The desperate search,
For some familiar earth.

The rise of the uncontrollable,
Until we resort to the toll of will,

The anxious blade,
Is the friend we made.

In our trying times,
That made tunnels of our eyes.

When our dice fall upon the zero,
There's no telling where we'll go,

Except to our secret place,
Where we've hidden our friendly blade.

Pain to distract from pain,
Just another color in our endless rain.

Ashamed of what we've done,
The scars we bear,
Are proof that we've won.
Because we were there.

Because we're still here.

For the memories of those who aren't,
Now would warrant a graceful tear.

For our brothers and sisters in arms,
and the arms who've bled,
we're the ones who know...

Just how strong we are.

You've made it this far,
There's no telling where you'll go

~Robert van Lingen

One flake of snow on a well-perched mountaintop,
Could make the entire mountain Drop

My indomitable core,
Shaken to the Core.

I walk my past and it's sadly familiar.

I step the steps I've stept before and begin to shed a tear,
I look ahead and smell the grass I've smelt before,
Memories return with every step.

And I walked there and wept,
Quietly to myself.

As I walk the path I've walked before,
I wet the ground I've never wet before.

~Robert van Lingen

Traversing my minefields,
   Is an impossible task,
Find another way around,
   So that you don't get hurt,
Because that would be sad.
  
I don't want to make you sad.

I want to see something I've never seen before,
   because I've already seen the worst of it all.

I want to open that door,
   And have a new place to walk every day.

I want something unfamiliar,
   Because everything I've already known has hurt me.

I wish tomorrow could be the new day it really should be,


The past, is not the future I want.

Winding fingers,
Weave the thread,
That wrap me so comfortably in my fears,
Embracing.

Mould my mind,
Shamelessly encrypting my thoughts, Through and through.

Grown to shapen my impersonality,
Both for my lack there of,
And my tenancy for the impersonal.

Yet how,
Should be such a bond to my pains,
An Introspective perfection,
Or am I?

Or is that just my guise,
Impersonality guide my imperfection,
Interspective shapes my imperception.

Impossibilities in my inevitabilities.

I am.
Imperfection.

Blanket eyes,
Close, to see the light.

Drift,
Further from the shining bright.

Open wide,
To see the blight.

That which,
Leaves with dreams of flight.

Goodbye, fateful might,
For once again,
I will sleep tonight.

Transcribe my sine wave,
     Rays like the sun.

Describe the unending normalcy.
   waves crashing: one too many.

Laser-focused against the (g)rain.
        Tsunami enraged.


Defiance is my resonant frequency,
      sorry to disappoint.

I am the way.

Hello there,
I see you,
And,
I'm broken too...

I have just one question for you,
Do you think,
Two broken hearts,
Make one, too?

~Robert van Lingen

You always said,
Actions speak louder than words,
But words do mean something.

Words are the language of my heart,
Words can build me up,
Or tear me apart.
Yours in particular.

Actions speak louder than words,
But without words,
There would be no speaking at all.

~Robert van Lingen
Words do, mean something.

A somber setting of a light gone by,
As I wipe away the tears that I've cried.

A past.
A lesson,
That won't be forgotten,

I've gotten these feelings before,
But never quite like this,

I insist,
That you leave.

And let me breathe,
For a moment.

All at once, the step that I sat upon shattered and scattered my heart,
Pick up the pieces, this is only the start.

Welcome to my mind,
Where passion is fleeting, while I walk through the halls of my losses and I learn.

Stand up.
You've gotten this far,
Press forward.
Keep writing.

This is my art.

~Robert van Lingen

Who are you?
Not a name,

Tell me your soul.

~Robert van Lingen

In this way I see these too,
The cohesive clumps of rabid thoughts,
Running, scampering, dancing of their own tune,
Careless of any other.

I try to decipher this life where it all makes sense,
To everyone but me.
To breathe in the same winds as the hints of a summer's bloom,
means to me,
not the same as you.

