It is said that joy is within everyone,
that it takes only a profound understanding
of perhaps the most demanding entity-
yourself-
to reach that feeling, that unnervingly satisfying emotion.

I dove deep
into the void I call a heart,
the dusty corners of my soul,
and I found..
nothing.

However this is not surprising
for I left emotion,
and my innate humanness,
back at the intersection we passed last.
Remember it?
The corner of
Love and Betrayal.

It's been raining for months and I can't turn the faucet off – which reminds me: the sea is yours if you want it, and you don't have to be afraid of a little rainwater anymore. When you walk to your car with your shoes off and most of your sanity folded in your jeans, when your feet slap against puddles and you are remembering that you left your jacket on the doorknob, don't ever wonder if I will awaken suddenly, crying because you never stayed long enough for me to write that song to the beat of your hesitant pulse. Your car, evidently can take you farther than my hands can, but no road leading to your house and no street lamp mocking you silently knows that I hang pearls on the threads of your sanity and my stairs groan loudest when you are trying to leave quietly. If you turn around now – if you run back and tell me that you want to be sky to me and nothing else, then I will let you, as long as you promise to bleed the next eighty thousand sunrises; I will stop mentioning you to forests and looking for you in satellites and in smoldering coals, if you promise to murmur my name when the horizon is stretching and prostrating itself across the late evening. I will tell you where the sun goes when the Atlantic swallows her whole, if you tell me about the streams of cirrus clouds backing up your bloodstream. And I never ask you to search for the wildfires under my shirt again, if you give me all of the starlight under yours.

Build me with frostbite covering my heart, build me with a snowflake constantly falling from the roof of my mouth, build her with an addiction for cold weather. Let every person I miss for the next 20 years smear a dab of daylight on my sternum, let me lick my canyon deep wounds with the honeycomb tucked in between your teeth.
I want to stick a panic room underneath the chalices in my palms so they aren't so timid once I hear you talk about wearing Sunday clothes when you had your first beer.
I want the next girl I kiss to have lips like daylight and her hands to be warm, her legs to be every Summer that lasted just the right amount of time, build me with gunslinger fingertips that touch and touch and touch and stay steady, build my footsteps with the sounds of a rainstorm knocking it's fingers on the ground of an empty parking lot, build her out of prayers for a flood.
If I didn't bruise so easily, if I wasn't looking for a way to be made of a river, if I needed the silence to mean something, then I would ask you to build me out of quiet revenge and goodbyes that stick in your sides like tree branches, I would need you to build me out of reasons to believe instead of reasons to be afraid, I would turn my kneecaps into strawberries in exchange for potter's hands so I could mold you a bulletproof spirit. I want to spend the rest of my life watching the clouds, I want to have a voice as steady an oak tree and I want to see the sun cry rays of light so hard that it has nothing left in it but happiness and tugs the sky so tightly it turns purple.
We are nothing but a list of demands.

He will never,
Fill your lungs,
With sweetness.

He will never,
Hold your,
Aching hand.

He will never,
Mend the,
broken pieces.

He will never,
Learn to,
understand

oh undertaker
a high school poet died today
and they say

popularity is just relatability
see them in that mirror watching you
but check your compacts at the door
(look them in the eye)

they might **** you tonight
oh undertaker
how did they die last night?
forced the knife of lips
and lies into their minds
hit by a train full speed before the station lights
could see them in the way

we hate what we see
staring back, fade to black
in this highschool drama scene
who the **** are you?
can't be me
because i know myself, and this
dyed hair, straight kicks, concert tix
i see. that kid just aint all me

it might **** me tonight
oh undertaker
how do they die alone at night?
forcing the knife of lips
and lies into their minds
hit by a train full speed before the station lights
could see them in the way

give me my pen it's stronger
than the wings of that waterproof eyeliner
you cried off in the bathroom stall
last tuesday
oh undertaker, you
drew em back, of course
sharper than a sword but twice as brittle
because you hate the way they frame
her eyes, and your lies too

they might **** you tonight
oh undertaker
how did you die last night?
forced the knife of lips
and lies into their frozen faces
crushed by a train full speed before the station lights
could see them in the way

tonight, check you faces at the door
come in clear
and dont check your face to see
who's looking at you
we all see the same screen
our pores in bass-relief
tombstone grief

They say joy lies within yourself.
That you need only to delve deep and
Voila!
You've found joy, or happiness, or, well,
Something.
I mean, you're bound to find something-
if you go deep enough of course-
but who's to say it will be joy?

I dove deep
into the void I call a heart,
the dusty corners of my soul,
and I found..
nothing.

However this is not surprising
for I left emotion,
and my innate humanness,
back at the intersection we passed last.
What was it again? The corner of
Love and Betrayal?

beat poet
the lines, the times
they are a changin'
entropy of empathy
the anthem won't explain it

the world just keeps on turning
and warming up the globe
nations of hate hotter than warheads
hate ain't what they pay us for
be a boss but don't be bossy,
boxing in a corner lot

everyones a leader
leading no one
supply and demand spinning pulsar-fast
economies based on wars
collapsing under peacetime
without fires
the lobbies smothered fighters

beat poet
the lines, the times
they are a changin'
entropy of empathy
the anthem won't explain it

inflation  cannot haul us up
here at the bottom of the heap
can't even afford the beep
beep that tells us what's wrong in our hearts
medical bills ticking higher numbers than volumes of get-well cards
we're under attack
our changing family pact

beat poet
the lines, the times
they are a changin'
entropy of empathy
the anthem won't explain it

spoken word, short form
bytes from sharpened canines
written word, formatted to the dimensions of our icons
glittering oh one around us in the haze
our might in roaming-charged clouds of war
you can burn the papers
ban the books
we weren't writing in your margins anyway

our beat is undrummed, uncensored by you
language we took, righteous and true
and the ideas we kept to hurl out
our aim would be true

shout now
aim for us, beat poets

beat poet the times they are a changin'