Here's the thing about balancing between two stings that burn the same:
You can give it up or pass it on or choose not to play the game,
but no matter what the stakes involved only double as they lessen,
yet here you are concerned to hell with the one soul you're addressing.

Climb to fall or roll to save the face you made up in the first place.
The true one only shows itself after the disaster's dust has cleared away.

But who's to say of what is what and where or when it falls apart.

There will always be someone around to mop up your broken heart.

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

Sometimes when a person is talking to me
And what they're saying is particularly uninteresting
They might get the feeling that I'm not listening
And it's true
Because, mentally, I'm replacing the words they say with a repetition of the phrase:
Validate me!
Validate me!
Would you date me?
******* me?
Won't you please?
Will you maybe?
And I stare back at them, stone-faced, while thinking:
No

I'll climb all of your mountains.
Show me all your peaks.
Let me look down on the rest of the world so that I can determine their disease.

Grind me to pieces with your gravel.
Tear me limb from limb.
There's no distance I won't travel to find what beauty lies within.

Throw me in the fire.
Spread my ashes in the wind.
Breath out the remnants of this life
so that I may live again.

Chances are good that she's already lost.
A reputation precedes her: strange washed-out drunk,
but those eyes are amazing;
I wrote about them once.
I can't help but want her.
She's still got her charms,
but I've my own problems to deal with
and only so many arms.

Climbing up trees because fences are barbed.
Smoking on rooftops.
Took the lightning rod as a souvenir.
Paint markers and spray cans.
Don't worry man,
this place has been abandoned for years.
Throwing all the chairs into the pool.
Teepeeing the neighbors.
Chasing each other with fire extinguishers -
we couldn't put out the flames.
Accidental arson on Carson street.
It took that guy weeks to paint over our names.
They're offering a reward in the newspaper.
How many people have you told?
Shooting out the lights in cul-de-sacs.
The dark makes criminals feel welcome.

We never once got coal for Christmas,
but after a certain age,
vandalism just feels ridiculous.

Even some of the darkest things can shine differently in the rose-tinted hue of the rearview mirror.

Especially when it reflects the roads that aren't even there to drive down anymore.

I've sworn before, that I'll never venture those paths again.
But sometimes I find myself wandering aimlessly and then,
lo and behold,
here I am,
parked in front of that same old oak and thinking about only God knows when.

Random tidbits of ragged laundry hung out to dry a century ago.
And forgotten about,
until just now.

But it's hard not to say, that I miss the way those old threads clung to my body. The sway they held over me when I wore them. Way back then, when I slid through them everyday.

Everyday, just spent sliding away.

And now I've come back.

My feelings are so stupid.
It's like they don't think at all.

Her bed is the whale.

I don't even care if they care.
Just give me a pair of eyes to stare at while I improvise lines.
A couple of ears to hear some sorry excuses for rhymes.
I'll recite them all for less than a dime.
I'm just hoping for another free Corona.
(Please hold the ******* lime.)

Some doors should stay closed.
Certain things are best left alone.
Curiosity killed the cat,
and took its soul into the great unknown.

I wake up, alone,
to an alarm set by my cell phone,
and in a bed that's at least a thousand times more comfortable than my own.

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.

"Well, poetry, you know. Poetry, especially. Poetry is for the purists. It's like at the essence of everything. Like, music is the poetry of sounds, right? And a song is sort of poetry set to music. Art can be like, the poetry of paint on canvas. Arranged in a certain way? The arrangement is the most important part of it, sort of. It's what makes it poetry. Dancing is like the poetry of a body in motion. Movies are like, the poetry of moments - certain moments - you know, they call them scenes. And they're all presented in this kind of sequence in order to, umm, like make an impression?"

"Wait. So then, what is poetry? It's just words, ain't it?"

"Well, yea. It is and it isn't. It's more than just words. It's like the essence of things - it's hidden beneath everything. It's the sort of thing that you can only see if you're actively looking for it. Well, that's not true. Sometimes you see it when you're not looking for it. Like, (slaps hands together) wham! You know? And that's when it makes the biggest impression, and if you see it, you feel this sort of compulsion to share it."

"With words. I mean, it's just words though."

"Right, you said that. It is just words, but it's more than that. It's playing with ideas, and feelings, and meanings. It's playing with the meaning of things! It's an attempt to define the undefinable. To capture the intangible and sort of present it in the form of words. Which is ridiculous, really, because it's impossible. That's the thing about poets, they're all crazy. They're all trying to explain something that can't be explained, but they can't not do it. It's like a compulsion. It's like, you know, from math. It's like an asympto -"

"But it's just words! You already said. Math is numbers. Poetry is just words. Like, what are you even saying right now? You're not making any sense."

