I hope the *******
Was worth losing a great wife
You douchenozzle

My armor shines in the midday sun
As I stroll along these ramparts
Walled out from the treasure within
But my message is easy to impart

I know the devastation wrought
Evidence of failure scattered about
A lesser would quit the fight
But unending patience I can tout

The queen watches from her tower
Secure behind her stone parapets
She sees me on my constitutional
She knows I am promise and threat

I serve at her majesty’s pleasure
Even while I disobey my liege
For I will not storm this Gothic castle
But I shall never lift this siege

Today you’re just across the street
A few steps closer and I’m right there
Staring at your bright eyes for answers
Hoping you betray what I want from this

Today will not be that desperate day
No, now is the day I stand my ground
You will stay in your world and I mine
Our paths have diverged by choice

Today my love is for those who want me
The ones who want to put in the effort
My pride won and self-destruction lost
Keeping me from a desperate walk

You’re the one who keeps me grounded
Reminds me what life is about

The one thing I did absolutely right
The scariest thing I’ve ever done, I’m reminded

When I sneak into your room every night
For one more kiss on your forehead

I’ll never be as good as I want to be
I wish I could learn your mistakes for you

I’ll forever try to be everything you need
I’ll forever try to make it up to you

Path I didn’t choose or want

Addition of another love

Means division of a single heart

Unsustainable and unhealthy

Subtraction is a cold calculus

Coiled and never broken
Two hearts woven to one form
He said to her as she teared
“We can’t weather the storm”

Their souls were tangled close
She knew him for the better
“We’re miserable apart always
I am your love, not fetter”

She continued to plead to him
Her voice continuing to travel
“You and I are united, my love
Our love never to be unraveled”

He prayed, angels of better nature
For the wisdom of heaven above
“What of the days I disappoint you
When I am not a man to be proud of?”

“Those times they will come and go
You will still find me at your side
We will carry our weight together
I’ll still look on you with pride”

“I believe it may be a grand disaster
Two fools facing the world peerless”
“When two are entwined as us
We face the world truly fearless”

Everything came effortlessly
As we talked and walked endlessly
Two people alone in a crowd
Your laugh so boisterous and loud

Climbing on a forgotten train
And getting caught in the rain
I don’t know how it all ends
But I know we aren’t just friends

I see them too when I close my eyes
I hear the sounds like yesterday
There is so much a mind can retain
Especially when you don’t want it to
Flashes of horror then shudders, shivers
Guilt is a terrible burden to carry
When you never deserved to own it
Demons find you in the dark
And keep you from seeing a way out
You see a permanent solution
To your very permanent problem
But there is still light in the tunnel
Hope is never truly far behind
Look to those holding out their hands
Don’t you leave me here like this

It was then I knew it was over
When you didn’t care about me
What we had run its course
And I found myself alone again

Look for the one that won’t let go
Parade of those who never ask
Because I’m just too much to carry
Figure it out myself, alone again

I’ll be pathetic until the very end
Hoping you’ll chase me like I, you
Pretend it’s not too late for us
Alone again with my thoughts

It never works no matter what I want
My heart will beat faster and faster
As I watch you turn your back on me
I’ll find myself alone again to break

Pick myself and dust myself off
I’ve done it all before and will again
Look for the one who won’t run
Then maybe I won’t be alone again

The first part is the best part
The excitement of control
Conjuring art from nothing
Digging into a damaged soul

Then the fear sets itself deep
Talentless and lack of insight
Going to the same stupid well
My weakness exposed to the light

I bought Poetry for Dummies
I’m no poet, and I know it
But I step up once again
I hit submit and I show it

I hold my breath as it posts
I pray for the views and the likes
My “gift” to Hello Poetry
Desperate to avoid dislikes

I don’t want forced pity
Candid confession from a man
Hiding behind pseudonym
Who hopes you can just understand

I’ve always preferred dark, rainy days
Like God is telling you to stay inside
Hold onto your loved one and stay dry
Enjoy the feeling of soft imprisonment

I can never forget the days in the pour
Unable to dodge the globs of cold water
The torrent making warmth impossible
The cozy light of home so far distant

