there is nothing here anymore
we're all wandering souls with nowhere left to go
                answer my calls, my phone's running out of charge

i don't feel alive since you left
all i have is a body and my mind is so empty
               i'll wake up when i have something worth being awake for

there is food in my stomach
but it never sustains me, i feel gross and so heavy
               romance is holding hands as we lay forever at the bottom of this cliff

my dreams are full of empty corridors
i try to open doors, but then i remember you're not here anymore
                if this is what living is like, maybe i was never born to survive

11-7-12

These streets and hidden walkways are my mischief parody now. A mockery of what this city had been to me, a false harken to nothing better yet still...her and me...and us and them...we could of been so grand if things had just fallen better.

I would have that job at some cubicle in some skyscraper and you would work in the schools with the kids who needed your love and they would struggle and be grateful. Our days would be full and meaningful with hopeful promises of progress and achievement. Then in the evenings I would pace my way home, to our home, the one on the hillside, with a window and balcony overlooking everything. And we would have a daughter and a son in the works and make love on a whim, enough love for the both of us every-time. And you would spill your day in front of me, everyday and I would never grow tired of any of it. And then in the morning I would rise quiet not to wake you and boil a full pot of coffee, not the expensive kind but just coffee, and read my paper on the warming kitchen table. I would read of politics and people and cats in trees and drink another sip. And you would wake and peek around the corner showing only a quiet smile and at my sight you sat and gently nursed the cup I had already poured for you. Still silent you would crawl into the chair as shiver ran down your spine, revealing the winkles in your face as you puckered but returned to the sereneness that was your always-expression, the same creeping smile that asked nothing but gave so much. [As you ask] Soon I tell you the happenings of our world and paint you the window I had only just read. Piecing together my words in bundles of sage breviloquence, still sifting through the chalky pages as you sighed in such sunrise-joy. And you would leave early as I left not to soon after and we both drove our own cars and parked them at our work and went about our day. And I would drive home from my cubicle to our house on the hill with our plan for a daughter and make love to you in many places, wait for you to go to sleep and find my way out to the balcony. And I would look for hours at the skyline, of the midnight machinery, dripping seas in black, of my own invention. And I would wait for you to come around that corner, out to the balcony, with your hair in your hands beaconing for me to come back to bed, because you knew all the thoughts in my mind and none where worth having in this late, in this night, with this job, with this car, in this place, on this hillside beaconing as well for me to stay. And I would phantom back to your side then remember the child we had on the way, only earlier that day, you told me, and I barely believed the words meant what they did, in this time, in this way. Then maybe on that day we would hold our child and look at him, or her, and you would say something kind and I would agree. And we would live in our house on the hillside for many years and you would still teach children, our children. And I would still get a raise every now and again at the job I would drive to except on tuesdays when we would all stay at home and play and laugh and gather up our dreams in a pot and burry it in the backyard. And our days would still be full and meaningful with hopeful promises of progress and achievement. And the kids would still need your love and be grateful. And so would I, after all these years, every-time enough.

I walk the empty road of hurried days
the dark holds opportunities that the light burns through.
Nerves have been narcissistic
in that self-loathing battering
that I promised you I wouldn't commit to again.

is it different if you're a witness?

Hiding isn't part of the agenda,
if you could call irrationality an agenda.

here's to touching upon a few points in which I don't show all sides.

I'm nervous to talk to the people who make me happy
and I'm jaded to their presence,
because I'm a modern-day gatsby
with a touch of bukowski (or maybe a slam)
and all I want is for  this romantic inside of me to give up on the struggle
and give in.

I want to let her form allude me because it's not important,
she just wants recognition for the fact that she has an education
and knows how to use it.
I'm just going to let my words smash onto the page, maybe edit
before a show, maybe not.
Probably go drink a beer on the local trail and stare at the back
yards of the wealthy and sharpie in an eye ball on the cement
brick on which I set my empty bottle for company, because
flowers don't get far in foam.

Nostalgia here we are again,
this time there's no search for meaning,
I know you completely and ever since we've met
you've refused to let go (somewhat of a curse, yet I love you).

If I want to let myself be free, then I have to let go of others judgement.
If maybe for a second I didn't think of what others thought about me
and I didn't think about them to occupy the empty space, then I would
truly return to the person I was before my self-esteem plummeted beneath
all that I knew to be right and wrong. Before it hurt to write my feelings
because of the fear that what I wrote wouldn't be good enough, or long enough,
no matter how many compliments came shooting through me.

"I forgot, you're bad at accepting compliments."

