I sat there wilting with your heart in my hands,
And it was symbolic at best the way my tears fell and mixed with the blood, a tye-dye of pain and exasperation.
Each tear fell heavier than the last as if the pain grew both inside and out.
Crying was supposed to help.
I thought it was supposed to be shedding
the pain of failure, loss, and rejection.
Instead, each drop just weaved its way into the pool of mysteries unsolved, sinking deeper and deeper until it was no longer clear exactly why I was leaking.

I spilled
my coffee
while it was hot.
I was
cold
and the contrast
was staggering.
It warmed
my
hands and not
my heart. My nerves
were jarred
sparse
they parted.
No one
knew my familiar brew.
No one ever told
me such
genius
came with such
loneliness.

nights like this are best wept clean.

To clean the slate of sadness
that seemed so irrevocably joyful
after its wash.

but nights like these I longed for the
storm to arrive.
Only to welcome eyes too dry.

I don't wish for sadness.
I do not wish for hurt.
I wish for tears that cleanse my soul.
I wish for tears that clean it, deep.

nights like these are best wept clean.

When you mourn
are your tears in vain?

Upon the scorn
you felt such shame.

Disadorn
emotion plain.

End the war
without refrain.

I told you to run while you could,
get out before it's too late.
because I was the friendliest to strangers
and the strangest to friends.
My heart had never been open to dividends.
But your strangeness was similar to my strangeness: pushing out of fear - or had I made you that way?
You despised Mr. Hyde more than I did, but you loved Dr. Jekyl fervently with more compassion than I could ever give him...

I told you how it sometimes felt like I was living another's life... and looking at it now it's like I was sitting on a perpetual swing: x distance forward and x distance back.

We lucked out for so long because I would pull when you would push, and when I pushed you would pull me back. And for a while we both pulled. And then forever onward we pushed. Or forever wayward. Sometimes pulling in doesn't keep people from going away. And when you push someone, you can't expect them to pull you back. Because not everyone is sitting on the same swingset.

I can't fathom the depth required to indulge in trust.
The possibility escapes me at critical moments.
At moments of possibility,
At moments of change,
At moments of new life.

A larva.

Here is my word, hold it sacred to you. It is my life, hold it as
though, if dropped, the ground will swallow it whole.
Here is my shield, you may glance, gawk, or gaze, but
this I hold sacred for when the ground swallows my word whole and reincarnates it as everyone's air to breathe freely and wholly.

A butterfly.

You may have my word.
-----------------------------------------------------------­------
Hands stretched exposing their webs, and then
flexed into white-specked fists; and then again. And then the hands stretched. The ground unbuttoned as the word descended clawing at draped silk.

A butterfly, wings tattered.

Capture. Torture. Exploit.
--------------------------------------------------------­---------
The atmosphere was encompassed with dread and longing -
a smog of guilt, anger, and repression. Diamonds lied on their sides and bled tales that stung the ears of all in the vicinity.

A caterpillar, hope helms.

Bleed. Infect. Repeat.
---------------------------------------------------------­-------
Passerby after passerby shuffled along with wide eyes and hushed whispers. Faint feathers were pressed outward, hitting people like bricks and leaving craters behind.

A moth, lights negligent.

Judge. Sabotage. Forget.
---------------------------------------------------------­--------
Dignity lost and feeling next to naked. Covering myself with my token. My word builds; my walls build.

A larva.

Heal. Scar. Fear.
-----------------------------------------------------------­------
I can't fathom the depth required to indulge in trust.
The possibility escapes me at critical moments.
At moments of possibility,
At moments of change,
At moments of new life.

Two roads diverged in a wood
so I sat down on a bench nearby.
I watched as wanderers walked,
ambling or ambitious,
choosing their own fate.
Some stood a while.
Some sat next to me, twiddling their thumbs in ways no longer lonely,
outstretching their physical means to find a mentor or guide.
Some prevailed.
Others plopped down next to the bench, cross-legged with their heads in the hands or meditating with their fingers in the air.
I stared off for sometime.
Travelers came and went, boarding trains to near and far. Others didn't need the tracks but longed for them anyway.
I sat there for years, wearing the same old hat and coat, wearing thin elsewhere. Who do I want to be? Where am I going? What is my purpose? The only answer ever arriving in the form of some weary-eyed traveler.
We would lock eyes, expose our souls, mutter remorse for it, and they would move on.
And then I would watch the wanderers walk some more.

To store
your pain
to savor
it near.
to cradle
it close
to nurture
your fears.
to harbor
the worst
and label
"For later"
To welcome
the sorrow
to be
someone's savior.

I would have loved
to know
you searched the way
I did
That you dug for
every bit
there was to know
about me
That you scoured pages
upon pages
to see if there
was anything
you were missing from
my biography
That you hammered out
my name
in every search engine
known to
man That you wanted
to know
who I was connected
to and
how we were connected
That you
refreshed my social media
pages several
times per day just
to see
if there was anything
I forgot
to tell you. That
you calculated
the likelihood of my
emotions based
on the time and
what I
had been posting That
you thought
about my motives for
every post
every article every store
every movie
every question every curse
every call
every text every word
That you
spent at least some
of your
days completely cocooned in
the possibility
that I may be
someone entirely
different than who you
know just
for the sake of
wanting to
think about me further.
That you
might get so lost
in me
that you forget to
get lost
in you

I'm just trying to find substance that can't be smoked, ingested, or injected.
You would want to think I love running marathons. That I'm some passionate ultra enthusiast, or some man who believes he'll one day jog across the entire United States - perhaps 14th century "United States": a never-ending treadmill of prairie where rolling your ankle over is as common as stepping on used gum at a carnival. With this much prairie, it's bound to happen. I'm going to fumble and fall. It could be that I'll have to resort to a crawl for a while. It could be that I curl up and accept my title. Maybe I'll even write a book about my failure: "Rolling Ankles On The Rolling Plains". The only people who would buy it would be the marathoners icing their ankles on the couch at home.

I was pushed into a cold pool
with all of my warmest clothes on.
I chose cold and heavy over nakedness.
How long will I shiver and stumble?

A freshly wrung-out sponge, doomed to spend eternity being teased by the one thing that once kept me alive.
A bendy-straw cigarette ****, damp and unable to be re-lit while its insides stumble every which way and that.
A crumpled piece of paper thrown under a tree, destined to spend its entire life in the shadow of its father.

So much flagrant anger,
and violet silence,
leads to frustration all in vain
and sirens, violence.

Ideas feed the blind,
look by it. die, grit.
frilled smiles by design,
be quiet. die, quick.

Friends before, now estranged,
both nigh from frightened.
Hurricanes to earthquakes,
to die from climates

Thousands of electric pulses
scattered in confusing patterns.
Imagination convulses,
tattered, mind under matter.

Enveloped by space and time,
pardoned by neither,
eloped by both.
Pacing.

Shooting from the hip,
mind's eye is blind fire,
pawing through the labyrinth,
waiting for the shift.

Hopeless.
Blunder.
Shocks.
Over.

The smoke caught fire
   and burned the ashes,
   and like a wildfire -
   something beautiful
   came after.
Sprouting from
   the debris was a
   metanoia; one cannot
   help but think...
The way a serpent
   leaves behind its
   former walls.

Comfort in silence
No air to be filled
They said.
Comfortable around
The other.
Dead air or
Dead connection?
Starting fires just
To know we were
Both going to
Get burned.
At least we were
"Both" something.
Silence never slept so peacefully.