It astounds me just how ignorant I can be of the hurt i have caused those i have at whatever time counted myself closest to. I find myself thinking i understand, thinking i did well to minimize the damage, and maintain the truth, but that the truth gets minimized, and the damage gets maintained in its fullest potential. I do not often hurt on purpose. I strive to do the very opposite. I do not want  to be a vindictive man, but a man of forgiveness and mercy. I find that I , in my own strength am capable only of so much mercy and forgiveness giving, that at the ends of my strength, the mercy and forgiveness run dry, while people's need to be forgiven infinitely continues to grow.  I find that in such cases, i am in direct combat with my emotions, and with , simply put, myself. I want to forgive, but i do not want there to be no punishment or repercussion to action. And so, opting for such a thing as is called grace, i pray, and one by one, i put emotions to rest. Insecurities of my own manifest and must be killed. I fight. And i pray.These two things are synonymous. I attempt to make recompense, and where i see my own minimizing of truth, in hindsight, set it to it's full nature, bluntly, and plainly, no matter the pain it brings. I am truly sorry that it brings pain. yours, and any, and many others. I only seek as best i can to right the wrongs i become aware of in myself. And yes, sometimes i am guilty of seeking loopholes, roundabouts, or escapes. I will not shy from this fact. I will, note, however, that i often need be made aware of these. For my constructing them is done with so much cunning, and so much stupidity,as to blind myself in both knowledge and deed to their existence. On occasion i taste an inkling of an excuse, and sometimes i am strong enough in myself to face it. Other times, without being confronted, i run from it. I chalk them up to insecurities or uncertainties, over analyzations and things i cannot at all bring any help to.I would ask boldly, that if you see any in specific, you will not for your own hurt, though likely being substantial, shy from me , rather, bring them to light, and give me life in the opportunity to reconcile my own beliefs to my actions. I have found lately that i have a struggle many men have. Esse quam videri- to be rather than to appear. My seeking, my willingness, essentially arises from a quest after authenticity at all costs. If i am not real to myself, and to others, what value can I, or my relations have? I must be real with myself, and with my God, if i am to truly know him, for in knowing myself, I may understand how I relate to my savior. I am glad to finally begin to see the edges of good qualities i have only before been able to imagine myself as having - even if i have had them all along. They , in me, have always seemed imaginary, something to comfort me of my complete depravity. Some slight beginnings of love to alleviate my sufferings of self hate - whether for my actions or my form. I have found my alleviations outside myself, and clung wholly to them.I can now be aware of my complete depravity, and allow grace not only to be applied by Christ himself to me, but apply it to myself, as much or more than i have managed to apply it to others. I do not contend for the opportunity to hide, but for the opportunity, the courage, and the strength, to show myself, and to be known to myself, others, and God. I have long gone about this in ways i thought apt, a plethora of ways i have discovered to be thin veneered self medication. Whether by substance - or by using my actions, separate. By using the very chase of authenticity as an excuse to numb myself from the crime of my identity.I am no crime. Though I am bought at the price of those crimes i have perpetrated, and those crimes that i will inevitably perpetrate - the cost is the blood of the most loving and  most beloved. It is paid, and i , being bought, must not any longer appear as the essence of my crime, nor in the essence of penance. I am free to behold my identity separate from my depravity. I am free from sin that has died in me. My value has been uncovered. I am as a jewel, found smudged with dirt, in need of being formed and cut. The dirt has been washed free. I shine. Facet after facet comes into existence, while rough edge after rough edge begs to be spared and clings to being.

rhythym like that
makes the rain jealous
smile when you move
or its just not the same
rain makes my bones ache
and then i escape into sleep
i love you too... perhaps a bit too much
i just wanna wipe your tears
the way i wipe windows to stare out of them
on days like this when my own vision is foggy

I have been at rock bottom
the beauty of it  is that it was there
that i found the rock
the one i can stand on
i can't fall any lower
i wiped the slate clean
i prioritized my lovers
he picked up the pieces
rebuilt my heart from the rubble
filled the cracks with cement
he said what he meant
and he meant what he said
my heart is alive
and not just my head,
he is everything to me,
that i couldn't feel when i was dead.
he is rock steady
and i want to rock steadily
heading where he sends me readily
i can't wait to live the things he's imagining
I mean, he had the audacity (thankfully)
to imagine me.
he loves me incredibly
this ground is so solid
there is nothing to discredit me
rock, steady. rock steadily.

