June 1st, 1998.
A child born,
A boy,
With a mop of brown hair,
And complications.
Pulse weak,
Not getting enough oxygen...
But the complications?
They were handled.


June 1st, 2003.
Blowing out your candles,
Looking forward to things to come.
Like being the ring bearer in your parents' wedding.

June 1st, 2005.
Forfeiting your birthday wish,
Because your wish is coming true.
Your brother is born July 26th.

June 1st, 2012.
Looking back on middle school,
And ahead on the monster known as high school.

June 1st, 2013.
Looking back on freshman year,
And celebrating 6 months with the first girl you ever loved.
You're positive she's the one.

June 1st, 2014.
Looking back on sophomore year,
Relishing the thought of being an  upperclassman,
Yet still mourning the loss of your first love almost a year before, on June 26th.

June 1st, 2016.
Going to the meeting and signing the paperwork.
Feeling more pride than ever in your life.
You leave for basic training in August.
Little do you know, you will be medically discharged in November of the next year.

June 1st, 2018.
I will look back on all I have done.
My failures most of all.
Because they're all I have.

No, not always.
Without oxygen
Or sufficient fuel
The flames will die.
Though I will be honest,
There are flames I thought
Had been extinguished,
That I now think
I make have been
Mistaken about.
I don't think gasoline would help.
It tends to explode,
And I'm already in so many peices.

You have no idea,
Yet you seem to think that saying
"I know how you feel."
Shows your empathy for me.
No, you don't and you never will.
So please stop wasting your time.
Just leave me with my misery.
I don't care what you think you know.
What you think you've seen.
It's irrelevant.
Pretending so you can try to relate doesn't help.
I don't want your ******* pity.
I think I'll be just fine without it.

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.

The number has doubled.
Our ranks are swelling.
Together we are ubstoppable.
One Silvertongue is a menace.
Two is a storm.
I bid you welcome, Old friend.
Better or worse,
Change is change.
We have change in common.
And of one thing I am certain.
I've missed the mystery man that you once made me.

A lost cause never makes a good lesson.

I spQak and thQ ink whispQrs back at mQ.
Glowing, flowing dancing curvQs,
Adrift on the softsQt pagQ.
YQars arQ rQlQasQd with a singlQ stroQe.
CQrtain words contain a piQce of my soul. Qntrapped as thQy arQ,
ConnQctQd yQt isolatQd.
BQcausQ a lQttQr's sound can changQ,
DQpQnding on diffQrQnt combinations,
But it cannot be transfQrrQd.
ThQ words shinQ a hQsitant silvQr,
A tQstamQnt to days gonQ by,
To past lovQs, hatQs and judgQmQnts.
To timQs thQ words madQ sQnse.
But now I shall surQly sharQ thQ sQcrQt.
ThQ rQason my poQms are morQ rQal.
ThQ rQason thQy arQ blunt,
YQt only strikQ glancing blows.
I do my bQst to makQ thQ words what thQy want to bQ.
Because you can't force a Q to fit the part of an E.
Now rQad again and sQQ if it makQs sQnsQ.

I'm tired of writing about
Things that are above me.
I can't speak for the Gods
When they won't speak to me
In the first place.

And let the dead men lie
As the living have done more
Than their fair share

I take it back.
The dead don't lie.
They exist in truth.
The living could learn from them.

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.

In between conscious
And unconscious
I see the things I dont want to.
Like the 37 days in Kuwait,
The fourteen hours in combat,
The two brothers I dragged
Behind the APC,
The 6 rounds stopped
By my plate carrier,
And the one that punched through
Shattering my clavicle
And ending my career.
Not to mention
My fireteam
Fused to their seats
After hitting an IED
All while I bled in a shack
Covered in blood,
Mud and ****.
The things I don't talk about.
The things nobody knows.
Because even telling the story
Raises ever more ******* questions.
And again.
I don't want to talk
About these things.
So count yourself lucky.
To be among those who read this.

I've come to the realisation
That we are all unknown,
Yet legendary.

Hear them,
The desperate cries
Of starving children,
The mewling of cubs
Too young to fight.
The breaking of bones,
The strained silence
After the screaming stops.
This is my nighttime melody.
*How else can I keep my brain busy?

I am their rock,
But
The little ones
Are my legacy

We are all alluded to little hints,
Ones we barely seem to notice.
A slight inkling here or there.
A stray thought or phrase.
Something that sets off a signal flare.
We're bombarded by little whispers,
That resurrect old memories.
These give rise to whole new inspiration,
Reset the count clock to 365,
And change the page to 394.

The problem is that
I'm not a long term thinker.
I've been telling myself for years
That if I'm not dead by 30,
I'll bite a bullet.
I'm still not convinced that's changed.

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.

I've got a bit of a reputation.
One heartbreak and I end up alone,
Find a heart to latch onto until,
Eventually it falls apart.
I make it down the road called life,
By hitchhiking,
From heart to heart,
Love to love.
There's a reason I'm no longer trusting.
You should know that.
But the boy with a broken down red truck
Is now the villian.
Not like I expected any different.
Like I said,
There's a reason.

We are born
And then thrown
Into a hole.
Expected to know
From the beginning
How to survive.
They'll ask you:
"What will you
Do with the
Life you have?"
The only answer
They will detain
Hate and berate
You for speaking
Is: "End it."

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.

They say each breath is a gift
Even while inhaling the fumes
Of a world in agony.
That every life is sacred
As millions of children die
Without the sustenance they require.
And that all will come in time
As they tap their feet and angrily watch their clocks waiting for the deadline.

It doesn't hurt
When they leave
Only because
I know it's
Going to happen.
I'm used to
Self medicating.
If I hurt when they leave
My medicine cabinet
Is fully stocked anyway.

It's painfully easy
To share a condescending veiw,
Even when more will change
With action than will with word.
Yet another lecture is what I get.
I'm fully aware I disappoint you.
You've made it widely known.
But I'm not sure I care anymore.
It's just as easy in my mind
To splatter some ink onto the page
As it is to splatter my brains on the ceiling.
I guess we'll see which hurts less.

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.

You would never guess
The man standing next to you on the street
Revels in insanity,
Feels at home in morbidity,
And finds beauty in violence.
The world is not entirely symmetrical,
And though I'm looking in a mirror,
I do scare myself.

A number is not an identity.
My weight is not my beauty.
My test scores are not my intelligence.
My age is not my level of responsibility.
Everyone is beautiful regardles of size.
I may be better at some things,
Music, artistry, creativity.
At 18 I've lost more than most before me.
Is this poem #244?
It is, yet it isn't.
It needs a name.

Regardless of the happy times,
I shouldn't neglect to mention the joy,
They always return.
The feelings of inadequacy.
*The ******* whispers

The clock reads 5:26
First light is peeking through the ozone.
I stand at the back door
Holding a lit cigarette through the crack
Stopping occasionally to take a drag.
Mist rolls cautiously over the distant hills
As if it could spring away at any moment.
The weeds in the yard dance in the wind
Rejoicing in the new day.
My body is heavy, my eyes glazed
From sitting in the pitch black basement.
I don't sleep much anymore.
I dread the dreams as I dread the day.
There is no lesser evil.

The morning after
an exhaustion fueled
poetry binge is always a jolt.
"What the hell did I write last night?!"
Ha. I wrote everything.