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

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,
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...

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

I guess it's true,
People change when they walk away,
I pray you prove me wrong.

~Robert van Lingen

The fire inside,
The ******* lies behind.
The years I loved and dubbed the best I knew,

You do know what you've done.
**** the memories,
I don't want them anymore,
Here, take them and disappear.

Every little lie.
Nary little fib.
I feel sorry for the other guy,

He'll learn in time,
All you know how to do is lie.

~Robert van Lingen

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

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.

Distraught,
Destroyed,
Dis,
embodied.

My halls,
The walls,
my wicked falls turn'd from stone,
dissolved to nary a diffid tone thrown by ******* bones.

An amorphous form born from the aimless mourning that now has no space to face and call my own.

Telltale swarms of which I myself did warn would come,
Once and again I crumble from what once which I would succumb.

Myself. Dear. Gone.

I am,
afloat in limbo forever struck with what,
I Left only to silence my mind until once again,
I would find the cut.

...
Page 2

My totality revised,
Scratched through like the words unworthy.
Smoothed over the rough draft,
Autobiography progressive,
Nary writing another day's pages.

What hath I done to earn such disdain?
   Thust'ly I'd treated thee with an utmost courtesy,
   And yet,

I'd call this breath of redundant utterances,
   A practice of utter futility.

The breadth of my wonderment at the crushing silence graced upon my disbelieving ears,
   I stand fast as the imperceptible stones are cast upon my fragile soundings,
   Your callousness resounds and rebounds within my vacant battleground.
   Occupied by none other,
   Confined within my ceaseless, if imperfect, selflessness,

I am merely a soul.
   Cast upon, or down'pon the mercifully unforgiving earth.
   Borne brazenly to those who are willing to listen,
   At the risk of those who won't.

******'d herein I lye,
   Gazing 'pon the relentless, endless skies.

I am merely a man,
   Searching for a home.
   I am merely the mind within which I reside,
   I am,
   Merely,
   Who I am.

Greetings, it is merely I,
   He who breathes despite the lack of air,
   Gasping at a tenuous breeze.

I'd call this breath of redundant utterings,
   A practice of utter futility.

The breadth of my wonderment at the crushing silence graced upon my deafened ears,
   I stand fast as the verbal stone is cast upon my fragile being,
   Your callousness resounds within my vacancy,
   Occupied by none other,
   Confined within my ceaseless selflessness,
   Even if it is imperfect.

I am merely a soul.
   Cast 'pon the mercifully unforgiving earth.
   Borne brazenly to those who are willing to listen,
   At the risk of those who won't.

******'d herein I lye,
   Gazing 'pon the relentless monochrome.
   Searching for any guiding light.

I am merely a man,
   Searching for a home.
   I am merely the mind within which I reside,
   I am,
   Merely,
   Who I am.

~Robert van Lingen

Today,
I stay and reflect.
Like the mirrors floating on a pond, wandering in focus.

At times I am hopeless, distraught, and dazed, pondering.

I'll stop you there, you sad, beaten man.
Do you feel the seas trod upon you, drown you and let you swim further, and further just to regret, forget why you even began?

The shining at the deepest depths is merely a mirror to self-reflect,
to pay respects to what you wish you were.

Did you forget why you're here? Because, in truth, I never forget what I never knew,
why the sky feels the need to fall in disrespect, all upon your war-torn shoulders,
buckling under that very sigh you set free when you realized you're the traitor here, as you just get colder.

varied sighs sing you lies of peace,
poor Icarus, he tried to fly, to plead the sun, to chase infinity.

Do you truly seek peace? You try to run yet create your own inevitabilities, seized by your own dreams. With these ****** knees you've built yourself. Scorned by warnings of your self fulfilling prophecies.

You said so yourself.

First,
find what you need,
then perhaps your ever elusive peace may come,
and bring you to your knees,
to drown in seas of relief.
The war is not over,
Just another day.

Foreign places,
Foreign faces,
With nothing,
   And no one to lose...

And not a second's grief gain'd but with my own anxieties.

Just a moment's notice is all it takes to turn a moment's motives from having a good time to just getting away.

Spare me the sickness of my socialities,
Stare into my petrified eyes and fill them with tears,

If nothing else,
But just to displace my fears.

~Robert van Lingen

Peace,
Solace is my addiction.

My continuous affliction with change foreshortens my perception of peace.

Give me a taste and I shall not waste a drop,
Send it through my veins to take hold,
And seethe.

Peace,
Solace is my addiction,

How I've turned such a beautiful word,
To poison,
And torture...

My beautiful affection to the untouchable, unreachable,
The next best thing?

I like to think,
To be loved,
To love,
To hold,
To shoulder your burdens and see a smile that just so happens to be my fault.

A ruthless addiction,
Such is Love.

~Robert van Lingen

I fornicate with the future,
And I lay with its lies.
I stand by and try to understand,

I demand the utmost respect of myself,
As I find myself the sole recipient.

Yet sometimes I stare at my treacherous glass that show'd me the image of someone who isn't quite like myself.

I berserk blindly into the unknown.
I know not little of what lays behind,
Though in retrospect of my mind,
I do indeed know what makes me blind.

What blinds my eyes,
Is what I cannot see in a mirror.

It is my heart.
It is my mind.

Remembrance into our respective pasts,
Gloss over our eyes whilst our perspective drifts apart.

I hold my hand o'er the candle to remember the flame.
I toss myself from the roof to feel the flight again.

The rainsoaked flame wanders through my bones,
My home,
My dampened heart keeps burning.

~Robert van Lingen

The written battles...

I cry, inside.
I scream, on the other.

