When you've come so far
And you're still not who you are
That's the hardest part

This is where our course had led:
In our bed, in my own head,
Sheets of crimson red,
Newly-wed,
Recalling vows that were said,
“I’ll love you ‘til we’re both long dead.”

I’m so far away
If I could run forever
I’d not make halfway

When you try to fit in
But feel out of place
When you work a 9 to 5
But are tired of the race
Wanna hide away
But you leave a trace
Everything’s a game
With which you can’t keep pace
You look into a mirror
And see a hollowed face

I haven’t the strength
To be the change I’d like to see
I have only just enough
To simply just be me
These shoulders were not made to bear
All the burdens of the earth
Only room for my own trials
Ordained from my birth
It might be selfish
But it has to be this way
Otherwise I’d crumble
Or else be spirited away

A dream half dreamed is
A life half lived

Hollowed out dreams
Cracking at their seams
Still grasping for the star
Which never seemed so far
Still searching for that fire
That shields from all that’s dire
The cathartic placation
When you satisfy inspiration
The iridescent heat
That comes when lovers meet
It must be real obscene
To be this routine
To stretch that errant prime
Into a lifetime

Love and Hate
Are not opposites
We hate what we love
And love what we hate
And I have never hated
That which I’ve never loved
And I’ve never loved
What I have not hated
Indifference
Apathy
Hate and Love’s
True antonym

How terribly dull it must be
Relating exclusively with fact
Where everything is a known quantity,
Is your sense of wonder even intact?
Or did you leave that behind too,
With everything interesting about you?

Everything that you do,
Seems so wonderfully new;
It’s so obviously true,
That your kind is but a few.

There’s a selflessness
To selfishness
Only by taking care of yourself
Can you begin to take of others

I want to live in an age of letters
Of horse-carriages and cobbled roads
Maybe I glorify the past too much
But nowadays it seems we’re always in a rush

Do not lose sight now
When you’re far enough ahead
It seems you’re behind

The weight of the universe,
But I’ve never had such strong arms
Seems to me a bit perverse
Deliver the sleeping to life and then immerse
Them in hostility and harm,
But for a few consolations
We would refuse to bear it
Preferring the cessation
And subsequent damnation,
And misery outwit.
But that imperfect face,
And the words it leaves spoken
Gifts me trust in the human race,
A suit of armor encased,
Until my faith can again be broken.

There’s still places, I’d like to see,
People I’d still really like to
be,

A hundredth chance; in theory,
I really love
humanity,

But there’s a voice, in my head,
And it says everyone wants you
dead,

It doesn’t matter, where you have
been,
Nobody gets to go home
again,

So what’s the point, no one will
tell,
They’d rather see you live in
hell

A simple dream
Where decency was found:
The low were raised to high esteem
And the wealth was spread around

Ambivalence towards higher station
You have enough apportioned
And your only aspiration’s
To be a full-fledged person

I wish I could cut out my heart
So I would never have to taste disappointment
again
How could something that causes so much
Needless bitterness and despair be such a vital *****?

This is not about recreation
Nor the asinine seeking of thrilling sensations
Rather it is my focus
To reach an apotheosis
As a kind of deity
Using the splendor and solemnity
Of the universe and it’s energy
Paralleling eternity
Crafting a new identity
To trace serenity
We are all on the path and the road leads upward
Ever

Because I wanted to die
And simply be no one;
As you were saying I just had to try
While screaming how the dishes are never done
Keeping me under your thumb
In this place, fettered,
Can I help it I’m so dumb,
And can hardly read a letter?
Or deign to say a word?
Or to think a thought?
What’s the point when you’re not heard?
And all your wars cannot be fought?
I want to ease the pain I keep
All the ways I try to salve
This heart, but it just seeps
Into another valve
I know you think it’s easily remedied-
For you, there’s no ambiguity,
Turn off your mind and heart
And soothe yourself with cruelty-
But I don’t you think understand
Your own platitudes, “self-worth”,
I don’t want a helping hand,
I want a different earth
To improve is to betray
My friends, who suffer in silence,
So I will stay, true to my own way,
Not abandon my one alliance
I will not get better
I will try my best to get worse
This safe place, unfettered,
I’ll go embrace my curse.

Try your best
To remain unfazed
The world will test
You, leave you dazed
But you don’t have to change
In order to be free
Compromise or rearrange,
Who you want to be
Wear your heart on your sleeve
And embrace the pain
Dream a dream, make-believe,
And cast away disdain

Maybe I went a hair too far
And maybe should have cared a little more
Maybe I said some things I shouldn't,
But you said you loved me for my candor
I was never one to apologize
And I hate that about myself
But even so I’ll never call you back
Or collect my things from your shelf.
Just know I’ll not forget
The time we spent together apart
Talking about poetry silently
And bashing modern art.
Did you see the signs?
That I valued time most when I spent it alone?
That I love that Keats quote,
“The poet has no identity of his own.”?
For even this is a manufactured feeling
I tell a lot of lies
I never had a loved one
And I live a lot of lives.