Brooding at the corner of my unkempt bed,
Imagining, the latter days where I may have just stepped aside,
To cry inside,
but in plain view.
To decipher these nights where nothing makes sense,
Makes sense,
To me,
and to you.

Rage flows,
When the pains shows,
That others have to go through,
When there's nothing you can do...

****** eyes,
Bruised thighs...
All from they guys they've come to trust.
It's disgusting...

And the saddest part of it all,
Most won't even tell a soul.

Because they don't want to worry us.
Or maybe,
It's too dangerous,
To try and run away..

All I can say is,
Don't be afraid to try and trust again,
Because I swear,
You can love again.

Because, we can help.
Even if it is, just to listen.

~Robert van Lingen

I,
Defy the paradigm,
The escapist void,
Lines of code I refuse to obey.

I defy,
Defy,
All emotionalogic.
I make no sense,
Or a dollar that pays my way to ignorant bliss.

'Tis the streets upon which I so selfishly make my way and,
My gears turn with no source or destination.

I am the,
Status quo of the chronically out of place.
So,
Take that next step,
Show me.

The dreams,
The ghost of you haunts me every waking night.

Get out of my head,
And let me free.

As I sleep, the fantasy is a paradise,
As I wake, becometh a nightmare, once and overmore.

The memory of it all tears my strung-up heart apart,
Get out of my head....
                    or come back to my eyes.

~Robert van Lingen

The littlest cracks bring us back,
To the places we hide within.

The knack we have for baring all we have,
And we wait for nothing in return.

Plant the flag upon our minuscule mountaintop,
Just for the wind to blow it over,
So we can practice picking it up again.

Our glass-paned hearts shatter overnight,
Thinking of the ones who we don't think think of us.
Only to be replaced every new day morning.

The mesmerizing memories pull us into the dancing trances that we couldn't bear to escape.
The fates laugh their little hearts out,
At our struggles and our lives.

But,
With every rising of the sun comes new chances to prove them wrong.
Pain fades just like that summer scar.
It never really goes away,
But becomes easier to forget.

Hang on.
Fragile hearts just so happen to be the strongest ones we have, and while they keep breaking,
We are the Olympians at gluing our lovely hearts back together again.

~Robert van Lingen

Plumbers who've never had to fix a pipe,
Won't be very good at their job.

Hearts that have never been broken,
Don't really know how to love.

The soul mindless alone,
The whole yet to be filled.

Find one to another and breathe,
See,
Believe.

The soul mindless at home finds itself in the beating minds of the tormented,
Tormented.
Abashed to its own state of mind.

Signed the treaty to service of the lost.
Little do they know.


The chip, chipping away at the stone heart constructed nigh,
The stone heart slipping away from its own grasp.


Broken hearts cannot heal another,
Stolen minds speak no reason.


Find unto yourself reason for pride,
Your own heart must stand fast.

So that,
One day,
You may pave peace for another to stride,
And find their way.

~Robert van Lingen

You asked for the truth,
I offered, yet I am graced with silence.

This isn't a battle, yet somehow I'm losing.
This isn't a war, but I am still defeated.

This wasn't a fight.
T'was a slaughter.

A senseless homicide of a friendship that I don't think I could ever understand.

I will not be the mannequin for you to unload upon your confused attacks,

I do forgive you though.

I bear no grudge,
I hold no anger.

My role in this play is now,
To patiently wait for your truth.
Even if it will never arrive.

Waking,
The peaceful yet painful silence,

Breaking,
The shattered past,

Cast the mind to the broken surf,

The peaceful yet painful silence,
The accursed slumber,

The waking dreams realized,
Yet intangible,
The ineffable plot,

Waking,
Eyes ***** upon the ceiling,
The turbid lullaby resound,

The haunting end ever present dichotomy,
The peaceful yet painful slumber,
The forlorn cure,
My inescapable truth.

~Robert van Lingen

That moment,
That dread-filled instant you feel everything slip away.

