Where are the men
Those that stand up and admit their sin
Unlike Adam
Hiding behind leaves
Where are the men who are faithful those that are not cheaters
The ones that care more about growth in God than sneakers
Where are the men that have not been conditioned
Rape by their kin now they grown and switching
Oh its deep like a giant squid swimming
Where are the men that understand that there wounds need healing
The men that do right dictated by the direction of the Holy Spirit not there feelings
Where are the men that get married and stay
Those that raise there families mightily like Christ rising from the dead
The men that make decisions with their heads
And not the one between their legs
Where are the men who don't need kegs
Trying to balance life with crutches and wooden pegs
Where are the men that know what manhood is
The men that don't have multiple baby mother's and random kids..
Where are the men?
I look in the mirror and see one
The others are my friends
There are other real men that exist
Many grown boys
Like 17 year olds that look 25 but are kids
No men
Ripped pages,
caused by heart breaks.
Ripped pages, ripped by a broken soul.
A broken soul,
who did not want to look back at the memories.
Who was naive.
Who lost her stability.
Hurt deep inside,
lacks motivation.
Fake smile every day...
so wrecked and tired.
Behind the pretty smile,
the pretty face,
the beauty that society sees,
a bundle of mess remains deep under her skin.
My soul weeps for help.
I need to be cleansed right now.
Missing pages,
that does not want to be found.
Missing pages,
that was contained with memories...
memories with the one she loved.
So hurtful.
Memories....
that I do not want to remember.
-e.c
Some things in life cannot be done.
No matter if you tried once?twice? Or maybe for the hundredth time.
100 tries...
And within those tries,
Stress creates.
Within that stress?
Depression.
My mind keeps trying and trying to push the conception of happiness.
And that's just a mistake that I'm making so far: trying.
Let myself free and flow within my seconds, my minutes, my hours, my days, my months, my life.
That should be the solution right?
Trying to catch happiness, is like trying to catch a fragile butterfly with your bare hands.
You'll just kill it.
Butterflies.
Such as the feelings I have for you.
Each time you smile, it kills me.
Frowning is all that I have to give to you.
You were a complicated art that I just wanted to finish sculpting.
But I guess our relationship was too weak to mold together.
I'm sorry. I'll admit it.
I'm sick.
I'm tired.
I gave up.
And let people persuade me not to,
but no doubt, can I change my mind.
Words are easily spoken.
But it's the meaning that counts.
And you may say you love me.
But how could you love such a complicated, pitiful person?
Are you sure you do? Or can it really be just out of pity?
Think.
And look at me once again,
tell me if you really do so.
Or did you choose me because I was easy?
Only pathetic fools are the easiest.
You're beautiful.
And I'm not.
And you hurt me.
And this, cannot be explained. Because I'm the only person who can understand.
And this angers me.
Because we, and I, are an unfinished business.
-e.c
I've noticed
There are a few types of music
Music when you're happy
Music when you're sad
Music that makes you think of someone
And music that doesn't mean anything to you
Until certain things happen In your life
And it just moves you, speaks to you.
Heals you
Pushes you through the through
Glides you through the smooth
Music that I listen to when I'm only thinking of you.
But I never tried poetry
And now I realize
Poetry can be used
To explain love in great detail
An image in a readers mind
But love can mean many things
To the writer.
So the reader has to relate to it in someway
Dig deep within the lines
It's like finding a diamond in the rubble
But when they do their eyes come alive.
See a poem has to flow
Tell a story in someway
Poems that only make sense to me
Lust
Anger
Passion
And Rage
My mind is thinking of new
Lines every, single, day
See I never wrote poetry before I came here.
I see it as a land of peoples
Story's and Dreams
A land of people who
Get heat-broken and Shattered
And write about the things they've seen
People that write about the dark valleys in their mind
People who write poems about their lovers,
as you see their words come alive.
People who write about their struggles and addiction
A place where everything in their mind is in one place
and most of it is non-fiction.
