Love blunt my blade,
Set in stone my firebrand,

And show me a new way.

~Robert van Lingen

Chicken scratch,
Chicken scratch...

scribbles,
   Slashed against the page...

What is this rage?

This ink is my blood.
   Let me bleed some more.


~Robert van Lingen

Mental heart at rest,
At rest...

At best,
I must arrest my restless mind to slog through the rest of today.

At Rest.
At rest,
Birds nest of anxieties...
Come to rest.

SILENCE!

insolent mind.

Be, at rest.

The days that splay out my heart,
Like knives,
Cut apart.

In the grips,
Of a stronger wave,
In my abstract heart.

I stretch for the quay,
The sweet release,
Yet I watch myself depart.

Suffocate,
Choking on love,
Pick me piece from peace,

And smother me.

~Robert van Lingen

Sugarplum sweet,
Dropping not too far,
From the lone-blossomed tree,
That has given you life.

As I look up,
I remember how the whole sky was alight,
For but a moment.
Dead silence.
The sun staring down in a beauty you could never Imagine.
~Robert van Lingen

My heartless time rivers flow'd.
My restless adversary.

My thoughtless mind had show'd,
My inundated tributary.

Flood'd,
By the sleepless anxiety.
Constant reminders of my perfectionist's folly;
My immortal immorality.

My logic's subsided.
Sanity's mistaken.
Slow'd to a dull roar,
Blowing in the wind.

My Intuition's annulment,
Blind'd by the songless hymns.
That heartbeat melody,
What set me on the brim.

My Mindless heart.
My heartless mind.
This is life,
In this peaceless soul of mine.

Time is my commodity,
Ever so rare,
What has me blind,
To this peace of time.

Perhaps, somewhere in this mind,
Ever so scared,
I may yet find,
This peace of mine.

~Robert van Lingen

I caught myself peering through the haze,
Weary of the dark,

The dull glaze of my mirror silently stares back,
From the black, I speak tales of the maze of my mind,
I find, till yet this day has failed to share the  unrequited love for myself,
For my sense of self, I delve into the skies,

The dull shine, just over there,
The longer I stare, It just becomes stranger,
Which one is me? Which one is real?

Am I the reflection? Or am I the stranger?

~Robert van Lingen

Hearts beat so softly when struck a blow from love,

Skipping their unbreakable beating,
Pumping away the times that fall behind us.

Our Softest hearts are,
Our Strongest ones.

The hearts that aren't afraid to cry,
Are the hearts,
That will never die.




~Robert van Lingen

The best of us comes out when the rest of us is gone.

At least,
I hope that's the case as I just want to save face and get away when my days face me with the longest ways around.

The depression sets as I attempt to find my faded song's wasted namesake.
Looking for a better view of the days whereupon my incessant sighs are drawn.

Drawn like a depressive sketch,
With the pencil marks parked along the secrets to peace's faded spark.

My fallacy, you see,
I'd rather breathe within the seas than have to see these things the way they've gone,
Strung me along the heartstrings stretched so thin as to nigh be my patience with this broken masterpiece.

And so,

The best of us are broken when the rest of us are gone.

But, the best in us comes out,
When the rest of us is wrong.

Lay the sandbags.

Endless streaming torrent of thoughts,
Carve a new path.

The mind river in which I flail,
But cannot drown.

Leads me to run the anxious mile,
Which never ends.

I am Patience and I am Pain,

I am tribulation and trials,

I am horror and I am happiness,

I am not myself, nor I wish to be so.

I am as existence is,

And so I wish to be peace,

I wish,

And I am.

Unexpected resurrection of my dabbled dreams by way of unrelented surprise.

Supposed fast forward into the mud pies in which my dreams now lie.

Hands on practice,
For saying goodbye.

Unintelligible groveling of my mind begging for something familiar.


Hello there.
This is your blank slate.
Do with it what you will.


Stale heartsongs frozen in headlights.
Unsure of where to run.

Anywhere but away.

Perhaps,
Ere on the side of caution,
LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO.

Take a step back,
Onto the fallen floorboards that follow behind.
Fast forward the rewind.

It is time.

To Absent Days' Gone,

The strength of weakness Betrays Oneself.

The Weakness of Strength defaces the purity of a love so strong as to entwine ones' life and being.

A heart in chaos sees nearsighted,

The part I play is that of the puppet to mineself.

But Thanks to thou who'd show me the painful truth.

Set my aching heart free from itself and show me,

Strength,

Weakness,

Love,

Fear,

To coexist so tightly to seem as one in the same.

Truth speak,

I will listen.

I will learn.

I am not alone, not in myself nor in others.

I Am, Myself.

~Robert van Lingen

Bound to a destiny encased in brass,
I await the fateful day,
Standing by,
Feigning my existence all the while,
Holding the beast at bay.

With me I bring the ashes of my past,
At long last do I see what lies before me.
So I breathe...











My creed,
To believe,
To release the ashes from my hands,

To my knees,
As the lonely tear flows aside my eyes I say,

Steadfast, I stand before time Unknown.

