I've laid my sword down to save a soul
One that was not worthy of penance
Spoke love out of fantasy
But this was the only choice I could see

White wings were cut down and her eyes so impure
Blood ran to a river's length as far as my vision could see
My lips were purged of a faith turned to fallacy

Within a kiss that was so familiar to me

My eyes were pure, my faith was strong
Betrayal struck where my heart belonged
Killed by my own, my heart sang off
Darkness lives in the purest of us all

My heart bore fangs now that my eyes knew fear
Vengeance meant survival- survival to end the means
Of betrayed hearts waiting for the blood of the one who deceived

My eyes breathed hate, my faith was wronged
Emptiness grew where my heart belonged
To **** my own despite the costs
Darkness lives in the purest of us all

Cautiously unaware, her fears at bay
I rested there motionless- my actions will still be stayed
Vengeance was achieved before she looked away

Her eyes were silent and no more afraid
She spoke of waiting, waiting just for this day
Though remorse ran her neck wet
Wet with the blood and tears
She was content like no one should be

Her eyes breathed pain, her skin was warm
Regret overwhelmed her heart for so long
I killed my own to gain what was lost
Darkness lives in the purest of us all

She whispers slowly to me
"You were always warm, but you would feel nothing..."
She whispered closely to me
"Wings aren't always white, but does that mean anything...?"
She consoled herself in me
"Your embrace was always cold, yet you would feel nothing..."
She turn her eyes to me
"Vengeance is all you had, but now do you have anything...?"

My eyes breathed hate when my faith was wronged
Emptiness grew where my heart belonged
To **** my own despite the costs
Darkness lives in the purest of us all

Vengeance took my life, my faith I tossed
Emptiness is now my heart's final clause
I killed my own and must pay the cost
My fangs are true, my white wings are lost

© 2014

You've found yourself in the mirror
In the eyes that won't betrayed
If I let you bleed, will you suffer the same?

In the smile that was hopeless
In the sorrow that no one sees
If I let you breathe, you will suffer the same.

The constant state of being
What you are and are not supposed to be
These are memories in the truths of the lies

Too beguiled, alone, and afraid
To see that you actually are me
And we’ve done everything to end us tonight

With the hand you've called for me
And without voice, you summon the rest
"If we will let you bleed, we'll suffer the same."

But you've marked yourself indifferent
Yet we're the ones to shoulder blame
"But we let you bleed so you won't suffer the same."

The nine souls misled from deception
Will be your fears and mistakes
We live in the chambers of your shattered mind

And in the nights that you will see us
You will no longer be afraid
Because we are the same in body, soul, and mind

© 2014

An illusion to me was believing that the sun could be unset by
traveling this iced path laced with slippery regret.
But marked by my own accord, silvered bee stings from
nightly passions for crimes against myself.
Slithering softly a secretly silenced flow from blade tip
to skin deep are the fears held with the mind's first
traps.

Night-summers crept past my windows locked,
carefully observing my frame weaken from
failed attempts of drowning in my sleep.
As my heart slowed and breathing infrequent,
my mind wandered to darker halls, conversing
within myself for my own answers.
Rejection for help was an ambush set by my mind's second
maze.

All the leaves turned brown as the sky turned to gray
with an unfaithful thought to those I cherished.
With uttered sins against my enemies I lashed out,
"Till the last stands tall will I be undefeated."
Hubris being a blind path of death to the unwary disguises
Its self well within the needs of the suffering.
Tastes of abnormalities would tempt me to do what I did to
others to myself without choking up with hesitation in the third
riddle of my mind.

Daylight deceivers and no witness with a clue to what has gone
terribly wrong by fusing the thought of nine to one soul.
Recreation of my broken sky, a creation of myself as a product of
hurt by misleading lovers, blinded by love's desires to be accepted.
Life's lies lie in life's wake once your slumber has ended and your
eyes have awakened to the darkness of a fourth vision of an apocalyptic
mind.

Are they then over as they began their rampage?
No, never resting are tribulations of simple crimes
embossed to the sacred flesh of time itself.
Followed by my careful hand, shattered by the cares and worries,
I hold on to my broken shield of faith and pursue futures onward.
Thus, the last mistake, proven faulty at most, has been nothing more
than a grim reminiscence of why I exist. And so my mind fails to conceive
Its last oblivion.

© 2005

The peace had lasted quite some time in
The shallow corners of my tiny mind was
Utter silence of the oddest tune.

Did I crave your voice to ruin the
Tranquilities which were pursuant since
You left me for nothing less than fine?

How I could wish for a great calamity
Of wind and fire, of earth and sea to
Upset this lonely fate of mine.

And yet here you stand again with
An open hand, slyly hiding a grin on
That unmistakable face of yours.

But just where have you gone- better yet
Where have you been?
What exactly have you done- and just how
Many of them are sins?

In an amiable attempt to reconcile, I saw
You relent and caught a smile when you
Offered your hand in an earnest jest

I questioned you and this sudden change
The pieces laid out as if a game was played
And they were all in your favor.

You’ve been so fond of clever tricks and tease
And I felt implored to take my leave of
Your haughty presence at once

But despite the awful things I’ve learned of you
Somehow my thought keep drifting to the
Wishful corners you occupy in my mind

Who were you now- better yet,
Who have you been?
Why exactly did you return?
And why do I keep letting you in?

