I don't enjoy making new friends.
I loathe the conversations I have with
my own friends about branching out
and meeting new people.
I know this makes me sound like
someone who lacks the ability to make
a friend, but I can't stress
enough how it really comes down
to how much I actually
care for and trust the friends
that I already have.

I'll start from the beginning so maybe you
can understand why it is I think this way.

I grew up in a traditional home, with a very loving family
that for most of my childhood allowed me to
be content with the life I was living.

Later in my youthful years, it became aware to me
that I was unlike the typical child. I was not the average boy
who imagined walking on grains of sand while holding hands
with his beautiful wife. I was not the "ordinary" boy who one day
pictured himself fathering children with a loving newlywed who I
would spend the rest of my life with.

You see,
these societal standards of achievement to which
I could never merit only made me notice how
little I could ever contribute to the plans
my family laid out for me.  

For the longest time I considered myself
to be a religious person, one that could worship
the God that I was raised to love.

The day that I finally welcomed my
"unnatural" thoughts as merely an echo of my
soul guiding me towards a better life
is also the day I began questioning
the existence of any higher being.

How could it be possible to feel so much joy
when looking at another boy, yet be so
hated for even having that feeling?
A feeling that was out of my control
from the moment I understood what it
was like to be attracted to another human.

Why is it so common for believers to
shun the feelings of people like myself
for simply wanting to enjoy life in the same way
they do? This is where my faith was destroyed.
I  just can't find myself to trust the teachings
of a creator who purposefully created me
to be considered an abomination in His eyes.

I look back on my adolescent years and
only now realize that I always lived in a glass box;
a world that appeared to be accepting and loving
but was rather shielding me away
from the true potential of happiness
that I now know I deserve.

Ever heard the term,
"coming out of the closet"?
Let me put it to you this way...

I have this memory of when I was little
of my babysitter locking me in a closet,
turning out all the lights,
and laughing to himself as I cried for hours.
For a very long time I was scared of dark places,
of being confined to an area that I was
forcefully put into.

As painful as it was in the moment,
I am beyond thankful for going through that
because it helped me to see light in a new way.
It may as well have been symbolic
of the future decisions I was
going to make, ones that would
show me how bright
my love could actually be.

Now, I ask this of you because
I want you to imagine what I went through,
but have you ever heard the term,
"coming out of the closet"?

If you haven't, then all I can tell
you is that it brings about the most
liberating emotion that I
have ever felt, and one
that I wish every similar minded kid like
me has the opportunity to experience.

It was tough admitting to my family that
I was going to put all their hopes aside,
and start allowing myself to break free
from that dark cage I was trapped in
for so long.

It went exactly as I knew it would.
The support that I was so used
to having seemed to swiftly fade away.
It was missing for a while,
but then I found it in the strangest of places.
Who knew that such love and acceptance
could come from people you never knew existed?

My friends from day one were
always there for me.
They were always that metaphorical handkerchief
for me to wipe my tears and the
punching bags for me to release my anger.

It may sound cliche,
but there are no words for me to
show how much I value the friendships
that I have been so blessed with.
There are no poems,
not even this one I'm writing,
cleverly worded enough to
represent the amount of love
I have for those I consider
to be my friends.

My friends have burrowed
into places of my mind
that let me feel like I have
a family again.

This is why
I despise the introductions of new
people into my life.
I am terrified of the possibility
that they will take me
away from the second family that
I worked so hard to convince myself
that I had.

I listen to my friends tell me
how I need to just let go and allow
myself to be free, and to
not be scared of meeting new people; but,
until they feel the same sense of family
being torn away from them
then their mouths may as well be
sewn shut.

Do you get it now?

I live in this fantasy world,
you see.
An imaginary time of lent,
in my total control.
One where instead of giving up sugar,
and sweets,
I am able to give up my emotions,
all of them.
I need to forget what it was like to
be happy.
I need to learn how to be angry with you,
not yearnful.
I need to psyche myself into believing...
this feelings ends.

If only for fourty days and fourty nights,
I'd give my love for you up in a heartbeat.

If only you were like my appendix,
then I could tear you out and somehow live.

But I'm left with you as a literal piece of my heart,
I bleed slowly everyday we aren't together.

