This city is an abandoned house.
The paint has been peeling for quite some time and the roof has gone to hell.
I am not even sure if the door is attached to the framework at all
or just hanging there.
The couch is covered in dust and the pantry is filled with generic green beans and cereal boxes.
They must have had a dog. I see chew toys here and there.
The television has a chair sticking out of it.
That isn't a good sign.
How odd.
The bathroom is the cleanest looking room in the house.
The backyard seems lonely. I see a bike that wants a rider and a trampoline missing a spring.
I gotta get out of here. Try a different house.
I look down the road and see nothing but similar vacancies.
******.


It guess that's all in existence now.
Abandoned houses along an abandoned street.


hmmm...




Let's burn them down.

I know how you feel.

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you feel depressed but you really can't figure out why.
It feels like it may be one thing but the moment you fix it the feeling returns.
It is like you are running in circles trying to get away from something you can't see.
After a while it gets old and you just want to go to sleep.

Maybe you are picked on at work or at school.
Maybe you don't have friends and you wonder if something is wrong with you.
Maybe you just want the world to see you as something more than a tool to use.

I know how you feel.

And since I do, trust me when I say this.






You will be alright.




Everything will be alright.


I promise.



-Joshua

Im sorry dad but this bottle makes more sense than those cryptic psalms ever would.
Im sorry mom but the world isnt what you wish it was and you did the best you could.

These crazy people screaming at each other like a train whistle blaring heading straight into a lake.
The devil on my shoulder laughing, singing, dancing, watching chaos become all its born to be.
The angel on my shoulder crying, preaching, misbehavin holding signs against a ******* company.

****** preacher man and ****** uncle sam cant you see that you see that all you do is spill the pork and beans?
Ill sit and cigar haze and my *** and beer soak daze and wish youd all just shut your ******* mouths.

I'm sorry dad but this bottle makes more sense than those cryptic psalms ever would.
Im sorry mom but the world isnt what you wish it was and you did the best you could.

I have to fill my lungs with cigar smoke.
                                                                    
                                            There can't be a drop left in the bottle at my feet.

                                      I just want to be...
                                                          
                                                             okay.


Though, in time,
                   I know everything
                                           will be alright
                                                          and I will smile
                                                                            at the universe,


I still taste the good parts of you on my tongue.

                                   I still feel your venom coursing through my veins.


                                            ...and I want you out.


I need to flush my body
until no trace
of your
ghost
remains.

The last time I noticed I was alone,
the jester yawned beside the throne.


Then wisdom drained in pouring rain, the kind that causes peculiar pain.
I closed my eyes and dreamed a dream
that gravity had changed its mind
and threw the ones who strive to fly into the freedom of the sky.

But...
those who chained themselves to gods,
some made of words and gold,
were fastened closely to the ground by pride and all they chose to hold.
Then all the thoughts and actions built around my shadow like a tomb,
began to sing a humble song, like voices from a patient womb.

So here I'll stand and wait in wonder as the voices still persist,
until the time will come when I can understand how to exist .

I shot an arrow in the air
but then I was filled with despair
because it fell without a care
back to my feet; so unfair.

But I did not whine, I did not cry
I grabbed it again and let it fly.
and now its soul will never die
flying past the clouds and into the sky.

I wonder at times what would happen if I were to suddenly die and someone found this journal, found my words.
I wonder whether they would even read it... would they find it interesting?
I bet they would think, "What an angry and cynical little boy this writer must be."

I guess that what I ay can be a little rough around the edges but that is only because life can be the same way. I look through my own words from years before to now and try to find exactly what I am trying to say. My words bounce around at times building up on each other or breaking down.
Is there a method to my madness or is it just ranting drifting around a smouldering fire?

Maybe when I am older I can look back and someone much wiser and well along in their years will understand and nod their head slowly in compassion for a twisted soul stumbling deaf, dumb, and blind in a world that cannot be understood and a universe that forgets to place flowers on your grave.


-Joshua Haynes

I wake up and you are not there.
Hopefully I am still asleep.
But then I realize you left me
And I don't blame you in the slightest.

