If this train went off the rails just as I was saying, "I love you,"
and the clanging noise caused you to hear, "I'm so far above you," instead, would you then go on to die regretting every previously treasured moment of our lives that we'd collectively spent on the off-chance that I'd been a pretentious ***** the whole time?

If I went broke before you could cash the check that I wrote in order to fix your broken childhood home - the one that your parents still live in and stand to lose if this check doesn't clear - because of some completely unpredictable market fluctuation/bank identity theft error,
would you hold me accountable for it?

If you counted every syllable in every sentence that I spoke on your half-birthday and it didn't add up to your age divided by one-third of the time it takes for your ruling planet to circumnavigate the solar system, would you then find our relationship to be some kind of gross horror?

If I walked away right now, while you were in the middle of asking me some ridiculous out-of-context question with no consequence, would you think it's because of some kind of insecurity or cowardice?

Everyone knows magic dolphins don't have dorsal fins -
it's a well documented fact.
The Bedouins who discovered super salmon have done extensive research on that.
Every mating season,
they swim up the sides of a tsunami
to rain roe upon unsuspecting salami salesmen.
It's a hard business to get into,
unless you're from Genoa.

I've walked down that dark street before
Went up that drive-way and knocked on the door
When the house stirred, I let out a sigh
Ran away and forgot to hide

Wrote my name upon a wall
But the name was false, and the wall was small
Called out loud to the starlit sky
But no one heard my desperate cry

Fell inside and broke my heart
Then couldn't find the missing parts
Filled my glass at dawn and dusk
But we were far from giving up

A restless soul on sleepless nights
Took to words by candle light

There is no place in here to hide
So if you are me,
then who am I?

A Saint, a Sinner, a Child, a Lie.
A Cynic, a Critic, a regular guy.
A man with an idea that refuses to die,
but with a memory that fades
along with life.

I took the road less traveled by
Broke my heart then remembered to cry,
Thinking to myself
All the while:

I've

never

felt

so

Alive!

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.

"I can't say," he said.
His whole body shaking.
"I can't. I uh. Oh, ****. Ah,"
while his teeth pulled out of their sockets.
His whole frame dissolving to pieces.
Eyes popping like squeezed grapes.

"Time," said some giant with his hand full of dust,
"is just slipping away," said his echo, as he clutched at what was lost.

"I'm sick of clichés," she said, after reading what he'd written.
"'I'm sorry,' he said, said he, before curling into a ball and weeping,"
which were the last words he ever said to her,
while hers to him were:
"I'm leaving."

Not drunk enough to stew tonight
Not true enough to be so right
Not brave enough to use this knife

It all falls back on you

Not tall enough to see above
Not sick enough to **** a dove
Not dumb enough . . .
To love

Too much of one to see through the other
Too many habits to blame on your mother
Too selfish to share with another
Gather enough sheets to . . .
Smother

It all falls back on you
These failed attempts to cut through
These mistakes
Regrets
These high stake
Secrets

Flush them out
Flush them out
Flush them out

These feelings
Are chores
These habits
They bore

Too scared to change
Too tired to run away
Get so caught up in a sentimental sway
These moments
Please stay
Please stay
Don't leave me . . .

Fade away

A piece of mind.
A slice of life
A meal much too great
For just fork and knife
Passionate power
Eloquent grace
That full-belly feeling
Of tremendous weight

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.

From raw to refined.
A simple word, ill-defined.
Let's not get hung up on semantics,
but instead,
romanticize everything we've ever said;
about love,
about loss,
about life.
Everything is meaningless until it's been applied.

I told her that I had a problem.
She attempted to show me her own.
It's all mathematical nonsense.
We can't solve them.
She said that numbers don't make a home.

If 1+(2-1 who doesn't belong + 1 who could be true = what could come from the addition of me and you)
I asked about the decimals.
She said I'm only trying to give you clues.
I answered:
that math leaves me with only 1/3 of you.

