I've been living as a flame without oxygen, warmth and fury underneath the skin without a means to breathe.
Attached to that which gives me life,
or at least the illusion of it.
Fire needs fuel
A spark remains
This world is cruel.
Oh please explain
Why do I feel my spirit growing weaker every day?

The energy from within is not what it used to be,
and I am the only one to blame.
Relying on fleeting sustenance
while the true hunger
wears and tears
my cares and prayers
making me think I'm beyond repair.
I've been searching for nourishment in all the wrong places,
while my soul accepts defeat
and my embers all deplete.

Yet...
that voice has never silenced.
"It's not too late to change.
It's never too late to change.
Stop your life and rearrange,
the puzzle of existence that seems so concrete."

If my essence is fire,
then let it become
Unbound.
Untethered.
Expound.
Unweathered.
Give me strength to burn away the artificial reality I have created;
become a creature beyond reason.
**A dying phoenix on a path to be reborn.

There is a shore I stand on every day
and what's behind me?
Who can say.
A city of lights?
Music and gold?
A magnificent sight you must behold...
Or perhaps a forest of enchanted trees
that tell us riddles in whispered breeze.

But maybe behind me nothing exists
just branded coils that always persist...
To chain us to the past and leave
nothing but ghosts we can perceive.

I only see in front of me though, a sky of blue and mirrored below.
Whats behind me, none can say,
but I'll find out sailing back someday.

You're the rarest of pieces,
          a limited edition of some
        beautiful puzzle.

Forgive me, my dear,

                   but I'm from a different puzzle...
                   Our pieces can touch,
but never truly fit...

We are all strangers to ourselves.

Ghosts are more alive than dead and they haunt us in the shadows that we don't speak of at parties.



Don't worry though.

You're more powerful than they are.




...if you want to be.

Along the cracking pavement, there hopped;
with slight and steady ravenous hunger,
a darkened crow,
not normal in size.
Picking at the seeds, between the cracks, while catching my eye and not knowing why.

He made not a sound, beside his beak.
Striking at the rock with hopeful sight,
pecking and hopping from here to there
as I stared with contempt,
a hatred
for birds such as these who darken doors
like clouds over graves and lonely moors.
I followed this bird with watchful eyes
thoughts of the macabre behind my lids
a hateful disdain for what I judged.

I couldn't be sure what caused this hate
This heat in my blood for such a beast.
Perhaps the black in ruffled feather,
or ominous signs they tend to bring?
Perhaps I'd seen in forgotten dreams
Shadows such as these, feasting away
with eyes full of hell and gleaming flame
on corpses of children, scattering the steeets.

Or battles of old, with dying men,
these morbid creatures flying above,
gasping in fright with last weary breaths.
I searched for reason but merely found questions, still watching the bird with aging beak.

I tell you this tale, because just then,
While pondering on this ghastly fiend,
he stopped at his task and gazed at me.
I assumed he'd simply turn his head
a curious glance to say the least,
but his eyes, they gazed, straight into mine
a curious staring in their darkness,
puzzling my thoughts with so strange a bird...

Suddenly, without breaking the stare,
he closed the distance between us both
and hopped on my leg, landing so soft.
while never ending his silent gaze.
I couldn't move a single muscle,
shock in behavior I'd never seen.
It seemed as though time had ran its  course,
in perhaps the lifetime while we stared.
What seemed a dark demeanor from afar
appeared calm and peaceful on my knee, as if he'd heard my chiding thoughts.

The hatred in my mind started to fade
a useless ticket for which I'd paid.
If birds could smile, I'd swear he would
and nod his head in understanding.
Instead he merely opened his beak and dropped in my hand a tiny seed
then opened his wings and flew away.
vanishing silently through the trees.

I could not move and I could not speak
The fleeting shadow had made me weak.
I lifted my palm, this lasting gift.
A single seed, from a darkened crow
that taught me a lesson I needed to know.