But poetry for me
Are my Demons scrawled
Across these pages
And my story's to tell
This place is where I drown them
They lay there in that thing
The thing I used to call the Wishing Well.
If they're here, they're not in my mind
Emotion in my lines
But the reader has to Look, Imagine and Relate
But when they do, their minds come alive.
Now I know this
Poem may not be the best
And It's not meant to be
Because this is a poem that will only make sense to me
Just another Demon
I have thousands and this is just one less.
But now I come here everyday
In the hope I can feel something and relate to somebody else in some sort of way
People who I don't know but I can read and read
Pages upon pages and for a moment my mind becomes less tense and I start to believe.
I didn't mention the Angels
Because they're quiet
They only come when I rest
I think a lot
But I know they're always silent
During the Test.
Green light.
Driving [five] miles
over the limit and if
accelerating gets me there
faster it's worth risking the ticket.
Holding on to time tight
as we race by each light
on our way to routinely
ending our perfect night
and if what we're doing is
wrong then I don't want
to be right.
Bright light shines yellow.
Speed right past it. Moving so fast
I'm stuck wondering where my past went.
She's removed it from my memory
and the present is what matters. I made some stupid comment
but am repaid by hearing her laughter.
Coincidence isn't what happened and I'm not sure if I believe in destiny
but the girl I've dreamed of is sitting right next to me.
Looking into the horizon my mind comes up with an idea as
I begin to press on the brakes.
The car comes to a stop
and before I look in her direction I realize the
stars look beautiful tonight.
With my only motive being
stealing kisses at a red light.
You shop in Hollister,
a store targeted to popular teens,
but I stop by Hot Topic
made for fangirls, nerds, and scenes.
Inside of Hollister it is dark,
and you can't see what you're buying,
an overwhelming aroma of cologne and perfume
will make my eyes start crying.
The store is built to look like
it belongs in California-
and every piece of clothing
(and here is logic for ya)-
every piece is decorated
with surf boards and gulls and bikinis
cos everyone apparently forgot
where we live it's only 60 degrees.
The bags you take out with you
are covered with pictures of teens
with sagging bottoms and rippling muscles
and fake tans and bikinis obscene.
They play bad music
at a super fast pace,
and the girls inside
act like they own the place.
Now Hot Topic is a different story,
I feel that I must mention,
almost like an escape for losers,
a We Love Nerds convention.
Here you can get a size
that is bigger than zero,
and instead of cool surfboards
are screened with bacon and superheroes.
T-Shirts and suspenders
ties, belts, and wristbands,
with smart-aleck sayings
and merchandise for fans
of just about every
popular fandon,
like Hetalia, Doctor Who,
or even just random
things like bacon or
My Little Pony,
(I'm getting a wristband that says
"I'm a Brony")
Funny little quotes
on buttons and pins,
crazy designs
on little odds'n'ends.
They people inside
are hipsters through and through
with hanging-off-the-frame Beatles shirts
MissMayI, Doctor Who.
This is where I feel safest,
among a million people like me,
instead of that stupid Hollister store
filled up with people I have no desire to be.
I didn’t want to let myself fall back into the trap
I didn’t want to remain within a passive shell of my previous self.
I knew it was time to be active,
Or history would have repeated itself.
I was honest,
I was authentic,
I spoke my mind,
And let my tongue free.
This time, I took control.
At some point in life,
A person has to choose to stop meandering.
They have to refuse to be blown around by the winds of life.
At some point, a person has to become an active participant in his or her own life.
And, this was my time.
I took control of the situation,
And I started looking out for me.
Pardon me, if didn’t consider how you felt
Or if I was being too blunt,
But sometimes you need to look out for yourself before you consider others.
Sometimes, you need to watch your own six…
Because you don’t know if the person behind you is really behind you.
Sometimes, the ones that you’d die for are the ones that are pulling the trigger.
If Caesar was betrayed by his closest friend,
What more does that say about the average person and those that are around them.