This is a rebellion against my intrinsic Romantic.
I've decided I have no time for love if it's suffocated by semantics.

my path is satiation
rage is my recreation
no more delineation
i crave your liberation
im caught in my own mire
bound up by my desires
cage of my own creation
im stuck between relations
sacraments and medication
breathed into my being
divisions my denomination
emptiness is what i'm feeling

all my hopes ive been misplacing
i lose my head in circle tracing
lines throughout my thoughts
fight to twist, untwist, each place they cross
i guess maybe i'm lost
and so i look for signs
create them where they're not

they say that desperate times
call for desperate measures
im so desperate for pleasure
i mistake it for pain
so hungry for help,
i could drown in a drop of rain
so take me deeper
i'm already under
what more is there to loose
ill breathe in fear
im underwater
this is the death i choose

sacraments not meant for tasting
ive spent my whole life chasing
but my life and self are recreating
and my guilt God is erasing

so much can be said in
ten words, two lines

they say
things are not always what they seem
but it seems like that's the truth

laid bare before you but not by your own hands
as naked now as the night i joined my soul to hers or more
i am clothed
and yet inexplicably driven to connect to you
i lay open the wounds that still gape with
holes perfect to press fingertips open into, perfect to re open
no sugar, no sweetness in my voice, no manipulation, my words barely even my choice,
choked out, almost choked out, but surviving
to make it through my throat and past my lips
teasing my eyes to tears i can barely breathe through
i am see through
and
you don't even know if i am worth getting to know
but somehow, someway i will show
you the truth
i am as worth getting to know s you.
that this nakedness is not my way of trying to get you naked
it is no ploy to gain power over your scattered, shattered heart

rapture from my wrist
cold steel clinched in tight fists
not now, but maybe if it slips, if it slips
why can't i touch your lips? Whisper,maybe dance,
with a twist, with a twist
maybe a chance, maybe a kiss,
but for what, for this?
would i wreck it, all ive missed
for you? maybe once.
but not tonight, not with a tryst.

sentiment more often accurate
than i love you
"i lust for you"
or
the words behind the words
(wanna have ***?)

Feeling like severance may just be deliverance in disguise
running in my mind but turning and tripping because i'm looking behind
wandering and waiting and trying to figure out the why's
but tripping over each question every time
disgusted when i look into the mirror of my own eyes
so i close them and escape this moment of mine
the one where i'm surrounded by people attempting to get to me
and i just stand here in a coma on my feet, not saying anything , but smiling
a dead smile that most people think is alive
they act like my happiness is inscribed,
understood and read between the lines
That for me to lose it,
and fall apart and be lost and alone and depressed in the middle of all the amazing things i have
would be a crime
but they don't see the lies in my smiles
and the dying in my silent cries
they don't feel that in every touch
i am dissolving into dust
that in my heart i am doubting
every single person that i trust
that i know that i can trust
but
i am crippled and only doing what i must
to live a life worth anything
more than everything i can be
because i am nothing
and only the people that i love are anything of worth to me

Clash. Zap. Thunderclap.
Orbitals charged with electricity collide - feels like  crossing the streams
let's - smash atoms like Adam and Eve,
pierce fiercely with particles blown white hot from my accelerator
Insatiable
Like  trying to fill up a black hole, so i accelerate her
excite her, ignite her, my touch lights her on fire
combust.
a cloud of ecstasy like Co2  rises higher
I've got my eyes on your ions
take a picture it'll last longer?
snap a photo digitize her
particles turned pixels tilt their head skyward
transcendant enlightenment, released it inside her
E=mc^2 , i can please you at the speed of light
we just rewrote the big bang theory and this time we got it right
opposites attract and charged sparks fly
we might not touch but ion be ****** if we don't try
I'm a ****** intellectual
I love your body AND your mind.

