Conceit and Condescension flow through my veins
I bleed Superiority
I'm a liar
I could use a dash or two of Confidence in my morning tea
I'd settle for a water with a little splash Vanity
I'm an echo of originality

Vainglorious is my halo
I'm not bothered by what other people think of me
I'm a fraud
I crave Narcissism in my burritos
I lust for Pride in my beer
I am a ghost of inspiration

Pride and Tyranny are my wings
My aura is Aloof
I'm a mask
I'll take a shot of Snobbery with my scotch, neat
I wish I had Arrogance in my head
I am  a mass hallucination

You tried, she said to me
As if that counted
And as if she really cared
Just pick yourself up
And start again
We may not click right
But there are plenty of fish in the sea

There's a darkness that dwells within me, like all of us, except mine revels in finding the subtle ways to ****** me into its way of thinking.
Trapping me like an insect in amber in patterns of self loathing and despair.
It comes upon me slowly, seeing in through the cracks in my facade that I present to the Grand Masquerade we call society, some days. Others it strikes like lightning from a clear, cloudless sky.
But, no matter how it comes to me it is always devastating, not in the least because the words are sharp and pry my soul apart, nor because I shut the world out and try to protect myself and the world from my darkness, but because I always open the door when it knocks. I can't help it, it feels like home and I hate it. The comforting despair-- it's a lie and a mockery as are the pace and respite it brings.
Even knowing all of this, I still shut myself out, withdraw and isolate because I believe I'm not good enough.
And in some ways, it's right. The crux is, I know some things I enjoy are wrong and terrible, but I can no more change them than I can ***** out the stars. I still try to be better, every day, I try to be a light in the darkness, but in days like today I'm naught but the last vestiges of a dying fire, just a few embers glowing dimly covered in hot ash waiting for more fuel to burn or the final wisps of smoke as the fire within me dies.

Everything I touch turns to ash in my grip
I am stagnant as others grow around me
Fear, loathing, and regret are the emotions I feel the most
To keep from dragging others down I isolate
Trying to be the tragic hero
Without putting forth the effort to seek redemption
But I'm just a petty villain
Succumbing to my angst and flaunting my misery like I'm unique
I feel like I inflict pain in others, yet close my eyes to their suffering
Saying, "they don't have it as bad as me"
I lie, omit, and disguise my motives and meanings
I hide in plain sight, shallow as a puddle
But the true depth of me is a trick of the light-- a perfect refraction
My self-deprecating humor a defense mechanism I learned
I use it to pacify others, to force their eyes to glide past me
Because if someone truly looked
There'd be only a shriveled husk, withered and dessicated
Incapable of beauty, undeserving of love
Filled with bitterness and sorrow and loneliness
Incapable of progress or understanding

Dabble, Drabble
Play with the rabble

Unafraid, Arrayed
With a naked blade

Fearless, Peerless
After all this time, careless

Sliver, Quiver
Running wild like a river

Cellar, Seller
Wildlands dweller

Rotten, Cotton
All but forgotten

Night, Wight
Bereft of Night

Dream, Gleam
Cold as a mountain stream

Seep, Weep
Time to creep

Breathe, Wreathe
All alone you seethe

She wonders what I see in her?
I see the breeze gently tugging at her hair, loose strands floating.
Or the bright colors of her eyes, glistening like morning dew.
The way her freckles draw me in, begging for me to count them.
Yet those are superficial, but not trivial.
She's like a spring flower, full of life and vibrancy.
It's a wonder each and everyday I see her.
She so brave,  growing in the autumn, with cold spiteful winds and harsh freezing emotions of those around her.
If I were a gardener, I'd move her inside for the winter and shelter her.
But she would lose her tenacity and strength.
I watch her struggle and offer what comfort I can, because unlike a flower she is capable of changing and adapting.
I can only watch and hope that she continues to bloom beautifully

Dewy sunrise red
Cool breeze over warm air, rain
Autumn in the South

I'm no tragic hero, my suffering is not divine.
I live my life in the breaths between words, in the spaces dividing lines.
The silence of the grave isn't a symphony, just an echo of my home.
I've wrapped myself in delusions of grandeur, it's just a god complex.
I feel so boring, in this same routine.
When I play at chaos, it's a mask -- can't you see?
But I've already lost myself in it again.