I want the whole pi or nothing at all.
She said every parabola has its rise and fall.
I told her I'm more into asymptotes;
Edging ever closer without touching the wall,
but I'm not a withholder.
She asked me to prove it,
so I showed her my ruler.

Remember when I told you that you don't scare me?

Sometimes I feel that I want something more,
Then sometimes I'm content to lie down on the floor,
And I can't help but wonder
If this is all that I've been searching for.

Just a strange place to lay my head,
And foreign surroundings to make up my bed,
Then I can't help but wonder
If this is a scene from a book that I've yet to have read.

The first time I went to Disney World,
And we were crossing a bridge,
I asked, "Is this all some part of a story?"
And my grandma said, "Of course it is!"

She was referring to Cinderella.
You know, the one who met that charming prince,
But I was talking about all of life,
And I've felt misunderstood ever since.

Let's call it Big Fish in Small Pond syndrome.
Trying desperately to get these guppies to see the beauty of swimming against the stream.
It's all about the struggle, man.
Do you know what I mean?

Forgive me for being so angsty.
Chalk it up to a Holden Caufield complex.
Too much time contemplating what comes next.
I guess you could say I'm obsessed with death.

I'll drown eventually,
meanwhile trying to get them to believe it's not my fault.
Blame it on a flawed support system.
Blame my family, blame my friends.
Blame everyone and anything but me.

I'm starting to see it a little more clearly,
(though I'm not about to go for a psychology degree,)
but I think I now know what my problem is:
Hubris.

Life is so friggin' weird, I'll tell ya.
The older you get, the weirder it gets,
and it just keeps on getting weirderer.

Grossly weird.
Wrongly and disturbingly weird.
Upsettingly weird.

But then, now and again,
pleasantly weird.
Delightfully, excitingly weird.
Weirdly endearingly weird.

Then weirder still.
Off-puttingly weirder.
Over-sweetly weirdly weirder.
Understatedly, low-key weirder to the highest degree contradictory weird.

Maybe weird isn't so weird after all.
When it's the only constant in life,
then weirdness becomes the only reliably normal thing, oddly enough.

Hey now, that was fun
It's been awhile since I could remember how it was done
In a long time, tonight has been the first
Good time that I've had where no one gets hurt

And I smiled wide
And talked too much
With so much to hide,
I'm not sure what's worse

But the smiles were genuine
The conversation was open
No judgements or complaints
Nobody on drugs, crying, or moping

And it's not hard to take
Quite easy to swallow
Let's do this again sometime
What are you doing tomorrow?

Staring back into nothing
I felt a compulsion to fall
It felt like my spirit was leaving my body
It felt like my soul was drowning
inside of myself
and I thought

If nature is heaven
then concrete is hell

In the face of
a neon ancient god
once worshipped by the indigenous
peoples of the amazon
I had a sense that He was angry with me
that I'd done something wrong
He took something from me
but I don't know what it was
and I thought

If I'm just a stack of molecules
then I'm falling apart

I pooled into my shoes
which sunk into the earth
and I thought

If I ever have to die again
then I'll pass on rebirth

Have you ever regretted a decision before you've made it?
I'm sure there's a medical condition named for it.
I forget what it is.

The violinist plays as the artist takes down his paintings.
Nothing sold today. His spiraling visions of figurative
meaning behind the sentimental moments that he can't forget
have failed to make an impact on the passers-by,
once again.
He drops meager change into the case
of the musician.

The human statue breaks her frozen form
to act out a five second tragedy as he
makes his way down the avenue;
free of charge.

His fanbase is of the kind that can only
sympathize. Endeared to him not through the way
he spreads his paint, but from his passionate speeches.
When he explains the reasons behind each minute element,
they can't help but to relate. How he reaches
to define every detail of what would otherwise be
just another memory.

How did it happen?
I didn't even like you at first,
and now you're the first thing I think of when I wake up,
if I wasn't already dreaming of you while I slept.
When I look into your eyes I feel short of breath.

I want you the way suicidals want death.

