Finding out what matters
Is leaving you in tatters
Me, myself, and I,
Is what I must rely,
It’s not me
It doesn’t come naturally
This pursuit, this longest
Route
So many years
So many tears
Is there anything more demeaning
To want hardship to have meaning?

Take this pain, as a token
To trust the heart, is to be broken
The mind alone, sets you in motion

There’s still places, I’d like to see,
People I’d still really like to
be,

A hundredth chance; in theory,
I really love
humanity,

But there’s a voice, in my head,
And it says everyone wants you
dead,

It doesn’t matter, where you’ve
been,
You can never go home
again,

What’s the point, no one will
tell,
They’d rather see you live in
hell

Tried to open up
Nobody wants to listen
Back inside again

Focus, here and now,
Breathing in and out; buts and
What-ifs come and go.

Patiently waiting
There, in the next world, where you
See all coming things.

Feeling warm again:
Clouds, making way for fresh light;
wheels will turn themselves

Look around, it’s all the same
Numb to love, and to fear
Everything, just a game
Cannot even, shed a tear
The worlds intent, to crack you apart
To stomp your feelings, cut out your heart.
Where is peace, where is serenity?
Where is hope, and where is empathy?

I thought this feeling
Would pass with the new season
But it’s permanent

Antisocial, shy
Or have you lost the hope of
Being understood?

Untold times reaching
Out with grasping fingertips
But invisible

Because I wanted to die
And simply be no one;
While you were saying I just had to try
And screaming how the dishes are never done
Keeping me under your thumb
In this place, fettered,
Can I help it I’m so dumb,
And can hardly read a letter?
Or deign to say a word?
Or to think a thought?
What’s the point when you’re not heard?
And all your wars cannot be fought?
I want to ease the pain I keep
All the ways I try to salve
This heart, but it just seeps
Into another valve
I know you think it’s easily remedied-
For you, there’s no ambiguity,
Turn off your mind and heart
And soothe yourself with cruelty-
But I don’t you think understand
Your own platitudes, “self-worth”,
I don’t want a helping hand,
I want a different earth
To improve is to betray
My friends, who suffer in silence,
So I will stay, true to my own way,
Not abandon my one alliance
So I will not get better
I will try and get worse
This safe place, unfettered,
I’ll go embrace my curse.

Try your best
To remain unfazed
The world will test
You, leave you dazed
But you don’t have to change
In order to be free
Compromise or rearrange,
Who you want to be
Wear your heart on your sleeve
And embrace the pain
Dream a dream, make-believe,
And cast away disdain

Take these shoes, walk a mile
Wear this face, force a smile,
In this body, see through these eyes
Try my world on for size

There’s a secret path to walk
A language that nobody talks
A different world to see
Another way to be
Irrefutably

when you think all night and have no thoughts
when you try so hard and nothing works
when you sleep all day and have no dreams
when you care so much and no one cares

Why, simply because,
I hardly need a reason
To do anything.

Can’t escape yourself
Mind, a twisting labyrinth
Loops in on itself

I’m sorry, but who are you?
Did you take my face?
You look like me, but askew
Please don’t take my place.

Feeling this stifling pressure
To create
Before it gets too late;
For the elect, a curse:
Visions of an early hearse.
Living life becomes now distractions,
To making an indelible mark
The ship sailed, the point missed,
You exist but in words not actions.
And still you didn’t get your story told
Bring out your notepad
Write a life you never had

Someday we all will die
And then can let it lie

Colorblind, you see in mournful grey
You speak of all you rue,
Commiserating, I try to say
For you I’d paint the skies blue.

You think yourself invisible
But you are heard, you are seen
Know your fears are divisible
Try and let the grass be green

Quiet your incessant mind
Erase everything they said
Think of all your ties that bind
And don’t let your blood run so red

You are porous,
Blend your voice into a chorus,
Can’t help but wear your heart
On your sleeve, fall apart
So easily, and so frequently
Admittedly, sometimes even gleefully,
Feel every gust of wind;
Even drafts, make you bend,
Warping to all these demands
Making it hard to understand,
Just where others end
And where you begin

When you try to fit in
But feel out of place
When you work a 9 to 5
But are tired of the race
Wanna hide away
But you leave a trace
Everything’s a game
With which you can’t keep pace
You look into a mirror
And see a hollowed face

headed west
different from the rest
left behind
things on my mind
dreams to pursue
though I suppose so do you

Heir to a line of poets and stoics
and know-its
Who stoop to assuage
Within cold margins of a page,
Shameless praises take
Grandiose claims
they’ll make
Til 8 lines of nonsense remains

I’d like to be free
I’d like to be a dove
Fly from the tree
I’d like to believe in love

I’d like to see a God
I’d like to be like the rest
Not be so odd
I’d like to be the best

I’d like to want life
I’d like to write prose
See the end of strife
I’d like to know repose

I’d like to follow through
I’d like to wave goodbye
Maybe start anew
I’d like a different kind of I

Patterns everywhere, but what to foresee?
There’s Innumerable things to compare,
This OCD: a familiar bee, another tree,
If I only had the key,
Could make everyone aware,
I’m sure they would agree

Uneven roads,spilt coffee
How loathsome, how unfair,
All these patterns seem to be.
So many things to see;
And now what’s over there?
And what does it mean to me?

