I know you don't read my poetry,
So I don't think you'll ever see
What I write here about you,
And what you mean to me.

I know you don't want to be with me,
And I know that I don't deserve you
After everything I put you through,
And all that we've been through.

We'd fight, we'd argue,
Then I'd break up with you
- Or we'd resolve our issues -
And I'd still love you.

What went down then
Will never happen again.
I got lost in life
And went astray.

But now that I've gotten away,
Away from that, away from frat,
Away from Death and gotten my life back,
I see you're all I want, nothing but that.

But I know from what you say,
And despite how I've grown and how I've changed,
To be everything to you and more
Is a precious chance I'll never have again.

This is what I gotta say
Song about this rose
Thought it was dream
Dope in brain
Medicate the soul
I'm not wiz Khalifa
I have to say
i like like to get medicated
Somewhere in my soul
Let  me paint a picture
She was that girl
You seen from far away
Gone at the frat castle
A diamond you could say
All blue drapped all over her
All over her
All over her
Picture perfect body
Reminds me,the work of
Michelangelo
I'm finna take a look
Take a look real quick
Sky blue eyes
Takes me to the sea
Don't hide a disguise
everything you want to be
Just Everything you see
Blue over the shoulder
Down to her waist
Wrap it up a lil bit
It's in the eye of the beholder

She was that girl
You seen from far away
Gone at imaginary palace
A diamond you could say
All blue drapped all over her
All over her
All over her
Picture perfect body
Reminds me,the work of
Lets go with monet
She know I ain't got no money
Treats me like gold
Met her with my buddy
Sailing uncontrolled
Lost in my way
You could say I was hungry

When the hard cider is all gone
and the pabst is all stale
and the vodka makes you gag
and the drug testing doesn't let you smoke weed
what do you do?
You have a fucking good time
with some great people
and you pack bowls for them
and roll joints for them
and hate the frat boys with them.

You laugh at the funny jokes
and duck call at the bad ones.
You smoke too many cigarettes
and give away your only lighter.

You fall asleep with one of them in your arms.
But don't worry, next weekend it will be someone else.
This time it was a tenacious blonde who's taking you to prom.
Next week it might be the lovely red head who wears his heart on his sleave
or it may be the funny Jewish kid who plays beer pong by himself.
Maybe it'll be the girl who shows up when all the booze is gone
and sits next to you and lets you hold her close.
But never by yourself,
they're all to lovely to let that happen.

A few days from then you'll go on a walk and bring a few cigarettes and a book
but the cigarettes remind you of them and the book reminds you of her
so you leave Leaves of Grass in the grass and smoke the cigarettes
thinking of the Before.
thinking of the Then.
Not worrying about the Now
and forgetting the When.

You sleep like a baby,
in the sense that you wake up every few hours and struggle to fall asleep without your mother's breathing to sing a lullaby.
She's outside,
falling in to old habits,
throwing two years into a bottle and downing it.
She's smoking her last cigarette so she sneaks into your room careful not to wake your seemingly sleeping Self and digs in your backpack until she finds your cigarettes.

In the morning she will magically have those two years back
and she will have forgotten those cigarettes she took from you.

But you'll throw her empty bottles away before your sister can find them and Understand.
And she won't lend you that twenty bucks she said she would because she spent it on two bottles of Jägermeister.

And the girl who lives down the street knows none of this because to her it's not real.
She only knows that your mother has a two year NA chip
and she only knows that you used to Hate yourself.
She knows that you like her
and she thinks she likes you.
And she lets you put your arm around her
and she snaps at Satan with you.

And you love the lovely red head and you hope he reads this
and is happy  because he is in one of your ramblings.
just as your heart smiles
when you find yourself in one of his.
however more poetic and sensitive and lovely they are.

when made a designated drinker
for a designated driver.

when stomaching stale pabst
and rationed sweet cider.

when frat boys fulfill
stereotypical homophobia.

when twenty grade A reds
can't last me longer than a dream.

when old man nightclub and triple kills
usurp the crown of moderation.

when you fall asleep
with so much in your blood to spill
like beans,
or milk not worthy of tears,

and i keep a loom in my heart
where i weave a string of everyone
[with myself]
and every fray in warp or weft
is mimicked by the splinters
shuttled to my hand.

don't be afraid you're already dead

for he was not lucky enough for the train to take the other track
the pills were not vitamin C
the gun did not shoot water
and it was not, instead of him, me.

