I wish I had a time machine to go back and kick my own ***.
Or at least try to talk some sense into myself.
"Listen kid, this **** doesn't bode well. You're burning alive and headed for hell."
Maybe writing is its own kind of time travel.
Billy Pilgrim knows what I'm talking about.
"Chin up child. Stop playing wild. I know you're trying to make your own style,
but you'll lose more than you'll gain."
But before I step in and turn the dial, my future self comes back to slap my hand.
"Let it be," I'll say to me.
One day you'll understand.

I speak in metaphors,
but I feel like I've met you before.
You were what was hiding on the otherside of my door.
You were the canopy at the top of the trees;
Basking in the moonlight.
I tried to climb but I fell on the way up.
You were the branches that broke my fall.
You were the leaves in autumn;
How I tried to catch them all.
You were the one that held me tight.
You were the clouds that cloaked the moon in the middle of the night.
You were all the things that I struggled to see.
You are everything that I want to be.

I play these ballads for no one
To lose myself in it
And right when it's over
Is when I begin it

Now caught in the middle
My mind sits bewildered
Innocent criminal
A guileless sinner

In the between
Fulfilling my dreams
Giving sound to my conscience
Through the touch of these keys

I begin to see it
I start to believe
All of this nonsense
Now I know what it means

I can feel it in my bones.
I can feel it in my teeth.
Emanating from some place buried deep underneath.
I can hear it in your words.
I can taste it on your lips.
Electricity,
recharged by your kiss.
My body is a conduit.
A key tied to a kite string.
I'm thinking of every wish I've wasted on pennies never spent.
Hopes and dreams thought up then tossed.
They're all coming true tonight.
I found my way while staying lost.

When I was a little kid,
About maybe five or six
I told my parents I would become an addict on purpose
Just to show them how to quit

They said I was foolish
They told me to stop it
But I insisted I would

Now here I am, almost 20 years later
It's about time I made good.

I look onto the world,
and all that I can see
are tales of woe, success, heroes,
love, loss, pain, and tragedy.

I look back on my life
and see it just the same.
All of it so beautiful,
yet commonplace and plain.

I look onto the world,
and it looks back on me.
All that I can see,
all of it and everything;
nothing more than poetry.

Not easily noticed,
and often overlooked -
like some obscure quote
from a lesser known book;
hidden in the footnote.

You've found it,
it's yours.
The X and map are just a reminder of what you own.

You could tell it, but you won't.
You could sell it, but you don't,
because you've found it on your own,
and it's hard to find a home.

A dusty trail fades into the dark.
A comet strikes a villain at his core.
A simple-minded walker contemplates the stars.
These trees are all reaching towards God.
How could one want more?

A torn spirit leaves its blood-stained mark,
with an echo that echoes.

Is pity passed down in the genes?
What about sympathy?
I fear I've inherited an overabundance of both.

It drains me to the point where I feel like a ghost.
Sometimes I wonder if I didn't die a long time ago.

Am I stuck in limbo,
just repeating the same old pattern?

Every poem I ever wrote is nothing but a sticky note,
with keywords written to remind me of all but forgotten memories.