But I cannot have you, and I resent the fact
that you somehow stole my heart and now won't give it back.
And yet, if I had you I know I wouldn't want you anymore.
I'd come to loathe you in the way that a child hates chores.
But you've melded to my mind;
you're burned into my brain.

I want you the way that a moth wants the flame.

It's a paradoxical ache.
A feeling so strange.
In the English language it doesn't even have a name,
but I believe this is what the french refer to as
the exquisite pain.

This one's called "Running Under Streetlights on a Treadmill Made of Gravel"
Don't you ever wonder where you'd be without love?
There is no distance I wouldn't travel
to be under the arms of this oak.

This one is called "I Ain't Got All Night to Plot with the Moon,"
and this one's called "I'm Losing my Mind in the Middle of June,"
so give me a light, because this dark's ending soon.

I am a scarecrow lost in a tornado
(this one is called "You Can't Keep All of Your Straw.")
I am a glass figure in the midst of a hail storm.
This one is called "Where's my Umbrella?"

And I've found an answer,
so ask me the question.
This one is called "The Supreme and Holy Power of Suggestion"

Some nights are never ending.
This one's called "That Fruit Ain't Worth Eating if the Garden's Not Worth Tending"

So don't you judge me.
My antennae may be broken,
but my signal still sends,
and my mind is wide open.

I've read the old poets and they're boring.
I've read the modernists and there might be something to it.
I've read my contemporaries and they're strictly hit or miss,
but I don't read my own because I know it's all ****.

Keep your distance while I deny existence
And fall inward on myself and my own solipsis
Stand back while I split up and crack
And crumble to the ground as a broken David

Do not follow me as I delve into my dreams
To scratch the fabric of my essence as it splits at the seams
Stay away from the black at the back of my mind
And my lack of desire for the passage of time

I hear a heart suddenly stop beating and I wonder if it's mine

Close the distance while I define existence
And expand upon the meanings in an existential breeding
Feeding off the exhales of the universe's breathing
Teeming with a life of which is far beyond believing

I've seen introverts become the center of attention
I've seen extroverts go ignored
I've heard complacent well-adjusted human beings
Cry out for something more
And there's a million and one things to do with life
So don't you dare be bored

Because there are three types of people in this world:
Those who do
Those who don't
And those who didn't, but wish they had

At times it's wrong to do what's good
Sometimes you've got to be bad
So don't you go on second guessing
Lest you end up with regret
Follow your instincts
Don't look back

'Cause there are three kinds of people on this earth:
Those in the future
Those in the past
And those in the present, so make it last

At times it happens all so fast
You forget to examine the extent of the impact
But don't you worry about forgotten things
They'll find their way back to you in your dreams

And there are those who will tell you that it's false
They'll comfort you with broken arms
To drag you down to into the swamp
Trying to stop you before you even start

Now there are three sects of people on this planet:
The leeches
The dreamers
And then the true believers

Examine your head to find the truth
Don't worry about what you can or cannot prove
Nothing matters nearly as much
As the way it all matters to you

You see, there's no right or wrong way to live a life
It all depends on how it makes you feel
The miraculous fact that you exist at all
Gives you the right to determine what is real

And there are but three animals in this pen:
The sheep
The wolf
And the Golden hen

Float it down the river;
a bottle with a note
full of fragile words and folded without hope:

"To whom it may concern,
I've grown weary of the worries -
worn down by the constant sound of thoughts spilling out of my head -
burnt out on turning down every opportunity to be saved.
One day, I'll get away,
but I'm in no hurry.
By the time you read this, I may already be dead,
but I might not be."

Standing in the sand with toes dug in deep;
watching the sun gleam off a bottle as it shrinks into the distance.
Goodbye to all the worst parts of me.

Hello horizon.

This is bigger than You and Me.
This is about more than just poetry.
This is a clash of ideologies.
This is a battle of philosophies.

People are little more than metaphors.
Glass mason jars containing different world views.
Tinted different hues. Some are translucent and some are opaque.
If I'm solid umber than you're clear blue,
but this is bigger than Me and You.

