she's all addicted
to the controversy of a villain
she made up to please
mommy and daddy
when I hadn't
even touched a part of her soul
forever ready to rewrite me
drop of the hat
uninvite me
like she invited a wolf
but I'm fighting my own
halfway across
the world

I don't
have the kind of time she wanted
when she tried to pretend
that I'm haunted
all for the sake of
inviting
herself in to repaint
she saw me she thought
fixer upper
but it's rougher
to watch me rise

it's easy to watch
someone suffer
when you think
I've got it better
it'll never
come around
to catch me

surprise
when it turns out
you're faking
and all of the rules that you're breaking
and ignoring
are recording
the score while you're
trying to pin it all on me

leave my name out of your mouth
so mommy and daddy will be proud
the bad man
can't get you now

Silence
Silence
anything but this

Give me hatred
give me violence
give me anything but

I can hear a pin drop
but it will
never hit the floor

your lips
forever sealed
and the truth won't save me

silence
silence
anything but this

give me hatred
give me violence
anything but this

they're all falling
like shards along my path
in the quiet

give me something

anything but this

These are the things I would be feeling if I
was like you

The warm touch of a friend
when it fills you
with love

and that love;
bubbling up to the surface,
flush against the inside of my skin
like it will burst soon

and I will flood you
because my body cannot contain this closeness

my heart is fit to burst
its empty insides
splattered across the walls

like a Polluck painting to our connection

if I felt it
if I knew that it was there

If I knew it like I knew
the scent of spices
like I know the cold embrace
of winter months, when they brush

against my illness and I know
that it can’t go on
because it hurts so much to love

it tears words from my gut that I would never
dare say
it brings promises I cannot keep;
if I could, I would weep

because it hurts so much to love

but I have to try

I smell you on the letter you wrote
and my eyes are open wide but I miss
the dizzying haze of you
It's all I can do
to stay away and let it go
all I want
to be safe in your arms
together against the world
the sting won't leave my eyes
my hands are tied
will I have anything to give you this time?
I don't have any answers
close your hands around my throat
so you can hold me when I go
I'll take the blame
I'll take each blow
anything
to get close
to that lifeblood I'll never know
to feel connection
before you go

He stood, day by day
at the edge of the water
and staring down himself,
they passed the words like fodder
To demonize his silence

He gazed into himself
and wondering what he’d find
he journeyed inner hence.

The words around him grew
for mystery like death’s dark cloak
enshrouded his eye;
they demanded recompense.

The dark of the unknown
the wandering soul,
geared up like an explorer
to climb upon the mountain’s face
and seek the edge of the gods’ grace

until the fire filled him.

Straining in the winds
as climbing higher still,
the quiet pushed outside
and filled the crown of heaven.

For in the inner will
the nature of the endless choice
to be a chorus or a voice
and cast away from all that knows;

not finding or not seeking
deliberately turning,
inspecting, touching, yearning
for the knowledge driving
us step by step upon the sands

until we find our foreign lands.

He stood, day by day
at the edge of the water
and staring down himself,
he took the hand like settlement
To alchemize the silence

He gazed into himself
and finding there an echoed soul
they journeyed inner hence.

Narcissus walked the water’s edge
and found upon the mountain’s ledge
with winds upon his back
the mirror in the water;

the depth and magic gazing in
and drawing silence into sin
of oustretched wing and Morning light.

And gazed until the end of night.

This one’s for the quiet ones locked in their bedrooms
Too burnt out to break free from the monsters that loom
To the ones someone told it’s not worth chasing dreams
To the ones sitting still so they don’t burst at the seams
This one’s for the lost ones, the overlooked ones, the dropped ones
For the selective mutes, the broken brutes, the ones playing possum

To the aching tender joints, to the bedrest homies
The inspiration **** I am when they don’t even know me
The invisible struggle that lights a fire inside
The cut locks, broken doors, screaming match courtside
I’ve been there, I’ve seen that, the closing curtain last act
You already know you’re strong so I don’t have to say that

I’m not looking down on you
You know they’re gonna clown on you
I want you to know that it doesn’t have to drown you
If you’re looking for a sign to stay,
My friend, this is it
None of you did anything to deserve this ****

If you’re scared (Don’t give up)
Unprepared (Don’t give up)
If you’re ready to drop outta here (Don’t give up)
If you’re feeling like you’ve disappeared (Don’t give up)

I’ve got your back; I’ve got your spirit by my side
I’ve got that heavy burden, I’ve been that tattered pride
They’re not gonna say thank you, they’re not gonna say please
But we don’t have to earn our lives by begging on our knees
We don’t have to settle for fight, flight or freeze
We’ve got a depth of wisdom they can never seize