Little bits of feeling shaken loose by friendly i love you's
This is how it happened last time. took a long time.
But it snuck in and broke loose all preconceived notions of
"this is all we could ever be"
it was scary the first time but this time it's horrifying
and i promise "mi sol" that it's nothing against you
it's just i've had a world ripped apart by a best friend before
and i do not know that i want you to have that power
because before, the person i least expected to abuse it, misused it.
and maybe used me.

My wound has not yet begun to heal
the blood it weeps has only just now congealed
the sinews have not yet begun to knit
together to bind;the bones have not begun to fit
back into the places they cracked from -my spine
you buried it deep so it's difficult to find - the knife
the bones and muscles are in my face
laying in shards and tatters
torn and shattered
by the lies and words you waste
spitting into empty space
because I've walked away
you think you can  replace me but you can't replace
Count your self lucky to still be my inspiration
But remember i have my limits too for being disgraced

broken rhythym
trying to explain my heart to her
splattered on the wall
shattered and splashed on all of my surroundings
shattered, splattered, all
but i am stuck resounding
the overcoming call
i wil love, i will love you,
for every day, for all,
i will not leave, i will not leave you,
not for a single
foot
fall
Let's walk

Have the ***** to face me
if like a coward you erase me
from your memory
do not run scared like a fleabitten *****
(i never could believe you were like this)
if like a civil war surgeon you rip out every stitch
of me
from your memory
look me in the eye
tell me that what you do is not a lie
show me you have the strenth to do it
because i don't have it, can't find strength like that
look me in the eye and prove it

(she couldn't do it.)

A  toast, to insanity at the hands of love, to ridiculous helplessness that renders all else pointless, to two-way-ten mile bicycle rides in the darkest hour, with dogs snapping at your ankles and your parents possibly killing you in the morning, a toast, to insanity at the hands of love.

she shivered as she walked away
phone in hand
its light an ethereal wisp
surreal and hallucinogenic for lack of sleep
i followed because my phone was dead
i had to be sure she got inside
i had to be sure she was safe
she shivered as she walked away
and even though she says she doesn't know
if she loves me
the stars stared down at us thinking

that the creator had put on a puppet show to entertain them
that if they blinked they might miss something
i didn't want to blink
as the starlight of a single star
in a pale white glow
silhouetted her grin
"this is so unreal"
"even now, i can't help but think you are beautiful"
"if you didn't love me i would try to make you"
"there is no way, absolutely no way..i can't..i don't know what i'd do without you"
she shivered as she walked away
we would talk for hours the next day
this is only the beginning
you shivered as you walked away
i had to take my jacket back
but we both know why you shivered
... that undertone of feeling that
what had happened was meant to...
that night we'd relive in our dreams and daydreams countless times...why?
you shivered as you walked away.
the feeling that you love me
forced and kept silent-made you shiver
we both know why you shivered as you walked away

****. I am a writer again.
the dark is back. there is not much else i see.
but clouds and love
loss and lovers
and i am stuck
clinging to their motivations.

Rough
Scarred knees
Kneeling
In silence
On hard
Dead
Ground

Whispering
Silent prayers
By the touch of his knees
Flesh upon dirt
Flesh upon flesh
Intimately whispering
Secrets to the ground

IT
Will keep them
The air
And
The lips of
God
Will whisper them
In silence
To the world

Silhouetted by the Setting Sun
I'm content but i am mourning because
another day is almost done
Why does it have to be this one?
The one i met you for the first time?
The first day i held you and wished you were mine?
the one i learned  our lips slip together
like rhymes
from a poet's soul

The night i knelt and asked because it just felt right
why must i walk away again tonight?
Why do i have to be away from you?
My waking dream that's coming true
and here i sit not knowing if
tomorrow is worth leaving this
this bliss...?

Will it be broken by morning?
Or will i even feel it through sleeping?
and in the night when in my dreams i'm waiting
will you be my gentle shaking
when i lie there slowly waking?