It is a good death that I die today.
The sun is speaking with warmth to clouds who
drift along to hear the tales.
The waters flow with guidance from the wind
and the trees sigh with delight.
You are standing before me and the silence is overwhelming.
I stare into your eyes and you smile softly
vanishing with the leaves.
It is a good death that I die today.
My footfalls leave no trace and the faces pass me by.
So full of wonder, full of life,
but hard to see through eyes that strain,
minute by minute,
adjusting to a world so bright,
it seems so dark...
It is a good death that I die today,
to come from a shout in the everlasting black mystery,
a lonely heartbeat surviving in the cold;
a place where stars fall and children whisper dreams...

I looked in the mirror, then shook my head in shame.
I keep pointing broken fingers but I'm the one to blame.
I heard a story yesterday about a man who died.
They say he pulled his heart out through his chest and placed an note inside.

I guess I'm not too different dear because I never see
the man with notes inside his chest will always be
a
shackled
me.

I want to fight and read and drink and ****.

I want to stand once again on the beach just far out enough to where there is nothing in my sight but the sea.

I want to fall so far that I don't think I can ever stand up again.
And then I want to laugh, stand my *** up, and climb out.

I want to write and breathe and laugh and die.

But most of all,

I want to feel alive.




God ******.

I want to be Hemingway at the bar
and Shakespeare in the bedroom.
I want to be Dante in the classroom
but Hunter S. Thompson on the weekends.
I want to be Tolkien in the library
and Fitzgerald in the night clubs.
I want to be Poe in the gutters
but Kafka in the alley ways.
I want to be Carroll in the closet  
and Twain on the street corner.

I want you to see... us.

There.

In the background watching with a pen,
and thoughts born of words
aching to breathe.

I
Was
Asleep
When
The
World
Started
To
End.

I was asleep when the world started to end.
While the first skyscraper fell, I was under my covers dreaming of somewhere new.
I was asleep when the world started to end.
While the virus ran its course and charged like a legion of soldiers, I was pressed against my pillows watching shadows behind my eyes.
I was asleep when the world started to end.
While the fires broke out in the churches and the bombs went off in the hospitals, a puddle of drool was collecting on my blanket while I snoozed away.
I was asleep when the world started to end.
While the tidal waves hit the shoreline and washed away shopping malls and grocery stores, I was sprawled out across a bed, lightly snoring.
I was asleep when the world started to end.
While the asteroid entered the atmosphere and  the people of this world shouted in terror and confusion, I was talking in my sleep to anyone who cared to listen.
I woke up when the world was over.

That word has lost it's meaning and its use has fallen short.*

The camera lens is cold and feels nothing except mathematical equations, performing actions; much like a part of the world that keeps you and I in chains.
But if I look at it, it looks at you and that is all I want to do right now.
So I can bare the cold for a just a little while, because warmth is waiting in patience

You called me timeless once.
            I had not felt such a heartbeat in so long.
...like drums in the forest...

              I am timeless?
My dusk,
          if you were a clock,
      it would melt into water and seep into the fissures of my heart.

Tomorrow
                  may not arrive but you know my
yesterday
                  and you are my
today.

So take my hand and the universe will be our ballroom.
                                                                ­The stars can be our audience and the sea can be the orchestra.

If the garden you were plucked from emanates the
musical and breathtaking fragrance
where you tread,
then it is where beauty first was born.

Forgive me but you have captured my attention and I will not use that word.


My lips can show you what waits within those fissures
and my eyes can tell you what words fail to comprehend.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XZkLmomNgA

So I was sitting at home watching a movie when nature called me and told me that it was time to drain my bladder. She is such a sweet lady. So I do my business and I flush the toilet. but oh no! It wouldn’t stop running! If it keeps running like that, it will make the water bill go up which would cause our family grief beyond anything!

I was taken aback and scared at this atrocity, making me realize that the toilet demon has come again to make us pay for using his burial site for plumbing. I gathered all of the courage that I could muster and I screamed, “I will save this house from the toilet demon!”

I took the lid off of back and could hear the demon laughing at me as he kept the water running, I notice that the water would stop if I kept a piece held up. But alas! It wouldn’t stay up! I thought deeply on what to do. There were no rubber bands and tape wouldn’t hold. But string would! So I rushed to the armory, otherwise known as the pantry, and I found some string, and some electric tape as well! I gathered my tools and with a battle cry, I rushed back to the bathroom. I could have swore that I heard the yells of other men, and the sounds of horses plowing through the ground, while the music from the film 300 played out loud.