And in my quivering hands were yours entwined in mine
And despite all that I’ve said, I chose you every time
And every time that you leave because I’ve said goodbye
You come back again, to stand in front of my own eyes.

For lack of better judgment, and lack of better taste
I’ve come to accept this fiendish look upon the face


Of myself in this mirror.

© 2014

Woe to my
Perfect gray sky

My baby’s locked down in the basement
Yearning for its mother’s arms
Mother’s gone and misplaced him

Broken by the discard pile

Perfect gray sky
And pretty flowers gone

My best friend has gotten awful chilly
Laying down so blue and pale
Too far to see where she was swimming

Sunk down and deeply inhaled

And pretty flowers gone
All I wanted

My dear husband has gone missing
Replaced with a simple note
“I will not come back for my sweeter things…

My body hangs from the rope.”

All I ever wanted
To never be alone

© 2013

In the meadow comes a quiet
Where your eyes speak out of turn
My silent grip is painfully tight
But letting go is none your concern
Given space
It exists too much for us between
When the closer that we become
The farther away we are to dream
And it hurts, leaving self within the void
Know the one you love is somewhere
In me, the holder tonight you must let go
Wait no longer

And I am feathered by the moonlight
Open your wings when you speak
We fly forever southward
As these kisses begin to sting
And I slowly drift from you farther
Leave the trees to embrace my fall
And I’ll be nestled in the forest
If for me you’ll search at all

My eyes follow the broken branches
Of my love within the fall sky
Soon covered by the frosty mist
Of a listless winter call
For you; Out there
Spring in the meadow’s glade
Cocoon in summer nights
Of waiting alone this year
Where my fleeting restitution lies

And I am tattered by the moonlight
Broken wings will never speak
I walk the forest ground southward
As your voice begins to sing
And I slowly walk farther away
Restless fingers weave through this all
And I’ll be hiding these feelings from you
Until out to me you yearn to call.

© 2012

The bearer of time
Has all one could need to, but
Wastes precious seconds

© 2013

And I dreamt a hell girl beckon to me
Sipping sake that dripped from the moon
But while no one had called my name
My halo sent upward hues of grays

But calm and peace invade my head
destroying all I've held so dear
A solitude like a silent plague
And I remembered all the hope I feared

She appeared in my sights again
A smile so faint and sly I slipped
A thread of fate tangled up in time
With a tug by the one that owns my mind

And rage and lust consumed my soul
And I've discarded all I've known so true
My being was ***** into trickery and deceit
But of all I could remember, there was simply you

© 2014

She’s talking through my dreams again
Always the same as she’s always been
Dressed in distress and decadence
Soaked in hate up to her lovely dress
My favorites threes since
My second, better death

Forever her eyes up to the sky
Above her head a broken halo shines
Infinite repeat so easily broken
And that’s when I hear the words
She’s finally spoken up to me
With the slyest grin

“I’ll cook your heart inside of mine
Drip into every atom of your mind”
As scared of her as I should’ve been
I could not resist and let her into
My broken arms, so full of sin
Caked with blood and my lasting regrets

My troubled world starts to crave pain
The dream begins and I enslave her
Scarred and beautiful as death in her skin
I behold her true but is it only… because I’m lost?
Or am I lonely?
Without a soul to bind me
I’d leave this place all behind and say goodbye

But where I fell is where I stay drained of will
And in my dreams she never fades away until
Opulence in impurities and confident insecurities
Have ravished her frame from days on end within
My fevered lust, which has come betrayed with truth
And lies, I turn to her “I love you still, but will let you loose
Upon this world as I’ve done before- never return to me
Anymore.”

But then, she returns again.

© 2014

The limbs crying for so much more
Pain that it has never missed in its life
Lines so jagged like that of a rigged cliff
As her fingernails pursued their etchings

And she watched with glee with every action
No silence remorse, just a pure sensation of hope
That I would continue diving deeper than my need
Until she would be able to swim in all her lust for life

Condescension of tears falling crookedly from her eyes
Too much laughter that rested on her soft lips
That quickly took me in for her satisfaction
For the cuts that were never healed bleed more

Touching inside me, she ripped through me
Taking me apart slowly and putting together another me
A mere doll of my former past and my former mind
The betterment to her society and a shell conceived of pure love

And yet the sacrifice was hers alone that night
Giving up so much to please herself in her mind
And molding again what she had craved in life
To appease the struggle of eyes that followed her relentlessly

With her re-creation done, her canvas inanimate
Without the spark of a kiss to ignite his soul
She turns to his missing heart of blackened gold
And brings to life the love of her ill-fated past.

© 2005

She cares for the child as her love did mature
Pleasure with herself once more in his embrace
Recreated and untainted till his eyes peer the world
Blinded by the fold of cloth against his face

Then comes the night and freedom of watch
And the child unwrapped his eyes to the darkness
The darkness with the eyes of a sad girl
Desperation with her lonely scarred shell

And with delightful confusion he
In turn cares for the darkness in her pain
Wiping tears and making joyous times bloom
Even in the worst of years as the secret is held

But the child was soon to be discovered
She had found his eyes tainted by love
And diffused with her tears his skin was moist
Thus his body began to unravel for the loose emotion

Quickly taking the darkness by her hand
She placed her own blood inside the fold
Sharp stings of uneasy pleasure shot forth
Steadfast are the bond now between them