You tear open the scars inadvertently revealing my wounded soul
I try to heal while you lead me on and I follow blindly through your words to see if I can find your hidden messages
I can't tell if they're for me because I have the habit of seeing things that are never there
Words have been known to hold secrets within their expressions and phrases
Impossible to know for sure if the instructions were for me although it seems unlikely for them to be for any other
They present themselves in a manner that alludes to references of me or I could just be delusional
It's up to you to tell me because I am just a thought on the wind like a fleeting memory gone without a trace at the slightest misconception


_______________­__

Pull at the seams of my scars
Tear them open
Show the world my wounded soul
As I follow the ink spilled like blood
To find where you disappear to
With your words that haunt me
Echoing allusions to what we should be, might be, have been
With the exception of we haven't been
For reasons beyond my control
Likely I am delusional
Watching my life like a TV show hoping for that happy ending
Always missing the lucky breaks
My naivete showing every time I get my hopes up
As if a fleeting imagining could be real
Or a daydream of a better life that might include you and I comfortable and happy
Such joys don't happen for the likes of us
Trapped by our 8½x11 sheets of paper
Bound to the life of what if's and missed chances
Should then we not tempt fate and try to break free of our isolated prisons
Making up our own lives as we would dare dream
To evoke an immediate erasure of the norm and rewrite it as we wish

__________________­

Tell me now what should be done
This task I fear is too ubiquitous for a lone human to change
But with the help of a friend, a lover, a companion to assist
The burden won't be overbearing
The clockwork will shatter and the pendulum will fall
Revealing a new exciting variation of life

__________________­

Time and again we sit on the eave of a solution
Only to fall back to the safe and comfortable known
However drab, bleak and dreary
Even now as I write this and you read
We see where we can change
Yet we sit and wait hoping for something simple and easy
Biding our time for that which will never arrive

Let's tell a story of our emotions
Spinning these tales of love
like a spider spins his webs
I won't stop until I've pulled you in
It's like a superpower
I seem to bring you next to me
With my words like venom
Making my songs Infectious
I am the voice in the back of your mind
whispering subtle little hints,
making you question who you are becoming,
and showing you who we could have been


So I listen to your heart beat
to use it's rhythm
When I sing for you
my love is in every song
I need you next to me
I'm cold blooded, so keep me warm


Static keeps me awake at night
without you here next to me
I can't feel alive,
can't seem to be myself
I feel like I had the world,
But it was taken from me
I was left hanging again
might as well have used a noose,
it would have hurt less


You are my ray of sunlight
gently kissing me with warmth
in contrast to the moonbeam
telling me goodnight


So I listen to your breathing
catching all the little sighs
So when I sing for you
My love is in every word
I need you next to me
I'm cold blooded please keep me warm


The fire in your eyes
Shows me I'm alive
Knowing that you want me
I will never leave
Your love will always burn
Leave me but as a pile of ashes
To blow away into the wind


So I listen to your voice
Saying my name while you're asleep
So when I sing for you
My love is in every word
I need you next to me
I'm cold blooded please keep me warm

"You can't sleep now, there are monsters nearby."
I know. I am the monster. Please, just let me sleep.

Exhaustion is like a cloak, insomnia has hobbled me. I stare at the inside of my eyelids trying to force something that should be seduced.

I imagine what my dreams are like, hoping to get caught on one and drift away.

Without you here to soothe this demon, I struggle against these sleepless nights. Trying to find peace.

"You can't sleep now, there are monsters nearby."
I know I am the monster. Please, just let me sleep?

I toss and turn hating who I've become. Hating that I need you here to keep me sane, knowing that's why you've gone. You couldn't take the strain.

"You can't sleep now, there are monsters nearby."
I know. I know... Oh gods, I know.

My dear, my dear
Tell me your dreams
Tell me your fears
That I may quiet the screams
Keeping you awake at night

My love, my love
Let me help you rise above
The monsters that so haunt you
To reach those desires and passions

My heart, my heart
Open yourself to me
So I may be a part
Of your spark
The one that has lit the fires within me

My life, my life
Open yourself up
So we can face your strife
Hand in hand, arm in arm

My darling, my darling
I wish you could see
Yourself through my eyes
Magnificently sparkling
Like the stars in the midnight sky

Her dark curls keep falling in her face. The expression she makes is adorable a flash of an exasperated semi-sarcastic smile. She makes some of the most adorable faces. I can’t help but smile back. Her eyes are perpetually bright and full of life, a pale moss green. I am constantly enchanted by them. Her skin looks like it was poured from a jug of milk, creamy and white. I love her attitude and confidence. She always has something going on, always hustling. I’ve seen a peek of her struggles and wish I could help her, but I know she wants to beat it on her own. These are pale reflections of the wonder that is her.