"Sense? Who's trying to make sense? No man, that's not what it's about. Like, what even is Sense? It's just a word. All of this. What we're saying; it's all just words."

"Right. That's what I said. It's just words."

"Yea, so then, why are we even saying them? Why are we saying 'just words.' Why are we saying these words? Right now. Why are we saying these words at this particular moment in time? Like, why? Because of poetry, that's why. Poetry is the attempt to figure out that why. And it is that why. It's the question and the answer at the same time."

"Whatever man. You don't make any sense. It's just words. Case closed."

"Right. It is and it isn't. It's more than just words. It's Just Words.
Just.
Words."

I hope regret doesn't destroy this before it starts.
Together, I believe we could make great art.

Sometimes I get you two confused in my brain.
The right and left hemispheres.
Like you're one and the same.
Melded together in my mind.
Like black and white to make gray.
Like grey matter.
Like clay.
Molded from the same kind of material.

I hope regret doesn't play a part.
I hold a place for you both inside of my heart.

The butterfly and the moth.
Caterpillar and chrysalis.
The wings and the body.
The eyes on both sides.

You're beautiful together.

Where do I fit into this?
Maybe I don't.
If so, tell me to stay away from it,
but I'll feel regret.
I love you both.

When I was a little kid,
About maybe five or six
I told my parents I would become an addict on purpose
Just to show them how to quit

They said I was foolish
They told me to stop it
But I insisted I would

Now here I am, almost 20 years later
It's about time I made good.

He swore to ignore every odd-ball notion that came awkwardly knocking at his door.

Irregular patterns tap-hapata-ladding like some kind of fiend desperate for human interaction.

"It's just a lump of useless tissue with issues I'll never be able to correct." - That's what the cardiologist thought as he had a heart attack.

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

I swear I used to care
before I met you.
There was nothing left
after all you put me through.
They say I'm better off
but I seriously doubt it.
You stole all of my sympathy
and now I'm lost without it.

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.

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.

It's not until you start swimming toward the shallows
that you discover how deep of water you were in.

After all of the personal development has been developed,
and every epiphany has been epiphanized,
what's left?

When every version of yourself has been talked out of the driver seat, only to eventually realize that your life is the road and not the vehicle,
which exit do you then take?

What does it even matter now that you understand the stakes?

After all of those personal demons have been defeated,
(resurrected once or twice, then re-beaten,)
what comes next?

What question is left unanswered at this point?
I suppose it must be:
what are we eating?

The first five days:
a whirlwind of old friends in new surroundings,
indulging in old habits with the occasional mumblings of,
"I'm proud of you man,
this is nice."

On day six, back in the stix.
Kicking it with the fams up to their same old tricks.

It's hard to say where my heart is.
I've always suffered from being adventurer-sick.

All I know is that the planets have finally aligned in such a way as
to allow me to walk down the streets I grew up on in the way that I haven't done in such a long time,
the way in which I learned all their names.
The way I grew up attempting to escape their grasp.

Now here I am, for the first time in years,
rehashing the past
and its dreams,
and its tears.

End where we started then start over again.
****** through the same side we spilled out of.
A pair of rings for fools and friends;
Crazy straw love.

Tangled then thickened to one mass.
Stripped in stark relief.
Strengths and weaknesses in high contrast;
sifting through our ashes.

I equate us to a figure eight
lying on its side.
Split down the middle -
we're nothing.

Carve the curve that craves the end.
Sliding out then in again.
Spiral arms unwinding;
Spin us toward the center.

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

Hope is a slippery thread that's worth hanging on to.

I've spent too many years trying to change the color of these streetlights to match that of my whimsy,
and I'd just as soon remain alone than to have you right here with me.

When an unseen breeze pushes these leaves to dance as shadows down my street,
I can't help from thinking:
This is beauty.

Everything is quiet.
My soul's all but silent.
The voices in my head a dull murmur.
A whispering susurrus.
At worst, a distant cicada's rhythmic chirping.

I love this all so much.
Just us, being here, like this.
Let's all live together,
for like,
forever.

Read a short story today
about a guy who has a dream
that he's writing a poem.

Took a nap when I got home.
Had a dream about writing a poem.

Woke up and wrote it.

There'll always be a person behind the mask.
Even if the answers were disappointing,
at least we had the gall to ask.

Sometimes when I look back,
I'll smile or laugh.
No matter how bad it seemed at the time,
it all turns out to be alright.

Won big to lose bigger and now the whole thing's a forfeit.
The ones who were in the back are all moving to the forefront,
and the worst bit is that I don't give a ****.
Not even a little.
In fact, I'm glad to be rid of it.

