A brokenhearted boy dangles his legs over the edge of his pain-soaked bed
Pulse slowing as angered rain thunders down below him
Acid sadness erodes his calm devotion

An absent hearted boy pens his name as Hopeless
Swallows’ days in minor doses
His river ******, and doomed to meet no ocean

A weary hearted boy seeks to make amends
Trades his soul to suffer silence from a friend
The sun for him, hides itself just around the bend

A truehearted boy never minds the hole inside his chest
He writes his story in the flesh
Chords of open wounds he plays his music through

These thoughts have been sprinting through my mind
As I sit and watch the sun sink beyond the line
Of trees adorned with fragrant pine
The clocks cease to relay the time
And I wonder if peace exist beyond this life of mine
Is there anything truly so divine
That would make sense of my spirit dying.

Can my sense of self escape such a fate
Am I not more than the mask that hides my face
Will my voice linger once I’ve left this place
The moon smiles and lights the lake
He tells me the search for heaven is a flawed mistake
Life is more give and take
You give your all
And your all it takes

A rusty cage conceals me
Deep beneath the waves, of another passing day
The blood inside my veins
Is laced with warmth, that erodes away the pain
The needle scratches vinyl
As the pills provide the music, singing sorrow in my brain

Lost on the lamb
Searching for the touch, from my own callused hands
A wind-up ballerina in her box
Doesn’t spin and twirl like she wants
Damaged dancer
Standing still, inside my antique heart

What can I say? Another one dead and gone away.
Lost to ignorance, or
Possibly blind to addictions hooked grip.
One day your dangling a toe
Just over the edge. The next,
Your staring up wondering
How you lost your footing. I could say he’s a ******, but
Lord knows the elixirs I have invented
To dispel the dark heart of my depression.

Though I stand stoic, life has taught me
To never shame a smile. The sun rises for the living, and
Dead men fall short of tomorrow.
The amorphous soul slips through the seams
Of hands grasping to hold. So, when death discards its cloak and
Swirls its specters all around me
I’ll raise up life like a guiding lantern
And
Step through existence with my convictions.

A Thought:
                 Maybe there is no grand crescendo to the human symphony
Maybe life ends, and begins, on a prolonged refrain
A steady, repeating, fading rhythm
The only flourish of a lonely universe
Trying desperately, in its way, to find a dance partner for the darkness
Eternity; our veiled mistress waiting past the mist
For the light to outrun an endlessly unfurling landscape of black
The space between
The mimicry of a photograph, and the true shape of the memory
That a frame can never quite squeeze
Those lost edges lie in wait
Just beyond a waking moment, and the closing scene of our final dream
A place not lost, but yet to be found
That is all,
For now.

Set your sights out west, my friend
And know that on your back
Will always rest the dawn. Follow not
These golden roads paved by fools
Where every toll asks payment from
The only treasure one would hate to lose.
Pull the reigns on your hurried pace, and
Sing to silence when it calls your name.

I wish memories were crystal clear
Like motion pictures
Or double-sided mirrors
To the one looking outside in to all your fears

I wish love could light the fires
Wayward embers that ignite desire
Just a spark
To bring light to a corrupted heart

I wish we could live freely
Give us time to reconcile that life’s not easy
Without the rain
Where would the trees be

I wish for peace
But I can settle for hope
Only so many strands
We have left on this weathered rope

Laying in bed today, listening to tunes
          As I so often do
A feeling encroached, one I could not shake
          Or attempt to lose
The sound of sadness, through the microphone
          Blew the dust from my aging bones
Sunlight diffused, into the tomb
          Of my desolate room
Shadows scattered, from their thrones
          To reveal four walls of stone
Flowers dressed, this cold gray place
          Where I woke from rest
Bare and unburdened, my blemished fleshed took its first steps
          Bent but not broken, rebirthed, awoken

How can you ask a man
Who loves you,
About the man you love?

If I was lesser than
I may play pretend and spin a thread
That pulls you closer to the center of my web.
         But,

My love is a field of a thousand faceless corpses.
Each one a time when I swallowed pride, and
Gave you my mouth
So you could smile wide.
          Little Lady,

Can you not see this calm bravado
Relies solely
On my never-blinking eyes.

For even a wink would have this city sink
Beneath
This grief I trap in ink.
You woke up and only met the sun today
          Because,

In the dead of night
I cupped your pain, and
Drank your inclement weather like bottled rain.