Hope, Lost.
Strength, Gone

Suddenly you feel useless and hated by everyone, inexplicably.

Just in that moment, Everything changes.

This,
Is Depression.

That moment,
We feel the earth shatter beneath us and we fall and all we feel is,
"Please, not now. Not again."

Our eyes flush with black and we let go,
And we fall, again.

In that moment,
We leave ourselves behind,
We wave goodbye to our minds,
That we hope to see again, soon.

This,
Is Depression...

Not a moment later our arms and legs turn to stone,
Our hearts fill with lead.

An intangible yet truly powerful pain consumes us as we fall,
again.

And we cry,
Inside or out,
Sometimes both.

This,
Is not who we are.

This is our disease.
This is not Us.

We are the strongest people on this planet.
Because, we battle a war that only we can feel,
And yeah, some of us don't make it.

This is our disease.
But...

My friends,
It is not terminal,
This is not who we are.

Let's stand up and make one more day, just in case,
We'll find love in the smallest things,
In just the simplest gesture,
A thank you,
Or a hug,
Will make our day.

To those who don't give up on us when we give up on ourselves,
Thank you.

This, ❤
Is Us.

~Robert van Lingen

The Blindness monotony,
Hurl your jokes my way.

Your play ball strikes as stone,
Not very much unlike that which is buried deep inside my heart,
And never shown.

Harmless, is in the eyes of the beholder, my friend.

Your jokes,
   Are my demons.
Your entertainment,
   Is my downfall.

So all I ask,
   Is that you walk a mile in my mind,
Then maybe you'll see,

Harmless jokes hurt sometimes,
  But don't mind me.

~Robert van Lingen

Love.

What do you think when you hear that word?
Depends on who says it, right?

Love is the pit we fall in,
Now that might sound bad,
But think about it,
It keeps us protected from the world outside,
Stuck with whoever fell in with us.
There's just one problem...
Sometimes,
The person we fall in with, doesn't let go of the rope.

Love...
So easy to fall in,
But when you're left alone in love,
This tunnel of beauty, passion, ecstasy, and peace...
Becomes your own personal hell.
Built by you,
For you.

Love.
How easily we fall in.
Please,
Someone tell me how to fall out again..

~Robert van Lingen

Coming to terms with the tears,
The knife shunt into my side,
The days wasted,
And the years gone by....

Who was I, then?
Where am I now?

Beneath me the ground shakes unrelentingly,
The objective to set me falling.

My heart stands up on its own two legs,
And walks away from the strength I'd spent years rebuilding,
Only to stare at what tore it apart in the first place,
Enthralled by the fact that it's all history,
But then he just speaks to the mind,
Then he, too, joins the nostalgic glare.

Now it's as if it were yesterday.
I need not open up wounds that never even closed.

I simply forgot they were bleeding.

This I feel in every string of being
Turbulence of the mind.
The peace hurt from whence it came,
And so quickly left the scene.

Nigh the stringent rules of a mind in chaos,
A rest n'er goes ungreeted.

As the missiles of a summer storm,
Rain upon the hopeful sound,
Dare'd I reach for the sky,
And was hastily struck down.

A vacant wood,
Reverberates the anxiety,
As the drumbeats in our hearts terrorize,
The thoughts we thought we could.

Lustful for the peace of endless time,
And finally release a smile sincere,
Shush our emblazoned thoughts,
And set free our restless minds.

To play the heartstrings plays a song only we can hear,
To love the artist of words,

Every string you pluck,
Becomes our canvas.
Make us cry,
The world will read.

To love a writer,
Is to publish your deeds.

Ten thoughts to ten more,
One leads to another,

Ten thoughts to a hundred more,
I wage this anxious war,

One falls for a thousand to rise,
Hundreds break rank and spawn ten thousand more,

Ten thoughts to ten more.

~Robert van Lingen

My ****** days...
My shifty swaying,
back and forth.
Not knowing what to do,
or who I am...
or why.

