If we’re honest with ourselves we all have more than enough love to share with those who don’t get enough and the tragedy is that too many of us aren’t aware of just how much beauty we are capable of / we all got magic flowing just under the skin of our fingertips but we’re too scared to touch and be touched / how far apart do we have to get before we realize no matter the distance we create between us we are all still the same / no matter who we pray to or the skin we live in or the place our mothers give birth or where our fathers teach us how to sink or swim / we’re all just trying to get by learning the curves of the laws of survival when the law man and lawyers and judges aren’t playing fair / and the boss man tells us to be grateful for paying us a minimum wage while cutting every corner he can think of to cut pennies that add up to dollars off our paychecks / then jacking up the cost of living with inflation every time he takes another vacation and he’s always off on an island where he’s hiding all his excessive cash so he won’t have to pay any kind of tax / the government has become a soulless corporation killing off what little there is left of the dream and there’s no justice that can’t be bought off with a blindfold full of cash / they say they will let it trickle down but fail to mention the only thing they let go of is poison for the poor that profits the rich/ then they grind down the middle class over the bones of those even lower who are working two to three jobs just so they don’t starve or end up on the streets with the more unfortunate who aren’t getting any of the help they need but somehow are being blamed for their situation with out anyone stopping  to listen to their story / sometimes I just can’t take it as I try to figure out how we allowed all of this to happen in the first place / how did we become so cruel to allow laws to be passed to punish anyone that tries to feed the hungry / how is it wrong to do what is right / I try to breath and think of what can I do to help when I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I got a growing mouth to feed / I want to find someway to live more selfless and try to be more aware but it’s getting hard to look in the mirror because I haven’t lived up to my potential and if I’m completely honest I would have to say I’m afraid of feeling any deeper by being touched by all of the worlds problems because it seems too much to bare / if I don’t make a joke soon I might start crying and never be able to stop / but I cant find anything funny as the world is being split apart by hatred and apathy and greed and violence is spilling from the streets into the school yard / how many more children have to be buried before we do something about the bullets tearing the future of their innocence’s to shreds / you can give your thoughts but without any action they are as useless as your prayers / if we don’t do something soon it will just become part of casual conversion over dinner of who died today and who passed their math quiz / what good is any kind of education to the dead / isn’t that part of the problem our broken schools that teach nothing but the minimum of how to survive by preparing youth for nothing but the skills to work a 9 to 5 / I forgot to make a joke to stop myself from crying and now I might be drowning but I’m trying to float on a thimble full of hope / tell me what good is the love in our hearts when all we do is waste it by taking shallow breaths even though we have more than enough to share

When I say I love you what I mean is
I love you in a way that means
here is my love
take as much or as little as you need

whenever you need it
whenever you need it

and here this is my heart
but it is more than that now
it is yours now too

you can hold it in your hands
you can feed it to yours
you can hang it in the sky
you can put it on a shelf  
        and let it gather dust
you can press it between
           the pages of a book
you can stomp on it
you can break it
you can toss it away
      and laugh if you want

it’s ok
  it’s yours
it’s ok
  it’s yours

because I love you
and what I mean is that
when you need comfort
I will give you whatever
   comfort I can
when you feel ill or sick
I will take care of you
in whatever way you need
when you need someone
   to make you smile
I want to to do my best
   to give you a reason to smile
and when you don’t feel like smiling
I want to understand
    and weather the storm with you

when you are cold
I want to be warmth
when you are hunger
I want to be food
when you are lost
I want to be the road home

because when I say I love you
I love you doesn’t mean
I need you to be mine
and I need to be yours

it means here you made this
you gave me this feeling
and it is beautiful
and I am in your debt
and I give it back to you
not expecting
or needing anything in return

I am here
even if here isn’t by your side
you don’t need to love me back
the same way I love you

and if here isn’t a place
you want me to be
I will go wherever
you want me to go
if its hell
I will go to hell for you

and still if you need a little
or all or none of my love
it’s yours

take whatever you need
whenever you need it

it’s yours
   it’s yours

I mean I want you in a way
that means I want everything

I want to devour you
until I become you
I want to savor
every sweet and bitter
and light and dark
part of you
until I know every secret
you would share with me

I dont want to rush into you
I want to take it slow and easy
I want to spend an eternity
exploring and discovering
all the curves and mounds
of skin and muscle and bone

I want to learn every word
of every hope
and wish
and prayer
you carry in your blood by heart

I want to know every song
that makes you smile
every poem that makes you weep
every book that has changed you

I want to know all of the history
that made you who you are today
and all the dreams and hopes
of who you want to be tomorrow

