Most wild animals don't like being touched.
You look at me quizzically,
Before reaching closer.
That's what I am.
An animal.
You may not think so,
But it's true.
An amused smile crosses your lips.
Oh, if you only knew the danger you were in.
One thing about wolves.
We like to bite.
Your eyes go a little wider, you grin,
And tuck your hair behind your ear.
Daring me to.
That's okay
You say.
Do it.
And I lose control.
It's more of a tender bite.
You inhale.
That's weird.
I think.
Usually when I bite, something dies.
A soft laugh.
*But I like it

Intentions explained,
Problems avoided,
Words spoken.
A clean slate has been provided.
And it will be used
Inimica est inimicus meus
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
I'll keep gathering enemies.
But finding a friend here and there can't hurt.

I don't need an army.
I don't need people to relay orders.
I don't need tanks or mortars,
Missiles or grenades.
I've always fought my own battles.
And I've always fought them alone.
I've never needed anyone.
And usually I lose when other people get involved.
Step back.
Stay out of the war.
Find your own battle to fight.
I am my own legion.
And as long as you don't intercede,
I am guaranteed victory.

I stand in front of you,
Blood on my hands.
A monster like you've never seen.
I hiss and spit.
I rage and roar.
And beg.
I spit bile from my mouth and wail.
Asking why you won't do it.
Why you won't end my pain.
End it.
Please
Shoot me.
I'm tired of this existence.
I'm tired of taking lives,
Of destroying dreams,
Of ending happiness.
I'm tired of never having any of my own.
Shoot me again
I ain't dead yet
Shoot me again
Shoot me again
*Shoot me

Look here sweetheart,
I'm not in a giving mood.
You summoned me while I was sleeping.
But you want to make a deal...
To save yourself?
That's rich.
Here's what I'll do for you.
I'll send you to Hell where you belong,
And give you the memories of the things you did to me.
A vengeance demon has to have a start.
Just so happens you were mine.
Payback is definitely a *****.

You said I shouldn't have ignored you today.
That you wanted to talk to me.
That you didn't mean to bother me but I should've answered.
I told you I was in a mood.
Not to take it personally.
I avoided everyone today.
You told me that I shouldn't be an *******.
This.
You
Are the ******* reason I spent all day,
Sitting on my bed,
Strumming my guitar.
Playing the same songs over and over.
I could've hung myself from the rafters instead of restringing it.
But I didn't.
Maybe I should have.
At least then I wouldn't have to deal with the hypocrites that make me want to in the first place.

Are you kidding me Mike?
You're crying?
This is priceless.
I knew you couldn't do it.
You failed at everything else.
Now you can't even hide what you've hidden for years?
You're feeling regret?
You're feeling remorse?
Wow.
I'm disappointed beyond belief.
But not surprised.
You were always ******* pathetic.
-Mike

A
Few
Too
Many
Times
Have I
Lost it
Never to find it
Again
Dead
Gone

I try to be
Bigger
Better
Faster
Stronger
I try to stay away
Distant
Isolated
Encapsulated
Unreachable
I try to fool myself to think I'm
Invincible
Unbeatable
Unbreakable
The master
I do know this
I am not the silver tongue
He manifests himself when he wants
I'm not nearly as talented
As eloquent
He is what I could never be
Yet his words pour from my pen
I am a tool
Nothing more

Well ****.
Ha, that could be the name of my autobiography.
Anyway...
Once again, people have grown infatuated with the words rolling off my tongue.
They sound pretty...
But do you really understand them?
You see me every so often,
But do you really know me?
I'm sorry.
I don't do it on purpose.
I don't want to sound conceited, but...
It just happens.

On a ship off of the coast of Florida,
I met a girl.
She had wild curly hair and a wild beautiful smile.
She sat across from me in a corner booth and spoke of singing, dancing and acting.
A theater kid she told me.
A lover of dogs.
I could tell she was weird like me.

She reminded me of 4 years earlier,
My first day of high school.

Walking into first period and accidentally bumping into someone.
Turning to apologise and there was a hulking figure.
He had wild soulful eyes and a wild crooked grin.
He spoke about writing rhymes and performing live.
A misfit he told me.
A lover of his Chihuahua.
I could tell he was nuts like me.

Let me be honest,
Nobody wants to be like me.
But those that are?
We're unique.
We're crazy.
And we have way more fun than normal people.
We eat pizza on deck 5 at 3 AM.
We blast down dirt roads at 75 MPH. (Also at 3AM)
We live.