Know when to take control,
And know when to watch your own six.
- j.m.
I've been slapped, hit, and kicked by life
Several times over
Until I kneeled in surrender
Exhausted, defeated, empty
I don't even recognize myself anymore
Bruised and battered, Sore and bleeding
In pain, in so much pain...
the depths of which I cannot comprehend anymore
You tell me I must stand on my own
That I should fight back
That I can walk away
If only I wanted to
I do, I really do want to be free of this hell I'm in
It's just that...It's been like this for as long as I could remember
I am frightened that I may not know how
I am terrified to fail, and suffer the repercussions
I look in the mirror and see
Haunted, sad eyes, filled with the past
Never hoping for a better tomorrow
A prisoner in my own skin
I have nothing to offer you, no promises to be made
This is me...imperfect, damaged, maybe beyond redemption
But please don't give up on me, please be patient with me
You're my little piece of perfect in my messy life
I pray for strength, I pray for courage
I pray to God to make all the pain go away
But I think, that I may be able to endure
As long as I have you with me.
Oh how I'd love that
and from a San Francisco organization no less
a month in the Santa Cruz mountains, no less
the most liberal city in America no less
and last year's winner has his picture displayed
and it is not innovative or interesting or shocking but all too predictable
Like something I saw how long now has it been? twenty five years ago...
how many times have I seen this picture
a white guy, looking very much the suffering, creating artiste
handsome, like an actor, but not an actor, a creator of meaning
of art, and he can't smile, but looks away from the camera
mimicking an ad for J. Crew
it's amazing how only white men can write about the important things in the world
and the background, how many times before have I seen it
a graffiti sprinkled nowhere in an urban jungle
somewhere where preppy white guys never go
street art, street communication created by people
who don't see this concrete as an exotic backdrop for their egoistic posing
but as a part of their lives, as part of their meaning, their world
and he stands there, in front of it,
Mr. Screenwriter, the gulf of culture separating him from that background
spans the entire country, or an entire universe
but the implication of the picture is: he is home here
this is who he is and he can emcompass everything, since white men
as we know, have a magic ability to understand and synthesize everyone
all genders, all races, all religions
the rest of us are merely stuck in our own myopic little worlds
of gender, race, socio-economic status
but these spanner of time and space and human difference, they can be anyone
they can understand and represent anyone
So I look at the picture
and think, I could apply, but I'm busy during the blissful month of the residency
but how dissapointing, that I feel looking at this picture, now online of course
that it is the same picture that I looked at over twenty five years ago
pinned to a film school wall
in Los Angeles, in New York, in those edgy more conservative places
and it is the same guy. the white screenwriter artist who will write about me
and others and it will be a lie
and we are excluded. all the rest of the human race.
but what he writes will be exalted as truth
when I know, that no matter how time he spends wandering
the foriegn worlds of ghettos and genders
the one thing he knows, the only thing he knows how to write about is
white guys, because he is no superhuman
he is like us. He will write about white guys and there will be
more films about white guys, who are supposed to represent all of us
but they don't, because they are only human,
and can only represent themselves.
empty imagery
erasure poems write me from prison. I read them aloud in front of the mirror in my mother’s bathroom. a terrible mirror. I don’t know how my mother does it. she must have a good idea how she really looks.
empty imagery
I can’t tell if I’ve been thinking of my father all the time or if I’ve become lax in my selection. I am trying to reach him about the car. on paper, it’s totaled. the dog in the backseat surprised me. very solemnly I was informed the dog seemed pretty beat up before.
empty imagery
my brother says it’s part of his condition that he can only explain himself from the waist down. he says he feels horrible in the back of his head and wants me to take a look. he says I don’t know what darkness is. before I can play doctor he remembers he has a story he wants me to write. the outline of the story is off site. in the opening scene brother recalls that a young man is blowing dust from a human skull made of plastic because it’s all the narrator can afford.