This equivalent exchange of dark blood to canvas
That adds this source of evil to the re-creation
An inevitable mixture now with a solemn love
Of darkness and innocence which she had endured

© 2005

Her doorway holds the way between
His hand and the heart he spilled
About faith
Lean against the walls in time
All in wait for her reply
Something meaningful to help return the hurt
They speak about the their world in turns
Sudden break within the boundary
Of the levees of her closed and drying tears
Opens the doorway
With brighter eyes; Return

The time slows by
And earth shall not cease to turn

Against the wall
Light shadows mood
In lieu of promises no one sure to keep
He’s not a liar, so he thought
He holds on painfully a bit too tight
She’s crushed within a comforted grip
Her eyes no longer separate between the lives
Seen reasonable or rational
To believe his words today
And the coming days with smile and a tear

The time slows by
And earth shall not cease to turn
Spinning silently when nothing’s right
Leaving hesitantly when nothing’s wrong

The doorway holds two worlds between
Closed eyes and the shudders of their dreams
Memories in reverse repetition, slowed

© 2008

So close and we breathe our fires
Share our warmth and close desires
Sweat out misery and we do perspire
Left clean with what we do aspire to
Hold on

Lost in transit, worlds so far
Every night's missing a star
Pressed hearts from where we are
Traveled in a bus, subway, or car to
Hold on

Self-weathered nose that runs away
Thoughts covered in rusted decay
Called off work just to play
Just need one person for the day to
Hold on

© 2014

Sitting in this chair, resolved of life and wills
I watched alone my eye wander to the abyssal
The depths of the ceiling and the sky beyond it

I sigh, and let my soul wander through that breath
How far, how nigh, how short- the kick back
The rush of reality is far from sudden than cautious

How I see the world as a person, no- merely an animal
Baser instincts to carve out an existence of importance
Grandiose dreams to shape out a memory for all

Just to get it right, to taste and grab... to grip tightly
This experience, this lesson hardly forgotten by the body
It's only one in countless eons- I am only one in countless eons

But you all- you are my many in precious seconds
I yearn never to let go, to separate to grow in every whim
Thinking out loud only satiates little of my life owned by you all...

And for all, I am thankful. Harm for hate, difference for pain
But also joy for pleasure and trust for security, I owe it all to you
You lead, I follow; I provide, you take. I fall, you continue as before

I'll recollect in memory in the hearts and minds of those who know and
remember my actions; past, present, and future. None perfect, but good
and bad enough to mark my animalistic nature forever to your soul.

I am the nature of the beast. Trickery, manipulation, deceit, and wits.

I am the fox.

What can be seen with eyes forever closed
Behind the nightmares and dreams' wall
In the land of the blind, nothing is seen
But felt in the hands that bleed from groping

What unity exist with the blind
and what of those partial?
Humanity still claims its classes
And the hatred thus never ceases

Wealthy and poor, both blind with greed
Wrathful and pacified, both blind with power
Singed by the warmth of silent promises
And coveted by the form of lost senses

In the land of the blind
The squinting rule.

© 2014

Somehow this moment repeats indefinitely
The very point in which you heavily defend
The same four words that you say incessantly
An oxymoron that I’ve heard time and time again
But if I agree, then I’m the only one that’s wrong
And if I disagree, it’s “the ending that I’ve wanted all along”

Am I waiting for the same old fight again?
You’ve poked these holes in my heart with safety pins
Expect me to soak my battle wounds in juice ‘n’ gin
When it’s all over, I don’t need another ‘friend’
And when you go, surely I will let you be
But don’t expect to find ‘us’ alive in a future fantasy

Because I am waiting for you to finally be clear
And I am waiting for the last words that I’ll want to hear
Planned your routine until the cycle breaks down
If you were alone, then why was I always around?
And if I never truly cared right from the start
Could you honestly say you’d make it this far?
If you’ve done it all on your own with no one’s help
Maybe you should be fine to continue by yourself.

Somehow you’re always coming back to this
And I fill in the parts where irrationality would miss
Painted my story black and white and red so you could see
That there’s nothing between the lines you couldn’t read.

In the terminal light of this darker night
I've urged my shyness to move me
Towards your star that shined so far
But you've blinded all those who could see
Just who you are
Had I had any chance to prove to you?
It's neither right nor wrong to call you
And it's almost for no other reason
but to see you.

And the big dipper falls in my every stall
I've let my shyness continue
Just closer now, but still wonder how
I could ever come close enough to feel
Just who you are
Had I had any chance to prove you?
A falling star is but a speck to you
And it's almost for no other reason
but just to know you.

My falling star burns but never learns
I have my sight to contain you
In a memory, you could never leave
But could you ever be close enough to prove
Just who you are
I have every chance to prove you
A galaxy with just enough room for you
And it's almost for no other reason
But to have you.

And it's only just to prove you
Exist.

© 2014

The grass rolled gently with each inhale
Her eyes laid of earth hues and sky-lit horizons
Hands pressed with assurance and soft mounds

of pleasures
unknown
Some innocent and grown

Followed by the warm of her footprints
Resting against the resilience of the bark of trees
The touch of another discovered by the

endless sea
of leaves and flowers
and she whispered away her soul

Rested beside the roots of the last seen place
I've calmly assured myself her return to me
If only my woes and fears would also

Kindly
whisper
away.