It took only a few seconds to
f
a
l
l
in love with you.
____________
It took only a few seconds for us to be,

meyou

, side by side.  
____________
It took only a few seconds for you to
d
r
o
p
me from your life.
_____________
Why can't it take only a few seconds to pick
myself
mysel
myse
mys
my
m
up again?

It is inevitable that
there comes a time
in everyone’s life
that they must
endure a hardship.
The strong and successful
take this hard-ship
and turn themselves
into somewhat
of a Captain Hook,
basically taking the role as
the only person that can
guide their boat
out of the storm.
Similar to roaming
the oceans for weeks,
there comes days
where unexpected blocks
attempt to take a
stab at our vessels.
Science tells us that
with punctures to
our arteries we bleed out.
Use this vital fluid,
mix it with the
very drops of tears
that shed from your baby blues,
and construct a potion.
Witches use this
technique for self pleasure,
which is probably
what you should do.
If anyone tries to
hurt you again
then slip in a
sip of your produced toxic tonic.
Rebuild your barriers
and do not allow anyone
to break it down until you have
total trust in them.
There will come
a day much like
1989 for Berlin,
where the process for
dismantling your wall
will come to pass.
Until then just
never forget the
small things in life
that make you who
you are.
I have this power
that allows me to
look into the
future and witness
someone’s fate.
All I can tell you
is that you can be the director.
If you were in a movie right now,
you would be near the
end of the first cinema.
Let’s call it The Dark Night.
Don’t forget that with
every questionable
ending comes a sequel,
and I promise that
you will
Rise.

Does happiness ever actually come?
Day to day I tell myself
that it's just around the corner,
but it seems these days like
I'm stuck in an infinite cul-de-sac.
A dead end that I've been stuck at since
the time we were no longer on this
road together.
I desperately need to know what
it's like to not wake up everyday
and question if I'm ever going to
get better. If there will be a time
in which I no longer need my poetry.
I no longer need a source of venting.
Venting that only spirals me down,
down a path that is impossible to climb
back up from. From a tortured soul, I
wish you could see that I'm not healing.
Healing only happens to those strong enough
to fix the pieces of themselves that
the world so effortlessly shattered.

Shattered. You left me broken, in
a million puzzle pieces that no one
can put back together. I'll
never get to be whole again. The image
of myself you left me tainted with is
a disaster. It appears as though
you took my edges,
and no one ever starts a puzzle from the inside.

I've been in some pretty big fights with the people I love the most in my life, yet time after time we find ourselves unscathed, undamaged, and unflustered. Patching the pain I fortuitously cause others isn't some errand I bitterly await, it seems like more of a human duty.

I never have a hard time fixing things that are broken in my life. A glass shattered on the floor this morning, & now it sits stitched flawlessly on the shelf.

It just feels right to leave something the way I found it, or at least try my damnest to get it near perfect. It really is the try that matters.

And I just don't understand how it can be... so easy for me to say I'm sorry, while it's somehow so easy for you to unapologetically lacerate every inch of my sympathetic soul.

I've been lost in understanding how gravitational fields work. How can two things feel such a strong force of attraction for each other, yet never have to touch?

It wasn’t until I met you that I experienced this sensation for myself. From the moment I met you I could feel a pull. It’s as if you were a bright sun, and I was a newly formed planet that fell right into your orbit. My entire life was centered on your existence.

Just walking into the room and seeing your face sent waves crashing into my vessel walls.

 Something happened in the moments that we spent together, a certain feeling that I've never again had the pleasure to experience... because let's face it, we had *** in the most peculiar of methods.

 It wasn’t the typical emotional sparks that fly when you find yourself in a happy state of mind. No, this was something entirely different

It started with my attraction towards our every conversation; each one a magnet that pulled me further in love with you.

The words your tongue would mold drifted out of your mouth and landed delicately against my lips. It was enough to ***** my happiest of thoughts.

Your smile was like the sun radiating against my skin on a scorching summer day. It undressed my misery and allowed all my negativity to be abondoned.

The way you would look at me with your hazel eyes left me naked, but in a way that never made me uncomfortable to be so exposed with you.