Blank staring,
Lines in my mind telling me I'm worthless,

Nothing Changed...
Why now?

Lie Down.

The anxiety forces,
The blankest piety,
Just looking for an answer.

Please just let it end,
So I can get to my mind again

At a glance,
The Circumstance advances the feeling.
I take my stance,
With yet a glance in the other direction,

Enhanced by my retrospect,
With respect to the other.

I sit quietly in my introversion.
All while I build my newer version,
Averted to the adversions of the life I quietly observe.

Here I am.

~Robert van Lingen

Astonishment,
Admonishment,

Quivering lies through the eyes of arrogance doubt.

Fancy hearing the turbid tones of truth as the skies fall upon….you.

Yet you blame.

Shame for shame, playing your endless games.

Ill-guided moresence proves the downfall of all,
Your ill-fated squalor talks more than you know.

Yet your speech is mute to yourn.

Baited falter,
Caught in your own web.

I will listen to yours no longer.

To read my old conversations...
That are long now passed,
It is both more, and less jarring than I expected it to be.

I am taken aback,
Not because I am taken back,
But only due to the sharp and nigh painful retrospect of our mistakes.
How differently I wish I did anything,
Not because I wish I still had you,
But, because I am disappointed in myself for not living up to my own values...
Blinded by the blind, blind love I was in.

Retrospect and nostalgia may be similar,
In fact...
They're either edge of the same sword.

Dry,
Stale,
Pale in comparison to a heart dancing in tune,

Waltz to the songs my memories play,
Stand in the hand that plucks my strings,

Sing to me, Sing to me,
Your Siren Song

~Robert van Lingen

It's funny,
One day you were there,
The next day you were gone,
You found me alone and latched on and held me and showed me love.

You saw the worst parts of me,
You saw the best,
In my darkest times you were there,

When I wanted to die,
When everything to me was a lie,
You were there.

When Nothing and no one meant anything to me anymore,
Except you,
Yeah, you were there.

You were my rock, my shoulder to lean on,
When I needed a heart and a reason,
When I needed a best friend,
When I needed a lover and a home,
You were there.

The day my world collapsed,
The night I lost everything and cried,
When my mom decided to end her own life and I had nowhere to run,
You were there.

You held my hand through every moment,
Through every day I was scared,
You were there...

~Robert van Lingen

I have lost it all before,
What's the difference if once more?

To you I gave my little trust,
Now you've thrown it on the floor.

Don't worry,
I'll pick it up, once and evermore.

I will reassemble my heart,
and my mind, and my core.

For I am stronger,
Than my pains of yore.

~Robert van Lingen

I choose to bear openly,
My scars.
As a reminder of where I once was,
But am no longer.

A Memory's catharsis returns me to where I was lost.

I once was lost,
And now I am grounded,
Rooted in my mind.
With but the flower petals of a broken past.

This,
Is a diction to validation.
Give me your eyes,
And read my writes.

Within the increment,
Feeding my affliction.

More reads,
Make more writes,
And your reads,
Are my wrongs,
That let me sleep at night.

~Robert van Lingen

Tryin to be independent of the venom inside my head,
This isn't dead though,
My eyes are red so,
I'm reaching the pinnacle,
Reading into the syllables,
Inside my head,
That want me dead,
But I'm not ready yet,
So I'll just say no to the infected perception of the world around me,
So,

Just relax,
Here I am.
Just look in the mirror,
Smile,
And jump in.

The water is cold and unforgiving,
The product of being so lost and feeling so
Dark, alone, but I'm never quitting, so,

Hold on and don't let go,
It's gonna be hard,
But don't let your feeling show,
How scared you are,
To feel the scars,
and free the arts,
of the real,
person you are.

Just show them,
You'll never give up,
Just feel the love,
and let it grow,
So,

Be who you are,
and don't forget,
when things are hard,
Just stare at the stars.

~Robert van Lingen

Mindpeace,
   My mind plays tricks,
Like the days,
   Coming.