The purple light bleeds dripping  through the southern sky
the sun falls silent to the moon's soft shine
and i
i have to realize
that no matter how much or how many times
i wish it wasn't or beg to know why
even the best of days will pass away
when sun and moon are gone
then must come another day

And I
I realized
silhouetted by the setting sun
that if the first would not have gone
then the rest would not have come
that if the ones before had stayed
the ones thereafter would be slayed
only the first day would exist
silhouetted by a sun like this.

When Amber just as gold is measured worth
And gold’s no longer shiny through the dirt
When beauty isn’t seen within the earth
And not being gold then doesn’t bring hurt
Then beauty is found flowing from tree’s girth
And words from lesser stone are always blurt
“Beauty in the simple is always found
Yet out of simple beauty comes no sound”

not neath cerulean skies,but sinking
drowning in the thoughts im thinkng
here again the lonely night,
again the questions plague and plight
and when in honest answers come, i speak and after all i've done
look back and wish that i'd not spoke, for tears i've spilt and hearts i've broke
and passions flamed and suffocate
and enter in to no escape
but here i sit and ask i none,
the skie dark blue, not cerulean

SIxty suns to turn around the sky
sixty sleeps to cyle through
sixty nights that Ill ask why
sixty shapes I do not know
Sixty choices my heart choooses
Sixty ,sixty til and then to spend
sixty,sixty, sixty again
until sixes turns to eights
tipped sideways before its too late

I'm wrecked
Pardon the pun, ***,
but oh, you love it,
and humor is the best i can do to shrug it,
that fact, hanging over my head,
the dread, the lingering thought i'm dead
the smells, the way they grab me by the throat,
the visions, the way they make me choke,.
swimming in my every moment,
ever since my crashing fall,
wondering if i ever lived,
if i ever lived at all.

and **** i have to face it,
but when i do my heart races,
i swear my ribs are folding into places,
that they never should have been,
and my chest is heaving quicker,
or is it caving in?

traces of the trees escape
the ever wandering eyes
of drunk teenagers camping
and all the other passers by

remembrance of my end or birth
i'm not quite sure anymore
but i know i've been there before
surrounded by the dying leaves,
embedded in the earth
sleeping in a scar,
awakened by my thirst.

I realized tonight
that i am sorry
when i don't have anything to be sorry for
but you

I love to be able to take your words away and make your thoughts my own
I love knowing that somehow i manage to awe you with nearly everything i say
That you hold on to my every word so hard that your own slip from your mind
That i am what is on your mind. I love it. But do you ever think more?
I know you really well, yes, but in many ways your thoughts are a mystery to me.

Bile in the back of my throat...
Fighting my past until I choke
I'll spit you out if I have to
Walk away from the wet spot you make on the pavement
And never look back
I can hope...
Why don't you just let go?

i hate feeling like i am the one who wants this when there should be two.
i hate being the one who is on this side when at least some of the time it should be you.
and so i guess what im trying to say is i hate this anymore
that i keep having instincts that i keep having to ignore
those instincts that tell me that im just imagining what we had
to run and disappear because all im going to ever do
is dream about yesterday and you
the instincts to seperate myself from you and just forget it all
but do you want to know what the worst thing about this is?
it isnt that i hate this feeling
it isnt that i ignore my instincs because i love you
its that i have no idea
if you will ever care for me the way i care for you
and knowing that if you dont
if you wont
which is likely
that i will be crushed and empty
still stuck
with this feeling

Sword fights are fun
and we were idiots
who had drank just a little too much whisky
i cut your knuckles, and you wanted to keep fighting,
and you wanted to keep fighting so much that you waited,
and you waited weeks,
and then you threatened my life, my dad's old rusty craftsmen wrench in hand,
and i left.

Writers run dryer when their dreams wax dire, families fade and push them away. Nothing left for them anymore, nothing but sore skin where they're scratching their brains. Traces and stains of soft serene sayings, st-stutter and shatter, stay stuck locked in a safe where it's all right to be tucked tight children latched in a vice. Poets stuck in their heads know what that feels like. Locked up when you should be swimming in soft sleep, but tough, paranoia penetrates, sleep deprived ticks take you hours to shake, slumbers escaped until light takes night and nightmares shatter headspace. Waking up is a sweet embrace when you spend sleep reliving pains, remembering shouting and spit spraying from faces, feeble praying and echoes of voices saying "it's not the same" Thoughts flitting and flaying psyche from physical frame as trauma is replaying in the background of your brain. Fits of fear fraying sanity, filled with shame because of weakness and frailty, I'm a poet on the verge of insane.

