I wake up. The bed is cold.
I am cold.
A gray day awaits.
I stare into the blank ceiling,
And feel an emptiness I cannot fill.
Not without her.
I stand up and shuffle across my shattered bedroom,
To the door.
The glint of the golden doorknob is the only color in this place.
I drink a tea. My mother is worried.
She's starting to notice I'm not eating at all.
Maybe...
It's time for a haircut.
A change...
From who I am. It'll do me good,
To be someone else, for a moment.
"I still love her" I think to myself, but it is silenced when I slice a hole into my head.
It is clean, a thin trail of blood which becomes a waterfall.
It streams down my face, and I keep cutting,
Blood and hair and tears falling as I stare into this broken mirror,
And the most horrible, hideous monster looks back at me.
I hate him so much, and I cut more in hopes that he will look away.
But he doesn't.
His frozen, desolate eyes stare deep into my soul,
Or rather his own,
The poor disgusting *******.
He has forgotten what it is to feel anything but pain,
And even that is escaping him.

Just for a night,
An unruly night, truly one for the books,
I remembered.
The cliffs smelled of salt,
and there was a crazy person
parked between two spots.
My lighter clicked,
and for a moment my face
was alive
before darkness enveloped it again.
Still, I remembered thinking,
"This is all I am."
and smiling.
I walked home,
stooped over, in something
holy.  All before,
the sun had a moment to rise.

I learned to love you in silent moments,
like making tea in your kitchen.
I held you then, as we listened to the water boil,
and felt a moment of peace.
And when we blew our minds to bits across New York,
and when you held me in your arms as I cried,
I realized there was nowhere I'd rather be,
than with you.
When I fell for you, I had already hit the floor.
So I fell into the sky.

To the lover of my youth,
and the yellow in my tooth.
To the flower's greatest prize,
and the red behind my eyes.
God knows I love you, you're green but true blue,
oh Mary Jane, my girl, this one's for you.

Breath the air in zeroes and ones,
Gather your forces and gather your guns,
Feel electricity flowing through you,
Paint oozing red from pulsating blue.
A network of neurons fuels violent vigor,
Process their fear and pull on the trigger.

"Aren't your feet cold?" you asked,
as another silent tear ran down my cheek.
And they were cold, but that was hardly the point.
I held your face in my hands,
and felt a warmth that tugged at my heartstrings,
and I realized in that moment you would one day
break my heart.
The fog was thick around us;
it had been almost raining all day,
but the rain waited in the clouds. I smiled and kissed you,
wiping droplets from my cheeks,
and you said "I love you."
"I love you too. No matter what."
You looked at me, and understanding passed between our eyes.
The rain never came down that day, and my feet felt just fine,
because they were numb.

The bible in my hand feels far too heavy.
I open to a random page, and realize that,
although it would make grandma happy,
I will never read it.
Still, when I sit down at the piano here,
I hear divinity in the music.
When I smoke **** on the hill outside,
and look up at the stars,
I feel the excitement, the awe, of being a tiny part of something
infinite.
So who is their God to disapprove?

Alone in a crowd,
A drop in a cloud.
Trapped in my own mind.
I smile and laugh,
Give my autograph,
But the lights are making me blind.
Alone and surrounded,
Happiness unfounded,
But I just put up a grin.
My mask is imploding,
From people's corroding,
So I will reveal what's within.

I grip the barbed wire that I use a rein,
For this beast of a world that I cannot yet tame,
I grit my teeth and I hold my breath,
The name of my lover is death.
I kneel in the salt as I am abused,
With cables and whips, yet I am amused,
Blood hits the floor, and I smile at the stain,
The name of my lover is pain.
I spit out the words that I hear in my soul,
Reciting them from this internalized scroll,
I gather my demons and open the gate,
The name of my lover is hate.

