every thought is new
Go forth and freely fly, my love
Elaborate the you

i'm not finished with you yet
not giving up
not done trying
so don't you think for one second
that you're not worth my time
when all else fades away
i'm still the one who called you
i'm still the one who lifted you up
then, and i can do it again
i'm still the one who died for you
i'm still the one who loves you more than anything
so let go of your need to hate yourself
and let me let you let me love you
one step at a time, okay?

Shrewd Haberdashery

I can feel your babylon breath on the back of my neck
And the smell as your caped centurion shoulders shake
Your hand reaching out for your sword,
Marked with a royal ring to place with all your worth
And the crown on your head quivers as the golden leaves wither
Falling for the rusty rake to take

It’s like i’ve spent my whole life waiting for somethin’ that doesn’t come
And though they say I should stay, all I know is how to run
All these cliches are poisons that we’ve drunk down easy
Call it what you want, but it’s a history of blood on our hands

Leave out the option of education
His books lost in lockers as he stays back in detention
Wants a better future but the money is the culprit
And the recruiter has a promise that your aid can’t give
So while he trains and hopes and hurts
And politicians work it out
The balance lost, who counts the cost
His new bride is now a widow

Who’s to blame? We’ve lost the shame
Just pick a name and take your aim
Nothing unites like a common enemy
Nothing ignites like a circle of silence
Who’s to know? It’s all for show
The bread and circus and undertow
Nothing persuades like an easy scape goat
Answer evade like the hope in your violence

And the ones who pay are always future generations
Are we the ones to say who will benefit from the nations
Lines kept drawn, erasers still heavier than pencils
But no ones writes in ink, no matter what they make you think

Swinging Cages

Sitting silent
Simply staring
Through lights and cables
And signals in the open air
Hundreds of miles apart
Our eyes meet
And the smiles spread
Across the distance
We could talk for hours
And often do
But you don't need words
To let me know
It's in everything you do and have done
It's in every breath you breathe
Wonder is the song you've always sung
And you're more than amazing to me
So drift, drift
Across this empty space
And don't you lie to me
'Cause all I want is honesty
Okay, maybe that's a lie
But you can have all of me
Just please don't say goodbye
It's hard enough to say goodnight

Porcelainium

These are the faces we wear
We've worn
Pain and the places we bear
Too torn
What's lost is lost
And I've cost you
Too much
To touch
This lightly
Till I become
So unsightly
For the crowd you held
And I have a hard time
Seeing anything
But this impossible
Dream come true
In a way
That I can't even
Comprehend
But I won't complain
I'll just take the pain
With the patience
And the pleasant way
You seem to stay
And always say
You will, you will
Do you know
How much it kills me?
Soon you'll see the corpse too
Pray these scales into feathers
So this dragon a phoenix may be
Otherwise these steaming tears
Goodbyes may prove to be
And alight within the new fears
For you are a danger
An addiction
And i swallow the pain
Like medicine
My muse is the melody herself
And the story she writes is her own
My hands bleed with each stroke

My hands are writing me lately.

Imperfect Inerrancy

cost of admission is empty hands
reads a posted sign of broken glass
stitched together more like old fabric
than a reflective surface
yet standing here in its face I can see myself
for who I've really been
and who i honestly am
is always waiting just ahead of me

breathless as the dawn
chasing after the shadow of a lesser you
you caught me by surprise
full in a beauty radiant
storm-cast on these barren shores
with the wind in your sails
your anchor still held your broken vessel
steadfastly to my eyes
bleed as they may
out a virus too catching
your smile just enough to prove

there's more ahead it seems
your red kite streaming high
shorter shadows twist at length in the grass
golden glimpses and speechless breaths
with you the absent melody
this song is at most a dirge
you're more than a hopeless harmony to me

at least this time
i hope you hear me
when i say
what it is
i came here to say

Nocturne

This room is a dungeon
Swinging light, your prison cell
The bars I see
Rusted yet mighty
Haunting the dark side
Of my eyelids

This city is a forest
Of marionette dolls
Countless strings ascend
Yet all eyes fall
And a soft breeze leads to
A subtle clattering
False teeth and
The incompleteness of time

This silence is a narcotic
Sold as a symptom in the whistling hours
Fearless cockroaches crawl
Across my skin
Invisible yet more apparent than you
Couldn't be my fault
Yet I blame myself again
And shutter...
Shutter

This absence is a cold blade
Suddenly warmed
By the shock and the bite
And the taste of my flesh
In my chest
Where it's warmest to hide
I don't blame it
Out here it is, after all,
So very frigid in fragility
But poor knife
To find only a hollow
And the beating echo
Of a skipping tape's
Magnetic laser loops
A tripping escape
Of hidden hoops
Which must be jumped through
Then remade again
In the likeness of
The one I miss
The one I love...

(This sigh is too scripted
This breath too rehearsed
This sleeplessness too familiar
This discomforting bed
All empty and waiting
For use it receives
Only in early morning
When exhaustion
Finally overrides
The conversation
I grow less and less
Able to hide)

Bless the Rain (or The Subtle Differences Between Good Dirt and Precious Soil)

I don't mind;
I just walk the line
Between loneliness and
Self-inflicted isolation.
I'll be fine, and you'll soon find
You've forgotten about me entirely
And that day at the train station.

It'll fade into history
Like the black and white mystery
It resembled.
You'll move on
As we both grow up
And get reassembled,
Two lonesome souls,
but you're better at pretending.

Since you never cared much,
'Cause I never really let you.
Don't think I'll forget you,
Just 'cause I try my hand at mending.
Pricked by needless needles,
Partially just to see if I still bleed,
But what comes out can leave no doubt that
You're still very much a part of me.

Sitting here in the dark and cold,
Pain meds and voices
Reassure me I'm not alone,
But without you it's almost too hard to believe.
The part that I played for you,
I promise that it stayed for you.
No matter how much I prayed for you,
Felt like you practically begged me to go.

All I wanted was to dance with you
On the cobblestones
Of my once forgotten home.

But I guess I knew it all along.
We heard two very different songs,
And now they play from far away
As breaths fall far apart.
And I'm okay, but where you'll stay,
Always in my heart,
Is simply an illusion of memory.

I wonder if you still think of me
From your world I could never really touch
Without this catastrophic guilt
Not unlike a fruit punch stain
On childhood carpet spilt.
When we both looked down in shame
And waited for the harsh reply.
But no one ever spoke a word,
And retribution never came,
So now I
Wonder why
That's all we ever heard.

I remember when you wrote
That life would suck without me,
As I'm contemplating why
You never spoke it aloud.
Sitting here silent
In solemn recognition,
Unsure of my own breath,
'Cause I can see your reasoning
So clearly now.

Finally free to feel again,
Just hoping I don't fail again.
Trying to reach out to
Anything left that's real within,
I can see the treads on this trail I dread.

Each step is consequently a stumble
Through the nothingness
I can only hope you're filling too.
I know so much the pain
We've both been going through.
I know so much the mud
We've both been wading in,
And now I pray every day
You too can learn to bless the rain
And love again.

Corinthians 13 (New International Version, ©2010)

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

my wall, yours too

you say i have it held in the palm of my hands
but my bleeding palms have been so empty for years
and on this side of the wall i've built and painted
with colors dark and wild
i assumed you couldn't see any piece of me
from the other side
but you know what they say
about assumptions
mine are usually wrong
and today
somehow
you were standing right next to me
holding me tightly
with your own healing hands

i really am.

don't cry in the valley
in the crater, in the crevice
don't cry in the alley
in the trench, in the foxhole
don't cry in the canyon
in the riverbed that's dried up
don't cry in the gap
the divide, or in the space
don't cry in the in between
the disconnect, the hollow space
don't cry in the ripping seam
the pothole, the drop-off

this is not a cliff
this is not an edge

nor is it a cup
nor is it an emptiness

not something to fill
not something to satisfy

this discontentment
this dissatisfaction

erosion is the anthem
pierce these paper-thin walls
egoism is the solace
catch the crisping ashes
the only tears a fire can shed

don't cry in the valley
your tears can't flood these mountain tops
the monuments will burn
and perhaps that will be enough

to convince you i'm not among the bodies
they'll count and place a flag in each of their shirt pockets
a mocking cross o'er each their graves
as shadows as long as the sun get bored with haunting
and cribs become stock markets

yield to your dreaming
and let my wishing
not harm your hoping

Dilotted

Beep!

There is something wrong!
I'm cut!
Cold!
Hungry!
Screams more like screeching!
All the tiny animals inside have been let out!
You're far away now.
You were, only a short time ago,
Right next to me...I want to stay by your side...

Beep!

Cheesy jokes on popsicle sticks.
Waiting for the vibration of a message.
Pain med highs lift veins but leave the pain!
I could go for pancakes! Kidnap me in your purse.
Or let me hide by your heart. Your hair spins one last
Time as you turn the corner.

Beep!