To the invisible ones, to the hidden in plain sight
To the hearts hanging heavy dreading going home at night
To the fending for yourselves, to the strategic hustlers
To the lost in other universes, to the panicked jimmy-rustlers
To the ‘how did I get here’s, to the max volume, quiet tears
To the looking for the exit, to the wasted golden years

I see you, I hear you
The truth is, they fear you
Those old ways are dying, We’re new pioneers who
Will call out the liars, we’ll march through the wires
Arm ourselves with truth, we’ll put out those fear fires
So rise up; recognize
That your spirit’s got merit outside of their eyes
Your value’s intrinsic, your dreams are realistic
This fight never ending, our story polyptych

This is a tribute to my mutineers
To the ones who keep fighting, the facers of fears
Straighten up, don’t carry their judgement
All of that hatred just ain’t in the budget
It’s unsustainable, come on, proclaim, we’re all
Building a new road, running down the Rockefellers
Don’t forget
We have a dream
Hold fast
Together we’re unstoppable

They gave a name
To the thing in my brain
That took me away from you
And I thought that knowing
Would ease the pain
But now I just know who to blame
And it turns out the bottom line’s
Always the same
And I know his name
But he’s so well behaved
How could he be like they say
I wanted to change
And I thought I could trade
All the pain for the perfect charade
but the upkeep is more
than I know how to pay
and it saps all the joy
from the game that I play
I’ll be laughing when
We fall this way
When we fall this way
When we finally decide to stay

I'm dragging
all I know how to write is sadness,
and I want to let you know that isn't all I've got
I want so hard to prove that what you see isn't all you get
that the mess that I am has a sheen underneath.
Your voice breathes life into me,
I want to take you with me to the end of my journey,
but to claim to own a spirit as wild and free as yours
would be to clip a rose, to give it thorns.
When my heart is on fire and I follow the smoke signals
it only ever serves to lead me back to you.
And we're both stepping stones,
but I hope that I can run with you as long as we've got time,
I want to fight beside you as long as there's a war to be won,
to pen your story for the world,
to grasp in these clumsy fingers the will o' wisp that guides me,
time and time again back to your eyes.
The echoes of the universe draw me close to you,
I'm hopeless, and I've ever been.
I feel the distance as cuts in my heart
Your touch magnetizes my soul
how I ever went without you, I'll never know.
So curse me with all you've got,
strike me down for generations,
so I'll be by your side through time,
and I can live to give you everything.
Bit by bit, lifetime by lifetime,
I will always find you, again and again
and we will dance,
and I will learn to write joy, year after year
now that I'm flying.

Don't be stupid
You know the many whispers aren't about you
But what if it's true?

Mild discomfort, oh joy, sweet haze
Coffee and creme brûlée cream
To prove we're walking on a dream

Grit teeth and putting on airs
Chains and chairs
A lifetime of lies on the news

Sparks and lit cigarettes
Golden dreams in darkened bars
Everyone is fighting so hard

Library fines from two blocks away
We should just pay
But here there be dragons

Threatening laughter, interim
Chores chock full of bitter grim
Will you be paper or plastic?

Can't hold a tune in a bucket
So **** it
Bang out the beat instead

Sound in every direction
Can't even take your own predilection
Switch it up every five minutes

Don't worry
Mortality means it's not permanent
Just learn to live with it

The worst thing my parents ever taught me
Was to worry what other people thought of me
The worst thing to tell a child with anxiety

At the time I didn't know that it was wrong of me
To accept the burden of responsibility
For strangers who only saw a part of me

I shouldn't have put them before the thought of me
I didn't know it would be the lobotomy
That kept me hiding in my room for 10 long years

I didn't know it would ****** my autonomy
That you can't fake it 'til you make it if your introspection is an autopsy
That you can't **** a part of your soul

With whiskey or with *******
With bleach or box cutters
With street drugs, with a blind eye

Jesus loves all of the little children
And the church loves all its little saints
But when we express our love not with words but with paints

When the checkmark just doesn't fit the box
And our expectations weigh like chains on the children we so claim to love
They are slaves

To the 9 to 5 domestic gods that clash like thunder every night
Too absorbed in their own fight
To see the fear inside your eyes

Slowly wearing down the fire in your soul
With the grit of their need for control
Teaching you how to be the best version of them

The one they didn't have the guts to master on their own
Abandoning the flower children with the starry eyes
They once claimed spoke their deepest truths

Trading in the wild spirit in their currency exchange
For your future
So they can be so comfortable on their thrones
While they forward the blame to a new address

The hordes of walking dead they left behind
Carrying the consequences
Rejecting all the that we were handed