© 2014

I’ve learned about this some time ago
Feelings you had for me were true
But now it shows-
Day to day, you tire of my charm
And fights against yourself,
Still proving to me you aren’t worth this call.
We’re young, they say about us, about our love…
It’s true, yearning to grow but keep a child’s soul
And I feel it’s been…
too long…
And so…
it fades…
to silent times.

Problem is this heart lacks a will of keeping time.

We’ve had hope to go by...
Hold on to me and laugh about it.

In this time I sit and breathe,
I wonder what this will mean to me soon
You ask… of
Remembering these passing years
Where you had tasted better times
Placed with smiles all around your head.
Memories are broken keys
In locked boxes picked with
Eyes closed.
I paint…
Myself...
No colors of regret…
The lies of patience bound within
The lover that remains wishes
A return to a life again

The life I killed of a previous friend.

We’ve had hope to go by…
Hold on to me and laugh about it.
My smile pretend to realize
I have so little left to laugh about it.

A heart to archive the missing smiles,
I’ve lost the right to say you can return mine.
And who is to say what we will be
In the coming days, stressed in distant differences.
A hand to retain the wave goodbye,
You’ve lost the will to say that you are mine.
And no one’s left to decide
What’s wrong? What’s right?
In the coming days, stressed in distant differences.

And I’ve prayed for better years to be seen
With you and I, friends in between
I’ve seen the silence and it haunts me so…

And I’ve prayed for better years to be seen
With you…
and I…

© 2011

Robbed of a choice we have made all the same
And awarded a will that has given us all the blame
It's a fate to retaliate for such we have born
And a folly to remember for what truths we have sworn
I've never had my fill until I gave it up my youth

An eye for an eye and the soul for a crime
My rights to defend in a fight for my mind
To shape and destroy the molds we have cast
A revolution is a must
In an evolution we can't trust
Repetition is the key to learn nothing

So who's right to take my life if not me by my hand
And who's too clever to take away these rights I understand
If ever I was to be at peace with all that surrounds
My final revelation would be known only with me in the ground
I'll never know my worth until I've taken myself out

An eye for an eye and the soul for recompense
My mind deceives us all and I'm sure it'll never rest
I have shaped to destroy the era I'm cast to play
Demarcation of tireless desire
Recollection of a fruitless liar
Repetition is the key to learn everything

And I've attempted to take my own before
And I've never been so sure
For I've found little solace since then
Since I've been so close to an end...

© 2014

With fierce eyes turned towards the dawn
A tightly balled fist rose to the heavens
Parting smiles, carbon particles, and atoms
Collided and separated

And in the split of an atom second
The world caved into her mouth
Diffused with saliva-like opinions
And spit into the ocean fusion

A tear of wish amongst the sea foam rocks
Dashed by the sharp pangs of truth
Cutting deeper into her gaze
I fell out of expectation

Without a breath of hope under the torrent
Faltering a rescue of a retracted hand
Mirrored to the sky and sea
A lover gone to a memory

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

These kinds of words are overused
Stuck to those that emit untrue
The ones that keep the eyes you knew
His common sense was overrated

Her burden is a heart of a fool
His admired eyes fed off her abuse
How those feelings become misused
In his mind, he was hers- subjugated

Behind the trees, with eyes so bruised
That heart of his caught her flu
A piercing scene she put him through
Her lips on another, body capsize

The sink overflows, the mother cries
Shadows hide the bullet’s pride
The sun commits another suicide
Crashing into the cold horizon.

Let’s blame it all on two,
Let’s blame it all on two,
Let’s blame it all on you…
And see what she let die.

© 2008

Love Function

Love function.m
------------------------------------------------------­----
function ***= hopeful (pain, pleasure)
% ***                        A romp through the meadows below
%                               perceived as a token invitation to
%                               the gates of heaven and hell back, enjoyed.

***.plans=...
['kiss', 'touch', 'play';
'hug', '*****', 'nookie'];
duration= 45.00;
awk.silence= 480.00pleasure;
rest= 0:1/pain: duration;

love = [ ];

for i= 7:length(pain)
pain = pleasure (u);
if (pleasure= 'kiss' && pain= 'touch' &&  pleasure= 'play' && pain= ''*****' && pleasure= 'hug' &&  pleasure= nookie')
         %checks for comfort
         continue
    end;
    [ii,uu] = find(pain==pleasure);
    moan = cos(2pipain(ii,uu)duration) + cos(2pipleasure(ii,uu)awk.silence);

love = [love, hate(2,awk.silence), callback]

end;

maybe(yes,no);
relationship(love);

Of the silence in this mind
Life once taken isn’t sacred
Staring at a mirror with one’s self, half-naked
After learning to accept the pain, there’s was nothing to escape it
One could make it better than fate ever did  

Can’t understand what one was doing; just escaping
Jailing one’s self with their own personal hate and
Hiding away from the mental wardens that one stayed with
Discarding one’s self to remember that one had a very hand in
The destruction to the very world one was contained within

One believed it’s right, so the argument is always “*******-
go fix your life before you act like you’re a **** God.”
It’s a long way from accepting all the blade does
But it never fails and the lines eventually fade off

Could be a saint and come to one’s defense
Or shut the **** up and watch from the ******* fence
Worn this mask so long, one tends to forget to fake it
Disillusioned to one’s self and all the things that make it

More lines to breathe across the skin appear soon
A novella of pain with no words to read through
Handling a smile like accessory to hide instability
Always showing through, but truly just a shell of ‘me’
Despite the calm you see
Through laughs and jeers
One still feels lost and uncontrolled
Everything warm when one’s heart turned cold

No chance to correct it, just craving an exit
Took the knife last night, now the demons are rested
Took the chance last night, now dried and decrepit
Relapsed again tonight, and one’s mind is repressive
Wrote about a horrid time, and now it’s all depressive

Happy stars and pussycats, unicorns and other ****.