I rushed into the bathroom and lifted my tools! Then the water stopped and the toilet had finished its cycle and all was silent and still. I cursed, dropped everything, and went back to sit down and watch my movie, thinking that I let the plumbing get a little out of hand.

The End

There are pretty girls getting limo rides with rich men smiling by their sides
while I am singing with flowers between my teeth like romantic swords within a sheath.

I see their pretty eyes fill with city lights.
So very bright... so very bright...
But the gutters are hidden just out of sight and the rats are crawling through the night.

I am riding my bike between the trees while, in my mind, I'm on my knees with sadness at the girls in limos never knowing what will come when the sun goes down and the rats come out to feast...

I am the boy waiting on the beach watching the girls in the city but when the lights leave their eyes and they turn around,  I won't be there anymore.

From the top of decayed buildings I look down on the mess I created.
The board beneath me is just another playing field,
replaced with an older one.
The roads that intertwine and the window panes that hide smiling faces are memories belonging in the shadows, away from me.
Far from me.
I want to replace them with something fresh.
A mannequin from another time; I don't want him to represent a dream I had for you.
A stairwell leading to hidden cafes; not a remembrance of a grinning you.

If my world is a jumbled puzzle of memories without purpose or clarity, then perhaps they can be traded with other pieces better suited to fit the world.

I close my eyes and you're here.
I open them and you're still there.

...somewhere...

...just not here...

We are architects of universes not yet created.

I want to be a thieving rogue who hunts behind curtains for treasured "gold".
I want to take
and grab
and ******;
a hooded figure no lawman can catch.
They'll search for me beyond the seas while I am just grinning in a tree ,
waiting for the alarm to give up the fight so I can vanish into the night.
But please, dear friend,  don't make the mistake and assume you know the treasure I crave,
for no diamonds are twinkling behind the eyes of the mischievous hunter,
this garish knave.
This thieving soul wants only to steal the hearts of those, chained to their woes, and all other torturous lingering foes.

So quickly I'll sneak and risk you away;
then show you, perhaps, a different view.
So tell me.
Will you
let me steal you?

If an apparition is all the gods have called me to be,
then I will grit my teeth and scream my way into eternity.

Unleashing words that few care to hear and tingles up your spine that some might think to be a strange and mysterious fear.
Being used to falling in the dirt can cause a dangerous smile to cross your lips
and most don't expect what they find if they take a peak inside.
Don't blink because I might be gone and the ones who light a lantern to search for me in the dark are the only ones worth singing to.

If I hide, who will search for me?
If I sink, who will swim with me?
If I fall, will you try to catch me?

Light a lantern if you care because I am always partly fading away...

If time is relative then why are we moving at all?
I look around
and to me we all seem to be standing still...
Frozen in our civic and social duties.
Like watching a game show,
Or buying a frozen pizza.
...dressing up to go to church.

We become frozen in these moments and they end up defining who we are instead of the other way around.

Maybe the world is in an event horizon and I am stuck outside watching everyone seem to move in no direction at all.
Yet I see myself as well.
Sitting completely still and becoming a mannequin...

I would say that we are moving towards a black hole,
******* the light and life out of us,
but that would be foolish.

Because we are the black hole.
We steal the life and desire.
Hopes and dreams
from ourselves and throw our souls away for a paycheck and death certificate.

If I could find the warehouse of man and stumble upon the assembly line, I would shoot the foreman and break the machine.

Then

I

would

burn

that

building

to

the






ground...

I think this *** makes more sense than you ever could.
The part that thinks it wouldn't, knows of course it should.

In my drunken haze, I run naked in the rain.
The stars let me know there's no need to live in shame.

I am making noise in the dark but its hard to find out why.
These voices I hear are making words,
words made out of things they've heard.
Things they may have felt or seen
with eyes made out of stars and dreams.
The words they fly and all I hear
is music and pain.
Screams and cheers...

My voice is there of course and it rings the chaos bell,
but sometimes I cannot hear my words and that just means that all is well.

Perhaps this is just a ball floating around with volume turned on high.
Does the cosmic storm give a **** about our blue and cloudy sky?

