What am I doing with my life.
Torn.
Between the life I have made for myself and the life of an immature man's dreams.
What have I done to myself? Surely this is not a healthy venture. Do I continue to follow the dreams, or do I lay down, content with the reality I live in?
They warn that the mind of sobriety is the clearest, but maybe that is a lie?
The inebriated mind seems to be the clearer of the two. Then again, it's the intoxicated one thinking right now.
It does so seem that the current mental state understands emotional matters just a smidge more.
Maybe just more in tune, no filter. No white noise interrupting.

Flush cheeks
And tongue tied
When I see you

Eyes on ground
Nervous beating heart
When it comes to you

Do the same happen
to you?

One nation under assault,
one nation under pressure,
one nation claiming greatness against
an outdated measure.
With liberty and justice stockpiled commodities
and legions of disgruntled youth
left to deal with the atrocities.
One nation under-loved
One nation over-policed
One nation claiming Jesus
wearing the tell-tale mark of the beast.
With hate in the left hand, and hate in the right,
and both hands balled up like we're dying to fight.
A New Day, they call this perpetual night
This suffocating darkness that chokes out the light
And EVERYBODY THINKS THAT THEIR SIDE IS RIGHT.

One nation underwhelmed by the policies they chose
One hypocrisy of a democracy, calling their own stink a rose
One thing after another, no wonder the kids are cynics now,
thinking "You CAN'T make it better, WE don't know how."
Love is lost in the struggle between apathy and hate
America, the beautiful.  America, the great.
America, the fractured paragon,
We cling to ghosts of a changing time
We've fallen for the distractions, and
our pedestal is too high to climb.

Oh brothers, oh sisters, what else can we do?
If you'll look out for me, and I look out for you,
just a ripple in this pool of ****
may clear the waters, just a bit.
But as long as there are white votes
black votes
Latino votes
left votes
right votes
there'll be no vote of confidence
in the future of these divided states.
We'll rip ourselves apart,
tear out our own heart
waving our flags the whole time
and claiming no blame for the divide.
God Bless America,
and do it quick.
All sides of this society
are dying or sick.

It's hard to know
where to go
from here
empty pages
            in my book
unwritten before me
and the vastness of ocean
washes over this desert
blurring the lines
between the
wounds inside
and perceptions
               of reality
I am stuck
in this foreign place,
a fine-chiseled limbo
etched upon
           my face
My past strong
behind me
pushing my limits
to the hilt
fingers brushing
new firmaments
                of grace
spilling silver
              from silt

I am ready
to see the future
burst forth and unfold
ready for my
raw elements
to be spun wildly into gold
these invisible wings
after years of
being wound in
            tight, rigid curl
are stretching out slowly
being coaxed to unfurl
And here I stand
my feet sturdy as roots
as the sands of time
bud tender shoots
my eyes locked to the stars
fixed in sanguine dream
no need to staunch
the flow
           of liquid
that freely streams
It pours out
from my eyes,
this river of salt
because growing pains
        sting --
it's nobody's fault
Yet it's
tearing me up
into coarse,
ragged strips
descending
upon me
with scratches and rips
and for every burn
branded into my flesh
new insights
are woven
from putrid
               to fresh
For every laceration
I bear upon this heart
there is a gleam in the garden
as seeds germinate
               their start

And as my soul opens out
      expands in deep
           vital glow
            I am as
             a child
who still needs to grow
Her moonlit eyes
set on
          unknown realms
her pillars fallen,
senses overwhelmed
vulnerably jaded,
yet unafraid
because stars  
sometimes
burst into
novas
creating
new
      light
             from
         shade

Behold!
that drawing in
                 of breath
                         a minty
              entanglement
   of starlit senses
How they curl
       like the opposite
               of smoke
over the very
insides
     of my
           earthen throat
                         crackle of
       autumnal breezes          
whooshing through
like a beacon
And in that
split-second
right before
deep freeze
my molecules
   rise and fall
       in the rhythm
            of snowflakes
each one a
unique entity
   dusting the
            solid soil
                with loamy richness
                    and simultaneous
              feather impressions    
           of relief
Now
like silk draped
alabaster
I am cooled
Like sweet
        river water
  I flow
       rocked by
the slow
churn of
growing freedom
             that alights my pores
arises in tender
stillness
     through the
          looming forests
           of my skin
              penetrates the
                  unseen journey of
                     my night
                 as demulcent
          and persistent
as the balmy petals  
of a
   raging,
fiery
    bloom

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

It's the thing you feel when he stares
The fluttering of wings that fills your head
Its the goodbye waiting to happen
The one you should have seen coming
Its the life that has no light
That you feel once he's gone

For all this is the way of love
Its tearing down your heart
While trying to mend
The single thing he broke
But that's not right
For he broke more than just one thing
He took the soul you had
Twisting it in two
Leaving it rotten in hell
He broke the heart you once healed
From a previous love
Not only reopening the old,
But making new scars, too
He broke your mind
Scarring your memories of everything you once held dear
Making the new ones in terror

The final thing he broke
The one that really counts
Is this body you hold dear
For he left reminders of his skin within yours
The way he touched
The way he kissed
To the way he stared
Now ever time you say your fine
Everyone will know its a lie
Because he made what he did to you visible
And you can't hide what's not inside

He destroyed me in four ways
First my mind
Second my heart
Third my soul

Fourth my body

Battleground
Of perpetual motion
Reigns upon calm thoughts
Of devastated soul
Called simply me
Though in fact it's
Wasteland from here
Until the rest of nights
Spent without you

But now
Your presence brings
No comfort

It's of no use darling
I turn off the light
And show you my back

Your tears seem scared and empty
Hush please
Don't you weep

Wait out the morning
And the sun trapped
In its journey without end

Then leave my bed
Since you can't leave my mind
Leave and don't look back

Or show me how to love
Give something that's missing
Cleanse me of sorrow in my mind

I know I know I know you can't
Your heart belongs to someone else
And mine is lost spinning

In the darkening night
When dawn is far
Unreachable to my spirit

It seems that it will never come
Stopping this perpetual motion
Of heart until one is none

Until the war is lost (no strength found)
And familiar hands of sorrow touch
My loneliness on mind's battleground

An ocean away from the Ivory Coast,
my feet are too clean and my mind is too *****.

i'm so far away from this euphoric, ruddy discharge that my bed has transformed from a lukewarm boulder into all of my favorite childhood memories-
the unconscious a candy apple,
your dreams a sugary topping.

there you are-
wavering like a flag torn piece by piece from the wind,
savoring my tears like a glass jar,
gleaming ubiquitous affection, yet stoic,
unaffected by the blistering mantle-heat.

this ocean is my hospital gown tied so tightly that i can no longer breathe in your deepest fears and swallow them like morning coffee.

this ocean is my mother, choking on soothing words, repelling suicide with optimistic rhetoric, neurons firing in a tone so hectic that silent meditation is an inaudible conversation.

this ocean is the anti-depressant that ***** on my skin like a vacuum, dr. nestling his blindfold like an infant

this ocean is my empty home, abandoned, lost in the noise.

someday my feet will be ***** again,
and i'll feel your unyielding warmth like quarries in the summer,
dropping all of the noise and mending with what matters most,
where i'm blending in with infinite shades
of the Ivory Coast.