I’ve never received a flower
Or even a rose
But I’m a guy
So it’s acceptable I suppose
No kisses
Or sweets
No treats
That signifies ones feelings for me
No token of ones love
But I have gotten
Disappointment
Watered with hate
Planted in betrayal
Fertilized with lies
And maintained by fakes
Roses are Red
But my roses are dead
And crumble beneath my feet

I never saw a man who looked
with such a wistful eye
upon that little tent of blue
which prisoners called the sky,
and at every drifting cloud that went
with sails of sliver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
within another ring,
and was wondering if the man had done
a great or a little thing,
when a voice behind me said,
"The man's got to swing"

For he did not wear scarlet
nor did he speak of it,
for blood and wine were red
and so was the color on his bed.

He looked upon the garish day
with such a wistful eye;
the man had killed the thing he loved,
and so he had to die.

I remember the smell,
Like old wood and
     Lake water
Somehow found itself
     Mixed into some sea
           Of sheets,

And I remember
Waking up,
     Entangled and drowning
In an ocean of
Unfamiliar bedspreads
As you climbed into
      The morning soaked
Bed with me.

Your skin soft
     And vanilla
          And brushing lightly
Against the hairs on my arm
     That you made stand up tall,
Kissing me awake
     As I pushed your auburn
         Strands of fire
         Hair whispering in a
         Tickle against my ear.

The way your hand
     Rested with possession on my chest
           And tapped some forgotten tune
As we waited
For afternoon to
     Beckon us downstairs,

The steady hum of
The shore catching
The waves of the
      Lake shimmering green
      In the summer heat
           At the wooden base
                Of our cabin outside.

And I remember
     Our collective shut of eyes,
Resting our foreheads together
     As our hands journeyed
          To reach one another's
          Beneath the home in the sheets
We wished to never leave.


That was two years
     And a love and a half ago,

So now I long
     For nothing more
Than these summer mornings
To wake up not so lonesome
                                                  anymore.

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.