~Robert van Lingen

The Truth will never hurt me,
And a Lie will never save me.

To waste,
To waste,

To waste such a love must be a crime,
Undermine the efforts of years' past,
Alas,
To waste.

But withall,
I bleed no longer,

I bled my tears,
I had my fears,
And today, I bleed no longer.

To thee I wish thine peace,
To me, I smile at least,

At what was not,
To waste.

~Robert van Lingen

When my fires burn invisibly,
Blissfully I stand across the path of my pain,
Aging to wonders I'd never known, but,
I dare.

He.llo
The Days:
Tearing by,
It's? Terrifying. Me.

Everything; IT'S all just moving too fast...
"Wearing," My hearts on my knees,
Just* waiting for me to fall upon them.

it's all just happening far too quickly,
slow my everything.

Good.Bye

Stopgap.
emotional stocks wrapped with paper wings,
which burst'd into inferno at the first broken sight of spring.

Baseless transition into faceless thoughts,
Caught in webs of speechless dreams,
laced with poison's tasteless lessons taught.

Stop that.
Think back,
at the wasted scenes graced with cold embrace.
Winter's faces breathe,

Lies stand by your faithless eyes.
instead.
dream,
of flame-less skies.

Stop the gap in nature's lap,
and sit upon her shoulders.
See the skies that breathe your sighs of reprieve,
nigh your dreams seized with whisper'd echos breeze.
Set them free...

p.s.,
you may already be.
but beware.
hopeless eyes are doomed to live with lies, disguised by strife's hypnosis,
ensnared by defeatist blight.

I need the path,
That I do not have.

Kicked while I'm down,
Lost in surveyance of my barren mindscape.
Littered with hopes and dreams,
That were just too far from reach.
Not even worth trying for anymore.
Kicked aside like tin cans on an empty highway.

I dare not even muster the strength to take a harmless peek,
Because emptiness isn't worth the effort.

Standing in the center of an endless road,
Going in no particular direction.
I don't know where to go.


~Robert van Lingen

Stand on High,
Revel in the peaceful noise,
Forget,
Forget.

Stand on high,
Atop the pillowy peaks,
Forget,
Forget.

Stand on high,
Toss the pebble,
Forget,
Forget.

As one stands on high,
And forgets,
Just a stone's throw,
May send you crashing down,

Forget,
Forget.

~Robert van Lingen

Love is pain,
Love is shame,
Love can be hatred and evol...

But...

The way I see things,
If you flip love the other way,
Love, is the evol..ution of a heart.

Unforgiving when wrong,
But unforgivable breathlessness as the love you'd once hated evolves into a joy,

A love that costs,
Nothing.

A love that is not pain,
Or shame,
Or hatred and evol.

A love that is true to the name.

The stories,
The worries laid to bear,
Fade and pass,
Fade and pass.

At last I find my strength,
What am I meant to be?
We will see.

When I breathe I will move the Earth,
When I speak I will burn the fires that held me back,
I will turn cracks to canyons,
The Rockies will tremble at my march,
The cliffs of Dover will turn to sand.

So,
Here I am.

Try to stop me.

~ Robert van Lingen

I miss terribly,
The feeling of being in love,

The ecstasy,
Expecting to breathe life into,
The leagues of my indulgent seas.

The days and nights that sway a life,
To and fore, aft of the rising breeze.
Seeing as we may only stand here for a moment.

Apt to the expectant themes,
Preening the weathered feathers that have flown me away,
and yet home again,

But still I miss it so.

I,
Want to be alone.
I,
Want to be at home, I,
Know I can't go now no matter how much it grows,
The pain...

It shows it's face time and time again to make me pace back and forth to forget what was said and cut the cord or where and who I am!

...

who am I?
and why.


-

I'd,
Rather go hungry than speak to someone right now,

i'm starved.
I'm starved...
I'M ******* STARVING for a piece of this peace that it seems that everybody but me can just pick up and breathe....

But I can't see me...
So how could I possibly know...

Yes, you.

I am not myself, for without those near, N'er I resolve to nothing.

I am you, I am Him, and her. I am all who I see, For without all, I am nothing.

~Robert van Lingen

The wayward scent,
Of sunrise's past.

Watch and wonder,
Watch and wander,

Breathe,
And see.
Be,
And believe.

An old morning's mist,
And old glories missed.

Wavering in stance,
A heart yet stands.

A wave goodbye,
May not be a good bye.

The wayward scent,
My way sent,

Show me good
And goodbye.

~Robert van Lingen

The formalities which we call normality,
Would bring others to tears,
As if we don't...
But we do.

Silently,
To ourselves,
We allow our minds to scream in our eyes,
If only because we have no other option.

Gracefully we strip away our minds until all that's left,
Is who we think we are,
All to this, though we are never satisfied.

With a straight face,
We release our streams of tears,
And allow no one to see the hells we face.

Our needlessly numbing mind drags on,
Our nemesis in ourselves,
But we can't tell a soul.

"It's not that hard."
"Just think positive thoughts."
and the best,
"I could do it, why can't you?"