A filter of eucalyptus,
enshrouds my mind and its seat,
and so I consciously let them both go.
I release them into a cultivated
abyss.
I sink into the nothing between
me, myself, and I
and there, sticky in the tree sap of eternity, is the ecstatic bliss
reserved typically for the dead,
or the insane.
At the opposite end,
of all the substances which shake me,
are these moments of sleepless repose
before I will myself to action.

You will always be my angel.
When I see the right path, it will be your words that guide me.
I just wish, pray, want, need...
Help.

Does He care if I eat pork?
How about when I ****?
Well what if I only do it for the thrill?
What about meat and cheese?
Does He care about that?
Does he care about knives I put in alley cats?
Does He know all the things that I hide under cloaks?
Can he see through all my ****** red mist?
Did He make me a broken, angry angel...
Does he even exist?

None of you know who I am.
I am hidden behind a screen,
I am trapped inside your feed
and I will be here long after I die.
None of you will know me...
Right?
You can't.
We've never met.
And yet...
You know too much

So you think there are monsters that wander at night?
Witches and demons behind every blight?
Laughing hysterically, evil incarnate,
Sowing your fields with their parasites?

So you think there are devils that live in your ear,
Right next to the angel that you never hear?
Examine them closely, and I think you'll find,
None of your actions are from puppeteers.

So you think there are angels that watch over you,
Because they've got nothing that's better to do?
Letting you suffer, sometimes for fun,
Maybe that's why angels go to hell too.

So you think the demons and angels are fighting,
Scratching and clawing and screaming and biting?
Come now, you know it, that if that were true,
Don't you think clouds would be way more exciting?

No, I think you know there's no God in the sky,
No Satan below who can be your bad guy,
No good, no evil, no nothing at all,
We invented them back when our stories got dry.

Scapegoats live down below politics,
Blame is our addiction, and we need our fix,
But there isn't an evil that was ever real,
Because sin didn’t die on a crucifix.

Have you ever heard of article three?
It sets apart the dos and don'ts of law.
It gives power to hear the people's plea,
And to ignore it, shred it with a claw.
The Constitution speaks for people's rights,
Of justice set for humans far and wide.
It is confused by those who're born in light,
and think it equal to live to misguide.
The mighty masters set apart our race,
And put their own ten steps above the rest.
The others ran so fast from their first base,
When slavers got to start by being blessed.
Justice will never live for those died,
So long as we seek justice for our pride.

First impressions are fickle things;
but they aren't always wrong.
Because, when I met you, the red of
your dress became the tint of my lenses;
or rather, yours, when I'd wear them.
But the red of the dress doesn't
compare to that of the sweatshirt
that smelled like you; it'll never be as red
as sunsets on the roof, or a burning bowl past 4am.
And when I look back, you're behind me, and we skate away to the next adventure.

I am the words of scorn on a child's lips,
for a sleepy, fetid home.

I am ingratitude, and spilt milk.
I am the frozen boxer, the burnt lightbulb.

I am the sickly mirror,
who peers into an illusion of identity.

I am pain, and nerve.
I am the one who waits.

No words can express,
The love I feel for the world
I was born into.

The rising sun upon the fateful hour.
Fog wanders on the parts still incomplete.
The pine tree's sap has gone from sweet to sour,
I carry new weight out into the street.
Electric currents carry me away,
Where sprays of ocean mist will set the pace.
And as the battered night now turns to day,
I look back with a smile on my face.
I speak now to the future as the son,
Live righteously, be true, love everyone.

"If I held myself to my resolutions, I would be twice ahead of the pack. Yet I find myself, perhaps unsurprisingly, bending the rules."
and now I think to myself that I too am in the same predicament.
and so I say, "What lofty goals of this world or the next do you aspire to? Those we share, we can accomplish together." And in the spoken language of prophets you replied: "let the shepherds of goodness upon the earth guide the hand of the ignoble, so that, in their ignorance, they may be of service to the light." But I hesitated; there was the smell of money on his breath... "Why not share our light across the channel we hold now to all brothers and sisters in need of light to shine from their eyes?"