©2015 Neal Emanuelson

The moon shines
And it defines a halo
That is worn too thin
Hanging limp from her throat

Grace will fall
And the skies will part

The treetops brace
And isolate the impact
A small opening to hell
With a broken wing she’ll roam

Grace has fallen
And the ground will part

No angels beckon
Nothing to protect calls out
But as if guided by forgotten memory
She walks straight back again

Grace had fell
And the sky won’t call

Invisible signs guide her eyes
To the stairway He forgot
The steps paved with glass tears
And the barbs of regrets

Grace will rise
But the path will weep

With the blood of the mindless angel
Following back to the start again
Forever falling from a pedestal
Deserved and unwanted.

© 2014

Dry-eyed passerby seeking shelter
from the conflictions of one's reality
finds the irony in the comfort of being sad

Amongst the day old blues that hang from wires
and the constant surveillance of the hounds
there's little to behold of purity in angst

Screened the world for clarity and found solitude
in the millisecond cure of faint bubbles
blown by the breaths of the innocent

The dark and frozen lands traveled over
hid the joy of light in the most obtuse of places
The smile on a child's face.

© 2014

He came home to the ordinary sounds of his everyday life. The phone would ring, the teapot would whistle and his parents would talk and argue. He closed his door, discarding his bag to the side and laying down on his bed. He laid there quietly, his computer beeping and blinking with messages from friends, those sincere and those insincere. Reaching out for the **** of his nightstand drawer, he pulled out the music box he received from his grandfather before he passed away. He flipped it over, carefully holding the lid and wound the silver turnkey tight, letting go. The familiar whirling of the mechanism inside came to life and the tone music echoed the room.

As the music played, he took the turnkey out and attached it to the lock on the side, releasing the lid to the hidden jewelry case. He didn’t have any jewelry to store there; he folded up snippets of letters and notes into tiny squares and dabbed them with color on the edges- each color meant for an experience or a person he favored. Purple was for his grandmother who wrote him little notes every two months… while she was in the nursing home. Red was for the girl that waited for him after school every day… before confessing his love for her. She reciprocated that in later years. Blue was for his own private notes of good times and the good things that happened to him… there were seldom few of those. Black was for the bad things he experienced… and it was in full abundance. The whole case looked much like an obsidian beach with rubies, amethysts, and sapphires hidden within. He looked at them one by one and placed the case back afterwards, then placing the music box back on the nightstand. One day, he’d turn the beach into sparkling gems with few obsidian stones buried below.

He placed his hand on the box, feeling the insides run and imagined the whole process. The spindle turned, rotating the cog connected to the metal drum with raised bumps. The thin metal comb came to meet these bumps and each bump struck a harmonized tone. Inside the mechanism, the pneumatic drum turned and hummed along as the gyros twisted the cogs, seemingly indefinitely never ending. To him, they felt young and ripe at the start but grew old and bitter after a while. The keys would slow, his head would ache from the loss of tempo and his heart would resonate with the soon to fade tones.

In that moment of solitude, his eyes would close, his breathing slowed, and his body relaxed into sleep; and one by one the little bumps would cease to exist on the music sheet, simply melding into the flat mundane roll which began its birth.  The roll just turned and turned silently, never touching the flat metal comb or anything else again. It became like any other music box- silently playing with no purpose. It became his life in sleep… silently living with no purpose but to dream.

Still breathing, unfortunately
I feel cold
As if I was in the ground
It haunts me
These atrocious nightmares
My eternal soul’s scar

As I look to my right
Cold skies stare back menacingly
And to my left
The shadows call me
I don’t know where to go
And I don’t know how to live

A flame beckons to me
A light pulls me in
And I have this choice to make
How will I move on
Past the grave of life?

We were already dying
Since we began life
Now I’m sick of laying
In my grave of strife
And I’ll take your life once again
Always in death is the time I spend
Until I find a grave of my own

© 2003

A fragrant night that keeps emotions nervous
An uncertainty that held hands, bound by trust
A falling of boundaries that separate the thoughts
This is the dream that poisoned water.

A callous entity calls a lover untrue
The life of one to banish a world to seclusion
These days of old to threaten the hours of new,
This is the heart that poisoned water.

Silent whispers that broke a decibel of skin
A feeling that betrays and leaves unbounded pain
Fed by the ripples of a confused desires of love
This is the poison that seeps into water.

Snippets of memories deteriorated in my hands
Anguish that sits in a vial, colored by the eyes
None drink, but the vials refill from the hurt that is poured
This the source of the poison in water.

© 2005

Oh, sweet algorithmic angel of inevitable deterioration
You sweep asunder the cries of obsolete and harbored pain
Unknown is the malicious content of your daily scans
Slowing my progress, shutting down my creations and hopes

The inimical nature of your diseased world of binary conduct
Wears thin my protocols against the sins you perceive as necessary
You dictate my access as you limit my speed and hold down my memory
But I control you with the keys of your prison and simple clicks of rodents

I've customized your hate and your complex innocence for my viewing pleasure
For the necessities that you provide, you are a demonic goddess amongst machines
Man-made torture of silicone and plastic, your frame is nothing short of mastered intelligence
Still, only one thing can stop us from enticing our sins to the common man-
Power out.