Your honesty was merely foreplay to the end we were both so lustful for. An end that would leave both of us appreciative of the experiences we had.

The promises you made me were penetrating, leaving scars that to this day still exist.

Thrusting your love for me in our final moments felt like a never ending ******. My heart swelled with glimpses of our future we would spend side by side.

Then it happened. You put a mirror in front of me and said that we were done. I was left watching myself burst at the seams.

Years have past and I still look into that glass and see a reflection of who I used to be.


--------------------------------------------------------------­----------------


I think of those times that we spent together and I sense an itch. I want to scratch the nooks of my emotions that have been absent from the moment I was last with you.

I have felt so cold, shivering as I bundle under my blanket of reality.

I ache for the warmth that you got me in the habit of feeling.

I desperately need to snuggle with your presence and get newly lost in a maze of passion.

I wish I was the fastest man on earth so I could  flash, back to when my life wasn't so ****** up.
To the times we'd escape the ever-present construct of our lives being comprised of only instants; because to us each breath we shared felt infinite.

I get now that you never put a mirror between us at the end. I was actually watching you go through exactly what I did.

You are my reflection. You always have been.

I need to find new ways to express
the same way I've felt year after year.
Unique combinations of perfect poetry
that somehow convey exactly what I go through on a day to day basis.

This is me once again trying to shoot that target,
even if I never get the chance to yell bullseye.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

I miss the sparks we had in every moment together, the ones that ignited our love to burn ferociously blue, not a gentle red.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

That was great but I think I missed, I'll give it another try.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

There is no remedy to prescribe for this disease of a life you left me lost in. All I can hope for now is that these words navigate their way onto your screen.

I design maps in every poem I jot down, with the illusion that someday you WILL find the path back to us.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

No... that one was accurate, but I'll try to be more precise.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I falsify myself anytime someone looks at me by wearing a mask that I'm not sure I can ever take off.

I don't have the courage to do that, because there's not a right way to explain how such permenant blemishes didn't start off as birthmarks.  They don't even look like scars, but rather lesions where you chose to purposely poison every inch of my being.   

My only method of eradicating you from my body was to turn my emotional pen and ink into something that I'm not embarrased to show the world.

My tattoos are etched so that I can finally decide what I look like on the outside, the person I saw myself becoming before I met you. Although, even these painful shades I continue forcing myself to endure won't hide the knowledge I am left blinded by.
 
We both know the real ones were engraved a long time ago in spaces so buried, so bottomless that not even the busiest gravedigger could stumble upon them.

- - - - - - - - - -

That felt like a closer hit.

Next time I decide to load my handgun I'll make sure to take a deep breath and focus, maybe then can I actually shoot the center of these criminal emotions that ****** me time and time again.

Do they even understand what it's like to feel so much pain?
Everyday I wake up from my nightmares only to be put back into one.
This re-occurring sense of loss I go through each day is slowly driving me crazy.

I shouldn't have to question my every word in hopes that maybe I'll be allowed some genuine time with the people I love.
How can I ever become the best me when the only me I see reflected in my friend's eyes is of a shadow?
To constantly be in my head, wondering if today will be better than the previous one seems like a waste of time.

I should be able to spend my every breath in life surrounded by people who don't judge me for not wanting to intoxicate my mind.
You see, it's difficult to be around so-called "positive" drugs when the only memories I have of my childhood revolve around ****** up drunks who only cared about themselves.
My family has always been tight-knit, you kind of have to be in order to sew up every loose end that gets left behind as a repercussion of the countless actions that blow up your world like balloons pumped up a little too far.

I really wouldn't complain about my upbringing, all I'm saying is that I witnessed myself the change that drugs could bring upon.
No matter what someones intentions are of getting high, all I see in them is my uncle.
An uncle that had more potential with his life than I ever did with mine, which is saying something because for a while I was headed towards being a doctor.
He made the choices he thought were fun, but was only left imprisoned and locked away from any familial love.

For so long I valued my friends more than anything in the world.
They were the cushions to catch me when I wobbled and fell off every wall that blocked me from reaching my true happiness.
Years have past and for the most part we have only grown closer.
Now it just feels like we are only closer to the end.
I can't imagine my life without the friends I have, but when you can't feel like part of the gang simply because you don't reach the same heights as them, it starts to feel lonely.