The good die young,
or so I'm told.
I can't help but agree.
If I whispered this in your ear,
would you mistake my words as a cry for help?
I promise you, It's not.
Let me tell you what I fear.

I don't want to grow old
and watch my body decay,
wave as the child within sails away.
Turn into another taxpayer
trimming the hedges of my perfect little transparent existence,
desperately searching
for the moment when I
gave up.

One day I will become the soil,
this I know,
but must I first become a rusting foundation;
the remnants of a castle long after wonder love and freedom have been stripped away?

If the flame of my anatomy has an inevitable destiny
of being smothered by the weight of torment and time,
than I'd rather my soul depart
while shining at its brightest,
so I can find my way through the darkest of mysteries and discover a place in the
loudest kingdom of silence.

Your god is forged from wolves,  
dressed as men, with hungry eyes.
The day I watched them feast is when I turned my back on
god.

When a voice whispered in the emptiness, "Let there be light.",
an echo murmured back,
"Let there be darkness."
Eyes wide shut can't tell the difference.

I spray ashes from my lungs
left by cities which you've burned;
refuse your pious nature
and praise you never earned.

Somewhere deep in hiding,
the light will wait in patience,
while you drown the world in darkness
with the evil you created.

Burn a bridge between you and I,
if that's truly what you want.

But...
Let's hope,
for your sake,
I do not survive.

'Cause if I do,
I'll come back stronger.

I'll build it once more,
frame by frame,
for the sole purpose
of walking across,
to drag you to your knees.
in front of
me.


...before burning it back down myself...

I was standing on a beach, behind my eyes. The water moved silently and in the distant horizon a setting sun forever loomed. An eternal dusk that glowed with violet and red, never ending. Behind me were stars and open blackness. Planets in the distance sparkled and beamed while in front of me, sand and an endless ocean. I sat and gazed around. Not a soul in sight and not a breath to be found by living creature. I breathed slowly and deeply. Counting the waves as they breached the shore.
I began to float. As if some invisible hand had gently picked me up from the sand and began to carry me away. Up and out from the waters and the violet into the arms of stars and light in the distance. My head began to swim and the mind began to speak. Soon the beach was out of sight and all to be seen were the endless eyes of stars, watching me drift through the eternal. Through their midst and into a world that seemed a dream. I looked in front of me to see an eye. Not the ones of stars, but an actual eye, gazing not into mine, but through them. Into the parts of me I couldn’t see.
The lights around me began to spin. Slowly at first, but faster and faster. Soon I found myself in a maelstrom of colors, a twister of sounds and images too fast to make sense of. While it turned left I turned right and I caught glimpses of people laughing through windows in my world, somehow in the swirling haze. They were smiling and greeting one another. Buying homes. Celebrating birthdays. Watching the trees through open windows. I felt my heart grip in sadness. A girl was dancing in a lit room. She turned her eyes towards me and smiled. She extended her hand. I reached out mine and try to grab her fingers. Her smiling face singing to me. Our fingers touched before I was lost in the swirl and I span faster and faster…. I closed my eyes and screamed in anger. Raising my fists in the fury and the horror while the twister held its sway and the eye was ever watching me.
I looked at it in rage and asked it why. Why must my world always touch the tip of theirs but never grasp. Never embrace. Never fit…  
Who am I? Why must I be this way? The eyes merely stared and slowly vanished.
I sunk through the haze and fell once more into darkness.
I felt my feet find solid surface and slowly light began to appear around me. I was standing in a desert. Surrounded by sand and a red sky above me. In the distance, I saw movement. Anxious for life. A soul to speak to, I ran towards it and found an interesting sight. A girl was dancing. She was facing away from me but from the back she seemed beautiful. Slowly moving to and fro in the sand. Beside her sat a serpent and a fire. The serpent was smoking a cigar and holding a drink, watching the girl dance and nodding his head. He looked at me and invited me over. I came and sat next to him. When I looked at the girl once more, I gasped.
From the back this woman seemed older and beautiful. From the front stood a ragged child, hungry and weary with her eyes closed, swaying to music I couldn’t hear. I looked at the snake and he grinned, raising his glass. I shook my head and backed away from him; disgust and the macabre across my face. He shrugged and turned back to the girl. I began to slowly sink into the sand until it swallowed me whole. I was now sitting in front of a tree. A white tree standing alone with nothing else in sight beyond the horizon. It was beautiful and lonely, aged and strong like the earth itself.
I watched as a girl ran up and stared in wonder at it. She picked a piece of fruit off and licked her lips in hunger. She went to take a bite; I tried to move and scream out no, but her teeth sank in and the tree turned to ash and fell away while the girl had her fill and disappeared. I hung my head and the white emanated from the tree blew out like a candle in a dark room and once more it was black. I walked about, through chaos. Through this world I do not understand.
I began to cry and I looked towards the heavens and found nothing but blackness. Through my tears, in the distance, a figure shimmered into existence and began to step towards me. I was in awe.
A woman was standing there before me. The universe in the form of a woman. Her skin was made of galaxies and I saw countless things being born and dying in her eyes. She walked up to me and stared. I, being just a boy and frail. Weakened by my own lack of understanding and brief seconds where I exist.
She reached out her hand and I look it, feeling every moment of time in her grasp. All of the pain we bear. All of the love we share. Every mothers touch and every lovers kiss. Every broken heart and every lonely sigh… I felt her light flow through my skin and her eyes kept gazing at me. She smiled softly and her lips made words I couldn’t hear but somehow I could understand. She pulled me closer and we embraced. The wonder in every second of existence flew through my nerves and out of my eyes like electricity and sunlight…
She pressed her cheek against mine and I closed my eyes and smiled against her skin.
She looked at me once more and kissed my cheek. A wind gust against my soul and a heartbeat within the darkness.
Then she was gone. And I was once again alone, but never alone. I closed my eyes and once more felt the cool air of the beach and the velvet waves against my feet.
I sat down and stared into the eternal dusk once more.