I remember those days in my distant past
They remind me to hold everyone close
Appreciate that I can still breathe their air
And watch the rain harmlessly on windows

On a journey which may never end
Searching for something already found
They beg him to end his exodus
To admit defeat to his crucible
Steadfast, undaunted he carries on
Trudging through his own wasteland
Rainless night as lightning streaks the sky

Another storm, another shelter
Another mountain, another climb
Another valley, another descent
Another sea, another sail

He perseveres beyond all good reason
Encouraged by a mere drop of the rain
Or the slight hint of the sun deep in the sky
He chases the horizon which never stops
Champion of a solitary war he alone wages
King of a hopeless cause he only understands
Cursed by the hope he is not forever ******

My words have failed me again
Staring at the blinking line
Shaking my head back and forth
Hoping to find text goldmine

I have felt this way before
Set myself up for freefall
Overthink my every move
Whether I should type or call

Hit send and hope it turns out
It won’t be great, this I know
You’re right, that’s not what I meant
It was just a true typo

Take the bet you said
There’s no way we can lose
Naked in a snowstorm

Vague vision of a room free of distraction
Cuddled close tightly in each other’s arms
This heavenly dream of you beside me
Perfect nightmare when I wake alone

Mirror wounds only show we braved the same knives
Your run for safety only leads to a solitary false harbor
Keeping you in place as I lament from behind my line
My failed battles have been with demons like yours
That will keep you in place to strengthen your weakness
There is no perfect world where these wounds won’t reopen
But the blessings can outweigh any tragedy if you let them be
There is no amount of days which will let me stop wishing
For those days marching in a row creating our own music
This imperfect world will try to cleave us repeatedly in two
Yet cupid’s arrow has kept together those without light and heat
Your feelings of failure are the result of what is now missing
As your soul yearns to restore the completion we both once had
It’s more than just our share of scars which line up perfectly
Broken bones can heal repeatedly but hearts stay that way
What will you do about the blessings you already had?

I am just another weary, stymied Sisyphus
Slowly climbing the eternal hill of existence
Finding no rest or crest of contentment
Only the familiar face of failed endeavors

I am so sick of unrewarded undertakings
Give all of yourself to meet stolid silence
Before the boundless boulder recedes again
Dead on my feet, I retreat to the doldrums

I don’t decide on your beauty day to day

It’s a static viewpoint I won’t redecide



Regardless of the excuses you have:

Too much makeup!

Too little makeup!

Wait! I blinked!

Wrong angle, I have two chins!

Are my ears sticking out?

All of my hair is out of place!

Don’t get my profile, my nose has a bump!

I thought you aren’t supposed to get red eye anymore?

I look so tired today.

This shirt is doing me no favors.

Is one eye larger than the other?

For the love of God who has a comb?

Is that a gray hair?!

Is that a goat in the background?

That’s a zit. It’s a zit isn’t it?

I just don’t take good pictures. Ask anyone.



Keep adding to the list, doesn’t matter

You’re beautiful to me in any light



Wait, I just sent you a picture

Are you doing the same to me?!

This place is too big
Since you left here

The light is dimmer
Music a lull

Eternal winter
Without a cure

This is my promise
Come back to me

I’ll be by the door
When you come home

And the acrid breeze will burn our eyes

The conflagration may scorch



We want the warmth to keep us safe

Show us what we never had



Obscured in the gray, dark mist

I see you clearly in the glow



You keep talking about the smoke

But all I see is the fire

It was much lower

You are my new baseline

I will never go back

My worn, weathered armor is spattered with mud and blood
From a brutal and deadly siege which seems never-ending
The lone queen stares down from her perch with her glacial glare
Concealing from the world a broken heart needing mending

I know she can’t look in the mirror and see the truth
She is her own jailer, prisoner of her own design
The keys in the door of her cold solitary cell
Evidence of me decorating her suffering shrine

From her perch upon the ramparts I reveal to her
The scars I’ve acquired in war to my very heart and soul
They line up so perfectly to the wounds she obscures
She doesn’t realize they are a map to who makes us whole