The feeling of separation from that which I should not have been,
has me feeling more alone than I'm used to.

The feeling of lostness and anger transpires in my bones and
flows its way through my already pained veins.

This, I suppose, is my reality.
To find my way in the place I've never belonged.
And might just never do...

I lost the only one who had a mind anything near my own,
The only one who knew my pains...

But even she left me behind.

On the days that I don't mind,
It's as if it had never happened.

On days like these...
It tears me apart like no one ever sees.

What does "family" even mean...


~Robert van Lingen

In my estranged daze,
I now fall from the floor,
The utter sadness flows in like a summer's rain.

It is okay, poor one,
My child, it will soon be over.
And soon you will grow.

So be kind,
You cannot drown in tears of joy.

~Robert van Lingen

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

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

Hope,
Faith.

The eternal dance of blindness and determination.
We seek that which we do not know,
We ignore that which we hope we don't.

Step helplessly into the dark.
Step Endlessly into the stars.

Here we are.
There we will be.
We are who we are.
And who we will become.

~Robert van Lingen

Here I sit,
In my most simplistic extravagance,

Upon summer's yond,
My eyes lay atop the sunset with desperate ease.
I am in Love.
With the Feeling.

I sway within the songs of peace,
Sing to me forevermore,
Lest I sink into your,
Your nightshade song.

~Robert van Lingen
Beautiful, yet curiously dangerous

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

Silence,
The mystery,
Sight unfollowed.

The absence of noise may be just as loud as not,
Due to the voices we use to fill the void,
Anxiety.

It is easy to remember the noise,
But impossible to forget the silence

Miles and Miles, the isles file away,
Walking past, walking fast, and I find myself astray,

Bleeding deep and needing peace,
Let fly one more tear,


I find myself in need of that which I never knew I never had,

But wait,
The novel forever unfinished,
Read me one more page.

~Robert van Lingen

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.

A year ago today,
My heart walked away.

   Left me bare,
Left me rare,

And still I am astray.

   I found the ground beneath my feet,
If only because I fell...

Today,
I wonder,
At the skies and at the thunders,

Which way,
Am I meant to be?

I tried to breathe,
   Nevermore I'd drown'd in the taste of water in my lungs,
Swept away.


I take a step,
   To only be shown the shoes of stone I've worn beneath me ever since,

   Perhaps even longer,
than a year ago today.

A year ago today,
   my heart walked away,
My eyes turned black,
   and I begged my mind to stay.

Though,
   Through all the tears and hopeful prayers,
They haven't yet come back.

Not for lack of trying,

So in high hopes,
   When once again I say,
"A year ago today,"
  My pains will have gone away,
And I will have found,
   That which keeps my demons at bay.

Music in one ear,
Chatter in the other.

An endless stream of thoughts in the other,
A restless mind in the other.

Smother'd by the descending fogs of doubt,
Another moment,
Another fake smile.

I will laugh with you,
as I hide inside.

Otherwise,
under covers,
Today is,
Just like any other.

~Robert van Lingen

O Sun,
O Moon,
Will I see ye once more?

By word I marched,
By order I bled,
There is a stale silence in this winter air.

I am last standing yet not unscathed,
Pain writhes through me,
But this man yet stands.

I carry on to see her, Sun.
I carry on to see her, Moon.

Sun shines on my heart and heals wounds all.
Moon cools heart and calms souls complete.

Without ye I may not carry forth,
Carry forth this weight of mine pains.

Yet shall I see these divine again,
The hurt shall be lifted,
The aches dispelled,
And Happily will this man live with his Sun and his Moon 

~Robert van Lingen
II-II-MMXII

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.

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.

Stare into me.
Flare up and fly to me.
My ghostly gaze falls into your eyes,
Let these phantom fingers caress your curves,

Our ethereal tangle,
As we pass through reality
Into the hills and valleys on our bodies,

Close your eyes,
And see me with your skin.

Intoxicate me with your sinful quivers,
As I ride on the highways of your sighs.

Come closer,
And I'll show you a differently perfect side of our world.



~Robert van Lingen

The written word,
The smitten hurt,
Dance hand in hand,

Step to the silent beat,
Wave your hands at the paper white,
Send me write to my dreams,

~Robert van Lingen

I sit here, once again.
Gazing back to the past.
Head shrunken down as I wonder what could've been...

But yet I silence myself for the better,
   for it doesn't matter what could have been.
What I could have seen...

I sit here,
   quietly picking up the pieces of my yet again shattered heart,
even if it didn't take much this time around.

I'm, just trying to make the best of what could be,
Not so much concern myself with what shouldn't.

So,
   be still my stricken soul,
   and my scarred heart.

The path to peace is paved with pains,
And every brick I lay brings me that much closer.
In these stones I set, I send the sickness away.

And I glue together the weathered feathers of the wings with which I will fly.

Yet the sky is so far away...

All the more to learn along the way.

~Robert van Lingen

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

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

Fast and slow our life flows,
A way for you and I,

Show me your phantasmal eyes,
And I will read your epic trye,

Lest you stare into mine,
And be lost for all of time.

If a picture is worth a thousand words,
How many a memory?

I could read your eyes for a thousand years and it would be only the start,

Suffice to say,
I've written more than a few.

~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 showed you my heart,
Please respond

~Robert van Lingen

Tomorrow,
   To Borrow Time,
   To sign the lines that resign our lives away,

This is our time.
   Salute,
   And Stand Attention.

For We Are,
   The Next In Line.

~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.

I am weary, now,
Of this thing called hope.

To shed my fears
I bleed my tears away

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

You will read this,
We will cry,
At the silence,
Between you and I.

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