Tonight will fill

With the bitterness

Your tragedies spill.


& you hate this.

This endless, lonely night.


Empty minds

With their empty,

Lonely lives.


Some days you will fill

With some old vice.

Though

It will never be enough

To ****.


& the night will always define the daylight.

& empty always defines your heart.


I don't think this will change.

I think you're just built this way.


Tonight will fill

With the darkness

You've started calling home.

Cigarettes will go by the name

"Friend"

& you'll spend your night wondering

Whether any of this

Will ever end.

You wanted to be remembered by snow
And rainbow lights.

But you died way before Christmas
Late one summer night.

Humming cicadas and broken screen doors
Your only passing rites.

And before I knew it I found myself at your funeral.

Maybe it was the suddenness of it all

Or the alcohol

But when it was finally my turn to speak
In my mind your death had sprung a leak.

And I almost felt ashamed

Ashamed that I had forgotten the look on your face

That I had forgotten the last words that fell from your lips.

That I didn't kiss those same lips after you said goodbye.

Forever.

But you didn't live the way you died.
You would never want to be remembered by the slaughter.

When I think of your face
All I see is snow

And lights

And laughter

The streets have grown cold
I can't get lost in this city anymore.
The nighttime silence shakes me to the core
And memories are making me feel old.

I miss the solitude of lonely
I miss the dangers of new.
I came to this city with dreams of you.
I'm going wishing you never knew me.

I don't know if I'm right
To pack up and go
And leave you in your messes alone
But sometimes you have to give up on your dreams.

Just for the night.

Death is a friend who caught my eye
Ten years and three months ago
Up in the attic
Hiding all alone.
When the monsters come and find me
They'll take me back home.

& Death is a friend
Kept closer than any.
He doesn't get angry
His eyes never leak
As he watches me paint lies
Over blue bruising cheeks.

Death is a friend
I'm falling in love with
As months crawl by
I'm gaining the courage
For that first final kiss.

I almost was brave
Ten months & three weeks ago
Driving alone down an old country road
Death in my passengers seat
My skin growing cold.

& Death is a friend
I'm more than halfway in love with
He was all I could see in your face
As you painted in bruises & blood
To put me in my place.

& I cried to the old brick road
I told all of my secrets
I told of all my pain.

Death is a friend
I fell madly in love with
Ten days and three hours ago
Hiding in that alley alone
Begging for death to take the rest of me.

Or some profound piece of me.

But Death is a friend
As cruel as he is kind
In moments of need
He is nearly impossible to find.

Ten hours & three minutes ago
I chose to make death mine.

After ten glasses of wine
These three bottles of pills have finally fogged my mind.

Here I lie
In the attic alone.
I've only got one cigarette left to go
Till the monsters will never find me again.

An old church at the end of the road
Sunflowers spill over the altar
For children grown old.

Alone in the pews
I watch light suffused
Through stained glass windows.

When I was young
And it was my turn
They gave us roses
Told us they still have thorns
Because life would hurt us
When we found it.

Most of us did.

Including me.

Most of us left those four walls.

Most of us moved far away.

Most of us never returned.

Except for me.

The dusty hymnals smell like youth.
The empty sanctuary looks like home.
And I can still see myself by the piano
The sound of my violin
Was bigger than the world.

When it's all over

I step outside and feel the cold.

I was so young.

And now I'm afraid.

I'm getting so old.

I don't know anyone
Filing out the door.
Nobody knows me.

I walk to the B&B.
I ask for a room.
I used to play there so often
They always let me stay for free.


The clerk says it's switched hands
A dozen times or more.
They say the chandelier
Hasn't heard a song in years.

I unpack my suitcase upstairs
And can't help but shed a few tears

For a town
That truly
Forgot
Me.

Ticking time bomb friends

Will lay themselves dead

Before you can understand

What's going through their head.


Death filled minds

With death dripping hands

Might include you

In their end of life plans.


You'll see the knife wounds

Cross hatching chests

You'll see the pills

That one day will put them to rest.


Death filled minds

With death dripping hands

Might include you

In their end of life plans.


They'll show you razors,

Knives and blood.

You'll never ask why

They'll never mention it again.

You'll excuse the rope you find

Filling up corners

You'll ignore sturdy beams

With chairs underneath them.

You won't think twice

When they ask for one bullet.

Maybe you'll be the one to put it

In ticking time bomb hands.


Death ridden minds

With death dripping hands

Might include you

In their end of life plans.


It's not your fault.

How could you have known?

You've made an art out of ignoring.

You assume the blood and gore meant

nothing.

It was just a bad night.

It's not your fault.

How could you have known?

It's not like you've lost

Every other one you've known.

It's okay.

It's really not your fault.

You can never stop

Death ridden minds

With death dripping hands.

You can never help

Your ticking time bomb

Friends.

Trains pass by
Hiding bombs
Waiting to kiss the sky
Of the blue hours
I've been drowning in.

Another pill passing lips
From broken fingertips.
I wonder why my hands died
Before the rest of me could.

Empty monsters
Fill up attics
With my dead friends.

They walk past

Poems

Laughter and

Love

Just as empty by the end
As they were at the start.

So far
Nobody good
Has mentioned
My dead hands.

The drunken ghosts
Whispering to walls
Still blame me
For your death.

And my beauty is blurred
By my dead hands.
And my chest is bruised
By your young death.

And my glass philosophy
Has begun to shatter
Under the light
Of the blue hours
I've been drowning in.

Give me mount everest death.


Give me cold glory.


Snow kissing faces,

One man among many.

Nearing the start

Of their final few breaths.


Miles and miles of whiteout

Remind you of the lights

Your mother left out

Too late into spring.

This comfort you will spend

Your final moments seeking.


Give me mount everest death.


Give me cold glory.


You knew there'd come a day

When you wouldn't meet the morning.


Maybe you didn't make it to the top.

Maybe you didn't kiss God's face.

Maybe your mother will never know

Your final resting place.


Give me mount everest death.


Give me cold glory.


Tell me the end

Of your entire life story.

Ice cold breath

Nearly dead in the snow.

Ten years ago

She would have made you come in

At the very first sign

Of blue tinted lips.

Now you're watching snow fall.

White on black fingertips.


Give me mount everest death.


Give me cold glory.


Somewhere out there

Your Mother's still mourning.

Wishing she could call you in.

Ruining your fun

One last time.

To see your blue lips

And make you hot chocolate

To warm your cold fingertips.

A city of strange sights
Something sinister is hiding beyond the lights

Your comfortable ignorance blinds you from the war
I wonder if the fight is worth it anymore

The calm babble of a fountain near
Contrasts the cries for help barely reaching my ear

The place where our humanity is lost
And we leave one another to rot

I used to think myself a giving person
But I have since learned my lesson

I ask a man with a bourgeoisie air
For change to help pay my train fare

His face tightens when he looks at me
"Sorry,

I spent it all on overpriced coffee,"

And for another night I'm stuck here

Life has made me lawless
Life made me a conman
I can't remember when I last felt stillness
Been stuck begging for change with a can
People walk by seeming flawless
But never look twice at their fellow man

Life has made me lawless
Life made me a conman
Pride and feeling tallness
Are two things I'll never understand
Most days the world seems ruthless
I suppose that's just my hand

Life has made me lawless
Life made me a conman
I hope death may take me from this madness
And make me a free man