I want to be part of the kiss
that makes your heart supernova
and then be pulled into the gravity
of the center of darkness left behind
and then relight the fires
of your still warm heart
and watch it grow
and burn brighter
and bigger than before

I want to be part of the journey
you are on to a better self
and learn how to become
a better me as I travel by your side

I want to be devoured
by your eyes
and let you split open my gut
and let all my lies
and truths spill out
leaving nothing hidden

I want to show you every thing
I have carried in my heart
I want you to know every scar
and broken piece of it  
I want to learn and teach you
the name of every star in the sky

I want to read you every poem
that has made me feel
there must be something more
to inhaling and exhaling
than just living and dying

I want to cry in front of you
as I read the favorite part
of my favorite book

I want you to know more about me
than I know about myself

I want to give you the map
and the key
and the bed
of my heart and my soul

I want to be everything you need
whenever you need it
I want you to know
how horribly and painfully
shy I am
and that for you
I want to be brave
I am willing to be brave
and I have never
been able to be brave before

I am willing to break for you
I am willing to cry over you
I am ready to stop hiding from
and neglecting my feelings of love

I am willing to give it away
and risk not getting it back

because when I say I want you
I mean I love you
and when I say I love you
I mean I want to give you
all of my life

whatever I have left
in my heart

I want to spend it on you

and if you don’t want me

thats okay
you’ve already given me more
than I ever would have asked for
and more than i ever
would have deserved

how do we become so alone

so distant

that we only appreciate love
as a tragedy in a play
a death in a poem
the ghost of a lover

who stole

then betrayed our heart

and even through the pain
of their crimes against us
we still miss their lips
and their breath
and their lies of love

what is so warm
about the comfort of solitude
that we forget
how to feel lonely

in our bones
in our blood
in our hearts

that we no longer lust
for companions
for friends
for any kind of desperation

were has the misery gone
were did we misplace
the fire and the rage
the want of need
the need to be needed

how far can we go
how much distance will it take
until we remember
that love is more

than tragedy and death
more than a tool
of the playwright
and metaphor for the poet

that it is not only the memory
of ghosts who no longer
need our needing

that we need not be so alone

so distance from love
that we forgot to feel lonely

in our bones
in our blood
in our hearts

and if nothing else
we can always be
alone together
so we never forget
to appreciate
the beauty of love