You think ‘cause I’m not saying anything,
I haven’t anything to say?
You’re an idiot.

Maybe it’s me who’s changed,
And I dread to sound
Old,
Or pretentious,
Or out of touch,
Or Like I’m trying to sound like something
I’m not,
But the world seems a bit more superficial
That’s it used to be

20 something year olds should be writing about how in love they are,
Or about how they’ve come so far
Or the beauty of a day,
How green the grass is in May.
Not about our collective disappointment,
Our detestable confinement,
Trying to find a culprit,
For a hostile employment market.
Celebrating illness and anxiety,
Losing hold of sanity,
From feeling superfluous.
God, who failed us?

They told me I could be anything,
So I tried to be something.
They said “that’ll never work”,
So I ask them what I should do
They say “why are you asking me?
Be yourself.”
Gee thanks

I want to have poet friends
Where we sit in coffee shops
Caffeine and idea high
Until we find our flow
Laugh and cry
Bring each other low
So we can fly back high
And we can’t pay our rent
And we are disappointments
But in those little moments
We are finally something to be jealous of
A clandestine union of talkers!

Can’t be told told how to see
By those who have never saw
Or how to them I should be
When their sight is flawed
Can’t be told what to do
By those who have never done
No advice on how to think
By the ones who’ve never thought
Or how to fight
When they’ve never even fought
How are they so certain that they’re right?

Heir to a line of poets and stoics
and know-its
Who stoop to assuage
Within cold margins of a page,
Shameless praises take
Grandiose claims
they’ll make
Til 8 lines of nonsense remains

headed west
different from the rest
left behind
things on my mind
dreams to pursue
though I suppose so do you

Your typical conceited bore,
Forgot what they’re searching for,
Everything becomes a chore,
Others’ pains don’t register anymore
Can’t resonate anymore
Can’t be held accountable anymore
Cause you can’t even see the shore
Anymore
Lock and bolt the door,
Pass out on the floor,
To dream of things which you adore
A mental sub-conscious war.

I’d like to be free
I’d like to be a dove
Fly from my tree
And believe in love

I’d like to see a God
I’d like to be like the rest
Not be so odd
I’d like to be the best

I’d like to want life
I’d like to write prose
See the end of strife
I’d like to know repose

I’d like to follow through
I’d like to wave goodbye
Maybe start anew
With a different kind of I

I wish I were like iron,
Malleable and flexible,
But I think I am more a diamond,
Pretty but not very practical.

Take these shoes, walk a mile
Wear this face, force a smile,
In this body, see through these eyes
Try my world on for size

Untold times reaching
Out with grasping fingertips
But invisible

Feeling warm again:
Clouds, making way for fresh light;
wheels will turn themselves

Take this pain, as a token
To trust the heart, is to be broken
The mind alone, sets you in motion

If we could not hate
We would be left with despair;
now, how would that be fair?

All was given to
Me and I threw it away
To spite existence

This is where our course had led:
On your bed,
In my head,
Your errant thoughts were read:
Why is it we so dread
Joining ranks with deathless dead
When they their mortal cares have fled?:
These thoughts you gave to me unsaid
As our blood was shed
Beautiful, crimson red:
To new horizons tread

You stole it from me
Your personality
Keep it anyway
I get a new one everyday
You way you left me blue
How you always do
To everyone around you
I watch you run amok
You didn’t know, you got this far on luck
Now you want to get back in track
Need someone to watch your back
I could have told you this before
Never liked me for my candor
So good luck with all of that
Smile when I catch you, flat and on your back

I haven’t been myself lately,
And by lately I mean about 6 or 7 years.

Patiently waiting
There, in the next world, where you
See all coming things.

There’s a secret path to walk
A language that nobody talks
A different world to see
Another way to be
Irrefutably

You say you hate the human race
I say you have a lovely face
You think you’ll never reach the place
I think that you would miss the chase
So I unlace
And you embrace
And with the world we keep pace
‘Til the day we disappear
And leave without a trace

A sofa for a family of four
A van out in the wild
A punk band on tour
Or eternally exiled.

Everyone has a place,
Or a kind of mission.
Whether they choose to run the race
Or live in defiant sedition

Is there a place for our song?
Somewhere within our purview?
Will I find where I belong,
And will it be with you?

Broken seven seals
You will never know what’s real
Spurning the surreal

Why, simply because,
I hardly need a reason
To do anything.

If we can never sail the ocean
We’ll still dream of the sea;
all have their own notion,
Of what it means to be free.

Welcome to isolation,
We hope you enjoy your stay.
Our rooms have no windows
And the WiFi password is decay,
So you don’t have to use data
While avoiding your acrimony,
And you can talk to people from far away,
So you have no excuse to be lonely.
Just relax; it’s just a little illness,
Do not suppose or apperceive.
It’s a fad that’ll end soon,
And at least YOU will get to leave.