Leave me be,
enveloped and enraptured
by the poetry of silence.
A private island
in a sea of faces.
Wistful but aware,
between
elation and despair.

Please forgive my
love of solitude.
The people of this world,
too beautiful for words,
are better from a distance.
Their voices,
a far off fanfare.

I feel safer here,
beneath a shield of
tranquil secrecy;
keeping a heart slowly healing
from wounds of long ago.

I have no shame
to hide from pain.
Would you deny me solace,
nestled in a home
of loneliness?

Wrap the thorns around my wrists like serpents slithering for a feast;
the ones who breed to bleed me dry unknowingly making me feel alive.

I'll bathe myself in light from a masochistic moon and listen to shadows on the walls moan in pleasure,
a deadly pleasure
that echos through my haunted veins;
wrapping their legs around my waist
and running their fangs across my lips.

They dig their claws and I pull them closer
hiding a smirk that even they cannot see, for I'm the boy you can't destroy
as I make love to
demons in the dark.

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.

I

I took a journey above myself one day and saw the trees below.
In scene by scene and well versed memories,
mistakes and beauty of the past consumed.
And though I know the past doesn't matter, I still took lessons and discovered three absolutes in this world.

wonder

love

and

freedom

If a map for my life exists, it abides in three words.

II

I took a journey above myself one day and saw the trees above.
In jaded laughter and menacing teeth bared,
a truth arose from former ashes.
And though I know the past doesn't matter, I still took lessons and discovered three absolutes in this world.

fear

doubt

and

anger

If a storm for my life exists, it abides in three words.

III

I took a journey above myself one day and just saw the trees.




*Nothing exists without an opposite,
and in that reality, you can find peace

I was born in
chains
with the gavel hanging over my head;
you were born
free,
the ******* children of the dollar bill.

The seasons turn and you fasten the chains around yourself as I slip soundlessly through the bars.

We started on opposite sides of the board.
I look back as you sit in your cell.
Unaware,
while I run beyond the fence to a freedom you will never understand.

Through eyes of red and thoughts of green
there's always more that can be seen.
Within the word of poet thieves,
that break the windows,
steal the keys,
you
choose
to make your own decrees.
A man is more than just a man
and space is full of more than sand...
But who will lend a helping hand
when eyes are closed across this land..?

I think your job may be the chain
in which you build your own domain.

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.

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

No other task have I witnessed more arduous,
than crawling out of the filth of our souls.
Black stain of self destruction,
the cynical hatred of life clinging to each heartbeat like weeds on a home
once majestic,
but abandoned to ruin.
Such frustrated sadness in the hindered steps of a man retreading the same path,
searching for confidence which waits off the beaten trail.
You can teach the tools of self discovery,
but cannot force hands to wield
while they fumble over unnecessary burdens still being held.
The world does not corrupt us,
we corrupt ourselves.
We build the walls around us that become a sanctuary or a prison,
but no wall is strong enough to withstand the will of a determined man.
Find your courage and I'll do the same.
We can crawl away from the putrefied ruins and be reminded of who we once dreamed to be.
Destroy yourself and rebuild again and again until you are monumental once more.

What can you hold,
with hands made of fire?
Attempting to warm
those lost in the cold;
pining to dispel
the darkest hallways.
Do I help,
or do I harm?
While intending
to inspire...
am I setting lives
on fire..?
Lonesome embers
leaping from my lips
and fingertips
of flint and steel...
should I keep them
to myself?

Passion spreads
like a forest fire,
Forgive me
if it burns,
I have so much
left to learn.

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...

If you take a step into the water and sink towards the bottom, never fear.
God may not be there to pull you back up and the world may not  notice as water fills your nostrils.
The void wants your soul and no divine presence can be found.

But you have arms.
You have legs.

You can swim and climb your way back to the top.
Be your own savior.

I drink too much and love too fast.
This life of mine's not meant to last.
The world I seem to occupy
will never see me eye to eye,
when rules which bound our fragile lives
will leave us fractured,
in disguise.
But if I went a differently path,
and found some peace in all my wrath,
could I escape into a realm
where'd I'd be captain at the helm?
Rid my soul of all the fear
that there is only order here.

Do not follow what they say.
Don't just live from day to day
Fight away the "nine to five"
and find what makes you feel alive.
Be strange.
Be weird.
Go search for you.
Climb the peaks and sail the blue.
The high you'll feel is not unreal
just emptiness you wish to heal.

I imagine a world constantly where people were unable to talk. I think this would sometimes be a better place.
So much anger and hatred would eventually fade into nothing if we would just shut the hell up.
Maybe we would just find another way to spread it though.
Humans have a knock for destroying the things they love most and the most beautiful things I have ever seen have just left me speechless.

"I await a guardian."
Shrouded forms who wrench and weave the hidden things I can't percieve,
into twisted thoughts of rage and woe
which drag me through the flames below.
"I await a guardian."
Bony fingers who clench.
Macabre lips who **** to kiss.
Weapons of hunger, instruments of fear...
"I await a guardian."
Joy becomes a distant memory,
replaced with bells that clang and roar.
The light has passed the spectrum,
fading to a shade of emptiness.
Kneeling in the dirt with
hands across my face; demons mistlike in their flight embrace my sorrow,
their sweet delight.
"I await a guardian."
All I need, is hopelessly gone.
All I need is hope... gone.
All I need is hope.
All I need... hope.
I need hope.
...hope.
HOPE.
What brightness in brilliance through such confines of the black. Shadows cannot hide when you shine like the sun.
The brazen bells have silenced and the mist is all but clear, scattered in the lucent are abandoned tools of fear.
"I await a guardian?"**
I have become the guardian.

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.

I just raised my fist and stormed across a hell made of anger, guilt, and ignorace that I created for myself.
I was never the same again. I don't even remember who I was before. The ghost of a boy stamping his frustrated feet in the dirt.
I believe I became whatever the universe wanted me to be though.
When you walk through fire, some part of the poison burns off and whatever detriment that remains is charred and visible; able to be conquered like the remnants of a failing army.

If I was a bird flying over the sea, would you stop for a moment and gaze up at me?
The wind under feather with curious weather...
away from the the worries that bind like a tether.

The waves singing songs as I soar far ahead with notes filled with passion like mothers singing to bed,
their children who sleep,
children too young to know,
the vast choppy waters
and the storms vicious blow.

If I was a bird flying over the sea, would you long for purpose?
Would you long to be free?
Would you long to stretch outward like the branch of a tree?

Though now I am chained to a wall made by pride and the ignorant static that is nestled inside,
one day I will open my troublesome eyes and arrive to a peace found in being truly alive.

Until then I fall, until then I fail, but with every bruise comes a truth in the gale.
So have faith in me and I send you this plea.
That one day you'll see me with wings,
flying over the sea.

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 was at my old church and I don't really remember seeing the faces of anyone from my past.
This building inside my head was filled with the voices of those who linger like gargoyles; stony and immovable.
The voices who told me I was a hypocrite and filled me with fear of going to hell.
The voices who never accepted my family and I because we were not wealthy and we weren't like them.
The building I now walked through though held no voice or figure from memory.
They were all new to my eyes and yet I got the same shiver as before.
It felt odd.

Perhaps the ghosts who haunt us never fully disappear, they just change forms.

I walked outside though and people I know from college and high school, various jobs and random places began to appear.
Those many I have seen who never really were my friends, they only pretended to be.
They all started talking and having a good time.
Then I turned around and walked away.
No one followed.