There are times,
Where I want to sing,
Your name and mine,
Tangled in the same tune,
Dancing with the syllables,
All the notes and nothings,
Around and around,
Into the evening hours,
There are times,
Where I have cried,
Familiar faces on morning news,
Funerals for the friends lost,
Childhood ends far too early,
So many nights forgotten,
Sunday morning service,
Prayers for the wrongs I committed,
In the hours prior,
There are times*,
Where I reflected on the memories,
August took a piece of me,
Everything was full of life,
We never even wondered,
About what would become of us,
In the sunrise that followed.

I never considered myself one for the books,
A pen felt clumsy in my hands,
Something too delicate to touch,

You introduced me to my first romance,
Tales of rivers and sweet words of Hughes,
Pages were my optics, my eyes danced in the light,

Nights turned into highways of jazz and beat poet longings,
Kerouac and Ginsberg whispering into my ear
of corrupted ivy manifestos,

Maya told me to sing, I did.
My love for her still echoes in her passing,
Set sail to the open waters where Neruda lies,
sonnet 17 afloat upon the tides,

You knew my addiction before I ever got high on the ink,
Drifting across the sentences in the midnight hours,
A prayer in thanks of what you gave to me

Puddles in black asphalt make for perfect lagoons
murky waters stirring, kissed with light bent from the sun
air conditioners brace the ledge, ready to jump
marlboro in the air, sunday morning is a holy sight
unanswered questions on bus stop benches,
basketball court with boys who have sprouted like weeds,
too fly for high, or too high for fly,
all background music to the thumping of ball on concrete,
Elders on rocking chair thrones atop of stoops,
witness to all that plays out,
from corner store ballets and 3 a.m. shootouts,
The beauty of it all, an orchestra of bodies,
awakening from slumber for yet another day

I do not think much of the desert,
How mountains shift and shake every night,
The way the dunes roll mighty,
How they whisper away with the winds,
I do not think much of the desert,
I've read stories of a forgotten oasis,
Nestled somewhere in the shifting sands,
Like an ocean, only smaller,
I am shrinking too,
Here there is a desert,
One too big for my arms to hold,
Because here I grow smaller every night,
And my bones shift and shake with every breath

Your golden frame which I once held so dear
Trickled between my fingers like the unlucky prospectors
Me, cursing the wind, never saw it coming
For days I could barely breath,
Ive been trying to bring myself to the arms of another
But every time I get close enough I’m reminded of you
A scent carried, or a crack in their smiles,
What a fever this is, this thing called love
Hopefully the right prescription will do the trick,
Enough liquor to drown an ocean,
and rewatching Barbarella for the 10th time
is just what the doctor ordered.

I placed the sheet music against my side
The hot iron of the notes beat their way inside
Every strike of the mallet crushing it’s way in
Such a sad song, what a terrible tune
It hung in the pit of my stomach
Held by the fluttering of two song birds
Both with wings plucked from their bodies
They read aloud the music like an anthem
Knew every tap in the ivory and stroke of the clock
I dream now with earmuffs,
Anything to lay to rest their somber songs
Watch the ceiling as it spins and shakes
The eggshell cracking with every blink in the night
I’ve forgotten what it is to breath, the taste of a sunlit shoulder,
All I do now is play audience to their noise
No longer can I even hear my voice

I have been walking

On the path that was our story

With a fistful of matches

So when I cross bridges 

I burn them with my passing

Never going back

To the places I once loved

Somedays I wonder,
How it all came out to this
Was it the ring of the chamber
The echo of the glass,
Emptied and dry,
Your wine red as his blood,
Both left oceans of rooms,
They left for fear of drowning,
I have not yet sailed off,
Stuck in this fish tank
With no air left

17 years of bad luck and counting,
I find myself walking underneath ladders,
Black cats tend to cross my path,
Mirrors crack in my wake,
The reaper and I are close relatives,
See each other on holidays or birthdays
or unsuspected thursdays,
This has made me a corpse of myself
No longer afraid of commitment
but of myself, this fear of losing you
This pain of up all night rejecting all of my insides,
Flushing feelings like dead aquatics,
I care for you too much to see you hurt

Oh sweet temptation,
Do not be a fool,
The pills are paradise,
Payment is cruel,

Oh how I crave you,
All your seduction and sedative,
Take me to heaven's gates,
My failures have been repetitive,

My father is over seas
In the effort to make mountains of men
I am within the picket fence
In the effort to make my voice heard
My mother is in the hospital
In the effort to calm her thoughts
My sister is in the backseat of a car
In the effort to experience love
My brother is still a child
In the effort to remain that way

On the porch,
Our star hung high above us,
The flowers bloomed,
Trees wiped away sleep from their branches
I remembered the frost on my bones,
Floating candles of fireflies,
Laughter in the breeze,
And the rain dripping from the shingles

I showered in the storm
I drank the nectar of a dream
Feathers grew between my shoulder blades
I took flight with the angels
Let the sun burn its embrace upon my skin
I once believed heaven stood above the clouds
That if I flew high enough the gates
would be somewhere amongst the birds
Now I wait for the clouds to come
Their figures hanging heavy
Something to give the earth a drink
I’ll collect the left overs in water glasses
And pour them out for all my dead friends
So they too can be content in paradise

I Will Dream For You,
A Spectator to your word,
They drip silently from your pen,
Pain and passion mixed beautifully,
I Will Call You No One,
Sometimes I can not speak after reading,
Empty and Beating left my heart throbbing,
Your poems got me all One Sided,
Never stop writing,
Every word was worth it,
And so are you.