Everyones shift ends early and yesterday,
For a few minutes, I was a drunk irishman.

Beep!

"You're driving yourself?"
>grunt<
"Okay then. We'll give you directions."
?

Beep! BEEP! BEEEEEP!!!!

Rm.354

What is this dream I dream
Of fire and water
Dancing in the starlit
Pathways of the night
A racing clock, a hurried glance
That longing look
And fleeting moments
Where this weakened form does rise
Enough to catch a glimpse of joy
Entertain the kindness of a dear friend
And stranger
While my own blood counts my days alone

What is this dream I dream
Of prison cells line in neutral hues
Dulcet tones to while the hours
Which fade disharmoniously
Catching strained reflections
Of streetlights I may have
Imagined into being
Perchance they imagined me
And drifted off

What is this dream I dream
Of castle walls to climb
A Princess like a prism
Would separate and unite all spectrums
And begin to show a humanity
To her crystalline form
At the scattered shades
Of a Jester’s muted jokes
Among a court of colorless judges
And portraits
Of now shrouded princes

What is this dream I dream
As I drift off to night
Serenaded by machinations of medicine
In the place of my two-time birth
While shadows crawl on campus corners
And wars without winners mock the midnight whine
Of moans from other rooms
Small animals trapped in unfair bodies
And my own delusions of distance and fear

What is this dream I dream
Do you share it in your own head
Far off in your own bed
As I lie alone
Waiting for the white count
Waiting for the waking

Are We the Antithesis? (lyrics)

i remember riding in your car
you’d have my mind changed all the way around before we got there
i remember talkin’ to you on the phone
when you were too drunk to care
i remember sayin you were my best friend
thinkin’ you were like the brother i never had

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way

i remember when i saw her open up a little
let me know ‘bout the way you treated my only kin
you tell me still that you wanna marry her someday
but i swore long ago i’d never let you touch her again
i remember sayin you were my best friend
thinkin’ you were like the brother i never had

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way
forgiveness means breaking walls
but it doesn’t mean that i fall
for the same old tricks that i did just yesterday

i remember more than anything the guilt and the pain
and i remember you telling me how much you had changed
i remember how i used to be so terrified of you
but now just watch me shake your hand and walk away

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way
forgiveness means breaking walls
but it doesn’t mean that i fall
for the same old tricks that i did just yesterday

Syren and the Serpent's Song

A pretty smile shows off the faintest of fangs
As I catch you making eyes at some other stupid guys
In sequence I see their expectations rise
Onto the next kill while the thrill from the last one still hangs

On the tips of your teeth or on the ledge of your lip
On the crust of your lust they feel the flavor they felled
Your shell’s hot as hell, but you need serious help
‘Cause your cliff’s about to crumble and you’re losing your grip

Wish I could say I look back fondly on our staring contest
We told each other we were both so great
But really I was just another one you’d teach how to hate
A narrow escape, with these pathetic poetics I now heavy-heartedly confess

Thought I could trust you, thought I knew how to deal
But the evidence is faulty and I think you might be crazy
I was emotionally disturbed and maybe gotta a little lazy
But now I see your eyes are liars and your words aren’t real

Forgive me if a bit of bitterness shows through
A product of my thinly veiled cynicism
I think maybe in being cut by your perfect prism
I didn’t see the way this life was beginning to shatter you too

For all those lives you take so you don’t feel dead
I’m just another brittle boy who was caught unaware
But I guess we’re both to blame, standing alone somewhere out there
And some things have gone on for far too long unsaid

A pretty smile conceals the traces of tracks that tears take
As I catch you looking away in a way that I’d miss with a blink
Do the lies of labels make us who we are, expectations, rethink
Maybe we play our parts and break these hearts for fear’s sake

Home? What's that? Indeed.

There's a lightness to the land
I'm not at home on my own two feet
While waves and empty hands
Both shake within the weight beneath

My mind is a closed door
With so much open space inside for
A universe of thoughts waiting to collide inside
Your voice, in a familiar key
Melodiously beckons me
To the beat of this slowly widening tide

There's a heartbeat to these rocks
And all the proof I need is hidden there
At the edge where the continent stops
Where the wind winds wistfully her haloed hair

My mind is a collapsing maze
And I've been known to get lost in there for days
Looking for a way to find myself without losing who I am
My doubts resigning
With your eyes and mine aligning
Remind me that I don't have to go back to who I've been

You're teaching me how to be
A more connected kind of me
This distance is the sea
But the water is beckoning
You're reaching out, I see
Our arms like a bridge there in between
Hold tight to this fragility
And wait until the reckoning
(Oh dear, how you're wreckin' me)

My mind is a broken centrifuge
And a summertime attempt at luge
'Cause I'll spin round and round and stay right there in the dust too
When all my familiar lies
Choke me tight like courtroom neckties
You walk in so informal as if its normal to expect me to trust you

There's a lightness to the land
I'm not at home on my own two feet
As you reach out a welcoming hand
And speechlessness takes the place of warning

Old Habits

Watch me go
I'm already gone
I was never really here
But you should know
I was always wrong
And it's quickly becoming clear

That we are what we are
And if that's changing
Maybe I've made it for the worse
Have we already gone too far
To accept the estranging
This pattern is my curse

What do you do when it seems like speaking the truth in love isn't the same thing as speaking the truth in kindness?

What do you do when, in attempting to remove your mask, you notice a line of people waiting to replace it with their own?

What do you do when you're an alien or a shadow or a broken toy?

What do you do when the curtains open and you've forgotten all your lines?

What do you do when you know there's more but everyone else is settling?

What do you do when maybe you're wrong?

What do you do when sleep runs away at night and chases you down all day?

What do you do when comfort is nowhere to be found and home is too much an abstraction?

What do you do when it doesn't feel worth it to trust 'cause they'll probably end up hating you anyway?

What do you do when you catch a glimpse of the hurt in the world and it kills you?

What do you do...ever?

This is the Dark Side of Shallow Conversations

The house sat silent
For the first time in its long life
I'm sure it creaked when it was made

There were statues made of cobwebs
Painting every corner a shade of ages past
A legacy of leftover and half-forgotten promises

The utter emptiness of it
Even when filled to the brim
Was a wailing of its own

But now it no longer stood
Screaming its shutters off
But sat silent and serene

Perfect in quiet
Reflected in the sky of memories
And burning, slowly, to the ground

I watched from beneath the canopy
Of the valley trees
Looking up at the nostalgic flames

That Cat Probably Followed Us for About the Past Five Blocks

Are those wrecking balls
I hear your walls are closin' in
From across the way
Did someone say
They found a way to get back in
Now all the ears are itchin' for
Needles just for stitchin' your
Rippin' seams the way that they see fit
No matter how you fight or try to hide,
Seems they won't quite quit

And now everyday's a war winnin' nothin' back
You're not chased by your past, 'cause it doesn't even need to try
What can I say, this beat up horse is off the old beaten track
And no one can see that you were meant to fly
Locked in cages for ages made of ears and teeth and tiny pretty pieces of the sky

With a word writ in dirt as your jaded eyes bleed
Look up with your mask, never dare ask, "why me"

Oceans away from these open arms
Though your sitting closer than either one of us can believe
Hope is a wave that has caused you so much harm
But right now it seems to have brought you here to me

And I wish I could save you
But I'm not good like everyone else
When I can barely face you
It's only because I'm ashamed of myself

And then you smile and look so intently on
And your hands are your voice, and your eyes are your song
And for an instant I think I have met you for the first time
And I know everything will turn out fine

Hot Coffee, Cold Water, Eyes Look Down

A catching in your breath
You don't know what to say
A racing in your chest
As love wanders away

Up a flight of stairs
Like a ghost of something real
An exoskeleton
Forgetting how to feel

She says she doesn't know how
To breathe the same stale air
To put on the same uniform
And the mask she's s'posed to wear

You say she doesn't have to
But she acts like you're a lie
And you wonder if it's your fault
When she says she wants to die

Are you just another luster
That's been lost from its old ore
Or are you hidden somewhere deep inside
A now bereft and burnt-out core

Yeah, you don't know what to say
But you've been trying to figure out
What if anything she'd listen to
Of love without a doubt

But the world's beaten her black and blue
For the beautiful and vain
But you know there's so much more to her
So much more it drives you insane

Now you'd love to be her only one
But you know you're not what she needs
A savior who knows her every step
But loves her for more than her good deeds

Someone who loves her in her heavy heart
Someone who holds her deep inside
Someone who knows her and meets her in the dark
And comforts her when she cries

And no matter how much you want it
You still don't know what to say
To make her see the worth she has
As love wanders away

Yeah, no matter how much you say it
Right now all you can do is pray
And it kills you 'cause you know it's killin' her
As love wanders away