My vow was to never storm this castle she adorns
Believing a perfect world may exist, I tempt the fates
Unleash the slings and sharp arrows, pain and broken bones
The line has been crossed, it’s time for her to open the gates

I bathed in its light as it hung in the sky
Soaked in every ray to make my soul brighten
Pretended the fading was temporary
Before facing the death on the horizon

I never thought I’d see the light disappear
I also never thought I’d wish it away
But I believe before a new day can start
The old one needs to end after its decay

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn
Another tiring aphorism I despise
It’s always darkest after the sun goes down
When you are furthest from the brand new sunrise

It was always a long shot anyway

Just a couple of broken hearts

Looking for shelter in the storm

Maybe just a story on a week away?



Sure the late night talks were great

But what do we know about each other?

It’s just a burning passion keeping us up

And passion is just fleeting fancy, right?



Trading songs which say it much better

Asking questions like a high school pair

What I did learn is we are opposites

What is it they say about them attracting?



Yeah, it will all go down in flames

What are the chances of such a thing?

This is a just a bunch of kindling

Waiting on the first spark to send it up



Because we can’t possibly make it, right?

No matter how long I imagine it

We can’t be those stories that make you cry

Of beating all those odds, can we?

There are two ways to believe
I can listen to your words
Or what you really mean
Either way I'm downright ******

Your little lies and half-hearted honesty
Make up your maudlin mask of melancholy

Cloistered in your castle by the roaring river
Isolated cries give life to your tranquil torment

The world will see you as a quixotic queen
Unburdened seemingly to the unknowing masses

A beautiful break or valiant victory
Lay in your future of exhausting effort

Project your perfect stillness towards me
I’m a fool for you but you don’t fool me

My poems are my way of hiding from you
Awful alliteration masks pain
If I can shroud my sadness over you
I don’t admit what still remains

I’m hoping to reach you in my words
Somehow reigniting light and heat
Foolish minstrel desperate to believe
That it matters if I am replete

You lied when you said you don’t love me
Because God cannot be this callous
To show me what a complete soul feels like
Then to tear it away with malice

Since our last night together I’m split
Between happy and falling apart
These syllables are my committed attempt
To rebuild your kingdom in my heart

Still I scribble in the gift you gave me
Remembering us warmly entwined
When two damaged spirits at last content
Waiting on impending doom, resigned

If you never read these pathetic lines
Then I sing to myself in regret
If you are reading with misty eyes
Then you know it’s not over yet

Final confession which will not surprise
My love for you proving unending
Whenever you see me recovering
Know I will always be pretending

Tonight I danced with Cathrine the Great
Swaying slowly as I shift my weight

A childhood dream come true in my arms
And I defenseless against her charms

I stare at her in the candlelight
Her green eyes glowing perfectly bright

Her majesty brings me to my knees
I breathe deeply to hide my unease

I beg for this waltz to never end
Or my heart will break and never mend

Tonight I danced with Cathrine the Great
Tomorrow alone, left to my fate

You tried to break me in two
You were all rain and no sun
You robbed my light away
You reduced me to tears
You showed me my depths

I am not broken and you’re gone
I will make my own weather
I will find radiance in the new
I will celebrate triumphs daily
I am indestructible and not alone

Every withheld thought an abstraction  

Every long look a manna

Every bated breath an approval

Every ***** note a nuance

Every slow walk a distraction

Everything about you an allure

A wound like a long-lost friend
Not present but never truly gone
Invisible to all but me at all times
Deeper than a knife to my heart

I never want it to close or heal
A reminder of that which is lost
A connection taken from me
To a port in life’s terrible storm

I hate this ******* empty feeling
That I can’t be truly whole again
Piece of me permanently dead
That used to make me feel so alive

When you awaken
In the middle of the night
Did you think of me

I sometimes feel like the sight
That causes sore eyes
A storyteller with a sad ending
Who makes your ears bleed

You know I fell for someone
Who didn’t fall back
A deep bruise black and blue
Like the one you left

The truth is I am pretty happy
But still bent, not broken
The eternal optimist in the market
For a new muse to amplify me

Are you the one who makes it click
A camera on the perfect shot
Adding symmetry to my rough edges
Left wanting nothing more

It was a cliché, smokey country bar
When she crooned into my memory
As I heard a hint of her old accent
From a bygone Virginia residence
Faint and fading but not all gone
In the minstrel’s spell she cast in her song

Life put her on that stage for me
And I begged for her gaze to be on me
To end the long, cold, lonely nights
And as Etta said, at last, this night
She caught my unceasing, tense stare
And right then, she sang only to me

The night will be long, thoughts multiply

Did he hold the door? Pay for everything?