Script scratched on the sinews of my soul
Lips echo with sharp words,
I slipped away where nobody would know.
I cried in the bathroom.
I didn't want to hurt anyone.
I didn't want too be feared,
Or hated.
Face forced into a ticking ,twitching smile
Fake gestures ,stiff posture, a throat full of bile.
Linguistic cuts,covered over with syllabic stitches,
Words have cut,and words have healed him.

turn my talisman between my fingers
a ring, an eagle, with silver feathers
though tattered they are
most days i turn the tarnished bird to face me
for the strength, to soar on wings like eagles
today, i turn it away
not because i am unselfish
but because
i don't care enough to need it

Tantamount to thin traces, and graphite smudges,
hidden between pages,
messages in a million pinpoints, like a grand connect the dots,
secrets I'm smitten with in subtly hidden scatter plots.
Run round about my every thought,
and when i cannot sleep or dream
the dots turn tracers, light a stream,
like fireflies in summer heat,
forgotten by my fumbling feet,
and feathers fell on tufts of grass
through hell for you, your life my last hope
through the valley of the shadows twas your name i spoke
and shattered sky with good vibrations
I know why your name has shaken the nations.
Trees of electricity, split down through the sky this eve,
and I lay here remembering,
the way that apples split eve and adam
the way that snakes from first aeon spit venom
I remember because mirrors exist
A heart that traded true love for a tryst,
But you forgive me even this.

I can't be apathetic,
frantic, engulfed in the hectic,
overtaken by stasis,
stuck in this tantric,
****** by life position.

ANd i tiptoe to the edge,
looking both backward and forward,
wondering which direction i go,
will i explode?
am i already, is ..is...
this...ohhh my God, what the **** is happening ..is this,
is this it?

But if i sit here,
maybe it won't end.
Maybe i can hold onto the pleasure...
I end with the release
I live with  the questions,
what was it worth?
can i create something worth anything?

losing you feels like
the absence of a long present friend
a year long storm that out blew it's wind

you'd think i'd notice more often
that the clouds are gone
then too, you'd think the sun shines
perhaps not, perhaps again

Not at all confident in where I stand
Not at all full of any fully formed ideas on the matter at hand
I am unsure
That I am
Who I think I am
That I am
What my hands create by their actions
If I am forming my own dissatisfaction
I
Get lost
In the
Mazelike craters and crannies of my wandering and cynical mind
As it fluctuates to attempt to avoid the pattern of divine
Revelation that just might bring my doubt, wandering, and day to a point of
Disintegration,  I suppose this is a twisted and muddled form of self alienation
Maybe. . . Or am I mistaken?

I will be divided over peace if that is what it takes to uphold it.
But I am divided into pieces.
The back and forth of hard to decipher decisions.
I know what i really want.
I want to know what i really want.
I hold the bill and i have sold it.
My soul was paid for with blood.
The proof is stamped on the bottom of my being.
on the rock i rise from there is a word-Tetelestai
It is finished.
It is pricy and it is paid for.
The price that he laid on the table to purchase a ***** is remarkable.
I  still catch my self trying to profiteer pennies to afford
to buy myself a shiny new soul,
i still stick my hands in places they dont belong
It is finished, but it is old,
Today I am in the stranglehold of silver,
that i wish was the guillotine of gold.
So i throw it back in the face of false promises
and try again tomorrow.

Why?
When,
Tetelestai.

it might not have been fair
but it was I, and your friend,
not against you, but perhaps it seemd so,
when we shared our ability to annoy and frustrate you
so well, so frequenty on that day we went up that mountain currahee
and to the falls both big and small
throguh the woods, on the trails,
recalling inside jokes, stories,
bothering you like only two close friends with intimate knowledge of who you are
could manage to
it was beautiful
thank you for introducing me to amanda