Over thinking and analysis
can result in self-paralysis.
Digging through dirt for truth can leave you stuck in a ditch
with dimensions the perfect size and fit
of your own body.

This is no place to find the answers.
The answers are hidden somewhere inside of us.

This is just a desert of people digging for them.

Shy girl with a secret
Silently scanning the room
I think I'll go over and try talking to you

Do you mind if I penetrate through your wall of silence?
I can regale you with the minutiae of cinema and science

Play the fool to make you smile
I don't believe I've ever seen one finer
I'm almost ashamed of how badly
I want to be inside her

Can I buy you a drink?
Then we can talk of desire
But no amount of spirits
Will put out this fire

The night's winding down; now where shall we go?
You play with your hair, and say "I don't know."

Shy girl with a secret
Quietly plotting my doom
I should have known better than to have spoken with you

A dynamic life
That's what I've always wanted
And it seems to be what I've ended up with
It's such a thing to look back and see how far I've come from where I was
I needed to believe in progress

When I was younger
And learned about Siddhartha
I became so inspired
I finally knew what to go after

Enlightenment
The cure to these insufferable thoughts
Some sort of consistency between what was real and what was not
No one ever told me about the side effects

Nietzsche was always after me
Plato trying desperately to show me the trees
Capitalism challenging me to determine the difference between what I want and what I need

The side effects:
I couldn't tell the difference from one person to the next
The opposite of dynamic is static
I've grown numb by the shock of every time I encounter it

How can you be so dense?
How can you not see?
There's very little difference between you and me

Sometimes I feel mad
I get so angry
The side effect of pursuing enlightenment
Is insanity

Anything remotely stressful leaves you with the thought of "I need a drink."
You only say clever or honest things when you're hungover.
The taste of orange juice and coca-cola carry a phantom aftertaste of liquor.
******* forget about *****. Can't do it anymore. Drank too much of that **** when you were younger. Just the smell of it makes you gag.
Life only seems worth living if you're a few drinks in.
Three beers later, and suddenly every song is about you.
Sometimes, it's preferable to sleep in your car.
Certain words and phrases haunt you for reasons that you can't explain or  don't remember.
You wonder whether or not your friends even actually like you,
or know you.
Goals seem like fancy unobtainable things that you'll never fully commit to going after.
The end of your poems ****.

Getting lost between the pages.

I heard her sing a silent song.
By the time I'd learned the words,
she was already gone.

She wasn't here for very long,
but I am still haunted by her verse.
I heard her sing a silent song.

It resonated in my bones.
I vibrated with yearning.
She was already gone.

A mute melody to quell the dawn,
and keep the world from turning.
I heard her sing a silent song.

Like a whisper from the moon to hold back the sun,
I close my eyes and I’m no longer sure
if she's really gone.

Imprinted in the earth after the eclipse was done;
her lyrics washed up on the shore.
I heard her sing that silent song,
but she was already gone.

Feel the heart that sinks through floors.
Float the farce -
crawl on all fours.
A spider never lost its step
when caught in its own web.
Weave the trail that eats the mist.
**** it in.
Explode essence.

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?

The moon does more than pull the tide,
it pulls on insides too.
It twists intestines into knots while causing monsoons on the other side of the world;
a swirling pool in the stomach of a girl.

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

"I don't go to any university.
I'm a student of the Universe.
Life is my major."

"Life's a wave man.
You just gotta ride it.
Try to hang ten."

"The gnarliest of rides tend to be the most radical."

"That guy's caught in a riptide.
He's trying to fight the current,
but all's he gotta do is swim to the side."

"Sometimes a wave will crash and smash you against the shore,
and you get cut up by the shells and sand,
but you can't give up.
Just gotta get back out there and try to ride again."

"Save your highways and byways.
I'm a roadside diner where everything is served Sunny Side Up."

Slowly realizing that life moves too quickly when compared to the rate that we're dying.

Slowly learning that the only lessons worth knowing are the ones that take a lifetime of trying to understand.

Quickly tiring while waiting for some mysterious seed to grow into a full sized fruit-bearing tree.

All this time spent wondering how best to spend my time will surely be the death of me.

Keep it safe
in familiar territory.
Nothing non sequitur.
Nothing out of place.
Don't go sailing off into outer space.
Stick to topics that relate.
(Ignore how everything is connected to everything else -
not everyone thinks that way.)

Nothing out of left field.
You've got to save some face.
There's a reputation (somewhere, somehow) to maintain.
Be polite, pleasant, and plain.
Leave the madness in your brain.
Hide your heart;
keep it tucked away,
and above all else,
don't go digging up those corpses from their grave.

"Wonderful weather we're having.
Isn't it a lovely day?"

There's so much more to life.
That can't be all there is to say . . .

"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.

Just because you're deep in thought,
doesn't mean your thoughts are deep.

Just because you're lost in dreams,
doesn't mean you're losing sleep.

Things are always what they seem,
except for when they aren't.
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear to be,
if you know what I mean;
clearly blurry and vaguely crystalline.