I reluctantly went to sleep around 3:30 am/not because I was tired/because I am always tired/but there wasn’t really anything else to do/and I shouldn’t call it going to sleep/when it is napping a few hours at a time/as my body tosses and turns/and my eyes are constantly opening and closing throughout the night/before my chattering mind or ghost of a mind decides that sleeping isn’t an option/and now it is three minutes past seven a.m./and I am up and exhausted/but that is the chapter my life has been stuck on repeat for the last decade plus/but it’s ok because I fake brave and try to wear a kind smile/but every now and then someone tells me I always look angry/and I try to explain that this is the only face I have/but the only expression I can make is the sound of shy silence/so the story of how I use to always smile as a child goes unheard/and only I know always smiling for me ended one day in the sixth grade/when while walking home from school a girl asked why was I smiling all the time/in a voice that let me know always smiling wasn’t something that was ok/and speaking of my younger self he was a strange and slightly paranoid kid/I remember him thinking in kindergarten  at recess that he didn’t feel completely “boy’ish”/because he was unusually shorter than the other kids his age/and his little mind inside his tiny body/went to thinking of why this was/and he came up with the theory that if you were born a boy or a girl/was decided by if your heartbeat was pushing blood out or taking blood in/and that he must have been born in between the two
/so he wasn’t really a boy or a girl/but just a human with a wee-wee/around this same age/this little dickens of a child/also figured out that we never died/that we just grew so old that we would start to shrink back into our baby bodies again/and once we shrank far enough down/we would start to grow old all over/he also once believed that bad people and bad things only happened on tv and in books/because he often heard a song on the radio that said something like/“there are no good guys there are no bad guys”/and he edited out the no good guys part/and only paid attention to the no bad guys part/so he believed that there were no bad guys up until the one day/both the television and the radio/wouldn’t stop talking about one guy that was clearly real/and clearly bad/going around to random houses in the night/and killing the families inside/and he turned his eyes up towards the moon/because the moon had a magic and  mystery to him/and he thought to the moon/but “there are no bad guys?” and the moon just floated in the cold night air/and said nothing back/and he realized that songs don’t tell the truth/and he shrugged his little shoulders and buried the first part of his innocence/and he grew up thinking he would always be a kid/feeling every school year was an infinite loop being lived over and over again/and that he would never be an adult and get to do adult things/not really liking this idea until he was an adult/and then desperately wishing it had been true/because as an adult he began to accept that maybe he was a boy/and the whole heartbeat theory was just a strange thought/of a strange kid/but that thought was often replaced by a feeling of not being human/because he still didn’t feel he fit in/and he knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to grow into a man of manly manliness/because that just seemed an absurd thing to do/and he definitely didn’t want to ever be an adult in a three piece business suit/working a business job with briefcases and power ties/that looked more like nooses to him/and what a horrible waste of life it was/to chase after a big bank account overflowing with money/with hearts bankrupt of any kind of love/and that was how the strange little kid who grew up to an awkward young adult saw the world/and he didn’t like it/and he didn’t want to be here/and he was the essence of a good guy/he didn’t drink/he didn’t smoke/he was a little nerdy/no/really nerdy/and he read comics and drew pictures/and started to write poetry/and hadn’t kissed a girl yet/because he somehow missed the class on how to talk to girls throughout his entire childhood/and he fell in love for the first time at eighteen/and wrote his first love poem/and gave it to the girl/and they became good friends/but never girlfriend boyfriend good friends/and they never kissed/and it broke his heart/and life went on/and he moved to New York for a short while/and had his first glass of wine on Halloween/while walking through Manhattan/and he liked this new feeling/and he drank a little more and a little more/and he meet a French girl/that read him French poetry/in French one night/and he thought maybe this was love/but he was still young and naive/and they became good friends/and on his last night in New York/they kissed and it felt good/really good/and he was happy for a moment/but still naive/and when she asked him to come back to her place/he didn’t realize why she would ask him that/because his flight left early in the morning/and it seemed a silly thing to ask/so he ended up flying back home/not knowing he had almost lost his virginity to a beautiful French girl/that was a good kisser/a really good kisser/and life went on/and so did his drinking/and being naked from the waist down after a night of heavy drinking on his twenty-first birthday/he thought it was a good idea to hang that lower half out the car window while being driven down the 101/and he probably would have fell out/but luckily he was pulled back in/and lived to see many other birthdays to celebrate in excessive amounts of alcohol and awkwardness/and he eventually did lose his virginity/at surprise surprise a Halloween party/on the bathroom floor of his best friends condo sitting beach side in Ventura/and they even cuddled all night while sleeping on the couch/and they held hands the entire morning on the way to breakfast/and all through eating breakfast/and the whole drive to her house as their mutual friends dropped her off/and it might have turned into a loving beautiful relationship/except even after this attractive young woman had put his **** in both her mouth and between her legs/and held his hand the entire morning and as much as he tried/and wanted to he couldn’t talk much/and never told her she was his first/that she had taken away that painful embarrassing virginity from him/and that he wanted to see her again/and that he really liked her/and could he call her and.../well none of it happened because he didn’t ask for her number/or tell her anything except for a weak and almost unheard goodbye/and life went on and the drinking went on
/and the awkwardness went on/and luckily or unluckily/the drinking helped with the luck/and he fell in love/and he fell in love again/and again/but he never got past being the strange kid who was horribly shy/even after falling in love and even after *******/and being so intensely shy without having an explanation/or the ability to express that he was so horribly shy/didn’t lead to lasting relationships/and even with the girl he spent five of the best and most beautiful and loving years of his life with/he failed too often at making her feel beautiful and wanted and hot/because he still couldn’t make the first move or even the second move/and eventually it made her feel unloved and unattractive and she left him/and rightfully so because why was he still so shy/how did that make sense/and now he is me and I’m older and known the wiser/still shy/still stupid/and life goes on/though with less drinking/no idea what to do when pulled into the gravity of falling/I could sleep on it/maybe think it all through/ and figure it out/but oh/thats right/I’ve forgotten how to sleep.../alone is nice though/comfortable/quite/and I am the master of quite

A hammer is useless
without a hand full of nails
except for some kind of ******

speaking of which
isn’t your ego overdue
for its crucification
to absolve you
of all your flagrant
self inflected sins

and not to bash on your intellect
because I know
there isn’t much of it left
as almost all of it
has been spent
on the overindulgence
of your self gratification  

you can pound it out
night after night
pretending that you love
everything there is about Jesus
with your hands
clasped in prayers
while making fists full of hate
believing you got a key
to the golden gates

while all you do
with your hammer
is **** any idea
that doesn’t align with your own
your heart is beating
for the only love you know
and that is your love for hate

believe what you want to believe
but even with  a hand full of nails
all you can do is ****** yourself
as some kind of idiot martyr