I'll be walking down the street
Or dancing at a party
Or reading a book in a coffeeshop
Or rushing to one of my college classes

and I'll feel it

The burning in my veins
The tingling in my heart
Like I'm alive for the first time
Like I can breathe

And I'll look up and find a face
Looking at me with the exact same intensity
And the beautiful, perfect understanding
He'll look at me like he knows
Because as unlikely as it is, he will

And my soul will want to scream
And rush, and hug, and kiss
Like a long lost friend
Like a long lost love
Lost in the waves of the endless sea
In our endless lives

And I'll look at the face of this familiar stranger
And we'll both smile, shaken to the core
And the world will break, and stop, and change
And when that happens, I'll know.

Isn't it exhausting,
living with so much hatred?
Not being able to let go
and forgive someone who once meant everything to you?
Doesn't it burn your skin and seer through your bones?
Eat you away?
Or have you changed too much
from the man I once new?
Now your heart has become numb.

When I was a boy
My life was erratic
Volcanoes in Antarctica
Jungles in LA
Shouts and anger; quiet farmstead

As I got older
My heart was erratic
Kisses in the hallway
Bruises on the cheek
Soft words and embraces; angry thoughts

Even older still
My mind was erratic
Screaming at the wall
More clever than ever
Lucid, powerful arguments; raving paranoid delusions

And here I am
I am erratic incarnate
A bundle of sluggish energy
A sonnet written for one girl and an excuse for another
A coil of madness tight around the bright spark of genius
A purely mechanical soul-filled destiny driven fate-less wonder
Do I laugh for the irony or madness?

Coffee stains,
the same way the dark bruise she left on your body does.
They both leave a story.
One of the stories being a " I was in a rush coffee spill" and
the other story being a, " I loved her too much bruise".
Inevitably they fade over time,
but that doesn't mean that they weren't once there.
She wanted you to know that her love for you was imported from
another person's heart,
but you never knew this or, that the other
person's heart was mine.
But like I said things fade over time.
However,
I still wore the bracelets I'd strung together with
all the words you've ever said to me for quite some time,
that's why I still remembered them.
You will only ever talk about the dark bruises
she left on your body but, never the ones she left
on your heart.
Your emotions,
hidden like the barnacles that hide below the boats
of this beach town.
The salt water seeps through your skin;
it stings you with solitude.
Because now you are alone, because
her false love for you is gone and,
I don't miss you either,
the bracelets fell off.
When the coffee spills its hot and,
I know sometimes the sea stings and
if you're lucky your heart will heal.
But,
I can't feel bad seeing you get a taste of your own medicine.
You holler out "I love you";
you wait for a response,
and
all you get is silence.

Bus full of people breathing inside a small space
Face to face, eyes cast down and explore
A small girl that hides behind bangs
Long thin legs
Tightly fit close
That are shear and expose
Insecurities
And people whisper
People point
But I remember what Teresa told me

A small man gets fired up
But can’t fight, he wobbles drunk
He wants to prove he is big and bad
That the girl who left him
Didn’t have his heart in hand
That he doesn’t bleed
He doesn’t hurt
He punches the next guy he sees
He makes him blue
Makes him bleed
And I remember what Teresa said
Two lovers hold each other tight
Teary eyes on a star lit night
Warm bodies fight the chill
Each wondering if they will
Be able to hold hands like this
Forever or if
Fingers fold into fists
As bitterness steals a kiss
Because the two girls don’t know why
People say they should die
They have always only loved each other
And I remember what Teresa told me

Madness grabs hold of me
Fog drifts through my ear
Nothing can wake me
Dead on my feet

There must be a real reason
No suffering without cause
Frustrates me to wonder
Can't cut the veil

Maybe I was a murderer
My soul feels so aged
Mischief might follow it
Sins of my heart

Sleeping is like burning
Waking brings drowning
Sweet rest must hide
In somebody's bed

(- This is originally a spoken word poem. Read aloud for maximum exposure.
-Asterisks indicate the necessity to pop your cheek with your thumb.
-Answer the two questions correctly and I will give you a hug.)

He fell asleep while traveling time
where a true name
becomes everything else.
So please give me a minute to explain myself
through the doorways
that I see champagne on a windowsill
walking across the room with blue
and fine china feet
saying again and again
drink me.
Until somehow
the words become a song
singing and swinging the bottle like a dinner bell for thirst.
A kind that we've settled to quench
with television
and somebody else's dream.
So don't pour my drink.
I'm trying to uncork it with my thumbs.

POP

It's flat
and I still have a tongue
so I will use it and I
I will use my thumbs to push back time
until hitler
becomes a baby.
Dr. King becomes a baby.
Until the left and the right and every dead genius in between
becomes
a baby.

Tiny feet trying not to crush the wet salad of the lawn
because it is green,
like my heart
that has learned
how to break fine china.
From experience,
let me tell you
it's a lot more tiresome than a blue dream
but he fell asleep on a boxcar crossing Germany
where mustard gas
drowns you in your own lungs
and he tries to breath between the joints in the track

the

click
...                             clack
click

as years
hurtle by.

Asking again and again,

"Who killed me?"
           &
"Who am I?",

until dinner was served without grace.
Until my head becomes stiff and bubble shaped
having been conditioned by
their
piles
&
piles
&      mounds

of
ob        cation.
fus

So we should tell all the baby hitlers,
that become children
that become us,
that a lie
is what you become
when abusing language to distort a reality.

And when you make a fist
you are handing lies out at random on a silver tongue.
But I still have one
and I still have thumbs
so sorry to burst your bubble but,

POP.

Child,
I don't mean to put

barbed wire

between us.  
I know it hurts
to have something so precious as the world
taken away.
But walls hurt worse
and through them only muffled sounds are ever heard
until your world is made of mute prisoners
that have forgotten what silver
really sounds like.

Blessed be
for I also have ears
so give me second place
and I will throw the medal against your walls.
Ringing out,
the universe doesn't look like an ebony tub,
with knobs we can't ever see,
full of infinite shining marbles to everybody.
Your mind
is a library of language,
so free will isn't a book written in english.
And tourists,
those know nothing infants trying to travel,
belong
where
           ever they
are
                             going.

Belonging like this medal bouncing trying to sing
off your wall
and
falls

into


your world.

Where again it will ring,

we've all been runner up

and somehow
we still get annoyed when another doesn't enter our library
instead of trying harder
next time.

So,
let me say grace.
Let me set l o n g tables
with the gruel that's been given
served on b  r                     n.
                         o
                           k  
                                        e          
china,
spooned
with sterling silver.

No lullaby tonight
Only my lips to cradle you to sleep
Keeping such whispers as I press them on your cheek
Unleashing them all as I make contact
Fade to sleep, my love
Saunter into such honey-like dreams
Leave this plain with tears all dried
Walk with me in these boundless worlds
Find me in the confines of mind and heart
And see my love for you transcends all