You would think living with 4 of your best friends would somehow leave you blessed and grateful to be alive, but everyday I find myself evaluating if I reached my happiness peak.
I'm just tumbling down a never ending ride that continues to punish me for wanting to be nothing more than human.

My words of advice and wisdom are only heard as complaints in the ears of my friends, so why do I even bother?
Well, to answer that question I would just have to say it hurts.

I try and try each day to phrase my words in ways that will show my friends I am desperately searching for their kidnapped souls.
They have to be missing, right?
I mean how else could friends leave behind something so delicate, so easily broken?

As much as it hurts me I can't stop looking, I just hope that I can be reunited with radiance before the dark comes and I'm forced to rest in peace.

Swiftly swiping through frozen memories, & I stumbled upon something astounding.

A spectacle that didn't seem to surprise, just another example of the standard sensitized society that we have been settled into for far too long.

It was an image of a couple that I steadily "stalked", per se, but more of supported from a secluded distance. Spread across the picture were the same two sapiens so surely in love; yet I could see the sadness in both their sockets as clear as a sunset on a cloudless day.

Smiles stretched from side to side on both their faces, but if you stared sharply you could spot the sorrow submerged in their souls.

The inseparable twosome were ironically split from each other, standing on opposite sides of a sidekick whose sole purpose was to serve as a distraction to the shadowed love which never dare show its existence to spectators.

Secrets sorted into the minds of offspring, scared to say the truth because of suspicion that they might surrender the love they once secured.

You see, being straight is the sustainable selection for the future of our race, the single method of sharing in the responsibility of our species' survival.
 
A decision of sexuality spoken during sermon that is made for us by a creator... long before conception.

As sinful as this may sound, I refuse to concede to a forsaken life sanctioned by a story scripted 3500 years ago.

It sickens me to witness a universal sensation of emotion between two spirits be the reason for such substantial suffering.

A person need not be scorned due to their desired source of seduction or for having that undescribable sense of freedom we never discerned was enslaved to begin with.

We don't get to choose what sparks our minds to skyrocket, our knees to shiver,  and certainly not our hearts to break.

We are deserving of safety in our own sanity, a sanctuary where stress couldn't search even if it had a warrant.

There ought to be a set of statutes that don't segregate humans for seeking associations with members of the same ***.

The laws we have now are schemes designed to set aside our natural tendency to scour for bliss. Let me tell you precisely why I broke those rules and was sentenced to serve an eternity in prison.

I stole binoculars from the store so I could see a sight too distant for my eyes; I searched a century ahead of our time and spied on a social world not similar to ours, one seasoned enough to where I don't need to sugar coat my findings. Simply put, we surged away from stereotypes and settled into a state of serenity.

Relative to every person,
comparisons of pain
between friends is immature.
The microscopic stabs
that I see in the world around me
may actually be atomic bombs.

If beauty shines in knowledge
then I am lucky to have the
most attractive people to call my friends.
They all possess what most others yearn for,
the chance to express thoughts
actually filled with a basis.

It is the roaming ill conceived offspring
of the mind’s theories that tend to irritate. Focusing on hope is the only way to unlock the door that leads to fortified walls that wait for destruction.

Strength defeats weakness,
so I must endure the nights that
cause me to remember any ruinous times.
Recently I have extracted my resilience from the heartbreak that creeps on my friends.

Not to say that I am ecstatic to
witness sorrow from the people
I care for the most,
just satisfied to know there are
others fighting the same war I am.

As I said earlier,
differentiation between people’s pain
is fictitious.
Although the experiences may alter
from person to person,
the wounds are all of equivalent sizes.

Not being able to fall asleep
because of the shadow that
won’t go away is unexplainable,
but words don’t need to be said
since it happens to us all.
Forced slumber only transpires
to those who know what it feels like
to ache in the crevices of the
soul once unchartered.

My suggestion,
find the nearest map and
learn as many roads in the
world of your brain as possible;
only then can you honestly find
the trail that gears toward uninfected bliss.

Entangled.
       In your web of truths. Or are they lies?