Gaslight me on fire again
So I can shoulder all the hate that tried to smother my spark
Like your right to be comfortable trumps my right to be here

I didn't ask for this
So when you call me by my new name
Remember all the times you tried to tame me

All the times you defamed me
While telling me stories of a God of endless love
You can't take the perfect mess that you've created

And make a masterpiece, because I am one

We are made of star stuff
And I'll be ****** if I deny the perfect love I was promised
just because for once you didn't get what you wanted

Somewhere in my bones, I remember a quiet joy
When I smile in silence it pretends it's still alive
Lost in thought, images flash against the canvas in my mind
Painting over everything and leaving memories behind
Living in a hell like this, faking like I know what's going on
With psychosomatic cinema reeling, playing 'til I'm gone

Weary with the ghosts of all those lifetimes marching
We can act like there was nothing to it, but overreaction
Fly the flag of freedom to cover up the false,
but down here we collect the blood dripping down the walls.
If I fight hard enough can I remove the stains from my soul?
What makes me weak to you is that I've survived at all

All I've got left is shriek and tooth and claw
Struggling against the darkness threatening to swallow
I see everything that's happening,
but I'm far behind dark eyes
Far behind, struggling against the lies I've been told
It's just something that happens, you just have to fold
Feels so surreal, like nothing was done
It's all fun and games, until someone gets one

Going through the motions, and all the other sheep
Don't realize that persona's only skin deep
No one wants to dig if they've got to excavate
So just keep walking, and leave it to fate
But if I were to die tonight, they'd be weeping
Wondering how they didn't know, having trouble sleeping

When you teach her to be selfless, just remember who gets hurt
It won't be the people she supported left lying in the dirt
If money can't buy happiness then why is it that we
are separated so thickly that we can't even see
They say the grass is greener on the other side
When you've gotta pay to save your soul it's easy to see why

Among us are walking ghosts behind a paywall
Barred from even showing the world who they are
Scream too hard and they'll rip your heart out,
you have to paint your pretty face and fake to find your way out
Always happy, always smiling, 1984
Express your inner turmoil and wage existential war

Show your colors, find a ticket to the prison in your mind
Get out, you mar the landscape like the rest of your kind
This life's a revolution in of itself
Take down the lies and slander sitting on the shelf
Keep flinging names until one sticks,
in the end, if you disagree it means you're sick
Trying to cure a cancer they brought on themselves
You can buy into the game, you can pay to excel

We are born imperfect and why can't we see
Others are imperfect just like me

I guess it never paid to be the son of a preacher
Sometimes the irony is just what murders me
Let's forget all the lies and the promises we're making
Well I guess this life is just ripe for the taking

So ******* is this how you show your god's love?
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, *******

I spent all my time apologizing for those little things
But lord I didn't know quite what the future would bring
If I come out swinging it's cause I don't know where I am
I never said I wasn't just a shell of a man

Is this your god's love?
So tell me where you learned this one

Screaming on the front steps like a bat outta hell
That traitor looked me in the eyes and tried to blame me, well
In this life it doesn't matter where your heart's at
as long as you don't come out smelling like a rat

And the sirens can wail
Shaking like the winter will never end
I can hear myself slam that door
Over and over again
That cold steel embrace never leaves
I wish they could make us wear our hearts on our sleeves

And then what would your scarlet letter be,
does it hurt enough to make you bleed?
well don't you worry your precious head boy
we can help you with that, ha ha!

Tell yourself you're not what you've become
just get going boy, don't think, just run
when you find yourself maybe it'll be enough
to account for the hell you brought with you

The sirens can wail
shaking like the winter will never end
I'll forever be slamming your stupid door
over and over again
And the cold steel you'll see
is as icy as ice can ever be

So wear your scarlet letter, wear it well
If you can forgive yourself only time can tell
I'll never be able to scour out these moments behind my eyes
brush off the names and judgement calls and start it all over again

I'm burning with every soft whisper down my spine, my pulse is vibrato.
Like the soft and energetic hum of horsehair melting into song.
Writhing in dance against the twisted embrace of chromium on the strings.
A clash of furious titans.
Making storms when they collide; the wind and the tide.
Wrestling for power 'til the waves crash one over another, gasping, growling.
Oxygen.
When my lips meet cotton crisp and sweet, and beg for freedom of another kind.
And there in quiet whimpers do we seek, together this enlightenment of lone and fallen ones.
Grazing sharp and silent little wounds, quieted by scar tissue.
Healing through our fingertips and moans, twisted as an ouroboran knot;
feeling mirrored heartbeats strike like savage drums.
When the guise of warpaint loses shape, cast aside for inner feral forms,
grinning cheshire, hidden thorny claws.
In the darkness of another night, heavy with the weight of misty breaths, there from underneath do they then come,
the master and his hound, the lord and fallen one.