One time I lost my way,
Two times I accepted your apologies
Tree times I threw away too much of myself,
Four times I forgot the name I once carried,
Five times I loved far too well,
Six times I wrote poems for forgiveness,
Seven times I produced false promises,
Eight times I shared nights with empty bodies,
Nine times I gave away everything,
Ten times I let myself remember

Cut me open
Only to find salt water
Drank an ocean
Swallowed the seas
Stole from it’s depths
These washed away dreams

Tell me when it has been enough,
Let me know when these bodies have run dry
When the sidewalks have been painted good and red,
You can’t brush off the blood, It just fades a little bit,
A patch just slightly darker than the rest,
They’ll take the other streets, blind to the madness,
Forget about the graveyards they’ve made of neighborhoods,
When targets have names and the lead expires too **** soon,
Tell me when it has been enough
Let me know when your heart has been pierced too
Than maybe you can understand

I watched the moon creep across your chest,
Held your hips against mine,
Bare and alive we shared the twilight hours,
Tangled sheets among thighs,
Read poems beneath your waist,
Felt the shiver of your spine,
Heard nothings in the holy of night,
Gave way to the thought of forever,
Kept me awake till the sun

Don't know how much this hurt
Felt numb to the whole situation
But when you shattered my existence
I found my only solace in bottles
Blow didn't even do The trick
I'm a lot like you in this sense
The only one willing to fight for this
The only one willing to strive for the better
My body is lost somewhere pool side
Yours is 3 stories up with a fistful of paper work
Mine is 6 feet deep with a question on my mind
To stay or to go?
That is all and everything to me
I'm just strong enough to tell you

The brook keeps babbling away,
Telling the stones to hold their tongues,
The water to slow down for a bit,
For these days are long
and the nights feel ever so empty,
Daisies have craned their necks over the sides
Hoping to befriend whatever breathes below,
And the brook babbles away,
Telling all the secrets that sailed its spine,
As they pass by the banks
And wave goodbye to those still standing

6 months without you feels like forever
You are a burning ship, destined for drowning
Watch as you take the ones i love along with you
Trying to shout my way through the trance of your voice
The messages you keep leaving remained unopened,
Ive rerouted my veins, changed my direction,
But the thought of you clouds all my conversations
Its been so long since my blood has held you like a child,
Since your embrace has wrapped itself around my heart,
Some burning fever has left me with petty thoughts
Is it the bits of you that remain?
Or the knowing that this fight will and has always been
A back and forth between the rights and wrongs of my conscience

I did it all for the money, lord
These raindrops been falling too much
and most days I can't find my strength,
pulling out parts of myself for sacrifice,
Winter nights spent with unknown faces,
This temple of yours seems so alien now

Fate has a pen name
She smiles wide as an ocean
Dances with the moon
She's got the whole world
wrapped in her arms
Fate gives away parts of herself
Sometimes to a fleeting lover
Other times to a silent morning
Fate writes me letters
I'm just trying to figure out
Which address is the right one

golden sliver, Fistfuls of skin
Such a scenic sight
Clenched sheets like prayers,
Hailed gospel to the ceiling
All was holy in the twilight,
I spoke aloud my wantings
You replied with your own,
I've fallen for eden,
Knowing the consequences
Lord have mercy
On our sinning souls

I stole like a thief
Came in under the cover of night
Took what I wanted
Fled out the window
Ran home under the moon
Your heart in my hands
Staining my palms
Still alive and beating
I know that it is wrong to
take what is not your own
But their was so much love inside your chest
I couldn't help but wonder what it
would be to feel that same thing inside my own

Sunday* had soul
Jazz flew out from the windows
The sidewalks eyed each other
From across the dance floor,
Monday felt heavy
All the violins awoke from their slumber
The leaves jumped off the branches
And let the wind take away their wishes
Tuesday bloomed
Daisies reached from between the cracks
Gardens broke free of the fences
The birds whispered songs to the petals
Wednesday brought God
Nestled between pressed together palms
Looking to the sky for answers
The black of the night held so much silence

My body is an orchard
Pluck the fruits of my labors
Feast on the life i have grown
They were raised with water and light
And the cool of the earth
Waiting for someone like you
To steal from me like a child
Wide eyed and searching
I have no remorse, all i can do
is grin wide from cheek to cheek

What’s in a man?
This engine of a heart,
Works in machine like rhythm,
Monochrome innards,
Stashing my colors far too deep,
Someday I wish to see them,
Let their tones creep into place,
What’s in a man?
The longing for someone,
Silence worn as an outfit,
Attempts at concrete and structure,
At times we will shift,
Loosing sight of the times,
Apologies there after,
What’s in a man?
A title I am still trying to fit into.

As are most things
I am temporary
This flesh will decay
This laugh will become a whisper
And all that remains are the memories
As are most things
We are temporary
Our timid affections
These fluttering hellos
So let us feast on the present
gorge ourselves with emotion
And frame the things
we wish to hold close

When you speak aloud,
Fire your words as nameless bullets.
Without a face or destination,
simply burning through the air
in search of a target

On the night before spring,
All the windows were open,
Curtains billowed with february
waiting for the sound of morning
to trap itself inside

When the soil was ready,
we ran across the lawn
searching for salamanders
to catch with cages of fingers,
Gawking at the zoo in our palms
hoping that we too could bathe
in the moonlight and sleep on the stars