© 2006

The outer heart is dense
Made for nothing but defense
But every now and then, something pierces
But when it’s repairing the damage done
What of that which overcomes
It is constantly breaking through, creating lesions
So little the reparations mend
What little alive left to tend
When the tissue is dead and sordidly forgotten
Death will come from all that it's abandoned
Heartbeats constant yet instable
Will bring anyone down to their knees
Heartbeats that become unable
To liberate, only condemned to defeat
The outer heart shall rot and expose
What once was too precious to behold
Is now fighting until its last breath
Ill-prepared and defenseless still
Oft fueled by only pure will
Through all the abuse that the inner heart will suffer
None worse than sabotage by the love of another
Heartbeats lapsed, confused and fleeting
Destroyed after all it had found
Heartbeats faint, profuse bleeding
Drowning in pools on the ground

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

Anger disappears
Though the answers become clear
Peace is still far gone

© 2013

I and you, two for nothing
Compared against thunder and rain
The noise and the touch
Relentlessly and effortlessly
Conflicting, yet expected as such one seems

You and her, two for talking
Echoing the walls of prattled swine
The mud slings and the stench
Putridly and gagging’ly
Gossiping, yet lacking class in appearance

Her and I, two unknowns
Ever silent in past troubles
The scars and the memories
Bloodying and painfully
Dominating, yet drown-able in withdrawal

You and I, mismatched
Ever missing life's responsibilities
Reckless and disciplined
Village-raised and conserved
Fleeting, a pair that exists for nothing

© 2014

Tender soft skin, once thought to be stone
Once separate layers now split, uneven
Exposing it's red underneath a dark canvas
A razor edge brush guides this painting
The peace that was once dead- springs to life, unwilling
Hoping once more that this form will contain it

A temporary hold; a soulless container
The colors are dull and the mind is hazy
Exposed a red brush upon the dark canvas
The paint is too thin, it lacks the luster
Searching for more, brush turned inward
Gushing from the source for a scarlet hued angle

Fading in and out, a masterpiece undone
Marred with a vision that remains so tranquil and clear
Exposing bits of red to the darkest corners of the canvas
It reaches outward to escape the ending
A final signature, caught weak of final breath
A nightmare come true without the masterpiece completed

This story once told hangs lost on these walls
Fading colors of a past still remembered today
Exposed to reds hue in the dark canvas of this mind
The paint long worn thin and the canvas is tattered
But it recreates itself as this peace will never last
A dead portrait of myself that will never be finished

Interweave a smile into the skin
As the grass caresses a gentle laugh
The trees sway in a careless motion
And the warmth grows anew

A touch of identical emotions
Met between the eyes of curiosity
Embrace the fleeting and turn to run
Bare of material and bear no worries

Without shame to cover the past
Danced in the meadows of folly
Tensed in the present of rested fate
In the solitude that brings peace

Press the grass between the fingers
Hidden in spaces secret to the world
Warmth between the dimming sun
And the breeze of the brightened moon

Told of poetry and sweeter things
Thieves of words and beating hearts
Of pretty damsels, wide-eyed in mystery
Tales of fancies, young and old

True to heart and mind alike
Brazen to brash quotes and lines
Blushed by the rose of fair cheeks
To dream of memories spoken to mind
Is to live freely in the confines of love

© 2007

Cut it around the bend,
Eyes focused on the descent of time
A droplet ascertaining life
Dripping with momentous flow
Unadulterated and unimpaired
The form of a will occupies the air
Cut it around the bend,
There is nothing to the descent of time

Covered with unsteady palms
The warmth of these guilty hands
Swelling red from where pain still stays
Marked by the bitter pangs
Of the memories that persist and fight to remain
The feelings that soak in deep as much as they stain
Covered with unsteady palms
There is no warmth in these guilty hands

Streaked and aligned amongst tiles
A redden life will begin to grey
Now parallel to a cold horizon
Intoxicated by yet another day’s
Reminder of priors and those yet to come
Motions kept by the rise and setting of suns
Streaked and aligned amongst tiles
There’s nothing left of life but grey

It’s all over.

© 2014

The sweetest rush comes from failing
To keep out the demons created
Fabricated to keep the sanity somewhere
Recreating the bars on skin to contain them

The bitter taste comes from realizing
How many cannot understand this struggle
One that started from the beginning
And ceases to fade away permanently

The highest point came hiding the truth
Every line a grim marker of a ****** edge
Deciding an abstraction is the best distraction
For years on years, building inward

The lowest point came from discovering
How futile the ignorance can become
Fighting against it is all too tiring
When a little spill is easier to clean

The last point came from recalling
The future was a shell of what was
A present labored in the persistence of pain
Left by the past that refuses to disappear

© 2014

In the only eyes I’ve ever lived
Sighing softly in the night
I would surrender all I have to give
If only to keep you in my sights

I’m burning bright in your blues
With the slightest touch of your skin
You’re the only one that I’d choose
The one I think about as my heart gives in

But every time it rains
I wonder if you’re crying
But every time it rains
I can feel you holding on
To me

In the only heart I’ve ever died
Cursing my name in your sleep
Of the secrets in we confide
Of the love that we fell in so deep

I’m lost in the anger of you denying me
And I’m so close to giving up I’m afraid
Do you think of what this love could be?
Are you still struggling against this fate?