War is not the only outcome,
If it pleases you,
We can just as easily find a place to hide.
***** walls too high for the dragons to cross,
And too thick for Death to walk through.
I can patrol the corridors,
Claws clicking on the cold stone floors.
You can stay in the keep.
Live a quiet life of no fighting.
No alliances.
Just us.
Wonderland isn't so bad
If you're living underground.

You sit,
Spreading poison.
The vegetation where you lurk has all withered and died.
The acid in your words causes the very dirt to smolder.
A word of caution.
I protect those near to me.
A war against her is a war against me.
And in a war of words the silver tongue has never lost.
All of my metaphors are at her disposal.
This will get worse for you if you don't surrender.
On second thought...
Waving a white flag would be a wasted effort.
You should start running now.
While you still have the opportunity.

Perhaps I made the wrong choice of words.
Of course you wouldn't be making me fight.
Savagery is my forte,
And combat is in my wheelhouse.
While having something...
Someone
To fight for, shall spur me onward.
I have no need for armor,
My teeth and claws will do just fine.
I would never regret fighting the war.
Liberating the mind of Alice from the evil things.
A deal is a deal of course.
But the terms were not set.
So a deal was never actually agreed upon.
Let it sufice to say that I will accept any recompense you deign to give.
I trust your judgement.
A contract is not necessary.
Nor is it appropriate.
We'll just make it up as we go along.
No worries.
Any sacrifices made would be worth it.
It's not every day you get to see the inside of a gingerbread house,
Or plant magic beans.
Unfortunately I'll have to exchange something other than my soul for them.

A blue sky doesn't gauruntee good weather.
The sky won't necessarily stay clear,
And lightning can strike from miles away.
A downpour doesn't have to be bad either.
Sometimes an acid rain will cleanse the landscape.

That ever elusive line shifts moment to moment.
Even demons have their place,  
Make deals and trade the ****** for the distraught.
But he who walks the dark crevices in the dragon-land is not so.
It sounds like you have been flirting with Death.
I do not condemn you, I have done the same.
She promised me release and blew goosebumps into my skin.
Because Death changes,
And looks different to all.
Death has no place here to hold.
And no role to fulfill.
Take me to him,
Transfer my concious to yours.
The dragons are no longer the enemy.
I shall stand with them,
Fight tooth and claw.
I shall send Death back to its own realm,
Rip its throat out,
Snarl my victory to the shadows and make them flee .
He will burn.
The dragons will leave,
Recompense for ridding them of the Devil.
Then you will have no need for the monster,
And I will still be here.
Though dealing with wolves can be distasteful.
My silver tongue does not lie.
Do we have a deal?

I live in a den in the land of the dragons,
A place where the sunshine rocochets off of every surface and monsters are the most human beings around.
I stalk the woods and do not shy from battle. Even dragons have turned from me.
Unseen in the shadows,
Eyes of liquid gold,
With a silver tongue trapped behind sharp teeth.
I could talk my way out of trouble,
But honestly, where's the fun in that?

It's strange how the people that pass through in life are those you miss the most.
A silver tongue grows wary of words spoken, and wished it could stop hiding behind metaphors.
There was only two people it could ever be completely honest with.
He misses Mr. Mystery.
And #You who created him.

Let me be clear,
I will not restate or reiterate.
I will not make clear.
I will only imply.
After all,
What good is a puzzle if it's put together for you?
I have spent many a minute weighing my options.
The wall shall come down.
Not completely mind you.
But a door shall be put in.
If you want to visit me, you are welcome.
I will do my best to be pleasant.
Just remember that a wolf's den is a dark place.
I'd like to thank you.
I'd lost my faith in humanity.
Now I see there are a few select individuals who are just as estranged as I am.
Perhaps companionship won't be my undoing.
Provided your offer still stands,
My answer has changed.
Soon? No.
Someday?
Perhaps.

They say that every person you've ever seen in your head you've seen in real life.
The boy in your head is out there,
Standing watch and waiting for your visit.
You're in his debt after all.
I guarantee he can't wait to see you.
Don't worry about the dragons.
They're not so bad.
Just misunderstood.
People used to feel the same way about wolves...
But I'm no monster, am I?
I'll go with if you'd like.
You can return with him.
I'll take his place,
Gaurd the dragons in your mind,
And release my soul into the sky,
Hoping the moon will hear it.