This is larger than Us vs Them.
This is beyond Nature vs Nurture.
This is a blessing in disguise.
This is torture.

People are little more than metaphors.
Multicolored jars with their lids half-******* off
containing different liquids that taste like world views.
If mine is bitter than yours is sweet,
but this is bigger than You and Me.

This is about technology.
The effects of social media on humanity.
In the future, we'll attend parties in virtual reality.
Nobody will drive home drunk
and there'll be no fear of catching an STD.
My sisters won't have to worry and your mother won't make a fuss,
but this is bigger than all of us.

This is the search for an answer to the question that has always plagued Man.
This is the middle ground between the Beginning and the End.
This is the Herald of Passion and Love's Last Stand.
This is more than we can comprehend.
This is beyond everything.
This is no man's land.

People are seldom more than metaphors.
If I'm climbing out the window then you're knocking on the door.
If you're progress then I'm a Luddite.
If I'm a lot less then you're a little more.
If I'm an Erectors set then you're a Lite Brite.
If you're still a ****** then I'm not a *****.

The animal kingdom seems to know better.
You don't see birds of paradise plucking out their own feathers.
You never see a lion shaving off his mane.
Though the male mantis goes willingly to his own demise,
one wouldn't call him insane.
He doesn't fight his basic instincts.
He knows exactly what to do.
I have no idea what I'm doing,
but this isn't about me or you.

We're just metaphors.
Hardly more than similes.
Like abandoned puppies left out in the rain.
Like orphans with no families.
Like tumbleweeds rolling across a barren plain.
Like a mouthful of cavities.
We're like characters from a Greek tragedy;
prideful heroes with cursed destinies.

We're every bad cliche from every over-used plot.
"You're everything I've ever wanted."
"You're everything I'm not."

If I'm coke then you're ***.
If you're cold then I'm hot.
If you're Green Eggs and Ham then Sam I Am.
If you're Katherine Hepburn then I'm Humphrey Bogart.
If you're Ilsa Lund then I'm Rick Blaine.
If you're Casablanca then I'm Citizen Kane
If I'm full-blown crazy then you're slightly insane.
If you're speaking directly then hey, I'm just sayin'
We're caught in a web.
One of us is the spider and the other's the fly,
but this is bigger than you and I.

This is a falsified endeavor to find the truth.
This is an exposition on the Feminine Mystique.
This is a journey into uncharted territory, and to go there boldly.
This is a redefinition of what it means to be lonely.

To climb is to fall.
In time, the ladder bends.
The hand reaches too far and grabs
a fistful of nothing.

People pleaser.
Socialite.
Constant agreer.
Doing it right.
I bet you sleep so soundly at night.
I bet you sleep so soundly at night.

Someone different.
Something else.
Don't need nobody.
Don't need your help.
You want in.
I want out.

Attract and repel.
Attract and repel.

One solves a riddle.
The other lives a dream.
One longs to be loved.
The other wants to be free.

You say so many things that I can't feel.
And even though they can be pretty,
dreams aren't real.

Dreams aren't real.

Swimming in swirls.
Dancing with smoke trails.
Hung up on these girls
with their golden locks and pigtails.

Curl me around your finger.
Strung out on different pills.
Let's leave this place together
and fulfill those greater thrills.

Hear the music echo
in those ears that still ring.
Move your body to the rhythm.
I want to hear you sing.

Sweet melody.
Released free and clear.
Tonight we are in harmony,
but tomorrow I'm not here.

Cricket to cricket
Mouth to mouth
A horse in the garden
A hole in the mouse
A moon crash landing on the roof of this house

Glasses to ashes
Dust enough
An army of lions
Couldn't figure this out

A print too dark
A matchbook on fire
An imp in the corner
With a spoon and a lighter

A line in the middle
A sheep in the hay
A boy with a fish
Thinks of something to say

A band in a march
A bulb with a glow
A group of people
With somewhere to go

A square and a circle
A line and a string
A mass of a miracle
Begins suddenly to sing

Our story is amazing,
incredible;
fantastic.

