I still tear these words out of my throat occasionally
And I talk to you but I know you're not listening
All you do is silently scream from behind every song
And oh how I play you on repeat, just to get a taste
Hungering like the ****** that I am
You're my most romantic drinking problem
You're poison and I can't get enough
My body quivers, my hands shake
But you'll never be my fix
You can't fix this mess I've wrought
With unchained heart and foolish tongue
And I'd rather see an end to this heartache
But where's the fun in finality?

Your genitals were in my mouth
You gasped and you groaned
Your genitals were in my mouth
Pulling my hair as you moaned

Your genitals were in my mouth
But I'll never speak to you again
I've been taught well to
Dissociate readily with a grin

My life is starting a new chapter
While nostalgia's fingers firmly grasp pages dog-eared from wear, despair
Refusing to lose their place, to let go
Stubbornly bookmarked a time pockmarked with sorrow

Oh foolish persistence!
Look ahead to new endeavor
Love's too clever to predict

I miss that which has long ceased to be
I'm sure you're still beautiful
I know you are
But you're not who I fell in love with
Not anymore
Time has done so much
Changed, gnarled, skewed

I wander through graveyards of dead memories
Fondly reminiscing warm hands, soft lips, radiant sunsets, cruise ships

We amass stories, experiences
We adapt and change
What is left of the person you were 3 years ago? 5? 10?

And so again I'm sorry
(I've learned the taste of that word well)
I've no idea who you are today
But I love you, whatever that means
However I can, I love you

Lips the taste of disastrous perfection
A kiss that could only portend my undoing

It could be so different
You and I could detonate
Set off a beautiful supernova
Blow it all away

We could rediscover each other in a new world
Build anew, break it down and start again
I would love you through the birth and death of stars
The cosmos would be ours to paint
It could be so different

Two tangled, disembodied souls consuming each other
Feeding each other and growing
A loving symbiosis rippling through space and time
It could be so different

Erosive process
Your relentless memory
Worn walls, weakened heart

Could you graph the path of my wrathful masochism?
Where would you end?
See I tend to forget the beginnings of it all,
Just this gruesome conclusion
This heinous collusion of chance and demons
An occlusion of vision
This endless derision of what I continue to hold so dear

And what if they made a movie of my narrowminded delusion?
A myopic biopic starring yours truly,
And duly shown for all to see real lunacy

"Love's forever," I says to me and
Forever can be as long as you want it to be

A love maternal
Is a love eternal

For all the things I've done
She was probably the one I hurt most
With words like daggers
And still I stagger from what I did

I'll internalize this shame
Metabolize in vain
You see my brain won't let me see another day
Without remembering
And all I do is pray you're happy

(n.):* the kind of bitterness plaguing your tongue no matter how you drown it in liquor

Hatred, agony in your wake
You'll repent upon the stake
Flames licking clean your crime
Your memory forevermore in grime

Bite your tongue
Your song is sung
******* villain
Your guts are spilling

You kissed her on the cheek and still remember the way her eyes crinkled as she smiled
Maybe you did it because you just didn't know what to say
Maybe it was the last time you'd get to

It's the kind of kiss you still think about years later
A neural pathway dedicated to that snippet of time, firing, firing
Devastating and vivid
A chance to live it again and again

I'm a ******* mess
Such a ******* success
It's just an excess of unrest
Because nothing's really wrong

I watch the sunset and sip beer
And it's all just a bit queer
How I could really complain
Look upon with disdain
A life that's really not that ******* bad

The **** in your head is what'll do you in
The demons within, all dripping with sin
I just can't make peace, can't find a release
To try and grease this process along
Until I find a place where I belong

Whisper me sweet lullabies
Hold me tight and promise me
That I'll never have to live without you

Love is an illness for which we have no cure
We watch time compound it
We allow new lovers to bury it
But how do you forget how it felt to set your heart on fire with love's first kiss?
And how do you forget the inferno blazing in your innards when you lost everything?