I've danced for so long,
Driven by the ambitions of others.
Any girl that wandered into the dusty back room,
Picked me up off of my hook
And gave me music to dance to
Was the girl I loved.
For so long,
I danced and danced,
But then I was set aside
Until discovered again.
Each time the current puppeteer grew tired of her toy,
She would drop me in a heap.
And so happened time and time again.
With each new puppeteer I changed a little more,
Until I no longer felt the need to dance.
Then, after a while of thinking,
I stoop up and walked over to a desk in the corner.
In the desk there was a drawer.
In the drawer was a knife.
And now my strings are gone.
I still dance sometimes,
But I dance by myself,
Not driven by a need to be loved.
But by a need to maintain my insanity.
This makes little sense I guess.
What do you expect?
I'm just a little wooden puppet.
With no strings,
No puppeteer,
And no hook to hang on.
Even Pinocchio got out from time to time.
But that little ******* wasn't aware of how ******* lucky he really was.

They'll never see us.
The real us.
The broken ones that have nothing to lose.
The 19 year old lost in his sorrows.
The 15 year old who hates her body.
He drowns himself in ***** while she forces her fingers down her throat.
The girls that do what they shouldn't to find love in the wrong places.
The guys that can't hide everything.
The kids that hide razorblades in their dresser drawers.
The suicidal, the lost and forgotten.
The ones that are different.
The boy who clears his conscience using poetry.
We make up the majority yet are powerless to change the way things are.
Nobody wants to help us because then they become associated with us.
Then they become us.

We learned so many things,
Didn't we?
Who to trust,
What was important,
Things we should and shouldn't say and do.
But the one thing we both swore we would never do again?
It's common sense.
The one person you should never
EVER
Listen to,
Is yourself.
Even in a letter.

What most people don't realize is,
Death is relative.
You decide your own destiny,
Whether to go quietly,
Or to use it for your purpose.

I don't intend to slowly fade.
I plan to go nova.
Spread the heat of countless stars,
Create a black hole,
And take the entire ******* universe with me.

*Ut mori solent stellae vivere...

Even if I told you the truth,
Would you believe it?
Or would I need to spin a new story
So you could happily accept a falsehood?

Ah, someday...
I remember that word.
Full of certainty that tomorrow would be better.
Forgive me for being stubborn, but the future isn't set.
A trigger pull is a split second decision.
And the future isn't always there for us to look forward to.
More often we agonize over its coming.
The what ifs and hypothetical reactions.
Waking up in the morning to push through another day.
Another day of pressure from all directions.
Another siege.
I've warned you.
Now your actions are your own.
If you are set on stealing a dragon's scale,
Just be prepared for the possibility you may be burned alive.
You seem determined.
The board is set up, the pieces straight.
Make the first move
...If you dare?

I'd just like to say I find it amusing...
Not like I don't appreciate it, but still.
It amuses me that some still think I can be saved.

I've pondered your words.
The ones that danced so elegantly across the page.
Those that held no fear, no regrets.
I should tell you...
The walls you wish to unravel aren't just there for my protection.
They keep in a monster.
Others can testify, I am no angel.
My tongue of silver has rarely been used for good.
And I don't feel any inclination to use it for good in the future.
I've broken my fair share of hearts,
Shattered my fair share of dreams,
And ended more than my fair share of lives.
I was trained to **** and then booted back into the streets.
I was charged with anger and released, deemed useless.
This situation is an example...
Look inside yourself. Analyze your feelings.
And think about what I could do to the world if I really tried.
Love is beneath me at this point,
And companionship fades quickly.
I don't think my walls are coming down anytime soon.
Nor do I think you should try scaling them.
Inside are my dreams,
Which equate to most people's nightmares.

You say happiness can bloom in dark places...
I'd rather rip up the roots and leave them to die on the sidewalk.
Anger serves me much better.
It keeps me alive, keeps me unscathed and wins me every fight.
Sorrow reminds me to stay careful, to keep myself isolated.
The less chance there is for attachment, the less chance there is for pain.
The devil's snare creeps over the cobblestones,
Trapping those foolish enough to come near.
It avoids the sunlight, like me.
We have more than that in common it seems.
The shadows my sanctuary and my mind my prison.
Just don't leave the door unlocked.

As with darkness,
My expression is equal parts beauty and danger.
If addicted you may find yourself pulled in.
Unable to discern between real and imagined.
Be warned...
People have fallen before.
But it's always been with the way I say things...
Not the message itself.

I was wrong.
Eventually, a rifle warms up,
After you put a few hundred rounds through it.
People, however,
Grow increasingly colder.
They're much more difficult to operate.
I'd rather hear the percussive beat of a bullet firing
Than I would the angry, unfounded accusations.
The recoil into my shoulder is better
Than the pangs in my chest when I realize she never cared.