3 haikus

No longer waiting
To understand who you are
But rather trusting

This is a danger
But right now in this moment
No better cliff-edge

There was a sadness
As I sat discontented
But here is the smile

Slivers and Shards

I am not, for
I am become the anachronism
Among actors I wear no mask
For my very flesh and bone
is a drama set against me
And every tearing fiber, every ripping seam
Is only an illusion, and I
Out of place
Reside within the wrong puzzle-box, for
Even those jumbled
Still have some place to land
Even those broken
Are pieces like unto the set, yet
I do not own in any way belonging, and so am
to the point of desire
To rip out the blood red eyes from this head
To scream and suffocate on the sweat
from this stranger’s bed
To lie among crow’s feathers and feces
and call myself an owl
So as to wearily ascend
And never return
Save by a piercing screech
and hallowed howl
And that moonlit night with its
weakening scowl
And then descend
And land among the water fowl
A dripping, drowning grave to make
Is that my only fate
Or am I to acquiesce to a doctrine of...
Of no action, no nothing, nothing but...
In a world where worth weighs on what I can do
For the good, for the them, for the me, for the you
But...
IT’S NOT MY WORLD!
This is a hopeless, hollow home, these brittle bones
The mirror mocks and so do your compliments, your opinions
STOP!
...please...leave me alone.
I don’t know who you are, and as
For me, there’s really nothing to know; this
Is really a one-way street, and something
Probably got lost in translation
‘Cause your club’s code is one I don’t know
But let me play along just one more hour
or so
And I’ll show you how much one tiny glitch (like me)
can make your whole system crash...

"The good - have always been the beginning of the end."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

ShatterProof

So you've seen sick, get set for twisted
Don't know what it's like, but I know the feeling
Facing your fears like false horizons
When the light seems so warm and bright beyond this glass ceiling

So you've seemed sad, what happened to you
Is there always a reason for the breaking
We compare all our sob stories
And lament at ill-intents in the time it is taking

So you've sewn seeds of solipsism in your eyes
Always giving glares of gleeful grimness to your only friend
Hoping someone out there saves you
Hoping someone out there believes you can be saved in the end

So you've sat silently for some time here alone
As they label you with lies you accept out of guilt
The screaming voices harmonizing with the passing moments
As you twist the knife into a wound out of which no blood was spilt

So you've secretly seduced so many hearts to hope
In a desperate effort to earn redemption on your own
But this despair within delineates a falling now familiar
So you twist and turn and never learn to burn up this anguish all alone

A Culture of Cognitive Dissonance

For years I have contemplated what it means to have a culture. Ethnically, I’ve felt somewhat out of place in the conversation, as, though my last name is German, my bio-geographical roots extend across a much larger portion of Western Europe than just the Rhineland and also some parts of Canada. In a practical sense, however, the only note I have made of my ethnic background playing a part in my cultural development was the sauerkraut served at Thanksgiving. For the most part I feel like my cultural upbringing was one based out of the moral and philosophical ideologies of my parents, the local area in which I grew up, and the societal ebb and flow of the late 20th to early 21st Century American landscape out of which I derived some basic personhood.
I use the particular word personhood because my parents’ philosophy on raising me and my sister centered around the idea that their job was not simply to raise us to be good kids but to be good adults someday. My house was always full of books and art supplies growing up, stories and imaginations very strongly encouraged. But above all else was the idea that my parents loved me, that God loved me, and that I was to love others. The golden rule, treat others as you want to be treated, was strongly encouraged, and every Sunday, we would find ourselves at the Sunday morning Church service. Christian morality as it relates to the treatment of the other, as well as a uniquely encouraging viewpoint on creative expression and individual intellectualism led to a strong ideal that God gave us a brain for a reason: to grow, to learn, to think deeply and uniquely, and, above all else, to help others. Even though there are inevitably parts of anyone’s childhood that are definitely self-centered, this was an upbringing which purposefully encouraged a selfless outlook.
Caring for the other is especially important when growing up in an area where, for the most part, strangers don’t talk too much. There’s something I learned at a young age, which, in other parts of the country, is often referred to as the New England bubble. There’s a distance that folks stay away from other folks in the South Shore, a polite ownership to one’s own business and respect for another’s that isn’t necessarily unique to this area so much as a staple of many urban/suburban communities that played itself out in a very specific way to my childhood mind. Whereas in some parts of the country, everyone knows everyone’s business and it’s a town-sized family of sorts (at least that’s the stereotype), in my experience growing up in Quincy, I found there to be specific connections, such as family friends, church folks, people with whom my parents worked, and blood family to be, in varying degrees, those with whom we shared a friendly and open connection of trust. However, people we didn’t know were strangers, not necessarily in a dangerous kind of way, but there was a distance between myself and the other, a respectful, impersonal distance. Coming back here for college, I’ve realized this is much more a lenient idea than I once thought, but it still stood to my young self as a starkly contrasting (to my inner life), though unquestioned, reality of the outside world.
What was this outside world? To me it appeared to be a world somehow synchronized with, though in great friction to, the Christian subculture in the background of my life. Until I was about twelve or thirteen and confronted by bigotedly anti-patriotic Christians my own age, I was convinced that the Christian moral structure and blatantly American nationalism were hand-in-hand bosom buddies. Flag day parades and Fourth of July fireworks rip-roared their way into Church ceremony, accompanied by the sight of American flags in the sanctuary. When finally I was confronted by the stark contrast between many of America’s policies and behaviors and the Gospel of Jesus, I had already spent pretty much all of my childhood indoctrinated, if not by the politics, by the underlying, overwhelmingly consumeristic culture that is contemporary America.
This is what first came into my head when I began thinking about my “culture”—a fast-food-fed, celebrity-centered, shopaholic society driven by the desire to fill up empty lives with the newest trend, the newest fast-paced entertainment, brain-washed by a media more concerned with rumor than truth, where leaders are expected to be liars and “broken family” seems redundant. I grew up in a culture where any intellectualism led me to cynicism, any faith led me to despair, and any question led to more and more questions. Spending Saturday mornings learning about heroism from a colorful super-powered being just too good to be true on TV and Sunday morning learning just about the same kinda thing from a pulpit, I would then have to go to school and learn all about real life, the harsh, melancholy, mediocre kind that forces you to box up your dreams and write paragraphs in cursive. For some reason this dichotomy struck me more and more as I grew, of the fantastically or morally heroic starkly contrasted with the apparent villainy of the every day suppression found in structure and institution.
It was this tension, lessons from stories and lessons from the story-killers, that taught me to walk in a strange bipedal balance. One leg walked the world of that which I was taught from the words people said and the other from the way people actually acted. Very little, if anything, was innately mine from birth; I was given (or took for myself) all things I know and am. In this certainty, I would say for all people that culture is something we gain more than anything from the tension between word and deed in those around us. The closer they are to us, the more influence this tension has. The more the synchronicity, the more we can form a symbiosis with that cultural pattern, otherwise we must deceive ourselves to the point of living as “one of them” or find a different place, group, or way. Still today, I grasp at the threads of this tension, growing through the ripping of seams and the tightening of knots, hoping and praying that the right stuff is held and the right stuff is lost. Until my strings all snap, there will be a continuous cultural influence on my life and heart, as I myself try to balance word and deed in the ebb and flow of understanding and existence.

Fading

Are you bleeding, burdened
Choked by the boxes, locked tight to keep your hurt in
From those boys who've beaten and battered you broken
So the cycle continues from words left unspoken
Running into any arms that are even halfway open
Pretending as if this is an okay way to cope and
Not thinking for a second that you could put your hope in
Something more than the shady, shattered shoreline
Of coast to coast crossings where you've been picking up cargo
Something more than the memories that haunt your mind
So much so that sleep is a commodity lost long ago
From trying to tie up your sinking ship at any port o' call
That would offer you a soft respite whether it knew you there at all
Or simply like the way your sea legs looked in that dress
All the land-lubbin' liars kept callin' you Miss Mess
'Cause with you came the storm and those tiny sea towns
Were lost to the water, but not once did you drown
On and on did you float somewhere out on the sea
Just one with the waves and the fish and the breeze
Though your hair smelled like mountains and flowers up high
And your hands were as soft as a bright, cloudless sky
Through which song birds came soaring and no rain was pouring
And all was a wonder and not a moment was boring
But with each sure swift smile, the weight of your words
"I don't know," slowly shoos every one of those birds
And the clouds they roll in for a second to see
A bit of your true self, some small speck of honesty
And in that moment, the sorrow shone through
A hidden beauty deeper than the skies deepest blue
Came radiating out like the rays of the sun
And in your moonlit eyes, I saw the desire to run
Residing right next to the desire to stay
The choice is now yours, and yours alone to make today

House

The facade presented itself plainly and elegantly before me, though the structure, in truth, seemed to face the ocean on the other side. There was a clean and yet still appropriately aged look to it, evident in the slight peeling of the white paint and the way the porch may have creaked a little when I made my way cautiously to the door. From the path, I hadn’t noticed its color as much, but here it stood before me, the gate’s face, a bright and challenging sort of red. It was an annoyingly simple design for a front door, but only so in that it still held its own presumptuous self up in a surprising display of boasting.

