I have words stuck in my head
Words I know that want to be read
But I can't make sense of what I think
You're ten years old and then you blink
I'm seventeen years old today
But forward is the only way
There's no turning back clocks
There's no key to all our locks
I can't seem to word my thoughts
I'll leave them in my mind to rot
Pick up the scraps and bury them in pen
Please don't blink too, you're only ten

*4/11/13

Can the blind not envision a world around them, or is their mind's eye blind too?

We mill about our world, flaunting our edges, acting like we have a clue

Pardon any offense, Sun. For surely I mean none by it

But with your absence, and rain taking your place again

I realize, if you want the genuine feelings of someone

Give them a rainy day and a pen

My brain went out fishing
No king to run the keep
If my words you're wishing
Leave a message after the beep

Far off a coast, unknown to me
Beyond the line of sky and sight
Comes a foul and perfect storm
Hidden in the cover of the night
It has no face, it makes no noise
A dark, deep and dreadful thing
Not forgiving what it destroys
Bringing a special type of sting
But from the rubble of the past
Springs the birth of things anew
Some don't think that they'll last
But that storm hasn't yet met you

Depression is many things

It is numb and aloof
Like you're on trial for being victim to every action or word spoken to you, but you bear the burden of proof

It is overwhelming and undertreated
Sinking or collapsing but never moving. Knowing you're better off now, but still feeling cheated

It is patient and twisting
Always dancing in the dead space of thought before you fall asleep resisting

Depression is many things
But it isn't me

Serenades of silence sing us to sleep
Mother and martyr to our minds
Before you run the risk of going too deep
Make sure your voice is the one you find
Don't take the plunge all at once
You're not under contract, there's no dotted line
Those who find symphony are the lucky ones
Amid mental discord, yet remaining benign

We're given a blank canvas to fill
With whatever colors and stains
And other things we happen to spill
A once white canvas, never too plain
It doesn't matter the paint you use
So long as you appreciate the time
And shades and in-between hues
Of the painting you will call, "Mine"

You have a furnace heart and snow globe eyes, dear

It isn't easy to pray at night
When worn by thoughts of old
It gives peace to my young soul
To know of a happiness foretold
If only all questions were quelled
And that evasive peace withheld
I might never feel alone again
Knowing anguish could never win
I am the sum of all my pain
A forest held green by the rain

Stowaway of my heart
Dweller of the dark
Where will you hide
When it falls apart
Just know you left a mark
Leaving on high tide

Dear god of feathers,

Father to flight
Cousin to pillows
Step-father to sneezes
Brother to quills
Other brother to bad poetry
Godfather to just going with it
And weird uncle to Icarus
It is to you that I direct this prayer

First of all, how dare you
How dare you give flight to a bird with a brain smaller than its eyeball and not to me
How dare you fill my pillow with stuffing that is somehow hot on both sides. How does that even work?
How dare you tickle my heartstrings long enough to make me watery eyed but not long enough to make me sneeze
Letting me love somebody who - wait, no, sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself
I'll start over, because unlike your pillows, I know how to keep my cool

Here is what I really wanted to say, oh god of feathers
Thank you for inked quills. Even if you bully me with your beauty, at least you give me an out
Thank you for reminding me that bad poetry and just going with it are really just the same thing
Thank you for Icarus, who fell from the sky believing 'soaring' and 'human' deserved to be used in the same sentence
I won't pretend to know what it is like to be you
Though, I know what it feels like when you're present

It is true that I will never be able to take to the heavens
But I have known love, and that gets pretty close

By the way, peacocks are crazy

Amen

On one hand, life is really great, don't get me wrong
But I feel like I just know the tune, and not the song
Hum, sing, drum and dance all that you so please
But listen closely, and you will hear it on the breeze

You are in the cracks in the sidewalk
I dare not step upon
You are in the leaf ladened winds
I care to listen to
You are in the way I tie my shoes
Or the way I don't
You are in the lock and the key
I don't know which  
You are gone but you are here
And I don't know which