Anyway, I'm hungry.
Let's go get a cheeseburger or something.

Liquid ladders melt beneath every step.
I'll hold it in place so it doesn't shift.
Two levels up and three looks back,
at some point we lost our grip.

I thought I was falling for you,
but I was really just falling.
I thought you could catch me.
I was wrong.

Medicine is all relative.
The trick is to find something that makes you feel okay by the end of the day.
I think I've found one that works well,
(with a slight side-effect of sometimes making the next one a living hell.)

But I've found an antidote for this problem:
Bacon, eggs, toast and coffee.
Though I can't have more than three or else I'll get all jittery,
and start saying really weird things,
which may drive me to self-medicate a little more the following night.
You know, just to feel alright about all of the weird things I may have said and end up regretting later on.

Luckily, there are medicines that can erase regretful memories,
but you probably shouldn't have more than six of these,
or else some really weird things may start happening.

Like remembering where you parked the opossum car in that one dream you had when you turned thirteen,
while forgetting that today is your nephew's fourth birthday.

Here, I got you this.

"Hey, I don't think that's really an appropriate gift."

"What do you mean? I would've been thrilled to've my own taxidermied bobcat's head when I was six."

"There're so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to begin."

Medicine is all relative.
Subjective, if you will.
If what works for you doesn't work for them,
well then, who gives a ****?

We've all got our own illnesses to deal with.

I hate.
I hate, and hate, and hate.
I take a break
to read a book no one appreciates,
then clock back in
just to hate again,
and hate, and hate, and hate.
The things you love.
What you think is great.
Those are all of the things I hate.
I hate, and hate, and hate.
I hate myself for hating it.
I hate the way it makes me feel.
Like everything is meaningless.
Like nothing is even real.
I hate you so much for making me hate the way that I am.
I hate every situation that I find myself in.
I hate that I love you in spite of it.
I hate.
I hate.
I hate you for it.

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 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.

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?

Scream loud as possible into a freshly washed pillow still soaked with dreams of snakes and her face and friends who don't give a ****.
Raging against self-inflicted wounds wrought by the subconscious.
Two weeks later and infested again.
Muffled yells at half-volume to deal with it.
Manifested from fears like that kid from my nightmare last year with the macaroni in his hair.
I'm still haunted by it.
Feel that wrench in the stomach like an egg-beater twisting my guts.
Scream as loud as I can into a pillow twice-washed.

Punch the walls, feed the host, burn the demons, starve the ghost.
Scream without a filter and break all the windows.

Sleeping again but it never ends; never stops, never quits or gives in.
Always creeping below the surface.
What did I do to deserve this?
Screaming into a pillow thrice-washed.
Laugh at the clock and make friends with the dark.

Burn the walls, starve the host, please the demons, feed the ghost.
Bleeding from a punch to the window.
Self-inflicted ruin to appease the subconscious.
Scream as loud as you can into a wet pillow.

64,500 words have never meant so much.
Read enough books and you'll find your out of touch.
The rest of them can't know what it's worth.
They don't read enough.

I've been meaning to reread A Brave New World.
Something haunts me about the ending.
Between slaying lions for loved ones and belts of contraceptives,
I've taken on a whole new perspective.

*** without love,
and love dismissed with ***.
In high school I thought this world would be best,
but all of a sudden, it's happened too fast.

I used to relate to Bernard,
with his inferiority complex,
but now I fear I'm just like John;
one day my feet will swing from the north,
to the east,
south,
and then west.

Years ago, when I lived on the coast,
I made friends with this kid who was a salesman at Sears.
He once sold a coworker his ****.
He was very upset when he told me about it.
(That's the thing about regrets,
they're the type of thing one never forgets.)
We used to hit the bars,
but it never went very far.
He quickly lost interest in it when he learned I wasn't into chasing skirts.
One night we ended up on the beach in our best shoes and shirts,
and he told me how his father had drank himself to death.
It's the type of thing I'll never forget.

She said, "well played,"
but it was all just in my head.
This game of who gets laid
and who ends up in an empty bed.
I'll sleep in it.
I guess, I've always been a *******.
Who's to blame?
It seems we've both played our part,
but I hate you for winning.
I hate you for it.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.

Sorry about that.
My feelings got shut off.
Totally beyond control.
An automatic response.
Now I'm saying sorry,
but we both know I'm not.

The surface seems sweeter the deeper you go.
Please give me your hand.
I'm too far below.

It's always darkest right before dawn.
How long have I been sleeping on rock bottom?
Have you got a breathing apparatus on?
I'm sending signals in waves.

This is a new kind of certain old craze:
holding one's breath til the end of their days.

A good captain always goes down with his ship.
Easily done when there are no lifeboats attached to it.

I'm shooting up flares.
Is anyone there?
They sail right on by when you no longer care.

No, really though.
Five bucks for a throw.
Please take me home with you.
I can't stand to be alone.
I can understand if you will
hide me like ***** laundry,
but I've got charm and looks to ****.
Please do what you want with me.