My eyes traced the shifting wood down to a lustrous and intricate gold-colored brass orb, peeling as well, fading out in the most lovely way. I reached out and the knob began to turn, somehow warm to the touch as if, perhaps, it hadn’t been so long since my last visit. I don’t remember closing it behind me, the door I mean, but I suppose it must have been closed at some point, securely, though there were no locks.

I felt safe there. And in this new hallway that wrapped itself warmly around me, I felt so welcome. I was home, sort of.

There was a large map that followed me as I walked toward the next room. It was not a map of any place in particular, but it was old and filled with all the places I had ever been or wished I had been. On second thought, I don’t think the map was of any real place at all.

As I walked into the living room, I noticed some photos on the wall. They were old pictures of smiling people without faces.

There was a wide window there that let in the warm sun and let it dance on the carpet where I sat, barefoot, humming a tuneless melody to myself for a while.

There was an emptiness to the bedroom as well as the fridge in the unused kitchen, but when I made it to the last room, she sat with the strangest look on her pretty face and astoundingly good posture. She was looking out the back window at the sea. There was a longing in her eyes and a nervousness to the way she clutched the arms of the unmoving rocking chair. She looked elegant, stoic, and picturesque, as if she belonged in this house more than I did. She probably does, I thought.

Then she looked up and saw me looking at her from the doorway. There was a moment of perfect shattering silence. For the first time I noticed that there was no longer any sunlight, that the light in the room had only been the moon reflecting from the window off of her pale face. A cloud passed across the moon in that forever moment when her eyes met mine and all went dark. I couldn’t see a thing, yet, as always, she saw right through me, and I could feel it like a cold breeze on a summer’s day, chilling even sun-warmed skin.

In the darkness, I took a breath and lightning flashed. In that half-second, she was standing right in front of me, looking up hauntingly, longingly. Then, with the crack of thunder and the returning darkness, she was gone. I walked over to the window, taking note of the sea’s waves rising above the cliff in their tempestuous clashing. I shut the window, but I did not stop the moving of the rocking chair. Evidence, I thought.

Everything in that house was old then. Everything was cold and fading. In the shifting light my hands before me were ghostly and translucent. I too, was fading.

I heard voices coming from the kitchen and left the room with a permanence to my steps. The ceiling light was on, and there was a crowd of people standing below in the passageway blocking my path and my sight. Their voices blurred into hushed conversation and whispers with words loud enough to hear yet too secretive and implicating to understand.

Every eye glanced and glared as I traced a shaky path toward the group. They cleared away, avoiding even the slightest touch as I walked through into the kitchen, which now seemed much smaller than before.

By the counter she stood, head down, sea-salt storm air gliding through the curtains behind her and dancing with her hair as it fell across her face. The boisterous whispering behind me hushed itself. She looked up just a little.

My breath caught. How I hadn’t noticed it before, I did not know. She was, somehow similar in appearance to almost every attractive girl I had ever met, yet so much more so and completely, completely different. Utterly unlike any other girl I had ever known, she was more real than anything in the house, than the house, than anything. My heart was tied inexplicably to hers, and there came over its beating the strangest and wildest enchantment. She was the most astonishingly beautiful girl I had ever seen, and she was crying her eyes out. In between choking gasps, her soft voice ripped holes through my heart.

“How could you?” she pleaded with a voice like crimson glass, “Why did you let me believe that you loved me?”

I didn’t know what to say or what was happening, but she continued.

“You led me on and then just let me down. In big and small ways you’ve broken my heart over and over a thousand times, taking it from me when it wasn’t yours to have, stealing the innocence of my heart and soul with your jokes and games and teasing and compliments and...and promises. You’ve shattered me, made me an object to use or a prize to win. Then, then you get bored with me when something better or prettier comes along, and since you never had any plans of committing to a person’s trust, you run after the new prize. ‘Cause you can’t trust at all, can you? You were too scared.” She gasped, “We were both scared, okay? But this...why...just why?”

I had no idea what to say. I wanted to say something, to do something, to apologize, to hold her and wipe away her tears, to do...something, anything. I didn’t. I couldn’t. No, I wouldn’t. I was stuck in place, immobile in my thoughts. I heard the group behind me renew their whispering, hateful gossip burning up the back of my neck. I remember I had recognized them from the pictures in the living room, old friends, their faces now filled in, though no longer smiling.

She wiped her eyes and took a sip of water from a glass on the counter. When she removed her lips from the glass, there was blood on the rim. I took a step toward her, but a hand grabbed my shoulder and stopped me. She walked out the back door, quiet as a phantom. Agony met me as my jailers held me back. I watched her, pixelated through the screen door. She walked like a shadow, tangled up in the curtains of rain. Far off and yet only a few footsteps away she was, and ever retreating.

I could see the waves crashing across the cliff-face, the breakers rising higher than her head as she approached the edge. I shoved off the hand on my shoulder and ran to the door, flinging it open and rushing after her, my hand outstretched in desperation. My foot slipped in the mud, and I crashed landed at full speed, head on into the ground. Quickly, I pushed myself up, ran my arm across my mud-covered face and cried out to her. “HEY!” My voice was weak, broken, and alien.

She didn’t even turn around. She just kept walking, and then suddenly dropped right off the edge of the cliff. Behind me I could almost feel the flames as, even in the pouring rain, that bloody house of my burned swiftly to the ground, leaving me to choke on mud and ashes.

Black and Blue

PART 1- Blue

Foresight forms a folly
Thought I could prevent it
But fate is a fire
That burns so presumptuously
And I count the sharp edges
Of this splintered wheel

Forsaking the safety
Of sure ground
To try my best
Which isn't a best
Of anything
But it's something

The right
The good
I tried to do
By you, for you
And failed, of course
I've failed you
Haven't I?
Admit it...

But you say,
"Nothing's changed."
Another lie, really?
Really?

Days change in moments
Faces change in thoughts
But this is timeless
And you are faceless
(And I feel thoughtless)
But I've been thinking

My dreams shape you
And you shape my dreams
Till waking is a lie
And so am I
From further off
We fight for such a folly
And speak not
(Good)bye...

PART 2- Black

This dark possession
A blurred, shadowed perspective

Perfect, plated armor
Scaled like a snake
Who slips in and out
Beneath cool rocks
Away from the piercing, noonday sun
Then warms herself
When her back has grown too cold
Flicking tongue scenting the wind

Tiny, winding pathways
Through the golden, crisping sand
Each grain resounding
A tiny world

Ageless memory
The echos of thoughts
Each a sliver of a still-beating heart
Held within your skeleton cage

The carnage corpse
The vulture's carrion

Yet still the heart beats

Felt beneath bare, blistered toes
Of nomadic themes
Incarnate in winding fabric
Face hidden by the folds
Of neutral colors, camouflaged and coarse

Diverting for an instant of thirst
By an oasis once familiar
To your soft steps

And still your sun-bleached hand falls limp
And fingers wander in familiarity with the inch-high waves
Even now, so as he cups his calloused hands
To drink, not sensing the poison

A swift respite
To become himself a skeleton cage
For his still beating heart

Part 3- And...

we close
our eyes
opportunities
are lies
benefit
the bigshots
on top
but don't stop
the fallout
it's not...
...possible
...potential
...practical
...pliable
...passable
...palatable
...presentable

But it is...
...perishable...
Ain't it?

Than Moonlight

there's the door
you showed me
with your words
there it is
and here i am
waiting
for you
to say you're
only kidding
to say you're
gonna be okay
to you're
fine with me
here
and not
without me
but the
cycle continues
and
never stops
they say
they talk
too much
and i don't like them
but they are
after all
your best friends
and i was just
your closest
do you think
that perhaps
i got
too close?
do you think
just perhaps
i cared
too much?
do you think
just perhaps
you'll be fine
without me?
do you think
i've thought of everything?
'cause
i haven't
no
i haven't
got a clue
and all i would give
just to let you know
how much i'd give
for you
is cut
by your chance
to sever the ties
and be free
from guys
like him
like him
like him
like me
and that
is much more
important
than moonlight

Pretend

Let's pretend I didn't say a word
Over and over again you try to avoid this attraction
Let's pretend like we're not pretending
Over and over again you try to delay this distraction

Cycle in and out of the resonating sound
The chimes of insufficiency are still what lies around
And sing every note as you wait by the cold air
Big doors won't close as the windows are bolted
Tell me I'm the only one you've been waiting for
And I'll tell you that's a lie and you know it

Break down these walls if you want to
But I won't force you, I won't try to make you do
All of those things you know you ought to
But you can't hide the truth, you're much smarter than they pretend

this is not romance so much as a bad film

i'm a fake smile and you're showing your teeth
i'm resting my eyes while your eyes roll
i'm bleeding here and you're breaking my every bone
but at least i know that i'm not alone

Feel This Falling

Hands in his pockets
Makes his way down Hancock street
The cars race past
The shifting shadows shooting fast past his shuffling feet
Feels more alone than he has in a while tonight
But he still goes back to that place where it’s not right

So much left to say
It’s all been said before
Too many empty words
And still he could do much more
He’s heard it all and still felt so alone
But walls don’t fall down on their own

In a quiet affair with tragedy
But sometimes you can see the scars
When he smiles there’s a weight there
He likes the feel of your hand by his heart
But even with your body so close to his
There’s a distance, a disconnect, and so much amiss

It’s not about the feelings
And it’s not about the truth
If facts could make us human
Then books would live lives for you
And they’d do better than he is, by the way it looks
‘Cause only monsters burn books

...shove...