Glittering city
Sleepless, vain, unforgiving
Angels weep for us


Fleeting peace here
Stillness, solitude, brief rest
This treasured moment

Winds whip, curtains shake
A storm blows in once again
Memories of home

Haunted sorrow
Words unspoken on my lips
Maybe for the best

I'm not who I was
never have I been who I am
My love and admiration twist
I have no confidence
because I am cognitively dissonant
raised with values too extreme for humanity
not able to shake free of them
I've done terrible things, too few I regret
and even those still echo desire in the depths of me
but I'm not going to allow myself to wake in this darkness
not going to be complacent
pain follows change, but so too does joy
I'm not yet free, not yet me
I don't know if I can break free
but I do know
I'm not done yet

Sometimes I am words,
Sometimes words are me.
Right now is not either of those.

As I sift through these lies
What left of a heart I have dies
And as night falls
The empty space next to me
Is and isn't free
I fight the urge to call
I know the truth of where you are
Moved on and long gone
I know that no matter how close I am you are still far
So I toss and turn until dawn

These spirits so intrinsic to this city, haunting and beautiful, don't bother me.

I am just like them, I'll slip inside of you and take possession. You'll be my vessel, my connection back to the pleasures of life.

These demons so readily available with their vices, flit through the night sky in searching of their next buyer, their next victim.


I am just like them, I'll slip inside of you and take possession. You'll be my vessel, my outlet for corruption.

Will you be my puppet?

Now I lay me down to sleep
And I pray my soul to reap
If I die before I wake
Know this world ain't safe
And so I rest my weary head
In hope that I might waken dead
For mercy and grace
Have all but fled
This world of rust

Who knew falling in love could hurt this much?
Why didn't anyone warn me, that it would feel like my heart is ever so slowly being torn from my chest, millimeter by millimeter, all while being crushed in the vice like grip of Fate.
Why did no one prepare me to fall in love with every artist I meet, with the tortured and the passionate?
What could I have known of love as an innocent child, free if the petty cruelties of life and apathy?
How can I resist falling in love with those who support my own feeble attempts at art, who reassure me that I am worthy it respect and continue to uplift my soul and spirit, and more importantly — should I?
How do I communicate my love do that I might get it reciprocated, that I can feel from others what I feel for them?
Alas, there are no answers in this empty apartment.

Irreverent words flow as I spill this ink across the page
Suns rise and set, while this planet weeps black blood
The midnight stars shine solemnly in their eternal watch

God sighs at the universe sets, he can finally put down his burden
He aches and pains from toiling so long
Joints creak and his stomach rumbles

Maybe it's time for a nap
He lays his head down to slumber
The light, tinted pink from the evenings glow, filters through his window

A breeze gently stirs the wispy hair on his threadbare scalp
A bit of drool collects on the headrest of his recliner
His troubles all but forgotten to the tides of dreams

"Heaven is closed," Peter said to the gathered dead, "Here is your eviction notice."
One by one the marched down the marbled gold staircase as the angels descended above them
Jesus was the last to go, after tucking a blanket around his father's shoulders

With a final breath the universe dies, contented, in its sleep
No more witnesses, no more observers
Peace at last

I don't want someone to settle for me. I want the beautiful, talented, and amazing women I know to be happy. And I'm afraid that I am not good enough to bring them that joy and that I will hold them back if we were anything than friends. Yet, I, like most people, crave love and affection -- the simple romantic in me falls in love so easily. The classmate who were supportive of my fiction and always left smiley faces on their critiques, the one who went out of her way to drive me home when I was struggling with money and who always encouraged me and told me how amazing my wiring was. Or the one who trusted me with her vulnerabilities without expecting me it asking for my help, just telling me that it existed so that I could better understand her. Or... Or... Or...

But, too afraid to cause pains that had been caused to me and too afraid to get hurt again, I shut myself off from all but the minimum or safest of social requirements. I secluded myself and retreated into isolation -- which inevitably lead to more insecurity and more despair.

As I've grown older and understood myself more, I've learned that I'm polyamorus, that I can be in love with multiple people for different, but equal, reasons. This further isolates me because our society is only just starting to accept polyamory and it's easier (but worse) for me to just stay secluded and cut off from love.

If I don't try then I can't be hurt, right?
If I don't put myself out there then I can't be rejected, right?

