Disappointments, like mistakes, are a painful but important part of the learning process.

An emotional exhibitionist runs into an emotional manipulator; sparks fly.

It's times like these that I wish you were still around.
I could use somebody to keep me from sleeping on the ground.

Your worry spoke volumes,
but I've since grown deaf.

You were caught up in living.
I'm hung up on death.

Notes speak louder than words.
I heard a chord that couldn't be whispered.
Lost in a whirl of secrets I swore I to keep.

Some things are best left unspoken.

A few leaked out.
Distance helped with that.
If the birds don't get them first,
we should be able to find our way back.

Surrounded on all sides by the sudden prospect of doom.
He attempted to create some more room between what life he had left and an imminent death.

"Time flies when you're having fun,"
so isn't the opposite true?

How many eons did he spend doing things he hated?
How many lifetimes he must of lived through;
loathing his dreary circumstances,
his hobbies,
his friends.

Surrounded himself with dullness in order to blunt the passage of time.

I mean, in that situation,
what would you do?

He forewent all sense of pleasure for the sake of a longer life,
but in the end,
he lost it too.

I've this bad habit of going to sleep fully clothed,
then waking up completely naked.
Not knowing for sure what happened in between.
How many of these things that I can barely remember ever actually happened?
How many were just dreams?

Hermits and heroes.
Pariahs and piranhas.
People are full of such contrasting colors.

Someone had to say it.
That gray area between black and white is so full of those lost in contemplation.
Without a doubt,
someone had to dig the moat that divides this sandcastle from the ocean.
The goal isn't to keep the water out,
but to let it surround us in a symbiotic relationship.

Someone had to do it.
Allow the sun to burn their skin in order to determine the value of a brand new tint.
A stint of concentrated consternation never did anyone no good.
Someone had to bite the bark to test the quality of the wood.

Somebody, somewhere,
traveled through light years just to glean a glow on a mystery that had always been misunderstood.
Someone had to go there first so that the rest of us could know.  

So here's an ode to all pioneers;
the bravest,
and most bold.

To do it clearly,
it'd take a book.
I'm not up for that kind of work,
so I'll attempt to cut it short.

You are but a part of a convoluted mix up.
A constant element in a periodic table of personal madness.
An important ingredient in the recipe of death and rebirth.
The other side of a mirror I'd gaze into in order to gauge my self worth.

Too vague.
I'm getting nowhere with this.
Let me try to put it into simpler words:

Identity crisis.
Bad acid trip.
Social experiment gone horribly wrong.
An attempt to live my life in accordance to the lyrics of a song.
180 degree turnabout of my own strengths and flaws.
Less weight for what I felt and more placed in what I saw.

You are just a part of my deepest plunge into what I thought it was to be insane.

This is far from enough,
and it's surely a mess,
but it's so hard to explain.

In truth, it's my go-to state.
I'll say it's not so bad when I actually mean that it's great.
Litotes and understatement -
that's my forte.

If I ever make the mistake of letting you get too close,
I'll soon compensate by pushing you far, far away.

Brilliant little lines etched out to stretch the time.
Minds placing X's and O's in an attempt to make straight lines,
but a circle never ends,
so let's pretend we're stuck in spiral.
Swirling through the twisted bits,
like DNA strands spinning in a double helix.
We're nothing but a mix of atoms mashed together.
An explosion of fused matter;
spattering the heavens with our essence.

Connecting the dots of isolated spots,
like how our ancestors drew lines between stars.
Seemingly arbitrary and haphazardly placed,
yet somehow defining what we are.

The scene dissolved easily once I realized she was bleeding.
Why'd you do that to yourself?
There's a discrepancy between what was seen and what's believed.
She could hardly believe it herself.

"I don't know why.
There's something wrong with me."

Nonsense.
I don't get it.
I don't understand.

"There's nothing wrong with you."

We hugged each other as hard as we can.
Could*

Would you believe me if I told you that life is worth living?
She says she's tired of swimming.
She says she thinks about suicide every single day.