Breathe in
Now count to ten
Ready your fingertips
Now softly stroke the pen,
Across the page

Don’t write the words
Paint for me
Falling autumn leaves a slight mahogany
Create the sky
Show me the technicolor dreams inside your mind

Call for thunder on stormy seas
Cupid’s arrow one snowy Christmas Eve
Make me believe
Now on my count,
Breathe out

I’m not broken
I’m just a broken-hearted man
This cracked hourglass
Is running low on sand
Staring at the shores
Feeling miles away from land
Just crazy enough to follow
Grabbing darkness by her hand
Slipping in and out of sorrow
Never meeting my own demands
See, I’m not broken
But I’m hanging from a strand.

Dancing with my ghosts, on a midnight summer’s eve
A cacophony of determined footsteps
Mirrors the melody played
On the last night I spoke my piece

A candlelight vigil for time wasted
Buried is the boy, who once lived inside my waking dreams
Now bereaved, the man forgets all the boy has seen
Trapped inside of photo albums, in an attempt to resuscitate fading memories

Winds of winter
Freeze the seeds of change
Barren fields show greys of pain
Growth hibernates
To awake for rain
For darkness patrols this frozen domain

The Christmas lights seem to twinkle a little less
As if synced with the fading fire
That once burned bright inside my chest
Maybe I'm blind
Maybe I'm blessed
Maybe the time just came and went
Maybe its me
Maybe I'm the reason
Every trip and every stumble
Every smile
Every love you
Each minute missed
Maybe this is what it feels like to not exist
But I dont trip
And I could never cry
Because maybe this is what it means to be alive.

Moist morning dew, I river bathe aloof
Rushing water filters out my youth
Wilted skin sheds, falls to fish as food
Old parts always have their use
Cleansing waters and reflective banks
Currents carry away yesterday
Older now, baptized anew

There is a place I dream of
That truly frees my mind
It often smells like peace
And tastes of salty brine

The hours never wither
On these sands of time
Where the sun can always kiss her
And faces age like wine

The night is deafly quiet
Bright stars adorn the sky
The moon floats behind it
And I never say goodbye

Baby, it's me who taught you how to love
Out by the docks. On the Puget, where we found Sound
For all our secret thoughts.
               Deep into the night, slurring silence, sipping wine
               We let our feelings talk. A disheveled bed
               Was heaven then
The door was hell, comin' round the bend. Baby,
It was me who taught you how to love,
And it was you who taught me how to stop.

Intensity is the underdog story
Wild soil to a champion
Flame out, and maybe
Fell to the drink

Consistency is two years without
So much as a batted eye or a blink
Ten steps ahead, maybe half an inch per week
Books with battered spines stretched across coffee-stained sheets

Intensity is ***, or
A free trial for a week
Gold plated words
Tin can actions underneath

Consistency is the love, and
Knowing I know I will never know enough
Unconscious heartbeat
The very breath that fills my lungs

The hour draws near
As the clock strikes midnight
Demons begin to converse with fear
Drenched in candlelight
This pen becomes a mirror
A conduit for insight
Inking endless tears
My creatures of the night
May you never disappear

Six hours
Staring down at a blank page
Maybe
This is the best art I have ever made
Empty
Like the pit in my stomach

I swear I am flush with ideas
Yet I think them
Far better than I could ever say
Reach out to grasp
And they up and run away

Oh

The sun is shining
Yet I prayed for rain today
God must have missed the message
See
I asked for blessings
All I received was this broken record
About a years-long depression

Mine as well force a smile
And drop the needle atop this vinyl
Can you hear it
My favorite song
Denial

Sometimes I forget to breath
A nagging voice, gnawing at my sleeve
My demons,
          at the gates they seethe
Begging for me to set them free
Darkness beckons me,
           with its ecstasy
Clawing from the inside, but
Outside I crack and wither
Like these scars are all that’s left of me

Picture perfect portrait of paranoia
Sunken eyes
My inner voice has distorted
Causing me to toss and turn,
and become contorted
Foreign is my reflection
The Dark Man has trapped me
With his apathy
I let him in
Depression wins

Sometimes the dark of night
Gets the best of us
Faded promises
Glued on top of broken trust
Swimming in your addiction
Drowning on lust
Sailing on this stream of consciousness
Knowing the sun
May never come up
Following the stars
Not guided by much
Just wandering the universe
Reaching out for a feeling
That these hands never could touch

How do we spend the days of our lives? What slice of the pie do we leave,
for our parents eyes? Add the time spent driving,
going to and from. Divide that up and, you get
about three hours every six months with the ones you love.
Imagine that.
                Life’s a laugh track
Like a re-run sitcom that will never get its air back.
That’s why I spin in circles at the square dance.
If the water is wet,
Then I am diving headfirst and swimming laps.
Rivers turn to roads and,
there ain’t no coming back. I slip out a straw and,
Sip the sun.
Inhale and expand my lungs until I float above,
The streets. Here lies the stoop kid,
Who became a balloon on the breeze.