You know what you suffer from?
It's a displacement of the Soul
It's not way up there above the endless sky
Or trying to get at you from down below
It's always been right were you are
And I hope one day you gain control
So that you can radiate it out from yourself
To become a part of everything you will ever know

Her feline inspired lines are amongst the best,
but she's still a cat lady, nonetheless.

A hermit's heart may weigh lighter than the feather,
but he's spent all his days longing for something better.

The lonely are often alone by choice -
that's the way it seems to me, at least.
I'll take to writing and forgo my voice;
plan it out while I walk down lonesome streets.

Eyes closed;
shuttered windows.

"Hooray for loners," said he,
Slamming his fists on the bar.

"Three cheers for loners," he said,
Feeling surrounded by kindred spirits who refused to join in.

"Here's to the loners," he repeated to the ceiling, while falling off the stool.

"For all loners die alone," he croaked from the floor, as he was dragged away.

"You know I'll always love you"
I think that's how it went
But I know I've been a total wreck
Ever since that accident

You once said I was the one
Now you complain I'm always moping
"Let's go out and have some fun!"
We've different ways of coping

I don't see how you can ignore it
So afraid to tell me what you're thinking
You say my problem is that I dwell too much
And that I'm always drinking

"It's not like I can help it!
You think I want to be this way?!"
"Please just ******* stop it!"
"Please go the **** away!"

We used to talk of getting married
And raising a family
And living near some mountains
Drinking wine on balconies
Going on vacation
Teaching our kids to read
Making up our own board games
Planting apple trees

I know that you're frustrated with me
But I could give a ****
Go ahead and leave then
So that I may self-destruct

Surfing on the waves of the apocalypse,
our hero dives deep to grab the wings of angel fish
then spins with hands full 'til he's at the center of a whirlpool capable of drowning the world.

The reaper appears in the eye of a storm,
and as our hero peers into the depth of his cowl,
he's surprised to find a smiling caricature of his own face.

(This is the part where the main character blasts off into outer space.)

Armed with a bottle full of light,
he slays the wicked worms boring holes through his brain.
With the combined might of all the stars that remain,
he smites the dark matter beast before it can retreat to the unseen place between all things.

But victory is bittersweet,
as our hero soon discovers that he can no longer breathe.
For lack of the existence of gaps,
his lungs collapse beneath the crushing weight of everything as it condenses into one solid mass with an atomic number quickly approaching infinity.

Everything goes black,
then suddenly . . .
BANG!

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

I miss being a kid
and strolling through rows of books in a quiet library -
scanning titled spines and waiting for some divine revelation;
a serendipitous instance of the sudden realization that
this is the one, I can feel it!

Slipping it out of its place on the shelf slowly,
as if it were a sacred and fragile thing.
Reading the dust jacket and thinking:
Yes! This is it!

Opening it slowly, (is it weird to say something about savoring its scent?) and reading a few scattered sentences, enthralled, before closing it quickly and clutching it close;
head scanning left to right to make sure the coast is clear.

*No one must know that I've found it.
They all thought I was nuts. They called me crazy,
but I knew it'd all work out if I continued to believe.
I've finally found the most magical book in the whole wide world;
the one that's been written
just.
for.
me.

If you know how a spell is cast,
all the magic words to incant it and such,
does it have less of an effect when it's cast on you?
Does is matter much?

I've never understood the phrase:
*Sweet Irony

My older sister grieves when I tell her about my favorite movies,
because she realizes, in every case, that I relate to the protagonist.
(They're almost always tragedies.)

He just broke the record!
History is smashed.
Progress is proven through his action.
The old conquerer is past.
Let's celebrate this brand new glory,
and love it while it lasts.
Add a new page to this story.
This one now is best.
We will anxiously await
for the next one to surpass him.
Every victory is great,
but no win is everlasting.

"I KILLED IT!" she screamed,
then spilled her drink on my dreams.
Her dress, I mean.
It's what I meant to say.

"You know,
some bleach will clean that right away."
What a mess.
We must have fell three times that night.

I don't mind concrete so much,
so long as it's underfoot and not in my gut.

She sang that song all wrong,
but it's okay.
It felt right.

It's the birds in the air -
how fair is it that they should fly care-free
only to land on power lines that help your faraway words get said to me?
Replayed through my head in dreams where I'm climbing up some impossibly tall tree to grab at fruit that withered weeks ago.
Bitter flesh tastes best when blended with the rest of the roots.
I can't keep track of which of these fields actually yielded vegetables.

Snipped at the base,
soaked in water,
sprinkled with lemon juice to spruce up the taste.
I just need a minute.
Please, just give me a moment to clean up the place.

It should come as no surprise.
Everyone who lives, one day dies.
Whether it's by freak accident,
Or an elongated courtship with
the agents of death.
Why then,
do we always feel so cheated when
we take our last breath?

Most prey loathe to be caught,
but some like being chased.