*******, ___,
I love you.

Don't make me feel this way.

The other me is of the dastardly type.
Quite a *******, really.
The other me likes to stay out all night,
and is awfully fond of drinking.

He says, "Y'know what your problem is?
You spend too much time thinking."

The other me doesn't take advice.
He prefers to make his own way.
He says, "You've gotta stop going with the flow,
and start making some tidal waves."

The other me is good with women,
and often calls me gay.
He says, "You'd might as well be a ****** -
that thing between your legs gets no play."

The other me is restless;
uncouth, rude, and reckless.
He takes over sometimes for days on end,
then leaves me to clean up his messes.

The other me is an *******,
with no regard for anyone but himself.
Arrogantly vain,
he puts those who care about him through hell
and drives me completely insane.

Me and the other me got into a fight today.

It started when he told me that I need him.
"Come on man, I mean, honestly.
I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now.
You're nothing without me."

(The other me likes to use the word "harmony."
He says it's a precarious balance.
"Our togetherness is destiny,"
but he'd **** me if I ever gave him the chance.)

So I hit him first when he least expected it.
You see, he'd never expect it from me,
but he laughed when he realized his nose was bleeding,
so I hit him again and he dropped to his knees.

"Dude, what the hell are you doing?
I thought we were friends . . ."
Then I leaned in real close and said,
"Stay the **** away during the work week,
and you can have every weekend."

You can sit in your bed,
and go through every conversation and situation,
and yet you'll never know why.

You can cry every last tear that you have,
for days on end,
and you'll still never know why.

You can say a million words,
or "sorry's,"
or even "I love you's,"
but you will still never know why.

You can lose hope more times than you can count,
and even then you will never know why.

And maybe that's just it;
Nobody's supposed to know.

I suffer from a disease that goes by the name of Loneliness.
It's an ancient affliction;
some sick kind of curse,
and those who know it best often boast: it's the worst.

But every now and then,
I look around me to see some fat cow in the company of a dead-eyed chudd -
spewing out a slew of inanities for lack of the cud.
He finally shuts her up with a kiss on the mouth,
as they walk off hand in hand.

I think to myself:
"How in the hell did they find a cure,
but I can't?"

A well oiled machine.
Its gears daily greased.
Cogs turning for centuries and shooting out steam.
An army of engineers to keep it running eternally.

Behind the smoke screen,
a lone projectionist screams for the audience to open their eyes -
to stop listening to the churning of mass produced lies.
(Shortly afterward,
he dies.)

A well oiled machine.
Occasionally leaking blood from its seams.
An army of janitors assigned with keeping it clean.

A lone visionary decides to alter the design.
Creates a switch that will turn all fog into light.
(Right before he goes to flip it,
he dies.)

A well oiled machine.
Built solely for the purpose of spitting out smoke,
and beneath it, a graveyard
of those who tried to throw a wrench in its spokes.

If we ever make it close enough to close the distance on these stars,
we'd surely implode on impact.

If I told you we are but constructs of a most complicated art,
would you stab me in the back?

If we held each other in our arms,
would we realize how full of **** they are?

I'm cool.
You're cool.
We're cool
It's cool.

We're cool.
It's cool.
I'm cool.
You're cool.

"Hey dude,
you alright in there?"

"Yea man,
it's cool."

I like the way you think -
sinking your own ship just to take a drink.
Soiling yourself in order to keep everyone else from scraping you clean.
I find it pretty keen -
drowning in a sea of air and floating on the steam . . .

It's disturbingly nice.

By that I mean,
if our links got intertwined we'd find ourselves in quite a knot;
Running through red lights just to make the others stop.
Brushing up on legal terms to confuse all of those cops.
Boarding over doorbells just to force our guests to knock.

I find your broken logic beautiful.
I think you're perfectly top-notch.

If I still had your number,
I'd text you.
I'm not really drunk enough for it though,
but I don't know.
I'd like to tell you a few things.
Maybe that I'm sorry.
Or maybe I'd just send you a quote from Robert Tew.