we are no longer the kids with capes crinkled in knots around our necks
but in their place are the rope burns of our selfish regrets

only attempting to rid myself of the crushing weight of confused sorrow
the dreams in my head have fallen to the floor
he placed his in patterns there

searching for adjectives inside a dictionary
where only nouns are found
lonely, the adjective being
the one word to describe this
is trapped in the moldy basement of a frat house

he taps at the window
sliding through its confinements
back where he was days ago
a silhouette of the clock

plucking at your hairs
chickens clucking that their scared
they keep changing this cyclorama
but it's always ripped and torn

walking into the abyss
singing his cares away
thinking himself sick
will we feel like this for the rest of our lives?

who owns this beating heart,
it seems to have been misplaced

you'd written horror stories on the sides of elementary schools
superfluous thoughts were rays of sunshine
that only casted shadows in your head

don't be afraid you're still alive

Wrote this while my best friend since childhood and I drove 1300 miles to South Florida on a whim for Spring Break. It's epic, so get comfortable.

"Approachable but you wouldn't know it.  Proclamations of the Romantically Challenged"

Day one.

We meet, old friends...watch old friends...become old friends again.
We find our lost grins, ones only shared with our closer than kin.
Thin shagrins of lasting cynicism and sinister pasts are masks to the blasts we got away with and lived to tell the tale.
Alas, we are sons and friends first, not last.
We cling to our good old glory stories past,
But at last the time is new, our trip begins.
Wheels burn, stomachs churn.
Our aspired souls yearn,
to fire the liars and unconcerned.
We head for the East coast.
With temperatures rising,
approaching unseen horizons,
rejecting the superficially tantalizing,
we begin to feel our tattered souls wisen.
Talking a new talk, calculating the steps to walk a new walk.
Testifying our pains, devilishly dodging heavenly rains, the bitter pains.
Watching yourself in a friend, a cynical kidder gone bitter. Your mirror becomes your babysitter.
We search our hearts and back again down I-10.
We find strength and talk about things friends for life can only talk about on a walk about.
We lift some Spirits to lift our spirits.
Night falls,
we arrive alive… our walk about calls 1,365miles in 18 hours.

Day two begins.

Meet and greet with the beach.
Get a handle on some handy sandals,
some nicotine candy and butane candles.
A fifth of Daniels.
Jack and Jose will duel this day.
"You know it's know your fault, pass the lime and salt," ends most answers before noon.
Let's take some dares with the local fare, shadowing the glare of our wear and tear.
The sun fries,
windy sands fly,
waves pacify,
dropped bikini tops glimpsed from the corner of our eye, testify.
The Sun sets.

Shuffing off the nightlife status-quo of Clematis Row, we turn our walkabout into a Palm Beach Safari...Club.
Whoa! Rows and rows of walking, talking shows barely clothed from head to tanned toes.Making funnies about hunting honies preying on $$$.
The unattainable passes. We tap our glasses.
"Point in case, what a waste, such tragedies as these, a lot of money and a little cheese meets a little sleaze in high cut sleeves, low-cut cleaves & cuts way above the knees.
Our cuts are deep. Bartender, two Yagers please."

Low and behold…on those stools sit no fools.
Breaking all rules.
with Coronas as fuel,
we inflate our jewels.
As we coach our approach, mentioning "I-10 and back again" prompts grins,
hides our cynicism and sins,
then, moving in to win friends.
Names and places put to faces, careful glancing, winks and dancing.
Alright, the trips to the bathroom are getting old.
Warm smiles once cold, honest questions and truths told…no souls sold…we fold? Hmmmm.
We leave and arrive alive.
Caffine and nicotine stay the scene until the wee hours overpower us.

Day three unfolds

The sun rises and the ocean calls.
Old molds broken
No lies spoken.
No need to peddle your life away settling on the day-to-day following peers falsely content and full of contempt.
Eyes turn bright,
the Sun pours over night,
dolphin, lime and salt,
golfing talk,
day approaches night.
Less tense and more pensive,
more apprehensive and less expensive,
even so we head out to even the evening,
to end our grieving and start achieving....something.
Latitude changes have rearranged our attitude gauges.
So we choose West Palm's Clematis Row to show us how a little rude,
lude and tattooed could clue us in on the anew.
Fools with jewels.
Girls with rules.
Uncool tools abound.
We walk this street of sleekish freaks,
the falsely meek,
lions that squeak.
"Club Respectables" is dubbed rejectables as the objectionable scene is seen as a scheme by vampires with recessive genes.
Next is Spanky's…Best described as "A frat boy fishing pole contest to tackle box in bait shack." One bucket of beer away from "I got your back Jack in case of attack."
We move along.
Colombia Supreme brewed proceeding it's fine grind and American Online becomes the sign of the times swaying us to stay and play at an Internet Cafe.