Last night I dreamt again
Of a place long lost from memory
You stood beside me
On a darkened shore
The waning moon overhead
Inky waves crashed in with the tide
The ivory of your skin
Glowed radiantly
And illuminated our way
The island, so small, so large
Was a labyrinth
But you couldn't get lost
And I followed your luminescence
In the core of the maze
Sat an ice statue of us
Locked in agony or ecstasy
So lifelike, so vibrant
And then you sang
A haunting aria of love of loss
Of loneliness and pain
Tears poured down my face
Or maybe it was the ice melting
As I became colder
The statue came to life
And you ran me through with a dagger
My blood froze around us
I watched the sculpture depart

Once upon a time
I fell in love with myself
I loved the way I saw the world, with an innocence now lost
I believed every lie and dreamed of rescuing dragons from princesses
I still remember the day my world shattered, and I started see the truth
An empty birthday party
A lonely slumber party
Whispers behind everyone's back
I didn't want to spread rumors, but to keep my friends, I did
And with my words, I burned bridges
How could I trust myself after telling those secrets that had been entrusted to me
Unclean and repentant, I sought forgiveness but there was none to be found
Not from myself
I tried to redeem myself by stepping away from the games, but though I hoard secrets, the dragons have all fled
There is no happily ever after here

I have secrets and lies I tell even myself
I strive to appear normal
For I am ashamed of my deviances
I resent that what I like could get me labeled a freak


Our limbs entwined as we  cuddle and kiss
The clothes we wore strewn across several rooms
The heat radiating between us
My secrets burning a hole in my heart


But how can you know that I want more and I'm ashamed of those cravings
I haven't told you, I am afraid of being judged, abandoned, and mocked
How can I trust with how many times I've been burned before, I'm paranoid


Would you step out of your comfort zone for me
Would you stick by me, or would you be angry or disgusted or unsympathetic to my desires

I wish I didn't think about you,
In the middle of the night.
I wish I didn't care for you,
Like you don't care for me.
I wish there were different obstacles
Between you and I, that I may overcome.
I wish you hated me,
Because then I wouldn't get to see your smiles.
I wish you loved me,
But that's asking too much.
I wish I were a better person,
Who could be someone trustworthy.
I wish I didn't feel guilty,
But I deserve the anguish that accompanies it.
I wish.
I wish I could be the man you deserved,
But it's impossible.
I wish you cared about me,
Even when I know it's better that you don't.
I wish I could spoil you,
And tell you what you mean to me.
I wish you'd be open and receptive,
Though I know it is impractical.
I wish

This house is desolate, surrounded by urban sprawl,
I’ve built this castle up, and gave it high walls,
Since you left, everything seems grey,
Skies are dismal and bleak, every single day.
No one else can breach the tower I’ve locked myself in
Not even the ruckus of the world can stir the emotion within
I sit and stare at glass walls, in hollow halls
Once filled with joys and wondrous calls
They would echo all day and night, now exists only silence
I’ve made solitude into a great art and science
I’ve perfected it’s study and long for a change of heart
It’s never so simple when you lose an integral part
of your soul, to the depths of loathing and pettiness.
Words exchanged spitefully end in bitterness.
I wish you the best from this desolate house I’ve built
Solitude is my only company, isn’t that ironic?

"Just breathe," I say to my friends when they have anxiety attacks
It is always my first step, before reminding them of all the cute cuddly things they love
But how can I breathe knowing what I've done and left undone?
How can I breathe with these words unspoken from my lips, that you are hearing from those who love you and you love in turn?
Atlas's struggles are nothing compared to the weight I bear stretched across my shoulders.
Jesus's cross is lighter by far.
But somehow, I manage to take an impossible breath with my chest tight.
I don't want to fail my friends
I've already failed myself
How do I take the next breath, knowing that the pain of failure will be right there with it?
It's not by reflex
I choose to breathe because one day I might be end up a success
All it takes is breathing

Like a siren song,
the void has called to me.
Whispers and melodies
and soft lullaby's
to draw me in
to death's cold embrace.

I listened without acting,
with patience and clarity.
Its dark harmonies
washed over me
until I was drowning in them.
Still, I made no move to act.
I drank deep and filled myself,
until finally the void was within me

Overflowing, but not overfilled
I understood the call,
the peace and serenity
and the freedom from fear.
My eyes opened to the truth:
Easy isn't always right,
the struggles we face
can spark the firecrest joy
or the most harrowing sorrows.

I tried to find the profound
to find simply the cliched and trite.
And still the void calls to me,
filling me with silence and peace