I don't want that to be true, I don't want to beat myself up
over the fact that someone else has great beauty simply
because I am blind of my own.

Self-love, here I come,
it'll help me live life without tangles.

It's always the same
The same friends surround me
The same books fill my shelves
I meander down the same streets
I drift towards the same women
It's always a brunette
Probably brown eyes, but maybe green
Soft-heart-ed but with a sharp tongue
Some obsession that puts me second
Probably the same favorite food
If I'm not programmed,
I'm damn unlucky

I have seen tears
Big, fat, watery dribbles
Flowing like summer rain
Down the rough, bearded cheeks
Of the strongest men
Who I ever have known
I stopped crying
When I stopped caring
Maybe I'm stronger
More likely
Just cynical

My mind is high up somewhere today.
In these clouds maybe, too far for me to reach.
It leaves me dizzy, desirous...
I feel so sleepy.  
I crave sleep,
for a deep, still pool of rest,
in the arms of love.
To feel protected and safe.
I want to be guarded like a vast treasure.
Where is my knight, the one where I see my reflection in
his armor, where I see burning eyes and burning hands that
love throughout the night...
Where's someone to always be there?

And I know.
Believe me, I know.

I should look inside myself for these things,
create my own light for this
dark place inside of me.
But I don't want to become The Hermit,
and carry this flickering lantern in the dubious storm of myself,
where there's snow and sleet and
bone shattering winds, forever to wander alone.

I want to find my puzzle piece, my chemical solution.
There must be a cure to this plague of loneliness.
Someone to be the balm that eases the pain
and whispers...
"No more, no more.
You are safe here, with me."


(c) May 21, 2013

So you're saying you're proud and
Grateful to have so much freedom, opportunity, wealth
Well, I'm not.
Sociocentrism is an ugly, unnatural state
Everything we have takes away from someone else
We try to pretend there's no connection, that the plight of others is cause by their own failing
That we are deserving
Convinced that this is all here for us
We take and take and take
But every terror we inflict on anything "else" is a terror upon the self
We protect our so called civil liberties with wage slavery, chemical abuse, and ecological terrorism
Profit baby, profit über ales
Well congratulations to us
This is nationalism at its finest
No, I'm not fucking proud of it
If you want to take credit, be my guest
Just ask India about policies of profit over regulations, about denim and dye and death
Ask Mexico about farming, their take on the "Fair Trade Act"
Ask the rainforest if it remembers what it was like to have trees
Try to find an Arawak to ask anything
Ask 63 countries what it feels like to have a US military base keeping watch
And what would happen if another country tried to build a base on this soil
Or maybe ask why you never learned shit about any other country
Much less about your own
Back in History class
Survival of the fittest, you say?
A dog eat dog world?
Alright, let's play
This country is overrun by dogs, that's true
But honey, we're not eating any other dogs
We're eating poison and calling it food
While our leaders give Monsanto handjobs under the table
We are "the world's leading nation" and we're dropping like flies
No, not dead
Just into hospital beds and prison cells
Our country is filled with poverty, racism, violence, and terror
Not to mention obesity heart disease depression anxiety and PTSD
We're over-medicated malnourished and spiritually starved
We're pissed off at a whole lot of bullshit
That means nothing in the scheme of anything
Fully engaged in the myth of a two-party system
Even though most of what we see and hear is merely distraction
Thank you, media, all 6 of you big beautiful monoliths
I'm so lucky I have the opportunity to be informed!
We're a nation divided by details
While our leaders run in circles pouting fat fingers at each other
Engrossed in this thing we call "politics"
Highly effective
I'm really glad you're proud
They say ignorance is bliss
But I think it's more like a shiny polyester suit
Holding together a parasite infested mess
Sitting in a recliner after a hard days work of trying to stay afloat on a mountain of debt in a drowning economy
Bottles of medication on the table, GMOs in the fridge
Quietly doing what they're told
Never wondering why
Falling asleep to the glow of the TV whispering fear and terror, us and them, buy and buy and buy
The sweet purr of "freedom"

Didn't we dance on the edge of the earth?
I remember, we dipped our toes in the water
We saw where the ocean met the horizon
Where the sun dropped down to where no one could find it
Days ago I pressed my cheek to your chest
And heard the sound of your heart
Flitting fast, in its own frantic dance
But today I can't find the boy from the sand
Maybe you've realized that the earth has no end
Perhaps you followed the sun as it dropped
But I don't mind thinking that it is the end
If I can still dance on the earth's western edge