Now you're raising a family
But still you remember,
You do it to escape your current hell
Like the autumn leaves,
You wish to flee

When your smile gleams,
The light hits your eyes just right
A familiar smell brings your heart and mind
Back to me

Love you once had, cast out so easily
Wish you had held on
Now tearfully, you lose your resolve
You think you know who you are, I see those symptoms from afar

Hush those fears, they will only grow
The December of now will thaw one day
Eventually you'll be free to pray
Until then, remember a better day

Several seconds of introspection
Wasted moments
You are upset with all that has changed
You hissed and preached about how wrong I was
Yet, here we now stand
Your heart has shriveled and you've had enough
The cold has found you, within it speaks;
"Finally you see, is not this dance of somber indignity?"
I see now I there is nothing left of my baby,
I'll always miss you,
Sweet Cinderella,
Rest in Piece

On occasion, a dream will show
Eyes of someone I am yet to know
In these moments, I feel alive
Justifying the existence of an internal drive
Outside of these flashpoints
A monochrome life
Coated in nothingness
Frigid cold, emotional strife
Yet, I carry on
If only to dream of those eyes
Once again

Country roads and summer drives back home
From New York to New Brunswick
The adventure and the memories
Worth the cost multiplied by infinity
Looking back now, it is with fondness
Not bitter qualifications

Though I do not admit to a state of total jovialness
Rather, acceptance that is bittersweet
Something I have come to realize
Is the taste of all that I eat

Dreams are hazy and full of such identification
Memories posted to the halls of physical locations
Classes I wish not to share
Those I've dropped in order to avoid another fall

Odd to ponder the growth since air was warm
Physical and spiritual
With lands that have fully expanded into vague territories
Aspirations now seek for success alone
Rather than success and a loving home

Seeing all this now, in the rearview
Accepting each new reality with a weary smile
Held up by internal fortitude and stubbornness

Too much love, spurned but not forgotten
Such lessons not forgotten
This heart and face
Rendered cold and new
Patient and distant
Thanks to you

In a coffee shop
Wrapped up in fumes and steam
Getting cups and covers
Checking and crossing
The till beeps in time with the bell above the door

Beans drying faster than your skin
Warm air, hot coffee
Lights up, sun down
Mums and dads, babies and kids
Friends and family
Dates, first, middle, last

Getting up early, closing down late
It all happens in a day
Each new cup served with a story to come
Caffeinated dreams waiting to be ground

Snow upon our westerly mountains
Lost under proverbial covers
Fear the warm dread of Summers to come
Floating amongst our respective coves
Lost, you see
Flashbacks amongst familiar lips
Sometimes I know you see
'banality which now fills your old wounds
Drunkenly you lost track of time
If you were half the human I thought you were
You would thrive

I might have sold my mind to a fugitive cause
Tossing all belongings into the nearest inlet
Looking to Heaven, hoping to go
Rolling towards the sunset
For there was nothing more the day could offer

I think I met a girl but I can't quite remember her name
With bright green eyes and hair ablaze
Or perhaps those eyes were blue
Hair enlightened by the sun
I can only pretend to not know her name
Just a lie, buried beneath the bass

Now we hit the highway, sun still high above
Sinking slowly, like the rest of time
All that speed and rhythm but the girl, still on my mind
Pretending to not know her name
Drinking in the ocean air,
Shades obscuring deep introspection

Finally, we have arrived
As close to a destination as a band of roving dreamers could claim
Broad and serene,
Representing a wake, trailing behind all we have seen

Aya, your name
To which, I cede the point you've made
Stubborn in my decisions to abstain
To deny a relationship in a bid to be sane
Succumbing to your beauty and personality
I'll join you in this game

So, pass me the keys
Pack your things
We'll drive into the sunset
Just to do it again

Remember your neighbourhood in the late afternoon sun
Your body small, mind innocent
Every image a wonder, visages of beautiful naivety
The earth was a different place
All you owned were a box full of toys and a smile on your face
Love wasn't your hunt and conquest
Adventure could only quench that thirst
Wonderful, everything was
Freedom in childhood

Dear City of Dreams,
Would you remember me well?
In you I waited to leave
Bright horizons a little blonde told to me
Couldn't wait to be home and free
Rushed our time in the warm city,
Raced towards the sea

Now, I look back
Ponder such a coincidence that two would wish to win
Though I made my decision,
I have nobody else to blame
I chose one, and one chose you
Ha, what a way to "win"