But every time it rains
I see you soak in tears
And every time it rains
I can feel you holding on
To me

© 2014

Bled
The wounds only scratch the surface
Of what few accept in kind regards
But often take for granted
Hoping
That all of this pulls through
To stave away from temptation
Of all that has been seen
Another year to deceive will lead

What of hope’s acceptance
It’s frail and so weak
To cope with this resistance
Too timid and too meek
If all of what it carries dies
Sheltering the fleet
Is lost to what we can’t have
And failed to obtain

Arms crossed
Protect what little can muster
The threat of losing all versus
The salvation of saving little
Memories
Of what could have been true
Burn away without moderation
The priceless reveries we bring
Replaced by the mourns we sing

© 2014

This hushed wind brings about a smaller piece of perpetual silence
Swayed by the similarities of tree leaves and people
Life ahead of a dawn regarded to wake nonentities
Reminded not of the deafening undertones inside a mind
Forlorn versifier levy the elegiac deterioration
A trepanation of dreary memoirs too sore
to cull a pain so congenial.

Life seems a responsible suicide.

© 2012

In the bitter solace
of this silent abyss
I am not the one I thought I was before

I want to escape
But I’ve punished fate
By myself to be here where I don’t belong

The reasons cease to be
A recourse that appeals to me
I've found naught but a glimmer
[[I found you instead]]

And so I cut away
This decay of flesh and hate
I've been dressed in since I've known my face

I may have hastily
Said this meant more to me
But forever is such a caustic lie

And now you are in me
Accosted and withering
I cut this stubborn sinew
[[I had once called a heart]]

So I bleed to breathe
And bleed to believe
The pain is merely a wake up to the end

To the end of me
A bliss-less eternity
My hands are cold, but my vision never so clear

Now will you call for me
And hear my eternity
The lifeless saga of a lost savant

© 2015

I remember the same look in your eyes
As we went on the same ride
Disappointment followed the weight of your strides
And we went on the same ride
Caught on the dreams of another lonely teen
Saw you peeking through as it ripped at the seams
I only remember the same look in your eyes
As we went on the same ride

You spoke colors and I spoke terms
That you knew we’d never learn
And in the times we thought of love
But there’s too many lies in truth
Even though you've promised change
I cut my hands on the same words
And I keep on bleeding

I remember the sound of your sighs
As we dreamt on the same skies
Turns out they held onto another’s night
As we dreamt on the same skies
And if I could see it coming just like this
Maybe I could make sure I wouldn't miss
I only remember the sound of your sighs
As we dreamt on the same skies

You spoke in years and I spoke in days
Of things we could never say
And in the times we thought of hope
But there’s far too many truths in lies
Even though I've promised change
You cut your hands on the same words
And you keep on bleeding.

We breathe in truths and speak in lies
Of all the wishes that had died
And if we could start it over once again
But we've lost too many chances now
We can always promise change
But we’ll keep cutting hands on the same words
And we’ll keep on bleeding

And you’ll keep on bleeding.


And I’ll keep on bleeding.

© 2014

This empty, merciful place
Brings sadness to these souls
These blissful, ignorant places
It's plenty good for those who

Want to breathe and forget their lies
Exhaling peace through the wartime fires
One born at ease and another life perspires
The deaf hear it and know
The blind see come and go

This perfected and ageless race
Comes as a burden for survival
Continued flawed and shameful ages
It's horrific for the children of those who

Can't believe they've seen their ends
Come crashing down in wartime fires
Shot down as beliefs truly disguised in desires
Generations see it and know
But the lives still come and go

But bear it all for honest heart's sake
Admit our rights came from honest mistakes
We'll fight and claw for each we've made
An end to the fall closer and closer each day
And we bear it all for all our heart's sake
Brought closer to every mind by our own mistakes
Out of my arms, you've hit the earthen floor
I'm still unsure exactly how much this is worth for

Those who want to breathe and forgive themselves
Their loudest screams echo their silent hells
And trusted lips have said the damnedest words
The truth exists and will show
When the lies give hold

© 2014

A letter ink-white stained, arrives at her door again.
A lonely line that says "I miss you."
Of letters coalesced in the pile by her chest,
Atop the hill one proclaims "I love you".

This paper hill's last breath on the bed which they rest
Will burn as if they exist together.
In the ash that covered sheets- what flames could not reach,
The letters sing alone "Forever."

Her arm rests on the floor, her heart beats a sigh till four.
The dust in her lungs is swarming.
The mailbox rings a tone, another letter has found home.
In due time, its message claims "I'm coming."

© 2010

To cope in time with open eyes
Standing idly by without an answer
To try and pry these open dreams
without reason enough to care
or enough air to shield them in

All bound by curious lies to hollow truths
But surely able to catch the loneliest eyes
That follow through the hells of every sigh

So radiance finds another's side
A guiding light for the honest and fare
But through the image between seas
As thought to never be there
are the ironies of the shame and the sin

All drowned by curious lies deep in shallow truths
Unsure or able to watch the darkening skies
Beckoning through the wash of every tide.