With the sting of thorns,
nestled in ***** feet,
There is a pull of the world toward the
abandoned.
It draws me here, to the space between
tides; to graffiti, and rats.
For there is peace in what we leave behind.

If I had power and wasn't made of flesh,
My blood would flow like rivers through the sands.
No one would live from France to Bangladesh,
I'd be an angel formed with blackened hands.
My godliness would end the lives of those,
Who dare to take a life that isn't theirs.
The fathers and their children come to blows,
The young would eat the old to be their heirs.
Men would neither run nor try to hide,
They'd know that I have come and I am fate.
A thousand men chose loving as their guide,
But billions fell pray to wretched hate.
I'd slay until there's nothing to be slain,
Until there's nothing left to bring me pain.

When the waves dance,
and as the tumbling void laughs,
and the coming whisper of the old tree shivers,
We die.
And we awaken in a gleaming world,
and tears wept in the beauty of
the moment
are kept in jars by homunculi.
Time surrenders to the mistakes of a younger
self, ignorant of the joy in stupidity.

It won't stop bleeding,
This gaping red and black hole.
Useless bandages.

Crime scenes made by people who bathe in sin,
Are the just the same as haunted ****** love.
Strips are ripped and teared from the victims skin,
Guilty fingers shrouded in leather gloves.
Mistresses use swords to steal men away,
Militants use words to cut off their head.
Books are painted in fifty shades of gray,
A masterpiece in fifty shades of red.
There is a reason love is called a fall.
Jumping from cliffs above to rocks below.
Juliet is dead from the lion's maul,
Romeo is rotting beneath the snow.
To love is to be stabbed in every eye,
Emotions make it kind to slowly die.

Silence gets dreary, some days.
The light tickles the eye in just the same way,
yet the voice of hope inhabits the quiet;
it becomes silence itself.
Then, reality gets a little more jarring.
Still, unquiet moments below the moon
will surprise me, and remind me that
the man I was is dead. He whispers,
"Revel in rebirth, and someday this will all
appear an unpleasant dream."

Why is my mind so full of lies?
Till truth is the only thing I despise,
I live for the false, but live in the true,
It's boolean logic. It's long overdue.

1.5 grams of marijuana, 30 mL of cough syrup, half a bowl of cereal, and an iron supplement.
Then I throw up blood into a toilet, shave, and put on a pair of flip flops.
I don't bother changing pants, so I just grab a different shirt, throw on some deodorant, and smoke another joint.
I get in the car.
I take a deep, shaky breath.
And drive away.

Just before glass breaks,
Does it know it's death is near?
Is it fear or bliss?

You don't want me to move on.
Your wish is my command I suppose,
Because I can't love anyone but you.
Not my family,
Not my friends,
Not them.
Not myself.
I suppose you could say my tether to other people,
The bands of attention that allow humans to interact,
Like people that is,
are broken.
My heart is broken.
My mind is broken.
We are broken.
And I am broken.

My compass is broken,
It’s needle is aimless.
Where there should be directions,
Lurk the evil and nameless.
When I wish to go north,
It takes me to hell,
I once wanted a heaven,
But that man is a shell.
When I need to go west,
It takes me to void,
Where my feelings are deadened,
My soul is destroyed.
When I wish to go east,
Yet know that I can’t,
It takes me to nature,
And I am an ant.
When I must go south,
Or suffer pains,
It takes me to myself,
Where it rains and rains.

Oh brother, loved brother
Bless my arm and bless my blade,
For the sinners of our world must be baptized in blood and fear.
Sweet brother, kind brother
Bring my soul into your shade,
For tonight I cut apart the ones who killed our mother dear.
Vengeful brother, destructive brother
All I’ve seen and all I’ve done,
God won’t forgive me when I make this tainted oath to thee.
Dark brother, dead brother
You can't even hear me can you?
Yet a man who has lost everything can take no further fee.
Poor brother, scarred brother
You didn’t deserve to suffer death,
And so tonight I will avenge you with your spirit at my back.
Good brother, just brother
With every meaningless breath,
I will plunge myself in sin until my soul has turned black.
My brother, absent brother,
Things just always seem the same,
Though I give away my time my effort; sweat, blood and bone.
Pure brother, holy brother,
I will **** in your name
Because it’s easier than accepting the darkness that’s my own.