Is it worth your wild heart to lie
Cold calculations or something dreamt while high
With a swift and subtle movement
Rewind and let me live it all again
Eyes open and wide
Appreciative of that which will end

Who is it we think we'll know
Where is this place we dream to go
When is the time you think will be right
These questions built from faith in foresight

Nothing exists in such a fashion
It's built of internal fortitude
Love isn't found, it's built
Careers and homes are made with hard work
There is no quick wish
Only that to which you commit

We learn so much
We learn it all too late
Value of dreams, love, life
In favour of money, left to wither
Our children grow, uninterested in the passage of time
One last game of catch, tea, band practice
Whilst we look at budget reports
Time closes in

Wide, innocent eyes
Become wise and concerned
Each year, feeling shorter and shorter
While the visits to the doctor become longer and longer
The kids start to visit less
We never earned their time
We never tried our best

It all went by so fast
We, I, could have been better
Present, caring
Awake to that which made them smile
Even after they left home,
Should have seen, should have known

There was love inside their hearts
But we grew up blind
And now it's twilight
And the sun is already gone
We learn so much
We learn it all too late

As long as I have been able to, I have written when I felt pain. The longer I wrote, the deeper I was able to delve into my own mind. As I began to question my world more, I began to write on a daily basis; developing a pattern in which I could healthily express myself. Eventually, I began to fall in love, and as love often does, it gave me a strength I could not have imagined I possessed. I had found a Muse. A woman with whom I found no faults I could not overlook. An individual I wanted to spend my life with. She became the reason I wrote. She was the fire that burned stronger than a million dreams. She began to encompass the entire scope of all that I could ever hope or dream. It was because of her that I gained the confidence I desperately needed to be myself. It was because of her I gained the knowledge to voice my wants and needs and become the man I sought to be. With my Muse I took the power she gave me and shared it with her. We basked together in the joy and hope of the free, swimming an ocean filled with dreams of a future that most likely will never come. The sentimentalist within me still holds an ember of that reality, a single passionate light that reminds me of a simple, beautiful time. My Muse has left me for another poet; my dreams have left me for another man. Now it is time I leave too. Leave the man I once was, the identity that fell in love with the girl of his dreams. It is time I seize control of the future I want, the one I need. I am my own man now. Thank-you for all that you have shown me, my once beautiful muse of 2013.

I burnt up on reentry
Circle diamonds, raining from my hands
Candied memories kept up with me lethargically
Sunburnt from too many feelings

I seem to see into the past
Must be these radio teleplays I hear when I fly
Foggy and fast
Falling is a more accurate term

Piano and guitar with which I rehearse
Leaning off the coast with a bottle of Crown Apple
Just peeking into states and times
With my ever solid monologues
And fondness for your hair

You had a class act
That cost you the best years
Pace yourself!
You only have so much vitriol you can throw at me,
Take a breath,
Learn to see,
You hate you,
Not me

I am the creature with one hundred eyes
Colorful yet blind
Hungry and trite
Pulling quotes from outside
I am rising to the tides
Listening to music from those who long ago died

I am
Tongue tied
Pulling verses from deep inside
Covering my inhibitions
Those which urged my insight
I am ready to go out with the tide
That final lustrous tide
With which,
I bid thee goodbye

Colloquial examples of passion
Smoke rising lazily off the trembling waters
Skin soaked with the ethereal dreams of a thousand lifetimes
When I awoke, the night a moonless construct of infamy
Dreams are hungry, the nightmares seek
Artful expression which crashes downwards
The many beatings of a heart
Cold and scared

A smattering of thoughts
Void and *****
Callously sold to the empty hands of yesteryear
In corrupted frame, coiled rage
Another image bound and bled
New notes left unfettered or fed

Pulchritudinous, what was once a face
Since traded, since displaced
Hollow and ashen
Soul sacrificed to make space

Elements of fire and air
Clashing internally
Fluid motions, beckoning out to the few
Clutch thy mystic purse
Burn said embers anew

Dearest hollow, the waters tremble
The cold dark sings as the bonfire waivers
Bide your strength, close ashen eyes
Sip from holy estus
Summon or head on
Push through the fog wall,
Prepare to die

Admissions go as I near a suicide
Closing my eyes, wishing to die
This dark place has become my home
It's emotions are dead, alone I roam

Hurting for long now
Lost and distraught
I tire of this life
I lose a lot

Things which I intended to be a part of
Long gone now
People I gave my heart to
All in another rotation
Here I sit
In this dead nation