Did he call her beautiful? Did he mean it?

Is he kissing her the way he kisses me?

Does she make his heart beat faster like me?

Will he whisper in her ear like he does to me?

Does he say the things that make me crazy?

Did she claw at his back like I always do?

Did they stare into each other’s eyes during?

Did he hold her close to his chest after?

Did he like it? Did he think of me at all?

I made the mistake of falling in love
And not taking a hint it was over
My friends tell me to get over it
She told you she didn’t love you
There’s nothing left for you to do
But what I felt was real and new
Piercing through my skepticism

So why do I keep holding on?
There’s a ***** little secret I keep
The truth is this is where I want to be
Wallowing in the warmth of self-pity
Telling myself my pain means something
That I am a knight on an epic quest
For the one that I love in this fairy tale

Life is not the epic romance I make it to be
It is cold and lonely and you get left behind
I will persevere beyond all reason
Because in the dark, when I pray
The words keep coming to me the same
Stay the course, stay the course
Even if the voice is merely my own

Did you want me to fall flat on my face?

I know why you look at me wearily

You want to know where the catch is



I saw you watching me and that little smirk

I know awkwardness is a defense

And it’s not hot in here, that’s just us



Pay attention and you don’t need directions

Those weak knees ain’t from the hiking

Prepping for the night is obsolete, dear



It’s a beautiful thing when it all aligns

When someone fits your contours just right

And now my bed feels too **** big

Here we are so deep in something we didn’t mean to

Two wounded souls with ghosts in an unfamiliar town



You slowly opened your gates to reveal yourself to me

The time with you was no longer nearly enough to satisfy



I was a fool pretending to be a poet slinging passion

Daring the flames to quench this growing enthusiasm



You were a skeptic looking a reason to explain this away

And found out our contours fit together like a puzzle



I, riddled with clichés and begging to be taken seriously

Finding an Eshton twin while trying to just start over



You dared me not to see a woman begging to be written for

Your half phrases, your intense stares, and confident walk



I found a muse and saw much more than you bargained for

A weird woman who intrigued me with every little nuance



You believed no subject too taboo to tackle together  

Multiple choice exams never were as easy as yours



I realized my defenses had been stolen from under me

The siege general suddenly realizing he is besieged



You were a treasure both all mine and not at all

Though I am a man who tilts at windmills on a calm day



I’m drained trying to put a beautiful secret into verse

I’d rather focus on holding you in the glow of the fire



You reset me in ways I never could imagine or believe  

And now I can’t imagine becoming who I was before



I realize you will still have you’re your insecurities

But you are more than enough even at your worst



These are the last words and hope they are all you need

Know now that I am yours, all yours, and only yours

Hello old friend

It's good to see you

What’s it, 20 years?

I’ve been up and down

People come and gone

Graduated college

Went to war

Fell in love

Fell out of it

Met a girl

Got married

Bought a house

Had a baby

Got some PTSD

Marriage ended

Sold the house

Started all over

Not surviving

I am thriving

How are you?

I am not sad, love

Something’s missing, you

Come back home to me

I take another tenuous step,
Up this monolithic mountain,
The cyclone comes and goes,
My progress imperceptible,

My vision is badly blurred,
Each ridge an indefinite test,
The peak is a mocking mirage,
I am unequal to my challenge,

Clouds ease to an infinite sky,
Reminder to my weary mind,
Don’t just rush to the summit,
Enjoy the precarious climb.

All you can give

All you can bear

I can want it

I can take it

Running from me

Running from you

Only if you dare

Only if you want to

More light

More heat

More you