I'm not thinking clearly, still I'm holding on
but only nearly.
At the end of this long and lonely day,
when I've got no more left to give to the people
who can't seem to find their own way,
I'm left cradling the pieces of my fractured mind
that I have to put back together on my own time.
No one wants to hear about my hurts
or talk about my scars.
I guess that's okay, because they wouldn't get it anyway.
I'm walking around with an invisible world on my shoulder.
A world of problems and questions
that have forced my mind to growing older.
My mind is so much older than what they see I am.
They could never comprehend, but it's not like they really give a ****.

If I took my chances

& tumbled off the edge,

would you take the plunge with me

or turn and run instead?

If I told you that I had

forsaken love for flight,

would you send your dove

to alight into my night?

If I give you a promise,
will you give me an answer?
If you'll be my lover
I can be your dancer.

If I give you a thimble,
can you make me fly?  
If you give me a kiss
I promise that I'll try

If I show my soul to you
please don't **** me over.
I'd rather face the wildfire
than watch the ashes smolder.

If I give you tomorrow,
will you tell me your past?
I pray you surrender
to the spell I have cast.

If I give you a promise,
will you give me an answer?
If you'll be my lover
I will be your dancer.

If I can find your shadow
can we touch the sky?
I have a little pixie dust,
I promise we can try.

Once I've shown my soul to you
please don't **** me over.
I'd rather fan the flames to life
than watch the ashes smolder.  

If I give you tomorrow
keep a place for me in your past.
I can't divine the future.
Love should never wear a mask.

I have stared into his eyes.
I can't tell if I am dreaming.
Inside my head,
my insecurities are reeling,
stirring hidden feelings.
He's piqued my curiosity
and left my senses tingling.

I have stared into the darkness
of this endless sea of ceiling
above my head. . .
my insecurities are kneeling,
begging for redeeming.
Is this too good to be true
or can I start believing?

We have stared into the darkness
of each other's shattered past.  
Despite my head
he has stood up to the task.
I take comfort in the feeling of
the sound of his heart beating;
he taunts my desires into bleeding.

I have stared into his eyes
every time that I am dreaming.
He's in my head. . .
I cannot shake the feeling
or understand the meaning
of how one unlikely meeting
bloomed into synchronous bliss.

If I had to wait a while
I would
but time would linger for so long
I feel I'd turn to stone.

Put my back to the place
I learned to call my home.

If I had to run for miles
I would
but I feel like I'd get farther
if I could
somehow shake the weight of
my foundation.

The echo of a flawed creation.

Recollections of uncertain
shrouded misinterpretations.

Should I go or should I stay?

Set down my feet or fly away
into the depths
of my own introversion?

I'm cemented in submersion.

You were as temporary
as the incendiary
summer heat
that baked our skin to golden brown
& sent us seeking shade
to simmer down.

You were as temporary
as the indulgence of our inner child,
time spent sprawled out in our sheets
watching Saturday cartoons
without a care or central air,
entangled in our underwear.

You were as temporary
as the cherry
popsicle stains melted into my skin
with our summer sin.
90°.
Sticky & sweet.

I remember pretending
we were wearing lipstick
or were deranged carnies
on the run.

We laughed at our absurdity,
drunk on our fun,
composing insane scenarios
to shake up the inane existence
of a small town Midwest summer,
languid with little other entertainment.

I'd wield an empty wooden stick
& read one-liners from the side of it.

You were as temporary
as the tattoos we got together
at the dusty county fair
that were sure to wear away
with sweat & sultry August air.  

You were my summer love affair.

I write because I feel,
and I feel so very deeply that
it seems to well within me and
often can not be submerged.
Repeatedly I seek to purge
through putting pen to paper
or placing fingertip to keyboard tile
and pouring out the tense and vile,
or the timid and tumultuous
confessions and insecurities that I
can’t in good conscience plead ignorance to
but fail to find confidence enough to trust
out loud to other people.
Sometimes I feel I can not even
trust them out loud to myself.
When I write it all out it makes things real
and I can give a voice to the things I feel
without shaking the silent, quivering
(in)stability of my insecure self confidence.