Another day goes by
Connected, sharing the same motion
Into reversals we danced
Nonsensical music playing at every turn
Rattles and swerves writihing around me

Waking the day before
Special friends tumbling through the door
Have to keep them moving
Not a day goes by without this global motion

Like a thousand drops of sky
This energy comes
Dancing through doors
Sharing a magic trance

Take my hand
Come along on this mad dance

Come down from your coloured hills
Running my abandoned towns
Hallowed hearts and duck bills
Cunning, I commanded frowns

Eviscerate expectations
Remember heat and fury
Confiscate delegations
November briefly flurries

Burn and preserve
My little lion herd
Protect and serve

After all is said and done
Can anyone claim to have won

How sweet it was, letting go
Does not matter to me
Now that I too flow
Ever the flicker while I recall, let go
Silence for a moment
Then we begin again
A new cycle, set free from the yesterday I did see
Another dreamer, set free
Hold tight, you have let go
Oh, let go
Oh, free to go

You know that pain is the opposite of dissonance
This is the truth that is so dangerous
I want those intangible things
Memories and feelings that refuse to leave me
Unlike the heat of this subtle hilarity
Embedded in the new frost of the old rain
Caressed by the things that torture us
Like chains made from trust
Snapped beneath the weight of distance and wariness
Hating the scars on my chest
Whilst one lives for that which shines through yonder windows
Like the deepest oceans, the heart of the sea
Blue and full of wanderlust
Not quite me

I cannot recall
Reasons for which I have not slept since early May
Without answers, beckoning at a visage of you
The purple beneath these tired and weary green eyes
The memories for which another multitude of seasons died
These things I know and remember
Once more, at the mirror in the hall
I desperately yell,
Do you recall?

Sitting here singing in the dark
I wonder about where you lay
'Wonder about what you feel in your heart

Cool winds are still blowing
And every step is unknowing
But I still think of Summer past
Still remember to learn from a love that made me laugh

Though all this is my cross to bare
Afternoons and friends can bring me back home
Before I set off into the unknown

It's my turn
No sympathies, the rumours true
You'll find out the mountain blue
Your insides as hollow as your lies are true
If you'd like, I can take you
Back to the start, to thank you
For all that you've done, all that you've raught
These life lessons, your heartless chest has taught

As a sail in the sky
With wakes of dreams left in your place
I wish I could wake up in a world
Where our trails in the sky did not end
But simply began again

Out of the ocean
Waiting beneath the weeds
Looking to the sun late at night
Absence deepening inside of me
Who knew someone could make a person feel this way?
Unfortunately

Go, out of the fire beneath the sea
A burial without me
Wondering why and how
But never when

Head, subtropical
Chills which multiply at each utterance of the name
A treehouse made from memory
In the park beneath a thousand leagues of everything
Buried, close to me
Dig me up
Deep beneath the sea

It was harder than we thought
So now they call and text me at home
Left it in a park, left it in a lot
Walked around a while
The two of us talked
The burial ground of our winter spark
One which gleamed for near two years and a day

Today, we only feel the gap
Abstract and ethereal
The songs were written for you
So it became a fact,
Dark places, common spaces
The one buried in my head

Moonlit ending
Knowing how this finishes
Smiling at the end
Oh, this beautiful end
Word for word,
Cannot go back
Your heart has grown too small
'and I'm all better now
Yet, I still hope it all works out for you
In the end

Art can touch
That which I do not allow
Anyone to see
Moving images
Give weight and value
To a life
Lived isolatedly

Again I see your heart worn face
Cold and bitter, you drank too deep
Her, once I knew
Long gone now, drown and blue

Hope to never find that same water
Against all better notions,
Keeping hearts clean
Forging an identity

Tainted history
Eyes full of hope and water
Whole body has never been the same

You struggled after we moved on
The story changed, we changed
Pulchritudinous grace never suited you
Jubilant glee looked better on your smile

Now my recollections of you, end and begin there
Chipper and lovely,
Fair and cliched in the best of ways
Heartily fulfilling

Vowed nothing of homes in the water
Never shall I find that body of water in which you do now float
Freshly drowned, buried in satin and down

For what we have done
Is what you have become

Life,
We exist inside of her
We, the living
We, the blessed
For those who draw breath inevitably must meet
Something, so perfectly beautiful...
Being of the limitless pulchritudinous nature of life,
The poignant gift of a tear and a smile