I remembered that I forgot,
   And I smiled inside..
The thought of not thinking of you
   gives me a peace I haven't known in far too long.

For here,
   Is my first day since,
That I forgot about you.

Too many days,
   My haunted months threaten their return.

A cold winter,
   my old friend...

maybe now that I,
   forgot to remember you,

My winter won't be so cold..

So,
This is the way we leave today?
I hoped and prayed and called God to say,
It's okay.

So,
Today,
I walked past your father and he didn't even look me in the eyes.
I don't want to be friends.
I just want to make amends and leave the past behind,
But this?
Why?
Is this the legacy I left behind?

I've done nothing but show respect.
Now,
I don't regret but I have to admit,
I didn't expect this.

I've got to say I'm sad and disappointed,
That His words anointed go unspoken.
One could say it's true,

"Do unto others as you wish others to do unto you."

I'd almost say it's religious,
I don't think it's ridiculous to ask,
Take off your masks.

It's a new day.
We don't have to act this way.

~Robert van Lingen

Piling Up.
Falling.
Down.

When is the end of my story?
Where is my final line?
The heat slowly fades into my mind as I seek asylum from itself...

Bring me to me,
When is my end,
When is my goodbye?

~Robert van Lingen

I want the world,
But I am entitled to none.

At last,
Abashed at the rash decisions of my heart,

The crash amassed the crass dealings of my past,
Fast,
The class to mask the blast,

Hide.

~Robert van Lingen

Love, Pain, Hate, Shame, they are all one in the same,
What keeps us sane?

The peace of which we seek blinds our eyes of the ease with which we bleed.
We cease to peace when we give in to grief.

This is the law of love and life,
With which we walk unto our paths that we ourselves have never known,
and never will,

Save the day,
We pave peace with our tears and fears for others to stride,
And find their way,

~Robert van Lingen

I might seem strong to you,
Truth is,
I'm just too broken to ask for the help I silently need.
How am I still here?
I'm too selfish to remove myself from the equation.
Why are you still here?
Because I lie to myself and tell myself that you are.
Because I'm terrified of losing everything I'll never receive.
Because I live under the assumption that I'm worthless because all past evidence points to it.
Because I'm broken.
And If I ask for help,
I'll probably break you too.
And break myself even further.
Because I'm afraid of everything.
Because I'm not,
Who we think I am.

Every minute is a century,
When I can't fall asleep.

Evasive peace.
Please...

It's getting hard to breathe...


Stop.
Breathe.
Hold.
It's going to be okay.


Sleep

And let me guess,
You threw away the key?

The Trust we've mustered, and dusted off,
In the past, has only set fast our reasons to not.
Time, and time again...

We've finished with this pain,
Locked away,
We keep our scythe-d hearts...
still-bleeding from the wounds of years ago.

Our still-beating heart that somehow survives,
Despite itself...
And the lines we've drawn.

I am the great wall with no gate.
And nothing inside...
But with nothing to hide,
I hope.

I'm just afraid,
You'll come by,
and give me another reason to...


Wait.

You've given me another reason to not.
I hold the keys to many hearts,
but not my own.

You've put the table on the wrong side,
as well as the door.
Six locks,
To keep the blight inside,
But not to hide from us all.

These blue eyes see through those sighs of grief.

You've not locked yourself inside.
Just put your pains away.
You,
May leave your strains behind,
And fly,
Away to breathe the sighs of relief that you couldn't wait to see.

Don't lock away your heart,
Because here's the key

Love is a Summer's Rain
Step through my lonely storm
Here I am once again


~Robert van Lingen

Each and every time,
I hear that rhyme,
That song,

I become strung along,
Back to the little basement,
Where I spent my teenage years,
The look on my face when it was just you and I.

Though our adolescent love has faded,
we've become friends, even if distant,
and gone our separate ways,
My love for that moment will never be swept away,

You were my drug back when,
My mind was narrow then.

For I was your hero, and you were my Heroine.



~Robert van Lingen