They think us lazy,
When all our energy is spent fighting ourselves.

But,
Here,
We find our kin,
Where we extend our silent sympathies,
With the written words,

I understand.

I showed you my heart,
Please respond

~Robert van Lingen

i am the ripple on the pond
\
the pebble you've cast
makes me see my own reflection
/
i

In better days,
I've seen stronger sways,
Back and forth,
To and yonder.

Storms form upon calm seas,
Rain falls upon dry earth,

Peace is fleeting as the eye of the storm,
And just as hard to find.

To Yet,
I write this page,
This,
Is the eye of my storm.

~Robert van Lingen

You blame me for what happened,
Don't you.
I guess it's okay...
I blame me too,
If I wasn't there,
She still would be.

If I had locked it up...
she wouldn't have used it...
and then,
You'd have no one to blame.

It's okay,
I've secretly claimed this fault for my own anyway,
Shoulder'd the burden of it all...

It was my gun,
after all...


If I'd come home just a little earlier,
If I'd been the son I should have been,
If I'd swallowed my f*cking pride and just told her I loved her,
My mother may still be here...

You blame me for what happened,
I understand...
It's okay,
I blame me too...

Home is where the heart is,
As the home wanders through the vacancy of confusion,
A heart follows in stride.

To know where home lies,
As we sit alone,
Standing by, waiting to be shown our streets of gold,
As we wander with these hearts of stone.

A home is never far away.
Or so I've been told.

Today is yet another that pulls me back to pains of past,
Amassed sit the flowless tears,
I'm in shock.

I'd love to forget love,
Yet, It's not that simple.

I stand,
I walk,
I run,

Any manner of how far I go,
You are there.

~Robert van Lingen

Well ****.
Turns out money is a thing.

To live the "American Dream,"
means so many things.

Student Loan Refinancing,
Let's check that credit score,
Need to get rid of that jalopy,
Oh, and there's so much more.

****,
Still need to do my taxes,
What bracket am I in?
Do I really like this job,
Or was this just a whim,

To try and make some money,
and finish that degree,
that'll probably accomplish nothing.

But, we just gotta try, right?

Meanwhile, I still buy nice things,
To try and distract my mind from,
These depressive things,
Because how can I survive,
By living in the corner,
crying,
At these oppressive debts,
that loom over my head,
because when I was 18,
I wanted to be something.

Explore my labyrinthian corridors,
From the walls to the hallways, to the unkempt floors.

'Tis in my mind I finally realize,
I have not the time to explore each and every door,

Precious, singular thoughts,
Expectedly drowning,
but in due course,
We are lost at sea in an ocean devoid,

emptied by the mindless wars.

When the day is down,
You look around and there is nothing there.

Just look around.
You will see the dark,
You will hear the sound of those who are.

When the day is down,
When the end whispers in your ear,
Say no.
Say no and go to where you will,

Your end is not here.
Say no and go to where you are meant to be.

~Robert van Lingen

Hello, again.
He who whispers my name when I'm alone.
Hello again,
Cold winters' breath.
Cold splinters' kept...

Who are you to strip from me everything I love?
In every joy, you follow close behind to let me have a taste, only
to wrench from me my only wish, my reason, my rhyme,
function, and goal.

Only you can make hell burn hotter,
Take my mother and I will cry,
Take my love and I will fall,
Take my friends?

You spit in my face at every turn,
Kick my heels on every step and stride.
You utter into my ears your sadistic songs.

To you I say,
Go to hell,
I'll keep on walking.

~Robert van Lingen

Standing on the precipice of a dream,
Gleaming,
The Sun in my eyes.

Shall I take this fateful step once again?
For when last I stood before a dream...

I took that step,
And valiantly, I plunged into a darkness from
  which I have still not been freed.

Perhaps,
T'was not a step I should have made,
But rather a Leap.

From this precipice,
Standing atop the cliffside, staring into.
   future's abyss,
Petrified,
petrified...

I must leap,
   yet to this day,

I would much rather,
  

Fall into sleep.

The writer's mind,
Thoughts unwind,

Bring unto me your curiosities,
Your challenges and fears,
Your joys and salvations,

If I may,
I will speak your stories to my pen and paper,
Your thoughts unbound,
Unwound,

Speak to me your soul,
And forevermore may your tales speak to me,
Back to the writer's mind.

~Robert van Lingen

Witness the slivers of light that whisper through a darkened mind.

Effortless hypocrisy feeds broken philosophies.

Hold your mind close.
For you may just slip away,
Into this place,
And meet me.

H...hello

Silent colors swaying away,
Like a blade that cuts the stars.
A far reach,
Yet close enough to blind.

The emotional synesthesia of my heart and mind,
Conspire to light the fires beneath,
And set myself ablaze on the flameless pyre.

I stare at the wares that I have created,
As I continue the debate with me, myself, and I.

Ticking away.
The timeless eyes.
Bear witness.
To the lightless skies.

The silent colors.
That only I can see.
These synesthetic linguistics.
That fall away.
Onto the synthetic pages.
To which you read.