It may or may not. I'll never know.

But if all I hear until I die are these voices,

...then I am okay with that.

I'll just keep making noise in the dark.

I opened my eyes and I was falling from the sky with the ocean beneath me.
I heard not a sound except the faintest whisper of the wind.
The ocean sparkled, billions of lights flickering in the distance.
I fell faster and faster, and yet the vast violet and blue never drew closer.
In fact, it seemed to grow further from me. I spread my arms and closed my eyes.
Trees in bloom erupted from my fingertips and eternally grew.
I opened my eyes to find myself no longer falling but standing in a forest at twilight,
staring up into the stars as they shimmered and flickered in the sky,
speaking words I would never hear.
I reach down and pluck a single blade of grass as the earth starts to shake.
I close my eyes.

I would point a finger but all I see are mirrors.
Judgements and flaws all seem to point right back. The human flaw is that we don't notice the mirror we are always staring into. We think it is a window...

But who am I to point a finger anyway?
I guess it is just in our nature to punish the world around us on some days
and mend it on another.
I will never know why and I don't really want to.
Sure, insults and bullies made me who I am today.
But I can't blame a tornado for leveling a town, so I will keep my mouth shut and have a drop a shot of empathy to drown the apathy.
I have friends where I need them and more friends where I don't. I still feel alone at times, but there is no point in whining because we all do; ghosts making noise in the dark.

We're just trying to find something new but we look in the wrong places.
We need a real window.

There are love songs playing through the static and I can hear them faintly as I fight anxiety with wine that cares for me more than you could ever pretend to.
The notes fight through the white noise and the words climb against the wind and rain to see day. They will succeed and the static will fade away into the beautiful music that usually fills my universe,
...but not today.
Today is just a promise that things will eventually be okay...

I have a flask in my back pocket and a little bit of nothing in my wallet.
My thoughts are stumbling more than my feet and there is jazz somewhere out in the darkness.

My heart is full of rage and ***,
but parts of it are slightly numb,
when faces passing in the street
can always seem so grey and glum.

The sun hid out of sight today and echoes asked for light to see.
They faded in the raindrops and the clouds ignored the sound.

I watched the sunset through the white
and prayed for moonlight to give me sight
but the warmth that ran throughout my veins
decided to end a losing fight.



**to be continued...

A pretty girl smiled at me yesterday
and I thought of nothing cool to say.

So loneliness is the price I'll pay
because I just let her slip away.

Oh I never wake in fear

at men who scream and men who sneer

and people chanting, "hounds draw near!"

Oh I never wake in fear.



The ignorance of jeers and hate

are always thrashing at the gate,

but all they do is seal our fate

for I never wake in fear.



The warden points and dogs do bite

in finding ways to prove what's right.

While all we do is breed despite

and I never wake in fear.



His lasting words, a dying impression

draw from wrath a pleading confession

laughing at a virtue regression

still I never wake in fear.



You hope they shiver at your blade..?

At all the WONDEROUS things you've made?

When all their morals, you invade?

Strange I never wake in fear!



How you claw, to fully erase

the hopeless, foul things in this place.

When mirrors are your only face...

why can't I ever wake in fear?



My time is done, my mind is clear.

Yet, still I wonder why I'm here...

With hope, one day, I'll shed a tear,

the day that I wake up in fear...

Sigh.
This is hard.


My eyes are getting heavier with each passing day and the boy I see in the mirror
looks almost like a man.
Almost.

I am thankful for all the unkind words.
They made me strong and they made me carefree.
But when the lights go off and piano notes dance around my room the sheets feel lonely and my room feels cold.
When I close my eyes, my fingers are running along your cheek and my lips are brushing your nose.
You're not here.
I don't even know...

who
you
are.
But I hear myself whisper your name.

I know that somewhere in the universe, pieces of our souls flown through lonely tears and childhood wishes are are dancing with one another in the rain.
...kissing after dinner...
..making love after a fight...

I am so madly in love with you and I have no idea who you are.
Whether you even exist at all yet or whether I pass you every day.

I make no promise that I will caress your skin.
I make no promise that I will hear you laugh.
I make no promise that I will ever find you.


But I promise to always keep looking,
so keep your eyes open too...



With all my love whoever you are,

Joshua Haynes