Could I be the one to cut the ropes
Of the sandbags so that your balloon can float
Higher without the burden of weight
The pain that you carry, a lift to create

Could I be the ear that hears your thought
The secret thought they thought was not
When all you've got has turned to rust
In the rain of days spent without trust

Could I be the dry ground that catches each tear
And builds until the water clear
Has formed a lake and rivers and streams
Down which to float impassioned dreams

Could I be the boat to sails you to shore
From shore to shore and just one more
Till one day you find where you belong
And leave me on the beach and just go on

Could I be the one way street, the intersection
Could I be the bittersweet of intervention
Could you see the me I try to portray
Instead of this me you say you cannot hate

Could I be the one who's in control
Instead of the one who's lost his hold
Instead of the one who wants it to be just you
When you ask instead that I try now to trust you

Could I be? I don't know...
Will you let me or just let me go?

Rubber Cement

Puppets? Did we become so willingly
Hang our heads and ourselves attach these strings
Did we hollow out our spines
'Cause I can almost feel the hand behind this mouth of mine
These words are not my own
And neither are these new and strangely jointed bones

With all you’ve lost in the midst of this
Wonder how they all act like it’s victimless
The bodies pile high in the corners of your mind
Ensnared, enraptured by the serpent’s kiss
If they dusted this room for fingerprints
Can you tell me now, how many would they find?

Did you assume that they couldn’t lie
With those shaking hands and adulterous eyes
Till the cycle repeats and you’re the one left holding the gun
Now you talk as if there’s no one left to trust
Your castle crumbling down into the dust
Where you try to hide when there's nowhere left to run

You have everything, or at least that’s the way it seems
Chasing singularly after a brokenhearted dream
Even with everything, you still haven’t found just what you mean
When you say you’re looking for something more
‘Cause your mind is a maze that keeps on changing
And your heart is a crime scene behind a closed door

So put on your show
They'll never know
That it's not really you
Who pulls the strings
Who does a thing
All those pretty, empty things you do

So put on your mask
And we’ll all forget to ask
What’s really going on
Do you remember what it’s like to feel
When your real self’s been concealed
And calloused from wearin’ that armor for so long

Meteor Shower

Another night
cold, waking alone
far from his bed
sleepwalking
now woken
to the soft grass
beneath his head
from where he tread
to where he lay
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

a soft breeze
cooling the summer air
shaking the shaded leaves
as his eyes flutter open
young and disbelieving
jaded yet still hoping
stare up at stars and moon through trees
a calming, complacent, cold unease
as the air begins to shake
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

did he sleepwalk
or did he run
just wanting to be not there
where walls and regulations
fights and frivolous duties
school and home and work
and friends who only pretend to care
so did his dreams lead him to the open air
feeling his brain begin to bend and sway
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

and there upon that hilltop
as he staggers to the edge
by an ancient tree that casts shadows by the moon
as clouds swim lazily across a sky
a sky now growing fierce
tiny specks of red approaching fast
a swift descent, such distance to fall
alien flames, the invading harbingers of doom
as he begins to contemplate returning to his empty room
and looks up for a second before his first step is made
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

obsidian, smoothed by the friction of their flight
shadow metal crashing, colliding through the sky
a collision course with the last free land of the last continent on Earth
their origin unknown, soon eyes will wake to their falling
surely he can't be the only one awake
surely he is not the only one to escape this inevitability
though such whispers were spoken, had been spoken from his birth
words of prophecy and curses, in which he'd placed little worth
till now, when he watches helpless as his home is destroyed in flame
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

Painting the Roses Red

forget to feel
you know you wanna
just forget all about it
you used to believe
you could be somebody
but lately you doubt it

is anything real
you know you've gotta
find a way around it
you used to believe
there was something out there
but you never found it

try hard to steal
you know all the ways away
except from how much you're hurtin'
you used to believe
you could be such a blessing
but now you feel like such a burden

it's a bad deal
you sigh, just shakin' your head
givin' up like you had already known it
you used to believe
you didn't have to do this alone
but were never really shown it

another broken seal
i'll do whatever it takes to save you
though i know i'm no kind of savior
you used to believe
that you hid the scars so well
but i've been watchin' your behavior

like a ship without a keel
what holds you together is the mystery
as you leave clue after clue to your brokenness
you used to believe
that you were completely irreparable
but together, i think we can fix whatever's broken it

Stretch the Tape

I tried to not buy into the alibis you hide on a shelf
Up high, but lately I’ve been wishing I was somebody else
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

I lied when I said I was fine anytime I was asked this lately
But I’ve been wanting to cry and to hide from all those that hate me
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

I died a little bit more inside than I’ve ever really tried or planned
Colliding with a sky that reminds me of the time I held your hand
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

So why is this the lie we perpetuate and divide by each time we speak
As I’m blind and you’re alright and tonight was not a sight seeming to be so bleak
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you
J-just tryin’ to r-r-reach you

The Facts are a Misrepresentation of the Truth

The rain drips in spirals
Slips in sinkholes
Mud, mixed with blood
Blinds our burning eyes
The slow decay
The bricks we've laid
To fix the bridges we've burned
And let the water flow under
Like some lost lesson learned
But never understood
So I'll flip up my hood
And walk off into the dark
Always your closest enemy
Whatever did you want with me and my half-human heart?

Cut the cords to watch them fall
From heights of hope
Sparks, the wires, setting fires
On statue faces in perfect places
Lost like a home gone south
And a princess in a high tower
Made of shining ice
Always reflecting back my own faults and dreams
In her gilded eyes
The glitter of ancient parades still infusing the dust
The helium hallucinogens still such a lift
But there's no escape from the consumer claws
A class of their own, these little voices say

Are these the scrapers?
Is this the snow?
A winter scape
Within which we wallow the whiles
Under a burning sun
Foreshadowing with its noonday light
Of the shifting shades
And your hand in mind
An ashy taste in my mouth
The saccharine and quinine
A bittersweet mirage of Cheshire shape

Happy unbirthday to the raven at her desk
The gold within her hairline, the clock within her chest
Beating just off-time with my own
So close, too close, not close enough
And back again, surrounded and alone
Your closest enemy, I never wanted to be
Whatever did you want with me?

Autumn

Looks like you’re moving on
Got good and goin’ gone
And though it’s been so long
Thought we were goin’ strong
And though it’s been a while
Just one smile and the right turns wrong
The wrong melody to the same old song

And it looks like you’re passing through
What ever happened to you
To lead you back to this place you didn’t want to
What will you ever do
To lead along with lines
Like everything is fine, but we both know the truth
A few new clues but the same old proof

Maybe it’s time

We took a hint from the leaves that fall
And find our own reason
To turn, to turn
A cold shoulder to the fire that
Could burn, could burn
Our lives away

But i’ll still be around for a season
Although... even the seasons change

Looks like you’ve figured out
That we’re both filled with doubts
And contradictions now
About just when or if or how
This could ever be right
And it just might have if everything hadn’t fallen down
Into the places it has with a much more certain sound
Don’t doubt that it still hurts to see you around

Maybe i’m blind
But you’ve led me into the darkest pathways
Holding my hand the whole time
In spite, in spite
Of everything you said you knew
Was right, was right
You would still say
That it was so nice to have this for a season
And you’d forsake all else for more than a season
That it’s not wrong yet, ‘cause it’s only a season
But you know... even the seasons change

And fire burns much brighter
But my heart is growing lighter
This wasn't meant to spite her
I wish I could still save her
I'm not a boy anymore, I am a man, now maybe
But still I am no kind of savior

So as the leaves fall
Let your burdens to
Who knows if this is the last song
I'll write for you

A Day Away (Holiday in my Head)

Born with concrete wings clipped,
Taught only the language of leaving,
Is there anything left to hold, I wonder, and
Whose air am I breathing?

