When wombs
Smell of smoke
And people talk of change
Some would say
I hope not.

Once upon a time
You and I were walking in the forest
And you whispered into my ear
That the trees hated us
Because they knew that one day
Our initials would be carved
Into every single one of them

Howling fowls cease to be
while grey boatmen
chapped on ends
worry about where their women
back on land
choose to lay.

Sweetheart,
I'm afraid to say the you have gone salty.
Where elegance once stood proud
Pillars of law and metal now tower.
Where sunshine once danced
Dust and routine now bark and sneer.
The tears of kangaroos fill trenches and hearts alike.
But don't worry.
I'm still here.
Like the prisms on the other side
I'm bound to bend
And break
For you.

While blue black ink is soaking into the paper on the desk
I lay down sulking eyes onto the dog eared love note
That you took the time to pen late last night
You write so fearlessly
Painting the unending love you feel
For us and for me
In blue black ink.

Destroy me
With the frayed paintbrushes on your lids
Sun-baked and worn
Tanned and full of shame
Recreate me
With the forked tounge you master
Conducting orchestral chaos
On the inside of my skull
While I watch, and cry, from over here
On the pooper.

Cynical people say life is not fair.
I think that life is too fair.
You eat an onion and the cell walls break down and you taste the flavor, delicious and ripe
and then your breath stinks like an onion.
You find yourself at a lonely 30 without a wife
and then you find a woman too complex to fall in love until she found a mature soul.
You feel the pangs of heartbreak, and you realize you were a ******* that needed to stink boldly enough to change your ways.
There is no winning in life.
You pay the toll and you drive the road that you paid the toll for.
So feel the sadness and know that you’re paying your toll.
And then rejoice in the happiness,
the road you get to travel.

I am your motivator
Your guide through this tall dead growth
Follow me into light and glory and we
Together
Shall become one
Do not question the path that I guide you down
For it can make no sense to you until we reach the end
And know this:
If you stray from this path
You will realize that what you travel alone is no longer a path
What you follow now is a pattern
Day after day you will crawl towards your death
Alone and cold
But if you remember that I alone am your motivator
I shall be back for you at the break of dawn
To pick you up out of the quicksand you create
From tears cried into dunes upon dunes
And when you are ready
We will continue
Together again
into the sun.

This is the world in 2215
People have changed
The world doesn't smell the same
Cardboard kingdoms and pillow forts have been conquered
Plastic comfort now reigns
Synthetic in my veins
Pixels have replaced daydreams and non-fiction isn't a genre anymore
Its all pretend now
Bee's can't find their way home
And children forgot how to laugh
Although they still get the giggles when they are in church
Knees bent 90 degrees against polished wood
The wind never kisses anyones cheeks anymore
Now your lucky to get a "Heywhudup."
The future is now and its cold
All of my loved ones cry in corners
When they think they are alone
And to top it all off
Still no jetpacks

Crushed red velvet smokestacks bellow and binge drink while I sleep
Leather bound story of a lifetime
Stretched and fleeting
Believing in breathing
Life into words

The locust tans hide
In sun burnt valleys
As crystal skies swirl and stir
Light illuminates the inside of your head
Between those clean amber eyes
And you look at the back of smooth olive hands
Slowly remembering how the story goes
Cover to cover
Inked black past
Regrets highlighted with a red pen
Almost like you had decided to cover up the past
And paint a false red tale
Covering up your one chance
To burn yourself to the ground
Truthfully

I often think of all the good times we had
some of them not even half bad
if it was up to me
we would be whole again

there was something in the cards that night
that in the end just felt right
some say it was meant to be
others disagree

hope to see  you again
only if its just for a little while

we can be whole again
i kinda believe it will be true
because you always suprised me out of the blue

Po boy on the sidewalk
You got smushed
First I dropped you
and then stepped on you
A terrible accident
You never got the chance
To be treated like the sandwich you grew up to be
And devoured
Like a glass of iced tea after a lifetime in prison
Hopefully a dog will find you
Best dam day of that dogs life

Casting shadows upon shadows

Enamel against iron

Fighting fire with freedom

And lighting the way back with fire fought

Somber blankets of humid humility

Will lay me down with heavy lids

Until the time comes

To war again.