Despite any number of smoke screens;
of lofty promises and unobtainable dreams,
we'll always have that one thing we believe in.

In the event of unknown nights
spent drowning ourselves beneath the weight of our plight,
we'll always be able to find our way back.

In case we crack and get lost in the creases,
we'll have each other to pick up the pieces,
and rebuild them better than the way they once were.

You and me,
carrying on the light.
We can make it together.

I'll never again fear inclement weather,
for I've found a port in the storm.
You give me the strength to row this boat,
and a hope to row it toward.

The smartest boy I know seems content to spend the rest of his life working a dead-end job at a pool store.

The most beautiful girl I've ever met feels compelled to hurt herself.

I scream into a pillow.
I scream out loud.

The brightest stars might never be seen,
because they're hidden by the clouds.

I want to have grace, like she did.
I want to have patience like this one.
The most intelligent friend of mine once told me:
You're like some sort of chameleon.

I want to have skills like his.
I wish I could play guitar.
I want to have money, like their parents.
I'd like a reliable car.

The most psychotic friend of mine once told me:
Art is truth in disguise.
I want to be bold, like she is.
I want to reflect the fire in her eyes.

So I'll go and change colors again
into a new skin that matches the times.

I want to be beautiful,
like the one who'll never be mine.
I wish I could sing like she does.
I wish I could blow her mind.

I want to vibrate with vibrant energy.
I want to echo sounds that fill my soul,
like how the most reckless friend of mine once told me:
I'll die before I grow old.

I want to combine of all these things to make a new mold,
and reform myself from its grooves.
I want to shine like a statue made of gold,
with tinges that reflect the best from all of you.

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.

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.

If I got paid by the bottle, then I'd be a millionaire,
but cash flows in the opposite direction.
The world's not into funding despair.

If heartbreak was a skill set,
then my resume would be top-notch,
but corporate tends to frown upon
stumbling fools who reek of scotch.

The value of dollars tends to cheapen when it comes so easily.
With E! News stories of drunken coked-out celebrities,
I swear,
I've had it up to here.

Our number one commodity -
the American Dream -
has turned into a nightmare.

Filled out this application but left all the questions unfinished.
Been swimming with schools of fish bitten by sharks;
how our numbers have diminished.
This much closer to being fired but never been farther from quitting.
Spitting phlegm during my best attempts to explain it to them;
It spills out like this:

Shook a forsaken frame just to sustain the complex game being played in order to maintain some sort of constant.
Consistently bombarded with confrontations to the stasis of each and every escapist mentality.

Virtual reality narcissism.

I'll start making sense just as quick as I learn to deal with it.
Whatever that may be.
Seems our plight is nothing more than to forever search for an answer that fits.

Burnt out psychenaut
trying his hand at making art.
Mosquito bitten,
from bed-ridden to facedown in the swamp.
Glorifying mind loss.
Tossed and turned in ocean waves.
Slamming into stop signs.
Disney's just a hindsight.
Theme parks just a crime spot.
Tourists just a foreground to hide what's in the backdrop.

Head over heart into some distant fading darkness,
being pulled back into an almost familiar abyss.
You lost me at the outset,
but now I'm finding myself in this.

Your intent is to drown me, I know it.
I've told you far too much.
Placed every key inside your outstretched hands,
and now you're breaking all the locks.

Did I mean to let you in?
Is it too late to bar admission?
Is it even possible to get you out now that you've gotten in without permission?

You're not welcome in this place:
Intruder. Alien. Imposition.
But I'm so glad you're here right now;
please save me from this prison.

Let's get together and be lonely.
I'd feel a lot better if you'd just hold me,
I mean lonelier.
It'd trigger that mental state where I'm floating six feet away from the scene,
where I can see everything with the added bonus of not having to experience what I'm feeling.

Let's be lonely together, only,
I'd feel a lot better if you uttered a phrase that ended with "forever."
It'd make it easier to remember that I'm not the type to stick around,
and I could really use a good reason to leave right now.

Oh ****.
Oh no.
I've slipped into a slippery dance with all of the things I've always feared, and all of the things I'll never know,
and I can't tell anymore if it's joy or sadness that causes all these tears,
but it hardly makes a difference, so long as I can still feel this:
a precious presence in the bones;
a song sung by the body that makes me feel not so alone.

I'd kiss you on the forehead.
I'll kiss both of your eyes.
Remembering to feel alive, at least until we one day die.

If I could manipulate time, then I'd put us both in the same instant,
to breath shared air,
if only for a minute.

The reasons I stopped talking to you had more to do with my own personal shortcomings than with anything you did.

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