My eyes open and I am shaking and shivering.
The wonder of the universe speaking to me.

I look inside your fragile head
and saw the terrors which you dread
I whispered, "You don't need your meds.
I'll hold your hand on paths we'll tread."

Unfortunately.
I guess it didn't matter what I said
when you just let him in your bed.

So now you'll be alone instead.

I wish to topple wicked kings.
Rage and slice the hidden strings.
Watch the temples burn and fall,
lead revolts and breach the wall.
I have no wish to take control.
There is no "greater" noble goal.
I have no plans to own the land
I want no people to command.
The only thing my heart desires,
is truth unbound, unyielding fires.
To see the world without the veils,
as evil dies and good prevails.
The kings of man who lie and scheme
to spread their fear and vicious dream
will watch their statues disappear
entombed against a new frontier.
I wish to topple wicked kings
rage and slice the hidden strings.
I'd gaze upon an empty throne
if I could just defeat my own.

Behind my eyes, I trace my fingers along your skin
like the longing touch of an artist with pen,
craving for the taste of perfection.

To see the stroke of passion on paper,
like the faintest moan within my ear...
The time to forget a troubled past.
A fleeting ecstasy to hopefully last,
enough to turn these dreams into sweat and drown the thoughts of remorse and regret.

Oh let me silence the demon's scream and hear only burning in our eyes.
We'll run away at close of day and rage like thunder in the skies.

There is salt within these bones,  
akin to carvings on a stone,
made by ancient men
who left a mark,
to lead lead their weary feet
back home.

I've dug among the dirt
and I've sailed along the seas,
searching for the answers asked by questions inside me.

The salt,
the sand,
the sunshine,
took my body for its own.
With memories of my travels,
I can know,  
at least,  
I'm not alone.

But perhaps,
in time,
instead of being tattooed by the Earth,
I can leave a lasting fable
of a boy who found his worth