"Whats wrong?"
"Nothing." Total lie.
Everything about this was wrong.
"Crumbled crackers on a ***** tip."
There. That should do it.

All I can remember is the look that you didn't have in your eyes that day.
The cold sea breeze whistled in and out of our slack-jawed mouths and lungs as we both stood and stared.
Deep into the reflection of ourselves.
You, a reflection of me and everything I now find robbed.
Me, the minutes, months, and years.
What were you thinking?
What cogs turned while you watched and waited in the chilled grey.
The wooden planks beneath our feet creaked and wept and seagulls cried into the absent minded surf.
Sending out shrill stabs across the waves that passed underneath our feet.
While I looked at you
And you stared back at me.
Grizzly is the wound of my reflection.
That beauty could turn into these rite angles and chalked corners.
I took a breath and your eyes met mine as you waited to hear what words were to be converted.
I could have said anything.
But that day I chose the truth for the first time in years.
And you stared at me.
I looked at you.
And all I could see was the stranger of my reflection.
I left the pier that day with a cold wind in my heart.
I was alone and shelled.
But I was human again.
Seagulls and sea-breeze
My witness.

Your laughter is everywhere
The napkin sticks to my hand as I pull away
I reach for my glass of water that is weeping and take a sip
Lemon seeds
You say that you're stuffed and half drunk so we leave
The air is cold on my razor-burnt cheeks
First date of the new year
After 2 hours and wine my heartbeat has returned to normal
I ask about fears
You, about regrets
We walk along the bridge and then it dawns on me
A neon sun burning behind my eyes
That I have never felt like this
I watch and worship the way that you do everything different
Than the way we are supposed to
I look at you
"Who the **** raised you?"
You smile
Reaching with your right hand into your bag you say
"Life and laughter are a given, but neon is the nicest way."
You pull out a CD that got you through Kansas and give it to me
I walk you to your car
It almost doesn't start due to the cold
I wish it hadn't
You drive away into the cold, city air
I get in my car and continue to drive
Searching for something other than love
Lighting the darkness with neon in the nicest way.

Give the people what they want
Grant the wishes of the unknown
Be the hero around strangers
Make them think that you are worthy of television
Persuade them that you are great
Because they will never know
What kind of monster you turn into at night
When your own self depreciating self takes over
And you guzzle gallons of fire
Turning yourself into the opposite of what you wanted to be
Be amazing around those who you don't know
And drown out the ******* that is trying to infect
Everything that you want
Give into the fact that people don't change
They just make themselves suffer
Burn your own *** down
And rebuild that self into something worthy of your own time

I thought you looked armadillo-adventurous
You smelled like you had waffle-ironed a dog **** on your walk
Across the park
I was sitting there pretending I didn't smell the stink
You asked me how I was
I hiccuped and said great
You pulled out 2 peanut butter eggs
I looked at you, forgetting to be distant and indifferent
Slack-jawed and wide eyed
I said you were beautiful
You said that serial killers were on the loose and that we should go
Eggs in hand
And lumps in throat
You let me walk you home

Is there another out there who understands these lacerations ?
Someone who has felt the deep hollowing out
Of a heart and whatever courage is made out of
Is there someone who knows this pain?
I feel guilty for things I could never have controlled
A Father turned against himself
A Father who felt enough pain for one lifetime
And now I sit alone
Isolating myself as to spare any pain or ache
That a heart and body might produce
Do I protect myself from the world outside
Or am I protecting the world from the riptide of emotion
I am anxiety
I am the other half too
My life is a prayer to anyone who feels these feelings
You are not alone

The outsider of I am
Lays inside my ribs and trembles around terror
Lashing out with interpretation
Symbols and casts of memory
Dances for you
Makes your eyes grow bigger
Looking deeper
And deeper
Into the falsified feelings of fracture
That entertain you so
The disconnected stranger
I am
The unmapped dismay of futuristic undesired
I am
Relapsing into chasms pinned up by pillars of anything
Other than what I had
Or wanted
From you