The world presses down,
and pushing back takes it's toll
on you.
It breaks you down,
you crumble,
pieces of body and mind
shear, flake, and tumble away
from your quivering self.
Everything hurts, eyes closing, mind numb, skin crawling.
Coated in sweat, earth, rain, fuel.
Gunpowder lines your lungs
filling your nostrils.
You long for a release.
Lifting the weight off your back,
to feel yourself float unburdened.
Water to run and renew you,
The hardest mattress a cloud above the chill ground.
Jean's like an old friend on fresh flesh that has forgotten denim.
The touch of a lover, long overdue.
Her soft skin on yours,
with lips so divine,
and a voice like honey.
You forget, for a while, the weight of the world, and all you need do,
is be.
You're set free.

They say
they love who I am.
They scream it
at the flesh that I'm in.
But they dont know
that who I am
is killing me.
This mental state
has consumed my name.
If I could I would,
but I don't know how,
to return to the boy
they already destroyed.
What a bind I'm in.

How could someone you love
become a stranger so fast.
Over broken promises,
having so much hope they would last.
How could flowers so beautiful
turn and decay
when you did your best to water them
each and every day.

How could all this
have been just a dream.
When you stay up all night
your body trying not to scream
as your heart is ripped out,
and placed in a fire
where it dies, charred and black,
a funeral pyre.
You collapse
and you wake
tears and scars you must hide
while you know
you just died a whole lot more inside.

These days I am more,
more than a man,
more than a brother,
more than a friend,
more than a lover.
I am a reason,
a reason for life,
a reason for laughter,
a reason for love,
a reason to stay,
a reason to be.
I am half of a whole
and she is the other.
Together the storm is still
and we are stronger.

On the brink
of failure.
Everyday
a new reminder,
that no matter
how fast I may run,
that thing,
the heart of my
anxiety,
will catch me.

These days
I'm a monster
at war with myself,
the light, the dark, or
the grey numbness
of images haunting me.
If only I could sleep
instead of filling in
the terrifying
blank spaces.
Oh how I will welcome
the black void.

Cobblestone streets,
a lunar lighthouse,
and a night on North Beach.
Alcohol and arcades,
oak trees and foggy days.
So many ways
I'm finding beauty more and more
as it contrasts the violence
of the world
and the war
waged inside.

And I had always believed
that deep, nonsuperficial love
would never be
a two way street for me.
That no one would look
below my flesh or,
what I can provide, to
care for who I am
on the inside
like I always try
to do.
So now its
oh so hard to
feel wanted for more
than face value.
For would I
have caught your eye
if I didnt appear
how I do?