There is this curious naïveté that falling in love anew will be your salvation
But how do you ever tread as carelessly ever again?
How do you venture into brambles unknown without apprehensive prudence infecting your every step?

There is no erasing what your hands and words have wrought
And there is no relief from any song daring to utter "love"

Love is your cross to bear
Your burden to carry
Your reminder that somewhere is a human being who means absolutely everything
Whose happiness is more important than yours
Who only deserves the best

Flesh firm ripe
Juices spilling
Carnal fruition

Trust
Is the
First
To rust
Before
It all
C   o   l   l   a   p   s    e    s

Midnight concerns strangle
Like some new fangled torture
Shut up, not one more peep
Just close your eyes and sleep

**** there's a lot on my mind
These memories are most unkind
Time is no friend of mine
To this fate I am consigned

Tasty biting whiskey peat
Yes that's right, I'll take mine neat
Smoky cask strength, burning heat
Thank you Scotland for this treat!

She was the only lighthouse in a roiling sea of black

My rowboat upended
As the waves enveloped my screams

Gasping, reaching
As the foamy pitch swallowed me whole

CLANG mourned the lighthouse
Her yellow beam helplessly revolving

CLANG  *CLANG

Every woman deserves to be someone's muse

Immortalize her
Paint her with undying words
She is your purpose
The reason you toil
The reason your soul bleeds
The reason you can't fall asleep without her clinging to the tendrils of sleep trying to wrap you in sweet unconsciousness

She'll be the reason you can't absentmindedly look at lakes

She'll be why your pen keeps moving
She'll be the ink when your pen runs dry
She'll be there, even if you can't touch her

She'll always be there

After we're gone
  The clocks will keep ticking
     Keeping time for no one
         Tick
             Tock
  Hearts will keep beating
     Aching for faded lovers
         Lub
             Dub

After we're gone
   Which clock will be the last
        to finally stop?

He's left everybody
She grimaced, "...And me?"
He nodded, "mais oui."
She asked why. *"Ennui."

Choking in this atmosphere
Help me please, I'm dying here!
I need a breath, resuscitation
A change of pace, a new location

You know that lump in your throat?
The one that feels like you'll choke any second?
Those are the words you sent to die in your stomach
They're the ones you wanted to say
The ones you thought might fix everything
Or maybe they'd ******* **** you, who knows?

But you swallow that lump, and you breathe and you wonder if those words would ever be given a voice, granted an audience
because God knows they're not dead,
they're churning around in your stomach
giving you hell for what you've done

And look, I'm sorry, this is the best that I can do. I hope that counts for something.

Spring is in bloom
While I smile through gloom
The flowers are here and they're bright
I look and I cheer
As this warmth is so dear
Maybe now the gloom will take flight

I salt all my wounds,
Excoriate the flesh,
I like the way it stings,
And makes the pain feel fresh

What could I write you
That would make up for this time
For the words I threw
And the women I ******

I'm not sorry but that's a lie
I'm sorry every day that you aren't here
Sorry it was easier to give up than try
I'm sorry life happened this way

I've proven that I could give myself to others
Making an attempt at bliss
But it's never been the same
Something's always been amiss

What could I write you
I wonder as I sit, sighing
I don't know
But I'll never stop trying

Dressed to impress
And I must confess
How full of **** I really am

My life's a dichotomy
Pure business is what they see
Hair slicked back
Professional, hot ****
Smiling proud, *******
Look at my doctorate!

Charming sociopath
I'll grin like you've never seen before
"It was a pleasure talking to you," she'll tell me

And in my head, I'm ******* screaming
I'm dancing with devils and entertaining ghosts
Tempering and instigating demons with liquor in a paradox I've yet to understand
Engendering masochistic tendencies
Because I deserve no better

I hear your echoes in every bottle,
It's all I can do to reach for the cork
I need this, I need this, I hate this
Please, please, please
Leave it, just leave it, at ease

Such pride, such vanity
Such dignity, chin up, love

It's over but does it ever really end?