"I could live here," proclaims a cynical kidder once bitter now soothed by the sea spray and salty air.

Enlightenment heightened by a magic man,
near night's end, inspires an O'Shea's Black and Tan.
The crowd mocks and baulks the sidewalk scene from the patio Pub Dubbed Irish.
We greet the ground,
not the masses' frown,
seat our asses down,
toast our glasses of black and brown,
our bitters with bite wash down the bitter frowns we normally wear out in our hometown.
"That's a sharp Harp's and sinister Guinness; can I get a witness?"

We head back down our beaten path, writing our epitaphs and usual eulogies...But you know that the "place" or your "space" will change your face, one makes the case."If you sound bitter and you look bitter, chances are you are bitter."
I begin to smile during our final mile of token jokes,
Corona smokes,
shiny Harley spokes.
We leave and arrive alive at the realization,
we have things to strive for in our lives.  
We smoke and joke and poke fun at the run down broken blokes we were before our fun in the sun had begun.
  
Day four begins.
  
We embark for the Ozarks. Our souls at ease.
Save the scene...the last palm tree's waving leaves,  
we wave our palms and leave.
1300 miles more,  
Pushing the morning hour of four,  
empty coffee cups galore,  
moonings a score,  
pedal to the floor,  
memories and more,  
we knew we would be back for more.  
Suddenly learning how insane our inane claims of waning fame should hold no shame,
we reframe our game.
Upon our return…
the strength to strive, take back our broken banks and breaking backs.
Less taxing, more relaxing..."it could happen"... eliquinent waxing.
As we search our hearts and back again, down I-10,we find the strength in things you can only talk about on a walk about,
but that's what it was all about.
By R.Craig David-copyrighted 1995

First, if I am comatose for a while pre-death, don't let them call me a fighter.
I'm probably not fighting it.
It's probably the first time I've been able to relax in a decade.

Second, keep my death off the internet.
Tell my friends of my demise with handwritten notes delivered by white-gloved butlers with somber expressions.
Tell my enemies by sitting on their chests and poking them in the forehead repeatedly until they guess how it happened. It shouldn't take long.

Third, my friends from high school will immediately try to design stickers for their car windows with my name on them and a graphic of dance shoes or track shoes or my college mascot.
You are not to allow this.
A sticker denoting the death of a loved one will not keep fellow motorists from noticing that my friends from high school suck at driving.

Not permitted at the funeral:
Gerber daisies
poetry
blue jeans
any ex-boyfriend I refer to by something other than their name (i.e. "the fat hipster I used to hang out with.")

Encouraged at the funeral:
Hugs - everyone must hug
lots of appropriately sad, yet tasteful songs sung by my musically-minded loved ones (may I suggest "In Light of Time" by Phillip E. Silvey?)
And make sure they bury me in the blue dress.

Last, for every story they tell about me where I was kind or selfless or funny or caring,
make sure someone also tells the story where I got too drunk at a frat house and made out with a kid from upstate New York and then spent four hours passed out and/or puking on the floor of the communal bathroom in Ashley's building,
or the one where I punched Savannah in third grade,
or the one where I rolled a car for no particular reason.

Remember me as I was.

Meeting new people.. not sure if I want to really..
They keep talking..I keep ignoring..
Or maybe I don't. ..I think I just want to..
I need something more..they can't provide it..
So why even try..  

If this fucking douche bag says one more thing..
His night is gonna be over..
I don't think he realizes what he is doing..
Its not as funny as he thinks..
I hope he doesn't think he can handle what I can dish..

I'm getting side tracked.. I fucking hate frat boys
There is five of them..I'm by myself. .but my knife is close..

Good I'm glad that's over..it would be a long ride home..and the blood would fuck up my shirt..
I love this shirt..

I have not written a good poem about you since our freshman year in college when I was still a drop out and the leaves were this odd orange color that wasn't quite orange, but not really quite red either.
Frat parties are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since that time I curled up while puking on myself in my driveway after I said I loved you when I thought I understood what love was and that you were it.
Love letters are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since that time you drunk dialed me and said something about how you missed me or something and how I was great and you wished we could work out.
My friends are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since last week.
This is stupid.