I'm a monster.
Tendrils of anger lash out,
Wrapping around those nearest.
They gasp for breath, choke for air,
Plead for mercy.
I close my eyes, try to ignore the begging, the screams.
But they bore into my very being.
Then everything stops.
I open my eyes.
Another daydream.
Another moment of wishing destruction.
Another moment of imagined eruption.
One more time where I wanted to let go.
I wanted to explode and wreak havoc.
I need help.
No, not help.
Mostly I need a target.
A focus point.
Something to align my sights to
So I can pull the trigger.

There are no more razor blades,
My parents started locking the door to the garage
And I'm not allowed in the kitchen anymore.
They took my belts,
Hid my bootlaces,
And my guitar sits unstrung.
The medicine cabinet is locked,
My father finished his whiskey,
And the gas can and matches are locked in the garden shed.
No way to drown the pain.
No way to use it against myself.
So it rots.
And I decay.

Fire can purify.
It can purge.
Burn away the excess.
Melt away the impurities.
Would it work for me?

Should I start taking gasoline shots,
Light a match,
And swallow it?
Will the bad burn away?
The anger, pain and hate?
Will it evaporate?

Will I be reborn,
Like a phoenix in the flame?
Or will I be scattered across the seas,
Ashes in the wind,
A sudden flare from a dying star?

Something isn't right.
There's a smoky overlay across the room.
It stretches across the sky and gathers in the corners.
It blankets the buildings and suffocates the trees.
I'm used to seeing Old Glory on every building.
But now she screams for help.
I got used to the sound of constant gunfire,
It went from being startling to reassuring.
Now the people turn on each other,
And a sociopath has been handed a red button.
Most people don't realize,
Nobody wishes more for peace than those who fight the war.

I walk the streets I used to know
With a constant nagging feeling.
It chews at the back of my brain,
Telling me I've forgotten something.
A fundamental tool.
An extension of myself.
A weapon mastered.
But I have to shake it off.
After all,
Now that I'm back in blue jeans,
I can't expect them to let me carry an M4.

Hello.
Surprised to see me?
I said I would return.
It's just happened sooner than I predicted.
I'm doing well.
I've returned,
A king to his kingdom,
A lord to his manor,
A master to his craft.
Now please, shoo.
There is work to be done.

You drifted off,
Around 11 O' Clock,
On line 8 of page 9, Chapter 1.
I feel a sense of pride
That my voice can soothe you to sleep.
Nobody else that I know of
Has that affect on you,
I can't wait to pick up where we left off
Tomorrow night.

Sometimes,
I want to burn.
From the inside, out.
Until I'm nothing but dust,
Memories blown away with the wind.
Do you know
Where I can find
Something to accelerate the agony?
To help me burn quickly,
Yet spare me no pain?
Oh well...
If you find anything, give me a call.
I'll take it off your hands.

Someone smiled at me today.
I went to dinner,
And the hostess eyed me and batted her eyelashes.
She should have taken a deeper look.
Maybe the corners of her eyes would have creased,
When she was in disbelief of what she found.
She would have frowned in concentration
As my scars surfaced and danced across my skin.
An American Flag burned into my forearm.
She would have seen my mind racing,
And my defenses kick in.
She would have realized how it would affect me.
How she could break me,
With the smile from a stranger.

Unlucky 13,
I feel your pain.
Your loneliness.
Those around you are seen as normal.
You do not look very different,
Yet, for some reason, you are marked.
I've followed the same path,
And I've found myself
On the sometimes non-existant,
13th floor.

I've realized,
The only thing keeping me sane
Is the steady tapping of the keys
As I pour out my emotions through my fingers.
I'm cleansing myself.
Storing all of the anger,
The desperation,
The madness
In a digital medium
Where I'm hoping it's trapped forever.

Someone, please help me.
I'm looking for a friend.
One I have not seen in quite some time.
He left me empty.
Perhaps you know him?
The Silvertongue?
He who was the weaver of words,
The teller of tales
And the creator of worlds?
He was so quick with his tongue.
His humanity was intact,
Yet he was not foolish.
He understood people
And cared about them.
It matters not...
The Silvertongue is gone I guess.
I wish I could bear the name of one so great.
Bah, such thoughts are foolish.
Do not wish for things that cannot be.

Every night,
I feel I fall deeper
into the dark.
It's a safe place,
A small sanctuary
To be myself.
The shadows pass no judgment,
They understand the ups and downs.
I can do what I need to without guilt.
I can sit and think,
Scrawl hate on a page,
Or punish myself for my misdeeds.
I am but an artist.
And though it may be morbid,
My body is my canvas.