I turn slowly, shoulders wracked with the age of those thousand lifetimes;
aching with stagnation, burnt with indignation, swallowed in ghosts and grime; that lovely chime,
but in that time: what do I see behind me?
My eyes slowly focus, adjusting to the dark, to the shadow trail in my wake.
Burning pitch and sulfur; I wrinkle my nose; charred flesh and breaking bones.
The skeletons from the closet, catching up with me, ambling on their puppet strings,
singing those terrible songs they sing; the screeching of a broken violin upon their tongues.
That terrible rhythm
of an undying footstep; the way the hips rotate and the arch of the foot as it wears down to bone dust.
I see the eyes of the ones that once lived; in this fantasy castle in the airwaves with me, all regal indigo royalty.
I see the heart-wrenching blue, the bedroom eyes, the reflection of you.
But I am alive to destroy your shadow, as it wrenches itself, gasping breath in, rattling moan out; across the floor, dying for more; for a taste of what you once had when we were living.
I see the docile hazel, hands outstretched in a gesture of love; but those fingers, rot and broken, they long to touch; and I burn, burn, burn the shadows away.
Across my shoulders the ink holds true, and I'll never discard the pictures of you; all they were, before this doomsday parade. Of all our hands held and the smiles we stretched beyond those hollow cheekbones.
I see the rich sapphire and its pseudo wisdom; of new ages and spirit bonds. Reaching out to grip my soul, a fierce and fine swerving; of tight and loosened bolts.
And again, the soulless ice; the pressure on the sternum.
Flash; I swing the rusted axe, I pull the silk trigger; sweet charcoal grip against my fingertips.
The fog on the windows, the notes hung on the filthy, deep air.
Flash; I pull back the taut string; whoosh the arrow flings, the stone tip sings.
And again they groan and grumble; moan and froth and fling their bodies forward,
and I turn once more, facing the speeding stonework floor as it passes,
my footsteps crash in the straining silence; face forward:
What do I see behind me?
I will never look again.

In the silence I still hear your voice,
calling my name so clear
I still feel your lips lingering on my skin.
I still know our breath fighting for its life,
I still live our lies day by day.

Why can't you stay?
I never said anything to hurt you
My heart lie open before you,
day in,
day out,
breathe in,
truth out.

I know I've done some stupid things,
I had some stupid problems,
I get stuck
stuck
stuck
in my own web of tangled feelings,
the  victim
of my own crime.

But in this silence I still know your voice,
calling my name so clear
I still feel your hands at my waist as you held me
so dear,
I still know my breath is fighting for its life,
I still live my lies day by day.

I struggle to answer,
when someone asks if I am okay.
The silence crushes down on me, the pressure building up,
a tornado in a blender.
I still listen for my phone,
and when it beeps I pretend it's you,
with another cheerful I love you to get me through the day.

I still sit alone at home,
waiting for your voice to make it through the airwaves.

How I need your voice,
so clear
so beautiful,
and it's golden timbre that leaves me shivering with joy.

How I need your voice,
In the silence, how I need your voice.

The summation of all my time spent staring, up into open sky
up into wide blue eyes
With the sun hanging down by your sides.
Reach up into that open bounty, a free country
of twirling and falling,
falling with a smile on my lips at last
of freedom and euphoria, pure exhilaration.
Cityskapes open wide before my wings,
night lights tracing the paths out in front of me as I twist and fall,
grasses reaching up to greet the open air
as I reach down to melt into their embrace.
I breathe free through my very skin, through the kiss
of the air passing my lips.
Unchained I soar, bare of wing or claw,
bearing everything here in this abyss of empty expanse
Rushing past my bones.
Nothing can pull me back to solid ground,
or make me turn around against this world of wilderness.
I dive to feel the life that rushes through me
when my wrists finally meet your fingertips,
the winds that tilt us forward to hold ourselves safe.
And all the beauty will arise when in that moment
our eyes open one more time.

I watch them, from my self-righteous tower of alabaster solitude; of calm candlelight and chaotic shadow.

One by one the ships raise their sails.
Each flag a color of its own, each flag caught by a different wind, sailing, sailing out to sea.
They trace aimless patterns across the waves, weaving and crossing; drawing smooth ripples out behind them for the light and shadow to play in.

Still I watch.
Still; I watch.
The candlelight masks me from the darkness outside and I muse quietly, wondering how far the fleets have sailed.
How close they have touched the horizon;
the dark horizon over which the bright sun flees from the tyranny of the moon.
I turn; twisting up and up and up to shine my light, to warn them.

