Maybe to you I'm nothing more than shades
Of black and white.
The dark and the light at war,
tearing apart a broken body
Until it's left to waste.
Shadows haunting an already ghost of a soul.
Your shutter always sticks so that
I come out in incomplete smudges.

I used to exist in color,
But maybe that's too far gone.
Those photos are all lost
Or melted by the sun.

Red lips and brown eyes --
Glossed over now, as black.
Peachy skin and soft freckles...
Look sickly white, a dotted grey.

Your pictures are framed in galleries,
And people ponder what they may mean...
But my old photographer, all of his pictures were only meant for me.

Don't tell me maybe, I don't want to know.
I've swallowed so many maybes I'm surprised they've all stayed down.
Save your maybes for a girl who can stomach them,
For I'm already queasy.

I'm tired of deleting my sadness.

Beautiful prose is my pride, but pride can be broken
just like a heart weary with the world, and soft spoken
words can cut me like any other man. I bleed. I need
love and laughter and starlight and music in my life.
We all need poetry and dancing in the kitchen and flowers.
Yet... The power of my words isn't a sacrifice,
and this language is not an altar to your smile.

I haven't bared my soul in quite a while, and for you to tell me not to...
Bite me. **** your needs and *******.

I'm tired. I'm weary. My normal flights
of fancy and music and puns and laughter
are taking a reprieve. Skip over it if need be.
These words are mine to seek for shelter
and this page is mine on which to bleed.
Sometimes my playlist is full of spite
and tonight "Welcome to the Black Parade"
is really just what this recovering punk needs.

I recycled rhymes, penned cliches,
and god help me today I don't care.
Here's the exhibit. My wrists on a canvas.
Feel free to snicker.
Feel free to stare.

Let these creaking bodies play
the melodies of lust and test
my mettle upon the metal grey
and cold upon this weary chest.
I knew those lips would tear away
that skin, and those eyes my heart infest.
I knew my mind had gone astray
when I realized I knew who knew me best.
And her lips tasted like metal
And she boiled my emotions in a kettle
And she played lines on my chest like treble
and bass notes rose from my throat
and those lips sung slashes for the rest.

The blind man was asked
"How does this picture look?"
The man then replies,
"Beautiful."
The blind man was then asked
"How so?"
He replies,
"Your forced to see whatever it is,
I get to see whatever I want."

My silence is a barbed wire I choke myself with.

Blood drops and rosy petals are,
As are Sunsets and summer skies.
Too, your lipstick and my beating heart,
Two blushing faces,
Two crying eyes.

Your long coat and wavy hair are,
As is winter's warm demise.
Too, by firesides which warm weary hearts,
I see that color graces
Too our breathless sighs.

Two shades of the same longing.
Two heartbeats: yours and mine.