Sometimes I want to burn things just to feel the fire
And they say it’s a phase the way the shadows fall
Take the pills and we’ll pretend we listen
Your dreams are too obscene to be believed, just dismiss them

Hello, I’m still alive
And so unsatisfied
There’s a brokenness, I know you know
We love, we laugh, we live a lie
And act like we’re alright
We surely can’t stay, but there’s no good way to go

Sometimes I wonder if we, ourselves, are the antithesis
But sometimes I play by the rules I’ve been given
Read the script and forget that its just this:
Your politics are counterfeit and I worry about what I’ve missed

Goodbye, I’m still a lie
And so dissatisfied
There’s a callousness here on my own
We beg, we borrow, we bid, we bite
And act just like we might
Play for another day, but I’m nowhere near okay alone

The swirling lights, the sounds and sights
All around tonight, distractions we can’t fight
Entertain us till we bleed you profit
You are the king we’ve appointed
The idol we’ve daily anointed
The only despot we’ve got, and we won’t stop it

Well, good try
Could I be satisfied
With a world more real, or is that too bold
We hide, we hate, we hold on tight
A good sense of wrong and right
In burning plain sensibility that still leaves me cold

Hello, goodbye
I am a possum on the side of the road
And I’m not playing anymore

I Write Stupid Poems (For You?)

I write stupid poems
For stupid reasons
Hardly
Poetic (?)
I don't even
Write
I bleed
In spurts of thought
Obsessive
Derivative, I think
Too much
Organize strangely
Poorly, pathetically
Unorganized
Blips and clips
Blurbs of fallout
Burning sparks
Of emotional feces
Annoying, uncomfortable
Yet somehow still
Light
Enough by which
To see
Something
With those shining eyes
That blind me
Till I have
No idea what
To do
But write stupid poems

Literacy

Don't tell me
Haunting words that go unspoken
Don't sell me
Placebo curse for hearts so broken

These secret glances take my breath till I feel blind
So I'll steel my mind to think of a way to redefine
The lines I've drawn between your hands and mine
Till we're entangled in a net that chokes us both
From sea to land on this fiery fishing boat

The roots run deep
Metallic threads in spirals down into the sea
Down in the dark where the dead things rise
But hope is a harvest, right?

I wish I could save you
Honestly, it's kind of all I think about
And then I feel like a penny
Unlucky side up
On the floor behind a desk
You won't find me
And even if you did
I'm not worth much anymore

...................

Key
Door
It's
Yours
Get
Out
Get
Away
I'll
Be
Waiting
On
The
Other
Side

Belligerant

Their words have teeth
Every bit as sharp as I remember
When we sat there in an aging room
And he told me about loathing

Every one of my closest friends
Handing me a card that says
Written in the plainest script,
"I utterly despise you."

These sort of things add up, y'know
And I recognize the equation
You've been playing around with a mathematics
Like the six o' clock news, unbalanced but fair

So I hide in a simple sort of state
And regret my every move
I don't want to be here anymore
But you keep on pulling me back

Where their teeth have words
With me and my walking shoes
Sidewalks to seraphim
Miles in another misery

But irony is patriotic
For the kids dressed in drag
You hold a banner of knives run through my heart
And I wave a white flag

Broken Symbols

There is not enough weight to this
These murderous weaknesses you praise so highly
As if I am some authority in these symbols made meaningless
And that one small gravity, such a short term failing
To express any amount of the incarcerating rapture
That binds my feet, though my knees shake,
To this very spot, far enough for modesty sake
Yet close enough to smell your hair
So don't praise my words, pretend they show you I care
And then dare to admit that in fact they're all empty
You say you know that I do as if it's something foreseen
Well, how so

For I would give so much tonight to just understand
A bit of your mind, to just know that you're mine
To hold you under starlight in your truer state
With a simple listening gaze as you explain
A new twist to your ever-story
To show you the care I've tried to express
With these broken symbols of the uttermost excess

Believe what you will and want what you may
I cannot overtake and cannot explain
In words or in pictures or signs of affection
The depth to which I've fallen and not risen up again
And that I never will, I know you won't trust
I can see in your motions that the world's been unjust

So I'll sit here soaking in the silence between every syllable
Sit here seeking your solace in a way that's indivisible
From your real self, to look deeper and know more
To show you that I'm not as selfish as my mistakes illustrate

Here, then, is the battle between what I know and what I say
As we pretend this is imperfect, as we pretend I'm unafraid
As we insist that this is this and that is that
And we don't talk in lucid dreams about some delusional fact

Whether you care or not
I'm here
And I hope that I can show you
You've had enough disappointments
As it is

Smite in Spite, the Light just Might, so Why Fight

Walkin' down a familiar stairway
Bigger problems on my mind than some bad hair day
Smaller words do little to remedy
Flash a smile, the sweet reminder as your sweet lips lose
That there's something more going on than I can see
But around the corner comes reality a bit more true
But does he see you like I do

If this is wounded, I'm an infection
If this is bitten, I'm a venom fit for killing
If this is lost, then I'm misdirection
If you're not smitten yet, just wait, you will be

Wonder what happened to the happy girl
Wonder what happened to the subtle curl
At the edges of her secret-keeping mouth
Hidden tears from your fortress bereft and breaking through
More than you can handle to honestly speak out
As the shadow creeps back, terribly, tightly, tenderly holding you
But does he see you like I do

If this is broken, I could be a sling
If this is the fall, things might be getting colder
If this is distance, I cry for the closing
I see the real you somewhere and wish I could hold her

Sitting here in a room called alone
There is no solace for your questions, I know
So let's not pretend this is something it's not
'Cause I have no idea and you're not exactly offering up clues
Small thanks for a token, though I'd give you all I've got
Just to know you're safe and happy and free to honestly just be you
But does he see you like I do
If he does (though I don't think he does)
But if he does, than do I really need to

Her Hands Talk When Her Lungs are Busy Breathing

The hollow strand
Each passing thought
Of what could be
Yet now is not

And of what was
You want to talk
What happened when
We took a walk

And lost our way
Somewhere beside
In unknown paths
With wandered stride

The ripping wind
Cold as your touch
Here to begin
And end too much

Of useless hopes
Folly wishes fair
Who sits with me
When you're not there

And you're not there
So don't presume
You can be both
There is no room

What do you want
You were his first
So tell me now
Which one is worse

To run away
And live alone
Or stay in place
Or be your own

Would you love me
If I asked you to
Or would that be
The worst ever possible thing to do?

Soliptitude

His mouth was tied with string, shut against all songs
Honesty only in glances, by chance some would follow
The deep growls of a soul clenching...unclenching...tightly wound
The shifting friction of lidless eyes on a carpet of sky-sweat-stained grey fog
Overhearing whispers of pointless inconsistencies
Wondering at a contradiction who lately takes on the form of a sad smile
And the brightest most pointed glimpses of
Some sort of intoxicating rhythm
Indistinguishable from that of two hearts slowly aligning
Moment by moment, the shattered scraping of glass
As the walls, built quite quickly with practice, shift smoothly down as ice in Spring
More than melting, molding themselves into a metaphysical metamorphosis
Of time and space and the shadowed curve of a hint of her face
And an utter disassembling of reason
An intolerantly bittersweet kind of treasonous serendipity
The weight of claws at the utmost edges of his mind
Every thought convoluted by sensation and pregnant pauses
Itching enticements of callous disregard for the simple and irrefutable fact
That this is killing the poor man
And yet the drill stays on, a siren song just before his ear
Right there at his temple, right there where he feels
Then in waking, he almost misses the lucidity of it all
As "real life" is only a metaphor for cement, manure, and acid rain
Secondhand smoke to a simple dream of finding her hand in his
And he would dare to here cry out "Alas! Alas!"
But as I stated, his lips are otherwise occupied
Being tied up with string and all
Y'know...these things happen
And the clock tocks twice for every tick

Sinking

In my little boat I set sail for a safer shore
And far off I saw a separate storm
My boat, Betrayal named,
Is emptying me out
Though filling to the brim within
With my shame and countless doubts

I look down at the oar in my hand
And curse its cutting
The waves that rip and slip
Up beyond the edges of my tiny ship
My sinking sail-less vessel afloat
As bottom-less dreams drive ahead my battered boat

Collapsable, I feel collapsable
As I watch the sunrise through reddish skies
And contemplate the brand new day ahead
Reckless thoughts of holy escapes sinking in and out of my head
And to my foolish and fleeting surprise
Looks like I’ve run out of supplies

Within weeks or days or hours, who knows
A surreptitiously silent storm grows
And whips its wildish waves aglow
In moonlight pale till clouds are shown
Charging as bulls across in sheets
Of blackest night till east, west meets
And I am alone in the sinking and sputtering
Boat blown far from home, and my cold lips muttering,

“I miss that shore more than I miss the air”
As I break at the bottom but don’t find you there
Sick bubbles of blood rise from the edges of my mouth
I am chained to my sunken ship and my last word works out
A glimpsing apology to the land I had left
As I wipe one last tear and take one last breath

And as my drifting eyes close amidst undersea rhythms
A light pierces dimly and a soft smile lullabies this new sleep

..!

my prayers fly out into the empty space
for you my friend, my home
whispered words of wonder and supplication
before a hauntingly familiar, welcome throne
hoping that somehow you see
you never were and never are alone

and though i had to walk away
please listen when my words are too weak to say
i will always be here
even when the way’s unclear
even when the burden won’t be shed without the tears
just let it fall

Trust

We've had these pieces in a box somewhere for awhile
Kept silent by a layer of soft cotton
Locked away with a key long ago lost to time and mishandling

But if we could get at these pieces
Hold them once again in our hands
Would they really glisten as they did then?