Days. Weeks. Months. Years.
We'd like to think we can outrun our fears
But we all know that is a fool's hope
The body that hangs at the end of the rope
Doesn't live on the promises of tomorrow
And neither should we

Don't tell me what I'm not -
I'm already well aware -
A bird knows the use of wings
When it flies through the air
Worry about your own
And where you draw the line
When next you move to fly,
Before you speak of mine

No words for thoughts too many
A hollow shell of times to come
Plug the holes with poems of own
My wishing well takes no penny
You've heard the stories of some
Of a time with no wings they've flown

I once knew a white shoe girl
Who met a soft and quiet red shoe guy
She'd never seen a shoe but white
In fear and confusion, she ran away
She ran so far, her shoes bled red
Only once she'd lost his trail forever
Did she look down tiredly to see
Her shoes were no longer white
But red...
Just
Like
His

When you've got a brain like mine
It holds onto your words like life rafts
Adrift on a sleepless sea for weeks at a time
They swirl and fester in black ink cauldrons
Double double all the toil and most the trouble
The fire still burns amidst the rubble

Long have been the times
Few have been the signs
A mess of spots and lines
Of all sorts and kinds
From point A to point B
At what point do I find "me"?

I was born on the twelfth day of the year
Just in time to be the last disciple but not soon enough that you'll remember my name
I'm the third of four children
Which is to say, I'm 75% sure that I know what I'm doing
I prefer even numbers and odd people
My ideal date is public people watching
Because if two people can unwrite a strangers life story then maybe they can use that to write their own
I'm an extremely picky eater
The only green things I like are cucumbers and money
And I'm far pickier than my personality permits
I've been told I'm quiet
But I'm the kind of quiet you should be afraid of
The kind of quiet that is observant enough to unmake you
The kind of quiet that does so to himself
I've got a poker face you wouldn't believe because I don't always either
I keep my cards close to the chest, sometimes too close to read
I believe that the best people tell the worst jokes
So you'll understand when I tell you that I only wear black ankle cut socks, gray if I'm feeling frisky
My best dream is finding someone to be alone with
My worst nightmare is that I never do
I was born a dozen days into 1996
Like being the last donut in the box and make no mistake I'm a sweet treat you'll have trouble working off
I guess what I'm saying is: my name is Braden
Will you remember that?

She was full of barbs and questions -
But maybe I repeat myself -
With the weight of the world bearing down
On shoulders made only for a wedding gown
She carried the world while she was awake
So that is why she always chose to sleep
And when sleep at night takes her
I praise her. I praise the dreamer -
But maybe I repeat myself.

This is the way I deal with it
The venom between the lungs which sinister stirs on the shortened breath of shaky self-esteem
The poetic palpitation pleading please write your wrongs before they putrefy
This is the way I deal with it
It is when words dry up that the ink bleeds
Dance around your feelings, call it a campfire
Let others at least roast with the remnants of yours
This is the way I deal with it
For some it is to light the fire
For others, to follow the smoke

Is it still a prison if it has no sign?
Because I'm trapped in this mind of mine

When old age shall come to shake my hand
I'll greet it kindly and with a smile
When no longer my legs move to stand
It is then, I will know, it was worth the while
Of all the hurt and I joy I found
I'll share my story with those who wish to hear
Family and friends will gather around
And nudge and bump and draw ever near
I'll tell the same story every time they come
The story of my life, the story of what I'd done
And I know that, in the eyes of some
I'll see myself again, and know that I have won

There's a place of peace somewhere here
Said a ragged old stranger of no name
So searched many - some far, some near
Searching land, sky and sea the same
Yet little did they know to find
The place he spoke of was the mind

What breath he borrows from your question
That he might live between your punctuation
And Death, in its mercy, avert its gaze
A resurrective reprieve if only for as long as to say
He had a predilection for canker sores
For pushing harder than was required and giving more than was needed
When he appears to me, he shares a knowing glance
A promise of explanation to the sudden unanswerable absence
As he moves to speak, and share the elusive truth
I awake
I always wake

We remember not the long times passed,
But the days spent with it
Be it friend or stranger, we are a
Culmination of memories.
Walking dreams.