Their meanings flee;
Ignoring every prayer
From this humble devotee.
So now here is my decree:
I’ll renounce, forswear,
Over and over, plea and plea,
‘Til someday it lets its hold from me.

If you raised those downcast eyes
And opened up your mind
You would quickly realize
You were one of a kind

Hollowed out dreams
Cracking at their seams
Still grasping for the star
Which never seemed so far
Still searching for that fire
That shields from all that’s dire
The cathartic placation
When you satisfy inspiration
The iridescent heat
That comes when lovers meet
It must be real obscene
To be this routine
To stretch that errant prime
Into a lifetime

A heart lying cold and numb, black to its core,
It was so lucky I had a thousand more
Tucked away in a little drawer
Ready for when I needed more
So, not that I’m keeping score
But each time pain knocks at my door
Or else my spirit is knocked to the floor
My newest heart tore, my body sore
I take a look in my little drawer
And again I find, more and more.

With the taxing Heat,
The cold-blooded sun,
In my mind’s eye I see our last meet,
Right before it all was done

You had a high potential,
Was unsure of its worth,
Now connection is tangential,
With everything on earth.

Persistent follies, teachless,
Sense & sensibility, notional commodities,
Consistently speechless:
Can’t explain your own philosophies.

And what’s more,
In that wild imagination-
What do you think you’re looking for?
Self-actualization?
Positive disintegration?

You said you want to travel,
You’ll never leave anyway.
You’ll let yourself unravel,
And live from day to day.
It’s so plain to see,
Just how you will regress,
How else could it be?
Living in that excess.
And in the scorching heat
You’ll be left dried out,
I bet you’ll overheat,
Consumed by all that doubt.

How far must the honey bee roam
To find an elusive flower,
And return to his honeycomb?

How long must a tumbling stone
Through a lonely landscape scour,
To realize its conclusive home?

How many do their fate bemoan,
Amidst the dark and latent hours,
Staining tears upon their cheekbones?

How do those, resting on their thrones,
Convince all of their own power,
And feign to know all that which is known?

Do we have power all our own?
Our own reasons to scour?
How far ahead is our fate sewn?

Do we let ourselves be enthroned,
To be a humble wallflower?
Or do we let ourselves be flown,
Into a troublesome unknown?

This is where our course had led:
In our bed, in my own head,
Sheets of crimson red,
Newly-wed,
Recalling vows that were said,
“I’ll love you ‘til we’re both long dead.”

rather be wacky
and tacky
than your
average lackey
stuck in khaki

Do not lose sight now
When you’re far enough ahead
It seems you’re behind

Ambivalence towards higher station
You have enough apportioned
And your only aspiration’s
To be a full-fledged person

A simple dream
Where decency was found:
The low were raised to high esteem
And the wealth was spread around

Rest your bones, shut your eyes
You have earned this worthy prize
Sweet relief, a deep sleep
Twelve hours pass, now repeat
Everything’s uphill
And likely always will
Your laments avow
You have all the time you needed now
Dream of all that may have been
Never get back up again

If one is inert
And ten is a breakthrough
You and I, in concert,
Add to a beautiful two.

If red is progress
And yellow is obscene
Us two, coalesced,
Somehow craft a verdant green.

With the earth above
And the sky below
I’d make a pretty dove
And you a peaceful doe.

Everyone you ever knew
Is really just a part of you.

Pessimism, it’s been done before,
and nihilism’s quite outplayed.
It’s the latest to be a pleasant bore,
than gloomy and cliched.

A lovely tree, so carefree,
In serene tranquility
With it I would spend my night,
And let come whatever might

Red-yellow leaves, sparsely wreathed,
Life into the air it breathes
Dying breaths, it pays a price
Gives its solemn sacrifice

It’s not fair, you’ll soon be bare,
Most will not even care,
At least for now, your leaves so bright
Make for such an enviable sight.

I haven’t the strength
To be the change I’d like to see
I have only just enough
To simply just be me
These shoulders were not made to bear
All the burdens of the earth
Only room for my own trials
Ordained from my birth
It might be selfish
But it has to be this way
Otherwise I’d crumble
Or else be spirited away

The past is not defining,
And the future’s a distraction;
So living here and now,
Is such a prudent action.

You have everything to gain,
I can testify,
When you cast away disdain
And let the ego die

The wind howls today
Like it could spur me away
I will root myself

Everyday, strive to be more real,
Silencing thoughts, you’ll begin to feel.
All your life, denying your innermost
‘Til you winded up a ghost;
But you’re materializing,
Corporeal, stabilizing,
Life beckons you outside
Patiently, though it knows you died,
And it’s so cruel, and mean, and so unfair-
but shake those platitudes from your hair,
Lace your shoes, forget your blues,
see if you can change your views-
Remember, you’re never someone new:
Rather, you slowly become more you

Everything that you do,
Seems so wonderfully new;
It’s so obviously true,
That your kind is but a few.