Stay away.

I am the coastline, you are the sea.

Stay away.

My guiding light pushes lost ships away from the lonely coast that twists, slithering out north and south beyond my reach.

When the fog rolls in again, I shine my light ever brighter:
Stay away, stay away.

The thick clouds disguise the cruel, twisting cliffs, turning them soft and diffused;
smiling, inviting sandy cliffs that beckon each ship with their mystique,
their unfocused, slippery allure.

But my light stretches out desperately across the rolling waves.

Stay away.

No ship deserves this fate,
hull sprawled out in pieces across this disparate shore, waves crashing new salt over open wounds again and again until finally;
the bite is just a dull sting, counting the grains of sand they lay against.

My light screams out, crashing titan-like with the tide that erodes these stalactite cliffs into needles, stretching into the fog to graze starboard and port, seeking to draw fresh blood from wooden depths.

Stay away.

And I thunder through a forest restored.
The crash of crisp, fast water against the rocks,
splashing this way and that,
sapphire to clear and all shades of blue.
The golden hour is upon us.
The light of the sun shines down,
glitter against my coat,
my legs stretching out to feel the soil beneath my feet.
I ran like the wind that flowed against my sides,
lifting me as I bounded step after step,
flagging the wind, panting for air to grace my heaving lungs.
Pines tall and alive, branches dropping dew onto the forest floor.
And the ocean roared high against the cliffs,
sparkling mist onto the tall-tower lighthouse.
A never ending sunrise.
A smile stretches across my lips,
churning up sand under restless claws.
I run forever just to breathe the air and laugh,
in utter celebration that you are here,
that the trees are alive and the sun shines.
My cries echo across space and time,
while I keep pulling the earth to race me
past these trees and flowers forever.
The blooms of red and gold, pink, yellow,
all so vivid against my eyes, silver in the light.
I will run forever.
I'll be free forever.

I wish I could tell you;
everything
I've been keeping inside.
How I want to blame you,
how that Halloween was a thorn in my side.
How when I think of you,
I grit my teeth.
How you need to be in a hospital.

I wish I could tell you;
everything
I've kept and all the lies.
How I never loved you,
how that companionship was just another
dip in my stride.
How when I see your name,
I wish it was on a clipboard;
at the foot of your bed again,
sitting guard-style as you made small talk.
How my sketchbook filled itself as I
stayed by your side.

How of all the people you've abandoned,
I'm the least of all the snide remarks,
the least of all the cries for attention.
How when I think best friend,
I think pull the trigger.

How when you mention all the things you've
"done for me" to get me to overlook your insecurity,
to get me to reassess the frailties I know are simply
ingrained in you...
What passes through my mind are not what I owe you,
but what I've done for you,
and all the midnight phone calls that saved your life.

How when you tried to make us "even",
I cried.
How when you brush aside my concerns,
I wallow that you've let me down.

You're unreliable and I've known it from the start,
that you were weak and lazy, like me.
How your conscience crumbles under the weight of
a simple phrase.

I always had hope but it fades every time you tell me
that I should talk to you, that I must not like you because I don't.

Steady, I am. Like a plant whose roots are drinking all the wrong things,
but going nowhere.
Locale has never been my issue. I wander not far,
I walk on my own two feet.
I am always where I am.

Afraid, and alone, and aside,
a thorn in my side.
a dip in my stride.

I know that you are the one that owes,
and I'd be happy to overlook it.
But I've given you
chances
chances
chances
to overcome what I know you're capable of,
to become what I know you're capable of.
I've given you
smiles
times
graces
to breathe life into the dream sitting straight ahead.

But your blind eyes sway you,
every time.
You're not sublime, never feeling just 'fine'.

I wish I could tell you
all those times we spent side by side
before you cast me aside
before the dip in my stride
before the tides tore us apart;

best friends means you get what you deserve
best friends means

The night the sky flamed orange,
the trees bowed to the earth with respect;
pine needles littering the forest floor,
a spongy rest for my weary feet.
The wind howled with me.
The storm rolled in soft and quiet as I slept;
the storm that you have always kept.
My eyes blacked out the world;
my bed of pine needles served as the clouds might, could I lay on them.
I, the white one sleeping, next to my heart's treasure.
The tall pines waved and danced in the canopy of the sky,
releasing their sweet resin scent to paint my heart in the light of starry forest midnight.
The winds bent my pines and scattered my bed of long-dead needles,
and just like that she was gone.
I rose from my throne to search my sanctuary for the treasure that held my heartbeat within its confines.
Nowhere could I find her, though I ran without reserve,
paws pulling the great landscape beneath my feet: I flew through the trees...
and there you stood, my antithesis.
Black against my soil-stained White.
Eyes glinting to reflect my mirror image;
and against your shadowy coat the sky came down...
and the forest set ablaze.
The smoke and flame destroying all it touched,
apocalypse from your fingertips.
Solitary, next to me, though all else was gone, and her along with it all;
untouched, one lullaby rose shimmered into bloom.
For I, the White Wolf sleeping.