You could watch the car come to a stop
But not his heart
You could watch the leaves fall slowly
But not her head
You could watch, but could you see?

Nobody looked for Anybody
Everybody always mocked Somebody
Anybody didn't like Nobody
Somebody tried to change Everybody
But in the end, Everybody became Nobody

I think of you at stop signs

Its 3:30, but that doesn't matter, I'm still awake
I somehow find peace in the dark and shade
Its too bad that we cant shut down our brains
Conflicting emotions, rippling by thought's wake
Sleep for sanity, a sick and twisted trade
I'm waiting by the tracks, but where is the train?
You learn a lot about yourself and your mind
When that is all that you can reasonably find

*3/30/13

Come thou times of distress and grief
Though I know myself to be weak
Worldly trials are not my end
Forever hence I will find relief
As I shall come to learn and seek
A hope which can not be penned

Look there to the distant dimpled dunes
Look there to the mix matched mountains
Listen here to the tree tickled tunes
Listen here to the fresh freeflowing fountains
Feel here the mother that's borne us each
Feel here the earth and what it has to teach

I hate this feeling.
This wake up from a good dream in a bad mood feeling.
This you'll never be better than the foot you shot yourself in feeling.
This gnawing loneliness, teased by your brain feeling.
This dream and reality are as far apart as your imagination and your imagination is nothing if not endless feeling.
This ruins the day before it even begins feeling.
This if I knew how to cry I'm afraid of what the waterworks might give life to feeling.
This silent, silken feeling.
I hate this feeling.

She was the raindrops
He, the space between them
Never to touch
Until they both hit the ground

You are a diamond among finite rocks
You are your perfectly mismatched socks
You are your favorite radio songs
You are a right, among many wrongs
You are a Queen, of hidden crown
You were lost, but now you're found

There is a world of people in my phone
And yet, I've never felt more alone

It was like any other day
Followed by any other night
The stars still shone down
The lights still lit town
And cars raced around
Things were lost, things were found
But on that day, unlike any other
Stood a proud but tired new mother
Holding her new child to her chest
Whispering softly, "You were worth the rest."

The saying goes: airports and funerals see the saddest people
The saddest people are those at Walmart at midnight
Dressed in the lazy pajamas of tomorrow morning
And baggy eyed in the missed responsibilities of today
Being at Walmart at midnight is like going to church on Tuesday
Your timing was a little off, but at least you tried
Aisles full of 'clearances' and 'don't look at me's'
(but also please acknowledge my existence)
And then I realize that I am at Walmart at midnight
I am sad. But I am not cat-food-road-map-cart sad
So, I got that going for me

A tick and a tock
The whispers of the clock
Does it count ahead?
Or remind you of the dead?

Gray and roiling waves
Of both cloud and sea
How quickly the tide turns
When you don't look to see

For it is the same truth
That plagues and flowers
The one who cares the least
Holds the most power

Love makes a home in the hurt of the heart

The severed canyon split-snakes out beyond my view
Like a hazardous sidewalk God has yet to fix
It would be a nuisance to the strong strided
Or a beautiful scar to the like minded

Perhaps the greatest measure of beauty
Is in nature unimpeded, a freedom to be

Take for one, what the white winged dove sings
I don't wish to cage or make mine its wings

Merely draw it near and profit from its song
When again the dreaded silence comes along

White noise, black night
Snow is falling
Enough is right

If you asked me to describe how I know God answers prayers
I would point you in the direction of honeybees

Because nobody so unassuming, with so monumental an impact, can come from any source other than divine

For is it not the place of the bee to buzz by plants and people, taking pieces of each to the next?

I see the still pollinated goodbyes of every former flower in your honeybee helloes

And honey, if your hello is an answered prayer, consider me cross contaminated

It is not until your petals have gone without pollen that you appreciate the sweet nectar of their presence

Hello honeybee

Stay as long as you need, then perhaps a little longer