Concrete and steel,
Struggle and claw at the soil;
yet,there is no hope for the sons of man.
For their grandmother,
and Time herself,
are against them.

In life, it is a rarity
to meet someone
who smiles
from the bottom of their soul;
who grins, not as an expression
and certainly not for others,
but because they simply
cannot help
themselves.

No names are eternal,
for their users are infinite.
And all things will become the next things,
and the cycle of changes will never end.
What you must accept,
in the intrinsic pursuit of happiness,
is that change is not the exception.
It is the only constant
in a world that does not care what you cling to.
It will take away what was never yours to have;
your illusory part in all things, in all times, in all places.

The world is burning,
Black snowflakes twirl through the air.
This is more magical than any childhood flurry,
This is destruction, beautiful and complete.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
I can hear them sinking into pits of tar.
"Please, please, please" they cry.
Only I can hear them.
I will do nothing.

How much time did I spend?
Sitting on the bed. Throwing darts. Reading books.
or rather, how much time did I waste?
And more importantly, how much do I have left?

What words are there
for the air, personified.
For when I met you, you told me,
"I see me in you."
and the music soared.

"I don't even feel the caffeine anymore,"
said Claudio, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.
"Maybe you should take a break. Then, after the break, you'll feel the rush."
He took a long, slow drag.
"No point. I've felt it already."

I reel you in with honeyed words,
That only you can read.
I reel you in with hooks and spears,
I reel to make you bleed.
I speak to you in riddles,
Decode them with my smile.
I speak to you in poetry,
I speak to you in guile.
It's not you I'm deceiving,
I'm too busy with myself.
I write my book of ciphers,
It's there for you on the shelf.

I bleed through my fingertips.
I am a poet:
I stay awake, by no choice of mine, and I bleed onto the keyboard and into the world.
A tribute, if you will, to the wars within.
I am a musician:
I sneak into the woods, so my family cannot here, and I bleed on the strings of my black, battered guitar, and the music is heard by no-one.
I am a scientist:
I stay at the school, late into the night, to type one last line of code, or ***** in one last bolt. The whir of the motors is a release. Here, control is more than an illusion.
I am a person:
And I am full of so much blood.
Sometimes, it wells up in my heart until it is ripe to burst,
And sometimes it is as empty as poetry, or music, or beauty.

Love is no longer a question of appearances.
It dwells in me now, and
slowly inflates, like a balloon filling with blood.
The passions of a dead man pulse through
blue veins. But love is not a one-way street;
still, how could one fall out of love?
My third eye is shut,
but I dream of you.
Remember how the ground lit up beneath our feet?
I cannot forget two souls intertwined,
and glowing beneath countless stars...

We tell everyone lies they want to hear,
Translucent guns are waved from face to face.
We say “It’s nice to meet you” out of fear,
of being ****** and marked to be erased.
The sociable are  given gifts of gold,
While loners rot in cages made of words.
All your expressions need to be controlled,
If your wish is to live among the birds.
We strive to be the people that we hate,
Jealousy turns our heart into a stone.
We claw with nails and teeth on iron gates,
we built ourselves and choose to leave alone.
Emotions build behind a mask of clay,
and masks explode on those whom we betray.

At the crossroads of euphoria, faith, and insanity,
one can learn a great number of things.
But if I have learned anything, it is the malleability of a constructed reality.
Anything is possible, and so everything is permitted.
The excesses of a younger self, somewhere behind me on an illusory timeline, have enslaved me to my self. This too is an illusion, but this knowledge does not serve me; even the most powerful truths can be largely irrelevant.
I walk down all paths at once, no longer bound by habits I pretend are beyond my control, and laugh, never again a slave to anyone or anything.