Would the polished shine still reflect your awestruck eyes
The way it did when we first found them
Unbroken, not pieces but a whole

Though for now, I suppose,
We can pretend they are the same
For though they are locked away in pieces

In a different box, they are whole
Held between our clasped hands
A perfection within a perfection

The Coast

Wondering at the way things fall
You walk alone in the rain just to stare at the sea
A numbing, twisting sort of empty calls
From the darkening waves to you and your lost grip on reality

And as the salt meets the shore
Again and again, you're just piecing together the shell fragments
A home where you used to hide
I wish I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight tonight

What spiraling stars above show themselves now through the clouds
To light the unsure path you walk out to the edge of the pier
Crashing sounds and closing eyes, a mist and a subtle shroud
Reminiscent of the night you took my hand without a single thought of fear

And as the salt met the shore
Again and again, my words faltering to ease your troubled heart
A house with doors and windows broken wide
I wished I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight that night

But what falls sometimes the tides forget
Or crash upon the rocks that wait so mercilessly
And I was yours as in a dream of a moment
A tracing line of footprints washed clean from the sand
And now what's lost is hardly found in sequence
These secrets of the sea and an emptier feeling in my left hand

And as the salt meets the shore
Again and again, I'll keep promises I've made to one I've injured
An abandoned building slowly burning up from the inside
Still wish, though, I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight tonight

Retrace

so i'm not too sure how to interpret your
ways lately
seems like you're somewhat ashamed of me
but i mean who wouldn't be
i'm your greatest mistake, but i was your closest friend
apparently
i'm not angry, just wondering
what it would take for this not to end in tragedy?

here, say the words on this blank piece of paper
you don't even have to stay awake
we'll do all the talking. just open up and smile
and we'll tell you all the right words to say

so much from mute mouths
so much subtle talk of wishes and would be's
what if's and could be's or could've beens
what would've been is naught again
i think, "not again" and walk right out to fall right in
to the same old traps and traces
tryin' to catch up to old habits and paces
and lose track by looking back
but can't, 'cause my neck's become sore by it

life ain't always black and white
sometimes it beats you black and blue
just don't grey up my silver lining with you and your half-truths
you look very small from this distance
and i'm just the invisible elephant in the room

but feelings and meaning don't stop in this silence
they can take away the sidelines but that just spreads the violence
inside a heart cemented round
can't keep the radiation down
'cause you've infected me inside and out
and every glimpse of you is just more poison
and every glimpse of you is what they've hid these joys in

so i'll keep on pretending i'm okay with this great distance
no hate, no hard feelings, and for now no real resistance
just you a hundred miles away on the other side of a wall of holes
and me somewhere else, somewhere out, somewhere wishing to console
you

A Fire There Was

A fire there was
And is, I suppose
Still

Yet distance, the distance
Between, in darkness
The forest flight
Leads me away
From further light
And farther flights
I cannot fight
Anymore

For the fire's warmth
Was never mine

Though playful sparks
In the trusting dark
Did fly up alighting upon the trees
And light a place, my weary heart
To hope to help
And feed the flame
And burn away my older name

A convict's how
A wolven howl
The moon still hidden
Behind creeping clouds

My head hangs down
Cold off and alone
Far from the fire
I once had known

And loved so

And now wish

Who knows what

Perhaps the ashes I kept
In a pocket, secret, secure
Will keep me warm

Till someday
Perhaps I'll return

To the fire that was
And is, I suppose
Still

Though driven away
To the dark I may be
Cold off and alone
Far from the fire
I once had known

And loved so

Its warmth another home

Had I would feed it still

Though I wish

Not to kill its kindling
With overt indulgence

But in the cold and snow

How now I do miss it so...

Histrionic

The following is an excerpt from a particularly fascinating wikipedia article:

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood. These individuals are lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious.

They may be inappropriately sexually provocative, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and be easily influenced by others. Associated features may include egocentrism, self-indulgence, continuous longing for appreciation, feelings that are easily hurt, and persistent manipulative behavior to achieve their own needs.

People with this disorder are usually able to function at a high level and can be successful socially and professionally. People with histrionic personality disorder usually have good social skills, but they tend to use these skills to manipulate other people and become the center of attention.^[1] Furthermore, histrionic personality disorder may affect a person's social or romantic relationships or their ability to cope with losses or failures.

People with this disorder lack genuine empathy.^{[citation needed]} They start relationships well but tend to falter when depth and durability are needed, alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. They may seek treatment for depression when romantic relationships end, although this is by no means a feature exclusive to this disorder.

They often fail to see their own personal situation realistically, instead tending to dramatize and exaggerate their difficulties. They may go through frequent job changes, as they become easily bored and have trouble dealing with frustration. Because they tend to crave novelty and excitement, they may place themselves in risky situations. All of these factors may lead to greater risk of developing depression.

Additional symptoms include:

• Exhibitionist behavior.
• Constant seeking of reassurance or approval.
• Excessive dramatics with exaggerated displays of emotions.
• Excessive sensitivity to criticism or disapproval.
• Inappropriately seductive appearance or behavior.
• Excessive concern with physical appearance.
• Somatic symptoms, and using these symptoms as a means of garnering attention.
• A need to be the center of attention.
• Low tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification.
• Rapidly shifting emotional states that may appear superficial or exaggerated to others.
• Tendency to believe that relationships are more intimate than they actually are.
• Making rash decisions.^[2]

Humilit and Pride

Looks like ya called me out
My acts been foiled and my business brought way down
You say all my prayin’ for the city’s just playin’ for some pity
Somehow I still have my doubts

I never wanted your sympathy, sir
But perhaps some attention just to say
Could you please look the other way
Humility and pride, there’s no balance I can find like you

Looks like I’ve been found out
My masks all torn up and my rocket shot down
Just when I’d learned they’d built a bridge that couldn’t be burned
I heard that small crackling sound

I never wanted your argument, sir
But perhaps just a moment to say
Could you please let me out of your way
Humility and pride, there’s no balance I can find like you

So I’ll forget it, I’ll forget all about
Everything you told me to most recently
And even though I still can’t figure it out
You seem to say even then there’s so much more that’s wrong with me

I never wanted your heartbreak, sir
But perhaps just some kind words to say
It’s time I admitted I got way too carried away
Humility and pride, there’s no balance I can find like you

Don't Look Back

Between the building and the bleeding
We find ourselves retreating
Our souls softly seceding from this dichotomous view
And I am one, but so separately incarnate
For I am become one, but still not one with you

Between the balance and the backward steps
I cautiously and callously, yet somehow clamorously crept
Into a hiding place where I saw traces of the moonlight
Dimmed reflections of a damned imperfection
For I am now undone, around a corner, eye-to-eye

Between the breaking and the birthing pains
You take no note of what had till now remained
The specks in each my eyes you wipe away like a child’s tears
And I’m not sure of anything, still hacking off at bitter limbs
But you are surely everything that drives away my fears

The more I find myself by the tricks of this fatal trade
The more defined by empty mindsets, every gilded glint of what I’d gained
To lose much more in passing time and pass the time to watch it fade
I am a silhouette of something more, and only you now know my name

The Joke

Who are these? Your puppet-masters?
Oh boy, did I guess right?
Please won’t you get me out of here?
Just get me out of here tonight!
I don’t need another chain-link fence
That’s been painted picket white
Just to disguise all the barbed wire
That keeps us low and out of sight.