This one:
"Sometimes you have to love people from a distance and give them the space and time to get their minds right before you let them back into your life."

But I don't, so I won't.
Just so you know,
I'm not okay with how often you find your way inside my head,
so I'll just write another soon-to-be-deleted poem instead.

Art is like the ultimate hand shake.
They say you can tell a lot about a person from their grip,
but so much more is said by what they create.

I like telling you things that I won't remember saying.

Criss-cross of arteries unclaimed in Lost and Found.
Accidental knots bound together by frayed ends.
Applesauce and pork chops may be ******* up logic,
but I'm so glad we are friends.

A cactus ***** can be the catalyst of an unspoken understanding.
We bleed our bloods into each other until the gaps are just the abstract outlines of us.
Failed to falter on this landing -
Let's hold hands and jump these last few steps.

Where every other shallow swimmer surfaced half-bloated by their purpose,
we've maintained our depth.
Half-swimming, half-drowning;
all while halving the latest trends.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it already;
I'm so glad that we're friends.

Exhausted by the constant exasperation of our own attempts to exaggerate self-condemnation.
It's so nice to find a place to rest.
BFF, BFFLE, BIEH.
Hey,
how're you doing there bestie?

I get it.
You get it.
We get it.
It's gotten.
All our fondest memories are the ones all but forgotten.

Hearts on ice.
Hearts in grass.
Hearts as apple-shaped shards of glass.

We stand here together on the sharpest edge.
I ******* love you guys.
I'm so glad we're friends.

Empty Girl.
Dead-eyed queen.
Cut her personality out of a magazine.
("How to Play Coy to Get the Boy"
- turn to page 3.)

Garish girl, way overdone.
Blank face heavily caked in makeup.
Paint on another fake expression.
Please,
don't make me laugh.

Thickheaded girl devoid of thought.
Owning nothing that can't be bought.
More like everyone else,
than anyone else.

I want a refund.

This is the torch that burned your parents.
"Hand it here," said the children.

Every poem I ever wrote is nothing but a sticky note,
with keywords written to remind me of all but forgotten memories.

Dance like no one can see you.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Dance naked in front of hundreds;
Arms flying -
Feet stompin'.

Moon through the trees,
smiling at me.
And echoes of words full of abstract meaning.
It's a series of seriously silly things.

I must have blown up at least thirteen balloons tonight.

Rubber meets fire.
This line ends with an unfulfilled . . .

A patchwork quilt.
A square of some color.
One semblance of meaning;
What we meant to each other.

A rainbow coat.
One chromatic series.
A shade of you.
A tint of me.

We could be lovers,
or we could stay strangers,
but we can never be friends.

I couldn't be me without you.

"Are you happy?"

Adulting?
Insulting!
I'm still just a kid.
Peter Pan ain't got **** on me,
(but he wishes he did!)

It's a syndrome of sorts,
born deep in the bones:
Children at heart with bodies full grown.

Sticky sweet,
and all but complete.
I'll meet you out there,
and that's a promise.

The next time we meet,
we'll be struck by half-forgotten dreams of things that might not have happened.

Don't you forget about me,
and I'll remember you.

False memories we'll believe to be true.

When I see you,
a quiet cheer rises up inside of me,
but then is quickly silenced.

Sometimes I forget to remember that I hate you now.

Sometimes I fantasize about reconciling.

Sometimes I miss your smile.

Don't warp it into something that never was.
Just a game we played inside our heads with our hearts.

Failed predictions of a future that could never be.

You'll only ever be you.

I'll only ever be me.

I don't want to be just another notification.
Just another bland "like" on your poem,
followed up by yet  another generic comment.

I want to stand out in my attempt to show you how much the words you wrote meant to me.
I want you to understand how close you've come to understanding something deeper -
Something inside of me.

But maybe that's just the thing:
We're all trying so desperately to be understood.
A handful of anonymous clicks hardly does us any good.