Her face; like the moon, a golden summer hue
But I prefer her dressed in blues
Like ocean waves; or Stevie Ray
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝐼’𝓂 𝑜𝓃 𝓂𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓎

Her body; like a plume, of feathered emeralds
Elegant, and gentle
Like cursive script; or a wind-swept kiss
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝐼 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈

Her soul; like a treasure trove, of good intentions
And one too many exceptions
Like one more last dance; or shotgun romance
𝐵𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝓃’𝓉 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓇𝓋𝑒 𝒶 𝓈𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒

Northern moon and quiet cold days
Are broken by the thunder's call
She walks barefoot on the banks
Dressed in her moonlight shawl

Whispered voices and starlit talks
Are safety from this weary world
Kiss your breath and adorn my heart
Amongst the clouds I don’t feel so small

My saving grace and calming rain
A hanging lantern inside my dark
Her cradled arms chase away this pain
And forces silence from the banging voice that haunts my thoughts

I can hear an echo
That begs to be followed
Roaming the halls
Of a soul turned hollow

I can hear an echo
Of all the pride never swallowed
Chained between the walls
Of the past and the promise of tomorrow

I can hear an echo
From the teardrops kept bottled
The sea of sirens call
Clocks run out on time once borrowed

I can hear an echo
That begs to be followed
Roaming the halls
Of a soul turned hollow

Not quite summer
Mindful of an ever-approaching future
Two quarter cranks of my casement window
Allows the unfettered breath of night to pass through me
Like ephemeral thoughts escaping an open hatch
I think, therefore I am
Yet I think and think again
What conjures the conscious thoughts that leak out from this pen
Am I a prisoner of some electric zoo
How can I be sure the structure of me
Also resides in you

I sit and I stir
To be meat in soup
Aspersions cast
Mother always told me not to fiddle with my food
To an outside observer I seem aloof
As I peruse the library
Of stored memories from my youth
Why you ask?
I haven’t a hint or an outline of a clue
My brain seems to find nothing better for it to do
My lifetime ticket to the Electric Zoo

Who will cherish me,
              When withering autumn leaves
              Are stripped of their golden gallantry
By the biting winter winds.

Writer and reader alike,
               Chasing streams of contradictions;
               Like our will to death, fighting for life.
Am I here at all if I am not here to stay?

Points of purpose in shallow moments;
               Ripped by tides and dragged away.
               We mind the depths,
So to never dig up our dead;

A fading
Remember when.

Time: our great captor
               Tattooed on Earth by currents
               Forever outpacing the fruitless lives of men.

Unearthed and submerged,
               In the instant between
               The angel opening their eyes,
And the tired who resign to dream.

The ice from the sun
Paints frost upon the roads

The sun is different here
          Far more glimmer than shine
Dangling conveniently from a string

The sky wears its blemishes
As each passerby stitches their heart upon their sleeve
          Bloodstained fabrics
          I stand naked on the street

Exposed
          Or maybe,
Free

Costumed faces
Pay no mind
As the birds fly south in Spring

Look at the city from above
See how the towers of power
Cast shadow to the rabble
Cowering below

All these fields, stained dry, rusted brown
Gathered crowds are a ghost town
Disillusioned mental state of mass confusion
Factory made man

This free prison is a stretch of highway
With roads determined and paved
Two directions
Places you will never go, and the place you were always headed

Faint(adjective)- (of a sight, smell, chance, or sound) barely perceptible,
Like the beating of a broken heart being drowned out by
Screaming behind closed doors. The redness that circles
Around the crying eyes you use concealer to hide behind.
Faint as the sun shimmering over your receding silhouette
As you pass just beyond the horizon line, away from me.
Faint chances of survival, when fifty yellow-gold and black
Rosary beads hang free around the necks of those who surround you.
The tinge of iron you smell as your blood pools in your mouth, but
The will to never faint, as in fall to the ground in front of thirsty crowds.
Faint thoughts of happiness that arrive like butterflies, though
They never land long enough to wrap your arms around.
A faint pulse after chasing a feeling through a needle.
Faint, like the beauty of life being burned away. Ever faint
Are the screams of smoldering redwood trees.
The faint spinning of the globe, balanced on an invisible finger.

My heart orbiting
Around these years old coffee rings
That blemish these fading,
Family pictures.
                          A path of precession,
Towards the vernal equinox of my thoughts.
When the sun’s light Scatters evenly across
Lines in the sand We never dared cross
                                       Or,          
The last solemn ride For better words left unsaid
Death truly does Do us part
                            Death of a feeling
                            Fleeting
                                        Stars
                                                Upon
           ­                                             My
                                                            Ceil­ing