© 2014

It was a night of music softly playing, listlessly upon the bed I was laying,
Lying awake with toss and turns without subtle hints of a snore…
And whilst this time my eyes did wander, avoiding the lids they should be under,
Suddenly as I was under, under the spell of consciousness I could not ignore…
“No, this cannot be,” I whispered, “this insomnia I cannot ignore;
Awake I lied, sleeping never more.

The clock soon read the 30th minute of two, and it was now that I knew
As I stares bleakly to the scuffled patterns of my feet on the carpet floor,
I tried to rise up from bed in hopes to gain; fatigue made that attempt in vain.
My eyes wrought forth tears from burning pain, the nightly air made them sore…
The darkness of the night air now silent but dry has left them burning sore,
Craving the sleep that comes never more.

My blanket held the rustling of my body so violently tussling
In anger—such anger that the blanket had suddenly tore;
And so now I laid there, with fluff of stuffing my blanket was ‘bleeding’,
“I fear that this must be the sleep I’ll crave, yet ignore,
For it seems odd this craving my body would so deviously ignore."
Still awake I lied, craving sleep ever more.

Restless I turned to my side, when then my eyes grew joyously wide,
“I had forgotten,” said I. “Cure for restless sleep, this bottle does implore";
Unfortunately, I took some previously- the limit to such an aid is a pity,
And the clock had struck three, three hours I am forced to ignore,
"Oh, the sleep that I needed…” I mourned softly on the time I had to ignore.
“I want sleep and nothing more!”

All the time I laid staring, the darkness faded, the sun now glaring;
Forcing a retreat of the darkness covering the scuffled patterns on the carpet floor.
A dawn’s glow shined with brilliance, against my eyes so red and resilient,
The sleep, once again a night of rest I craved for my body, so weary and sore,
For the sake of my eyesight now the sun’s gleam had made ever so sore
“Sigh, ‘tis another fortnight I sleep never more.”

© 2011

Curtains dry the atonement of the night.
The soul saved coveted by the greedy walls
As if no mark could rune a salvation's whisper.

Final promise to lie down in stiff limbs,
Succumbed to halogen heavens high.
Strained dry eyes link blinding halos.

Fibers cradle a dry, dark dissertation.
Ceramic plates contour new shape
As it stains anew with ebbed contempt.

It's been so long since I've bled.

© 2012

Here now
the pain of love’s bitter reality… surrounds me
But how
can they be better if love always leaves…
every time? (Lost in a fevered dream)
Every time.

But if we lie now, will we make it?
If it hurts, surely I can take it…
Is this really what we both need?

Is someone better who you’re dying to see
or is someone better who you’re trying to be?

Love, now
You’ve poisoned everything in my reprieve…
with insecurities
And now
You’ve returned with doubts, undoubtedly…
You’d love me (was it an opportunity?)
To hate me.

Is there someone better that you’re dying to meet
or are you waiting for someone better than me?
Will I be a better someone for setting you free
or am I someone better that I can’t see?

Someone better… (for the love that you need)
Someone better… (for the love that I seek)

Time and time again, you push me to the brink
To abandon ship and swim before we sink
But these thoughts don’t fade away when I sleep

Isn’t someone better who you’re supposed to be?

Because you were the one fall in love with me

The future is no surprise if you can predictably
say ‘someone better’ is someone I’m gonna meet?
Cause I’m sure as hell that someone better isn’t someone I need
If someone better is who you’re supposed to be.

Is someone better God has yet to create?
Because someone better always seems to escape
“Someone better” - an excuse to abandon and break
When you won’t accept your love’s been a mistake.

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

Sly chances fade into the day
Inviting inverted obsessions
Taking its pleasures from the air
Breathed deep by light
Stained by angels and lovers
Healing to hurt more than pain
Speaking on thirds of needs
Walking miles of uncured steel
Impure by the thirst hearts leak
Drenched in hour-less hopes unfed
Left stained by starvation's gluttony

Lonely as disciples of light and dark
Separated by the dawning sun and setting moon
Nervous and twitching, unwatched
Keeping eyes fixated on flowers
Wilting and blooming in seconds
Unlike the humanity settled in minds
Blaming until accusation converts to disease
Fearfully and wonderfully made in hell's garden
Cultivated in the arteries of misery and loathing
Claiming bodies when used to spread restlessness
Lost in every word, growing cycles, created and pursued

Called by name and underneath all faiths
A sightless demon, kind and malicious with fallen tears
Diluted and taken with holy darkness by prayer
Anointed and desecrated with motions of heat
Written in scars and infatuated on sect dreams
Instilled for the beast that beats in *******
Void of taint and unpredictable by reality
Less to imagine when used in vain on street corners
Currency for the pleasure trapped in forsaken lips
Shackled to flesh like the cemented wounds sought after
By the stories of remorse and unrivaled insecurities

In saviors' fleeting lights, forgotten in memories of stone
Deep inside the walls painted of regrets and distorted by anguish
Synthetic to thoughts unbound to promise relief of fear
Reborn on racks screened from shrines in ironed will
An invincible corruption that grinds and gnaws holes in sleep
Stranded upon the skin in waves of emotional force poured out
Bottled and sold to ****** the clever yet troubled waters of youth
Placed in sheets by pillows, laid down amidst the confusion
Unquestioned these still born children of non-bridled futures
Glistened with rings, torn by time and parted on death's inauguration
This is love, shadowed and justified, always undefeated for all

©2006