Just another means to a fix -
Another indulgence of an insatiable addict.

I'd quit if I could.

I've got a thing for steady beats and repetitious lyrics.
It's a sure-fire recipe to make it stick inside my head.
Strictly preferable to whatever insipid thing this person might have just said.

"I'm sorry,
I was thinking of something else.
Would you mind saying that again?"

I was at this party one time,
where an ex-girlfriend of mine
gave me **** over the type of beer I was sipping on.

"Ohmigod,
I can't believe you're drinking a blonde!"

In that moment,
I remembered why we'd broken up;
Her pretentiousness was way over the top.

Hit with bits and pieces of some semblance of a positive feeling.
Balloons filled with passion that pop when they hit a popcorn ceiling.

The atomic number of helium isn't even divisible by three.
Not in any rational sense,
but I'm no mathematician.

Trapped in the essence of an uplifting feeling.
A rubber outer limit that's been oxygen stealing.
Poke one hole and it quickly goes limp.

Kick start a new theory contingent on the displacement of one's lips.
Perhaps I could retest this hypothesis -
Reiterate the circumstances that brought this particular person to partake in it,
but I'm no scientist.

Just a wordsmith caught up on the jargon of his condescending contemporaries,
while weighing the vagaries of his own shifting feelings.
Little more than a vagabond tripping on the limits of his own vocabulary.

Attempting to describe something simple outside of the common vernacular;
Superceding shallow words to invoke the more spectacular . . .

When two cents become worth more than a dime,
is it a crime to only shell out a nickel?
We're still making some kind of profit.

(Finally dude!)
All that dismal stuff was negatively affecting your attitude.

To whom can I attribute it to?

(I've been working on my thankful speech.)

"First, but hardly least,
I'd like to thank my mother for having me.

Secondly, I'd like to give a shout out to all the celestial bodies;
Thank you for aligning in such a great way today!

Thirdly, gravity.
It's been there from the beginning,
and it does well to keep me grounded.
I'd be dumbfounded without it!
It totally keeps me centered.

And now, I'd like to issue a disclaimer;
To the beasts with gnashing teeth that occasionally latch onto my back.
Thanks to the bravery of every lion tamer,
I'll never again feel the fear of their false facts!"

Don't pretend like it's all gonna end,
when it's right about to start.

And don't give in
to the "less than them,"
when they don't know the first thing about a heart.

There's a part of me that has a hard time believing that the things I've done actually ever happened.

But every now and then,
my past actions come crumbling down on my head like a ton of bricks.

I don't have anyone to blame but myself for these seemingly unwarranted guilt trips.

Self-induced punishment.

Don't be surprised when I end up hating myself for it.

The prince and the pauper.
The princess and peasant.
Perpetuating old cliches,
because aren't the differences pleasant?

Romance needs some room to play.
Fill in those gaps of mystery
with grandoise schemes and complex games.

Everyone's a winner.

The beauty and the beast.
The ******* and the tease.
The sheltered ones who live in dreams,
and the streetwise kids who do as they please.

Everyone loves a mystery,
but old cliches only capture so much.
Why do we need a conflict of different world views
to pluck the strings of our hearts?

Stand up.
Back off.
Just leave me alone.
These vines have grown over everything,
and it's hard to find a home.

Break through.
Nevermind.
I'll keep this carpet clean.
It's seen things you'll never know.
Only vacuums know what I mean.

Hear me out.
Ignore me.
**** up everything.
Spit it out in failed attempts to capture the moment.

No, not like that.
I mean, literally.
I'm about to leave,
and I could use the company.

It's alright.
No big deal.
I don't even, I mean,
I didn't even . . .
Nah, really, it's cool.
Everything's okay.

Nevermind dinner.
Hungry sinner.

Burning excess calories off through dance -
ones forgotten to ingest in the first place.

Nutrition ain't no competition.
Playing a game I've got no chance of winning.
Biting off more than I can digest.
I surrender.

No contest.