Do dogs dream in black and white?
A shame, an utter shame.
I flounder for a hold on this man, his broad shoulders that used to carry me so effortlessly lifted upon the throne of his smile, so much worthwhile.
When now all that I see are the heavy hanged heads of the love that was once so deep, once so deep.
Pained silence pushes me to tears barely contained when before I laughed.
This is it; Don’t… Be. Scared.
Do I dream in color?
The hold on this; like the grip of my prints on wisps of smoke that flee and disperse from my desperate fingers, forever chasing an image that once ran to me with open arms.
I was a queen once, you know.
I danced with grace across maple panels glossed with the sheen of a million diamonds, painting the path of the white stag that pranced with me upon my forest floors, parting particles of light as they float like precious snowflakes to meet the dead pine needles.
The violins and ivory keys trilled out in their glorious voices with the angels that watched me dance.
Elegant and beautiful and free; commanding all who would listen to smile.
Then one day the earth shook and took my forest floors away, my white stag dead where he lay, the crimson painted corpse of all I held dear.
They brought their guns on fearsome horseback, their steeds’ bright eyes ringed white with horror, coats aquiver, for their king lay silent, glass eyed, still.
The throne of his broad shoulders askew with the pain of something only he knows, limbs tied back, no gentleness to hold his head, no soft cradle for his head.
The king is dead.
The king is dead.

An obscene, sickly beautiful scene
Met me with a ***** sheen
It dulled the tightness in my chest:
The butterflies when I misstep.
Like the second-guessed ache of paranoia
that left me curled at the foot of the sequoias
waiting still and tense, for your voice to fade.
Never for a moment dropping my charade
as I paraded proudly back inside declaring
my true innocence; I found you unsparing.
You swallowed my word and I found you even
Requesting repetition, so you could believe in
the obvious lies leaking my lips,
and you know what they say: loose lips sink ships.
So when you come to grips,
I’ll still be installing microchips
Inside that open wound of yours.
While you’re hugging porcelain on all fours
I won’t be sympathizing with all the ******
Who leave their lipstick napkins on your lap;
Who fall into your egocentric death trap.
I was never one of those,
To be used and then disposed…
So while you’re trying so hard to make me jealous;
I’ll just tell you your method is overzealous.
You had your chance before;
You’ll have no chances anymore.
You can finally stop trying to request the help of cupid,
I promise you I only ever loved you young and stupid.

You think you're so charming with your six-string but I've got some news,
and that's that that six-string is old news.
When you gonna pick up that new electronic beat and let the drums pulse heat into your cold eyes,
littering the shoreline with every bit of negative commentary necessary to make the moment much less than romantic.
Jump into panic, oh alone you're so alone and though I sympathize I won't fall for those lies;
you're just a kid with a crayon trying to sell the Mona Lisa.
Dragging me down into new friction against a new addiction I never wanted,
dust litters my clean floor and I can hear you back  there ****-talking the shore as if your racing heart never wanted more.
Racing blurred burnt out on lines speeding past fluttering eyelids so quick, the storm inside the flashbulb can't even stop us.
The quickness inside our pounding hearts won't slow, the blood won't thicken no matter how hard you wish it.
Crushing candy into cotton in public bathroom stalls under careful fingertips, I wish so hard you never happened to me but what would I have done otherwise?
I suppose your trying to **** me evens out owing you my life and though I sympathize, I won't fall for your lies;
you're really just a kid with a crayon trying to sell me the Mona Lisa.
Brother, I've touched paint in my lifetime, I've swirled fine horsehair brushes across an open mind,
and I can tell you your rhetoric is no masterpiece.
Alone alone empty empty
addict, addict
No matter how hard I look at you I can't see you without your lover, how hard she makes you sweat, how she makes you gasp for breath,
in, out, in out.
I can see you leaning hard against those walls,
push kid, it'll never budge an inch.
If my observations count for anything, knowing you doesn't count for anything,
seeing you suffer under ghosts and grime won't make you smile,
no matter how many times I tell you no.
I'll watch you breathe superman until you can leap buildings;
but I won't be watching when you come back down.