But the truth is often messy,
raw,
and tragic.

I'm hoping we can build a bridge between the two.
(I still believe in Me and You.)

The truth can be real awful,
but our story is so grand,
and there's something to be said about idealism that only you could understand.

The past is far from dead.
We've zombies in our heads.
Though we try our best to stay present -
there are things we can't forget.

The future is a mystery,
but maybe we can solve this riddle.
Caught between dreams and reality;
come meet me in the middle.

Give it up
these trials, these files, this documentation of failures
These feelings
hit ceilings
which trap them all inside

These hooks
These sinkers
These dark and lonely bleachers

sit through as the world slips through your fingers
and die

These sounds
these bugs
these mind destroying drugs

these sights
these fights
when's enough enough

hold tight
ignite
these fires behind your eyes

This touch
too much
let go and fade away

let go and fade away

and when they ask you all to stay

let go and fade away

and when they throw you in the fray

let go and fade away

and when they say
don't go
don't stray
stay here and we will pray
For you

to pull through
to find another way

smile wide
feel pride
and go and seize the day

It slides
You try
and struggle to hold tight
It fights, it cries
It screams and then it dies
let go
Goodbye
Now watch it fade away

Pair up and be saved.
Pair up and look away.
Avert your eyes to the most depraved in our times:
The Herods, Caligulas, the Dorian Grays.
Focus on your own lives;
raise a family.
Fight those wanton propensities.
Avoid flagrant conviviality.
Do not cross that line of becoming too free.
Like those so many victims of their own enormities,
each one a slave to their every desire and whim.
Pair up and be shipped off -
delivered from sin.

In and out of it all night.
It's over before it begins.
Supposedly, there's someone up there right now
keeping track of all our sins.

Let's give them something to stack the pages with.

So when it's read back to us at the end,
we can convince ourselves
it was a hell of a life we'd lived.

Come down in time I know you'll find a way to sow your seed
But I'm caught up pursuing death and eschewing what I need
And when you breathe I hope to god that you're exhaling me
Because I'm thinking of you tonight despite all of these things

So fill me up with your bright hope
I'll hang on by the promise
You'll be the one to help me cope
But I'm a doubting Thomas

Of all the things that can ever be, could my idea of us be one
But how could you ever forgive me, and the bad things that I've done

I won't know until I see
Won't quit so long as I breathe
And when I find that gorgeous fruit I'll pluck it from the tree

Please don't be pretty,
please don't be pretty,
please don't be pretty,
please don't be pretty* . . .

Hi, it's so nice to meet you.

*Ah ****.

I understand that you were hurting.
I understand I helped you hurt yourself.
I'll understand if you never want to see me again,
but it will still **** me.

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix,
Or a fiery **** that won't flush.

So I'm stuck with my Strange
I've learned to embrace it.
They say, "Cool your jets;
Youre acting insane."
I say so be it.
I'll love the deranged.
I'm a cracked flower vase with some spray painted lilacs in it.
Spread me out amongst the fakes and I'll vainly attempt to pollinate them.
I had to learn how to drown before I could swim.
All life changing decisions are made on a whim.
Give me a chance and I'll make you regret it.
I'll pull out all the stops so you'll never forget it.
"There once was this kid . . ."
"I once knew this man . . . "
Where is he now?
Whatever happened to him?

I fell in love with a dancer once,
back before I'd come-of-age.
I was sitting in the audience with my family,
and she was up on-stage
along with five other dancers:
two couples and her partner.

The guys all dressed the same.
The girls all dressed the same.  
And yet this one stood out to me for reasons unexplained.
It wasn't just her pretty face -
In fact, all three were pretty -
but something in the grace she moved with,
as if she were the epitome of beauty.  

They wove in-and-out of each other in a spiraling ballet.
I strained to keep my gaze trained on her form,
as if she were the pearl in a gypsy's shell game
and I had my life-savings riding on the outcome.