You’re so afraid of what’s been done
But look at you now, what you’ve become
You’re so afraid of what’s to come
But look at you now, shoestrings undone
and still you run
That looks like so much fun

Who are these? Your silent killers?
Oh boy, can I play too?
Please won’t you teach me how to fight
So I can be like you?
I don’t another useless lesson
In a morality long bereft
Just lead me out with gun in hand
With empty honor all that’s left

You’re so afraid of what’s been done
But look at you now, what you’ve become
You’re so afraid of what’s to come
But look at you now, shoestrings undone
and still you run
That used to looked like fun

Who are these? Your passive prayers?
Oh boy, can I play too?
Please won’t you teach me how to fight
So I can be like you?
In towers tall, with steeples taller
And pride that scratches God
But every time he scratches back
You shoot him ‘cause he’s odd

You’re so afraid of what’s been done
But look at you now, what you’ve become
You’re so afraid of what’s to come
But look at you now, shoestrings undone
and still you run
I guess it’s all for fun

21st Century Soliloquy

numbers trace the signal
electric clues to the source
hints of reminiscence
a garish glimpse of remorse
an empty text of long life in the living
partially paused in plastic places
twisting fiction of memory
hollow names and backward faces

if you want the truth
i’m afraid of anything that could make me feel
my missing you
is just a way of looking for something out there real
but i have found a way around it
with scattered words and misplaced humility
the disconnect my only grounding
when all i know is my own fragility

the dust, electric in its transport
now claims new eyes unseen
blinking slow in patterns blurred
sterilized yet never really clean
a generation on the edge of ending
cynicism, a regulated response to fear
connections, one island to another
listen loudly to the static of one deafened ear

synchronize the angst and agony
smiling synonyms rushed to end for pictures’ sake
post another pastime on a pleading public
perchance they writhe under the winsome wake
so much for breathing
too many hands to hold within
a deft and a dashing
mistake, missing the very feel of skin

if you want the truth
i’m afraid of anything that could turn the tide
my leaving you
is just a way of running from the hope you held inside
i couldn’t find a way around it
with shattered hearts, declarations of futility
my deepest desire now dead here surrounding
when all i know is my own fragility

JUST ADD WATER

the hunger is a sword that cuts down the population
and tracks you like the government across a foreign nation
the GDP of industries that call themselves economies
are run by debts of innocence lost to separate parties
agendas formed from greed and fear
till politics just disappear
replaced by something a bit less poli, a bit more tactical
while the old ones tell you to be responsible, logical, and practical

and i used to think that not conforming was like secretly storming
a castle made of clay baked too long on a hot day
a code ready for cracking but reacting got us back to where we started
but that departed, so i thought revolution would be less like prostitution
selling our bodies to companies, consumers to the core
and i thought all of our ignorance would even out eventually
but what’s more, it seems that we’ve all gotta be attached to something actually
intended for the remaking, just shaking with fragility

we’re blinded, we’re blinded, my brother, we’ve all been blind-sided
caught off-guard by those we trusted to protect what we could never know
we’re gifted, been enlisted in a program to deny it, though
an institution that has skated by for long enough to satisfy a temporary rush
all the time ignoring that there’s a big, big picture, and we’re all just playin’ paints
with a very tiny brush

so cast aside the anarchy which still plays by the rules
of societies built on so many self-centered schools
of thoughts that are not so much progress as progression
in a desperate search for happiness that leads straight to depression
and obsession with the madness of the me, me, me
as i hear an international chorus that can only ever agree
that as long as imaginary boundaries still separate us all
then is it alright to stumble as we wait for it to fall

cast it all aside like a temporary squall
a wave or two will crash but the game is made of walls
you can scale them if you wanna but the outcome is the same
it’s at the center of our souls and it knows all of our names

Out of Here

like a boulder of notions, i can see it rollin’ across your eyes
that we’re emboldening oceans to rise above much safer tides
and i guess i was never told that
a compliment is equal to a contract
but your looks fill up books with their poetry
two eyes, one pen in synchronicity
and your words, they have a way of stoppin’ me
cold dead in my tracks, taken aback to where i’m honestly wondering

are you my way out
‘cause i need a way out of here
my head’s filling with doubts
can’t find a way to make this clearer, now
i can’t be the one to save your heart from breaking
we could’ve live out whole lives of better choices
in the time this is taking to change
are you my way out
‘cause i need a way out
are you a way out here
are you my way out, my dear?

stepping aside, take a look at the life you’ve made
hurts too much to hide, but i don’t think it’s right all the same
what happened to love?
what happened to living for more than all these empty choices
beautiful and reminiscing voices in chorus...
‘cause california’s calling her
and new england is so much colder
and there’s the other side of the world
or there’s just down the street
and around a couple corners
from here

are you my out
‘cause i need a way out of here
shut off my heart valves
till all i’m sinking in is fear that you
are gone, but you were never the one
i finally found out
that you’re not my way out
you’re not my way out of here
(gotta get away from here...)

abstractions

such cares in turn
do tell your secret prayers
unleash those little lies
for only your own ears to hear
and twist inside the wires
and the wireless reflections
voiceless communications
senseless exclamations
thoughtless invitations
tiny little characters

while caricatures hum
the inaudible song
a dangerous game
adrenaline and kerosene
in eyes that light dark fires
so systemic intangibles do tell
marketed by the dawn
bought up by the gloaming
in effervescent telescoping subtleties
and time’s lonesome owl eyes

so tell me, is this silence
the space between islands
or the gravity around
a falling star
as i can’t seem to find
the corporeal remains
of my personalities
long lost in some dusty attic
whose wind-washed fingers hold
a delicacy of emptiness
within their machinations

Perchance the perhaps
Is greater than the sum of the collapse
And these inhibitions
Are indelibly mismatched
As situations stay stationary
With each breath, a mountain falls
Proving again I was too slow
To rebuild these prison walls
Thinking it would be easier to construct
A structure around myself
That somehow would overcome itself
And its maker’s weakness and familiarity

Fumigation (pt.1)

I’ve found something worse than goodbye
The way you can never leave a lie behind
Simple words can swallow up your life
Like the mouth of a river than runs you dry

Forget who you are or where you’ve been
They’ll put each thought in a vice and squeeze out any hope within
The system’s set up to make you lose
But only if you play their game and you stick to their rules

Too young to live, too young to die
Why does each sunset feel like a day sacrificed
To the idols of idleness and complacency
Living in a country where my freedom is my currency

I remember wondering
Whatever happened to the sunrise
As we left so early that morning
But it might as well have been midnight

There was no glimmer, there was no hope
In your one, forever open eye
Looking onward, forever upward
Somewhere above the sky

And I remember asking myself
Whatever became of the land
Towers rising from the waves
Of poison waste and electric sand

As we approached the distant sphere
I’ll admit, my courage faltered
For one brief moment, I forgot
That not one step could now be altered

Just a beam of light
Out of the silent planet where she slept
No longer home but now away
So here to stay alone I wept

And we upon that dusty ground
With boots and coats and bags
Did fall beneath the eery shadow
Of mountains shaped like hags

With long, curving noses
And fingers stretching for miles
Caves in the right places for eyes
And cracks for crooked smiles

I climbed these mountains by myself
And you stayed by the ship
But warned me not to stray too far
And also not to slip

But as I gained upon the ground
The farther did I desire
And that night I did not return to you
But stayed by my own small fire

For I was an alien on this world
And you had conquered me
Neither one of us anymore human
Than the dust beneath my feet

For humanity had a place called earth
A round and welcome home
But we raped it for all that it was worth
And left it as only a lifeless stone

That’s why we went so far away
And that’s why now I am lost
For I cannot return to you and ship
You never saw the cost

I’ve seen your cities and your skies
Covered o’er with death
When the man with nukes knocked at your door
You packed your bags and left

So this is our future as I can see
Not in tech or in wealth or in wars
But you’ll leave the Earth to rot and burn
When all that’s certain is mutually assured

For I saw no glimmer, could glance no hope
In your one, forever open eye
Looking onward, forever upward
Somewhere above the sky

Enamored, I Clammered for Some Resonating Sound

To her, upon these brittle strings, my tune I awkwardly unfurled
To me, in words like pigmentation, she painted her eloquent world
Sitting in screaming, singing silence upon the floor of a foreign royalty
Captivated by a glance, the hanging moments of uncertainty

To say the truth, there is little honesty in my own self’s dark discussion
I’ll speak with such confusion in thinking yet act without instruction
Till all deeds are met in a friendship more laced with strings than yarn
And all tall tales that e’er prevailed shall this faerie tale string-out anon

So we speak on stone walls by false wall’s urging explanations
My words so tangled, vines that crawl up and down to no real destination
Without much reason, we sit a hundred seasons it seems, but not
As with only a second in your line of sight is drawing made, those lines there caught

Years pass and still I could stay for this weak and wanting passway
A bridge to some dark forest’s gates and a goldrush of needed change
Who I would now wish to be and who I am so far between and far apart
Time relative to the surprise of your eyes, their haunting of my broken heart

Still I am not a paradigm, though still I keep repeating
Still I am not a liar, though every peace of me is false
Still I am not a sane man, though they diagnose me free
Still I am not a door, though you’ve opened me wide

Spacious Skies

“Spacious Skies”
Hey big brother, are you my big brother?
growin’ weak
are you my big, big brother?
gettin’ hungry
are you my big, big brother?
sick and tired
are you my big, big brother?
all alone
are you my big, big brother?
far from home
are you my big, big brother?
i’m a slave
are you my big, big brother?
as i starve
are you my big, big brother?
as i die
are you my big, big brother?
you are strong
are you my big, big brother?
you are fat
are you my big, big brother?
you are rich
are you my big, big brother?
you are silent
are you my big, big brother?
you ignore me
are you my big, big brother?
i am screaming
are you my big, big brother?
you do nothing
are you my big, big brother?
so much blood
are you my big, big brother?
so much pain
are you my big, big brother?
so much loss
are you my big, big brother?
count the cost
are you my big, big brother?
is it too high
are you my big, big brother?
it’s okay
are you my big, big brother?
i’ll die quietly...