When I am with you the world comes to a still.
I look beyond what I know, striving to become knowledgeable, successful; everything becomes splendor in the wake of your words, as if your tongue weaves silver and gold into your speech.
Your voice travels to me, slow, rolling, calming like the waves on the ocean, lying next to the beach that I despise so much; I suddenly feel comforted that I can lie on this sandy shelf.
My heart trills out in joy when I hear the highs and lows in your tones, singing my name out in that second when I answer your call, so stunned by my anxiety that my voice goes quiet.
I push each pencil stroke with a new fire as my thoughts settle on your voice, your smile, the touch of your hands on my sore shoulders.
Because I am who I am, the second before you hang up I struggle to whisper, "I love you" before I hear the finality, the click that ushers in silence again.
Just so you will know, Just in case you forget.
Though I am lonely here, I feel renewed. I breathe in springtime mid-winter, when I would be lying face-down on the floor and stand, feeling the power in my bones rush to the surface.
I struggle to use words that might have meaning to you, that might make what you mean to me mean something to you.
But I find, again and again, that there is but one way to express what should have a million expressions:
When I am with you,
I love you.
And when I am without you,
I love you.

wings beating hard against my chest
my heart, will it take up and    f   l   y,
with this, a mask, a painted smile, a porcelain;
                                          a china doll
       red lips, rubies sparkling
under a light that has never looked so false.
       the pulse
under your wrists, a smile crosses my lips
and i wish;
how hard i wish that it was permanent.
bump...
    ba-bump;
               ba-bump...
    ba-bump.
neverending butterflies in my chest,
bursting free, changing destinies.
so innocent, so delicate they fly through me;
and land upon the trails where you have been.
the moths, those things, fly for the light but in never reaching,
they leave the dust of their wings on every thing they touch.
and it will all just turn to dust;
bump,
    ba-bump;
               ba-bump...
    ba-bump.
let's go skydiving,
so we can breathe through our wings.
and falling through the clouds we will
wipe the dust from the song we sing.

Muscles grip and relax, grip and relax, grip and fight and tighten.
My fingers caress the blown glass between my lips, thoughtfully I stare cross eyed into the flame brought to life by the stroke of my thumb.
Feral beats in the background of this still life pulsing, invigorating the senses;
awakening the monster as it shrieks out for breath.
And so I pull another blow between my teeth, the air tainted and tasting so sweet.
Here stand these false philosophers with me as we shiver against the clawing of a wind so cold,
but we are brought together by our love for the fire.
A network of interlaced fingers keeps the flame alive as we **** out the life-giving tendrils from gaia’s hands,
she sends us spiraling upward until our ankles graze the treetops and we are looking down on city life from the crown of heaven.
My comrades bear their bruises closed and tongue-tied, and as we fly dark hints of the world below materialize on their lips.
The stroke of each errant brush paints their words black and white as I sing color across my broken sanctuary, stubbornly fighting for this bliss that only I exist within,
carrying no burden from the world below, I let my innocence fly me higher in this treetop temple.
I break the surface of a sea of clouds, no comrade to accompany me now;
none would follow anyhow.
The freedom screams from my fingertips like thunder and with every movement I hurl another one of Zeus’s famed bolts down onto the earth, dancing with the electricity; though when you’re so high up here there is no storm.
I watch as the others begin to fall back down into the earth’s open arms, equipping their synthetic smiles, for where they are going there is no joy.
My grin glitters like the stars I greet with open palms, smoothing my fingers across their warm fuzzy forms, gathering them into night-sky pictures for the beings down below.
I place each star carefully in my dark connect-the-dot drawing, swirling stardust in the blank spaces for tonight I paint a masterpiece.
As it takes shape my painting depicts a world so far away from the one I hail from, I almost wonder how I can even picture it.
I soar on ethereal wings to planets and galaxies until homesickness sweeps my winged shoes back toward the blue planet, eyes misted over with nostalgia for those days when I,
the fire and the philosophers would breathe together.
When I touch back down, my wings fold tight against my shoulders; curving firm and solid against my back.
I am a stone gargoyle, now guarding this world that I fought so hard to protect myself from.
and I, the fire and the philosophers break out our synthetic smiles.
For where we are going, there is no joy.
The vague and flimsy memories we have of our treetop haven melt misty smooth across mental palates that still ache for the taste of fire-breath, for the swirls of hazy wonder that alit our dry smiles to burn for real.
But my philosophers have become pharisees and now I quail and quake under the weight of my sky-paintings.
The gravity down here keeps my lips tilted down in the echoes of another man’s sorrow and my sympathy for their morose self-titled melodrama is running thin.
If  I could, I’d be tiptoeing among the stars, hop scotching across constellations, at home in my world of skies and fire.
And I am shocked once more, grounded suddenly by the voice of the pharisees and their stone hearts;

mourning for I,
The fire,
And the philosophers.