At the end of a relationship,
I think I'm reminded of something.
It's a simple truth really, hidden while we're together.
I hate myself.
And when we were together, I didn't, because you loved me, and you were a part of me, and at least some part of me loved me,
I thought.
Can love just die the way it did for you?
Are you even in pain?
I can't tell any more. I think you just want to leave me behind, because I remind you of the part of you,
That still loves me.
Despite the darkness, despite the pain, despite the sheer stupidity,
That part of you lives.
Maybe I'm just telling myself that,
You've had no trouble moving on.
I remember you were so upset with me once,
For not taking time to move on from you.
Look at you now.
There's no time like the present when you're running from the past.
I want to take a year, to talk.
To tell you, through words and actions, that I'm sorry.
I want to fix this massive hole in my shriveled heart,
The one that you put there.
I want to fix us, this incredible beautiful thing we had.
I want to move on, but the demons of my past are putting walls in front of me.
I break down whenever I think about it for too long, not just about you.
I break down when I remember how my father used to hit me for crying, and then hit me more for crying more.
It was a cycle.
I remember when I thought I couldn't love, so I lied to myself until I could.
I remember cold hands in the dark.
I remember the knife, and the blood.
I remember the numbness of staring into the cosmos, and feeling nothing but terror at the smallness of it all.
I got good at burying it, all of it.
Very, very, very good.
I built a dam to hold my emotions in, with the military discipline Aba taught me.
I learned how to drain them into the ocean, just before it overflowed.
Now...
Now it's overflowing with nothing at all.
Because you keep walking to the gates,
And knocking them down,
Until the things I forgot I could feel are raw and exposed in the light.
You don't want me to die, but I don't think you love me.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
But you abandoned me,
Right in the nick of time.
I meant it when I said "I love you", despite what the dam was hiding.
But you didn't. You couldn't.
You never needed to build a dam,
To keep the feelings from flow,
Because you know what it's like,
To feel, and let go.
I was taught, day and night,
To hold and to hide,
To never let out all the pain that's inside.
I learned how to numb,
That won't go away.
I can't learn to feel,
When I feel more each day.
I want to believe they mean nothing to you,
but you're wrong if you think that I didn't love you.

Where the trees clear, and the flowers rule,
Come with me baby, don't be cruel,
I want to be alone with you,
Alone beneath the sunny blue.
And when the stars tear through the dark,
Look in my eyes and light a spark,
Darling you give me the crazies,
I'm spinning, dancing, on the daisies.

People like to talk about love,
But only when they say it made them feel.
I once thought that I could live for one,
When it was over I knew it wasn't real.
We wipe our keyboards with ******, melting hearts,
And put them on the web for all to see.
Nobody ever stops to think and realize,
"The only one I've ever loved is me".
I may very well be a psychopath,
But I think we know that love is drug abuse.
Love is just a label for a feeling,
That's meant to make us **** and reproduce.

We are made of parts.
We are made of organs,
Made of systems,
Made of molecules,
Made of atoms,
Made of nothing but themselves, truly independent.
We make up groups,
and groups can form communities,
Towns, Cities, Cultures, Species, Living things.
We all live on earth, a planet,
In a solar system,
In a galaxy,
We gave a name. As if we found it first!
As if it wasn't there before us, and won't be there when we're gone.
And there are a million billion galaxies,
With an infinity of stars,
With an infinity of planets.
Endless, gleaming life.
None of it matters.
It will all come apart

The cycle of rebirth,
Concealed in a blood orange...
With a bite missing.

One of these things is not like the other,
White, and white, and white and brown.
Who is this one? He can't be my brother.
He's different, let's all break him down.
One of these things is not like the other,
Straight, and straight, and straight and gay,
What a weird thought, she cant be a mother.
She's different, that there's easy prey.
One of these things is not like the other,
Happy, and happy, and happy and sad,
Everything strange to me, I must smother.
When they're just like me, they'll be glad.