The steps grew more dramatic.
The partners recoiled from each other.
The lights grew dim, for a second,
then the music crescendoed,
and with a grand flourish each couple reunited then froze in place.

A look of horror on my face as I realized the loveliest dancer's partner had made a mistake:
the hem of her skirt had got caught on the hand that was now on her waist,
and a black-leotarded wedge between her legs was on display for however many glorious, grueling, stomach-churning seconds that pose was held for until the lights went out.

The performance left me feeling a mix between elated and tragic,
and I sat staring into that blackness transfixed, as if
by some kind of magic.

What's a beautiful piece of shade like you doing in a wasteland such as this?
I wish I'd've found you sooner.
Would you mind if I rested here awhile?
Me legs are tired from desert travel.

I saw you from a distance,
but I wasn't convinced that you weren't just some phantasmal image.
You know, like a mirage?
Lemme tell you:
I'm so glad that you're not.

Thanks for the respite
and the breath of fresh air,
but my search isn't over
and my fate is out there.

For everyone who's ever lost the all important parts of themselves,
only to find it decades later on some long forgotten shelf collecting dust.

The thing is, it was the best pasta salad I've ever made.

I can't remember a single thing that I said, except for the really generic stuff like: "I'm going to go find Emily,"
And whatever else I may have said in order to break the silence.

I wish I could remember it though.

You were in my dream last night, which I also can't remember.

Much like the In-Real-Life scab on my arm.

But I can recall throwing up in your front lawn. And wanting to leave immediately after, but not going.

Resting my head against yours on some miraculous bench. Trying to shut myself up and just enjoy the shared silence.

It's not so hard to be happy
Though it seems much easier to be sad
You've just got to put all that nothing on a scale
And weigh it against everything you've always had

You know, Magic
That feeling you feel when you feel like a part of everything that's going on
Where the mood of the evening becomes you
And you smile and act but you're no longer acting of your own volition
You're going in tune with what's going on around you
And it feels so right
Like lucid dream flight
But by the end of the night
It's gone
And you're left alone in your bed
With these thoughts in your head
Wishing that you could be part of a moment without an end

Please don't hurt yourself more than I'm capable of hurting myself.
I couldn't bear it if your pain was unbearable to me.

Let's just both go to sleep.

Ring toss, you know,
where you try to get a small plastic ring to cling to the top of an empty bottle?
I've won it twice.
Both times, took home the biggest prize.

DUI's. I've had some close calls.
Passed a field sobriety test once,
but maybe she was just being nice.

Dice games;
I've only played three times in my life.
Lost a lot once,
but won big twice.

Don't judge me, Nefertiti.
I ought to turn you sideways.
It's your profile that's famous -
Not so much your face.

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.

"Hardly the most,"
said the wisp to the ghost,
as they proposed a toast to the end of their days.

"Once lost, twice poisoned,"
lamented the withering roses,
with their thorns pricking those who had given up on their purpose.

Here hangs a garden of all that is worthless,
with tendrils that seek the necks of poor souls.
Drooping from branches like abandoned puppets,
without an audience to take in the show.

Death sows seeds where no plants grow,
but the dead tread there, and they want you to know
that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you learn;
everything is flammable,
and one day you'll burn.

Went to bed and dreamed of getting my *** kicked by the Queen of Earthquakes.
Six hours later and I'm waking up with a headache.
Hid from the sun beneath sweaty sheets.
The only thing that gets cold here is the space in our chest.

Road the bus with a load of automatons withered with rust.
Scanning the seats with dead-beat eyes.
Hey, would you mind if we traded places?
I like the window seat best.

Paperclip trebuchets wage war in front of ignored spreadsheets.
Just another day in paradise,
but now I think I feel a stirring between my legs.
Here we sit waiting on a disaster to speed up our slow demise.

But all that aside, the thing is that when I stare into her eyes I can feel my feet sliding -
Carrying me toward the tittles in the middle with a gliding force that can't be avoided.

i think i might like her a little.

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.