there's that safe place between cold sheets,
the shivers welcome the dreams that harbor this unknown peace..
so close your eyes just this time and we'll let the substance sing us to sleep
pulsing through twisting veins as we're counting killer sheep
savage teeth rip animal instincts across your outstretched arms
and there lies a broken promise, you're no longer safe, raise the alarm;
these claws are killer digits, these fangs are sniping rays, so softly sneaking through curtains of hair;
their lights pierce through shades of skin, turning you
black and blue as you begin to pale
and now i'm singing siren songs, melodies to lure them in
one by one, my massacre begins
and all these morbid metaphors mean just one thing
i speak of that healing that time is supposed to deliver
and as my limbs curl under these sheets, gathering folds of fabric
while my mind's velocity reels under a veil of false awakenings
i'm just waiting for those shivers
for those ******* shivers that rack my spine, turning my lounge into fetal position
leaving my jaws open in silent indignation, letting quiet sounds drain my emotion
i jolt awake, leaving cries on the stagnant air of this summer night
and clack together these sharp rays of light
grinding these ivories down to soft keys again.
the stars hide from me in their shroud of fossil fuels, saturated, decomposed on the heavy air.
when i open my eyes, you are still elsewhere.
and i close them again, just to be sure you're not a ghost, but here they come again, those god ****** shivers.

these are the same keys you taught my fingers to love
still the same deities changing channels on their tvs cause our team never hits home runs
the cliffs so sheer that the caverns look like dew drops,
beginning to simmer in the morning sun
giving the atmosphere a breath of fresh air when it is done
the night sky drops a shower of ice pops down onto your ancient mountaintops,
the same ones you told me i would love if we didn't go careening down a wrong turn.
keep a cheshire smile fading in your jacket pocket and bring me up,
i'll bring you a peace of the atmosphere, we'll watch the colors run away from the sun
sweet mint chip against hungry lips, smile as the milky sugar runs down
clean t-shirts can expect the worst in this race for last place
the city sleeps beyond my windowsill
i am a crippled ballerina, dancing a frustrated, slow pace
time bides itself and i smile in imaginary landscapes painted by masters
living like a story inside me
like a flower i open to the world, dispose of the plaster cast
dream to dare me, i will jump, and my arms unfold spirit feathers that tickle the air as i am
flying

sleepless under that blanket of monsters,
trembling in the heat.
the medications you're taking are helping her sleep,
when the night comes and your heart-shaped hit
flows through space time
to pursed lips behind which jagged ivories grind.
01101100011011110111011001100101
flowing freely across
a woven circuit board of smiles and wires.
words surfing along radio waves,
slow and gentle, strong and deep
a lullaby to which finally sleep
can take a hold across stiff shoulders.
relaxing the pace at which she runs through the slew of
gunfire and ****** and fear;
intravenously
pumping clouds
   across
        her closed eyes
fields of vision turning from broken glass to meadows,
thoughts from lost kittens to the same warm blankets
under which she curls.
hum a lullaby, so she'll sing a lullaby, the buzz of noise
in her mind so clear yet so far away;
dancing on clouds to keep you smiling.
dancing with this glow
illuminating everything she touches,
let light lead this lovely lullaby tonight.
sweet sugar rains send sticky waves
from the clouds,
now everything is sweet
and the songs on the radio waves
send waves of peace flowing through aching bones.
slow and gentle, strong and deep.
a lullaby to which finally sleep
can take a hold across stiff shoulders

Staccato beats pulsate; contrast deep lines, extended exposure.
The stars carve bright tracers across a sky so far past midnight,
it may as well be mourning again.
I can see the city from here, but my eyes do not truly see
us in the backseat holding hands.
Your eyes are endless even in still frame photos,
the fire in your hands can't compare to the fire in your heart.
Desire; I look down on a sea of stars, and the atmosphere so foreign to me,
so alien.
I can't even begin to describe what's really real to me,
it's so different from what they taught us to see.
My eyes are open.
Footsteps silent and ghostly, across miles in seconds just to see your smile.
It rings across dimensions, the demands of the commander
to protect and love.
We run miles upon miles to settle this fury, to wrap you in the warmth of spirit.
I can't see the forest for these concrete trees.
If there was ever a horizon it settles only upon this city with the sunset,
If there was ever a moon, there it hides among our clouds.
Crown me king... this kingdom unseen, its citizens anonymous,
and unaware.
Can I comfort all who run for these outstretched arms?
I will never be sure, but I can be sure there will always be room
in this weather-worn heart for another smile,
another try.
We run together, like rivulets into one tear drop
complete apart and together.