with nothing else
to fill their bellies
the mice went back
to eating poison
and the ants in search of crumbs
came back with nothing
but death on their backs
to feed their queens
and under the light of the stars
we crumbled

the murdering of crows
was made legal
as the color of the doves guilt
was decided to be more pure
than the blood of a dead mans heart

no matter the weight of his innocence

and all this could have been stopped
all this could have been avoided

none of this...

none of it...

had to happen

but we heard the screams of kindness
we heard its cry for help
we saw the hands of cruelty around its neck
we saw the hate foaming
we saw the dreams bleeding out

and we did

nothing

and misery breed
and filled the streets
and slept in our beds
and made its home
under our skin

and not even the light of the stars
was enough for us to remember
what it meant to be human
back before we abandoned joy
in the pursuit of the wealth of greed

Art has the unfortunate responsibility
of reflecting all the ugly truths
of the world
while at the same time
upholding the heavy burden
of hope

at the times breathing
becomes its hardest
we must inhale deeper
and transform the pain
in our lungs
and the doubts
in our own hearts
into something for others
to hold onto
to rest upon
to take refuge in

we must fight hate with love
give kindness the strength
to hold back cruelty
we must eat a little less
so those with nothing
will have something to eat

humanity may seem
to be slipping away
taking a step too far away
to ever come back
to ever remember
who we could be

and isn’t this a beautiful burden
this heavy weight upon our backs
and within our hearts

this feeling
that we are still alive
still able to breath
despite the pain

that we can still create
something out of the things
others would see destroyed

the ugly beasts
that dress like presidents
and kings with no clothes
with their ****** power
and their blatant lies

history will remember their crimes
as we will not let them be forgotten

tomorrow is not a day they own...

yet...

but if we want to take it back
we must start
by doing something today

remember

artist need other artist
to remind them
that there is still something left
in this world worth
making something beautiful for

and everyone

everyone of us
is an artist

so pick up your bricks
and your hammers
and your buckets of paint
and let your hearts
run wild through the streets
and start the taking of tomorrow
by turning the world
into something better today

Never lie to the same poem twice
save it for the next one
or better yet don't tell it at all
for a lie no matter how beautiful
it may sound
or sweet it may taste
rolling off the tongue
will always leave behind
a sour smell
to linger in the mouth
of the past and present
and more often than not
carry knives into the future

Never kiss a new lover
with an old prayer on your lips
it will not bloom
to love or lust
only heartache and embarrassment
be alone and lonely and miserable
until there is no stain or trace
of old fire burning
or cinders glowing
or ashes still smoldering
forming the face and the name
that no longer cares
for your prayers

Never tell the truth to a kiss
that whispers only lies
when speaking of love
and dances with serpents
that tend to planting seeds
of venom and lust
in the skin
and the core of pleasure
that will only wither
and rot on the vine

be patient with yourself
be kind to yourself
time and life will pass
and pass too quickly
and pass too slowly

wait and listen

you will find
what you need
as it finds you...

unexpectedly

and then you can
kiss the love
that whispers in dreams
while only speaking the truth

I like pens that bleed
Ink that smears
Girls with scars
Broken parts
***** clothes
Stained sheets
The hint of blood
The taste of lust
The smells of love
Nights through morning
Mornings to night
Suns that sleep
Moons that dream
And all the pretty
You hide underneath
Those pretty
Pretty
Pretty things

What if the sun was a fish of golden flame
What then would the moon reflect
Would the earth be a bubble
Would space be a sea
What would become of
All this human misery
If the sun was a fish
With fins of fire
Swimming here and there
Going wherever it did please
Would the moon be a minnow
Forever bound to follow
Would the earth be a dream
Would god be the water
Would the devil be the worm
Would love be free to swim
Without fear of aches and pains
Without mans clumsy hands
To break the heart
Of the sun swimming
With golden fins ablaze
Anywhere and everywhere
And never ever
Ever
Would love be
Touched by our
Human misery

The calender reads 2016
But its feels more like 1984
Have you heard the crying
The American dream
Lying dying in the streets
While big brother
Is strapping blinders
On our heads
And shackles to
Our hands and feet
Were being lined up
By the rows
Willing prisoners
Of the slave power
Empire of minimum wage
Shuttling our children
Off to the animal farm
Market of big business
And big lies
***** water mixed
In with the rotting
Apples of the
New American pie
The sugar isn't sweet
To the starving
In the street
While trash cans
Over flow in the back lots
Of the super market
Super chains
Of the slave power
Empire of criminal rage
And its the cold dark waters
Of nuclear waste
Soaking the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
In these days that feel like
1984
No kindness or compassion
For hands shaking tin cups
Needing just a little change
Just a little shelter
From their sad weather lifes
Living on the cold ground
Below our overpass ways
No shelter and no change
No compassion and no kindness
In the fist and pockets
Of the slave power
Empire of ignorant ways
Bullets, bombs and hate
Harvesting fresh blood
For the ink
To print the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
As politicians write us back
Into the pages of the days of
1984

A blood red sunset drips over
the black asphalt city skyline
somewhere in a lost part of America

where the dream has
long been dead and buried
and hate and fear rule
the rural streets that are protected
by peace keepers
that practice ******
more often than upholding the law

It has been declared open season
on any crow the color
of a starless night sky
and the dove has become
a symbol of
to protect and serve
their own kind
birds of a feather
that cover for one another

justice is blinded
by the snow covered truth
and the color of corruption
is coincidentally the same
as the color of money

the poor have little choice
but to trade their bones
and their hopes
to the corporations
of the new land
of the free
to be owned by
and controlled by
a minimum wage
that only guarantees
to keep the poor
poor enough
  to work another day
    and another day
      and another day

until there bones are
nothing but powder
and their beds
are nothing but coffins
for the barely living

and life somewhere
in a lost part of America
at the end of everyday
the sky turns red
and the color of blood
runs through the streets
as the doves go along
with their business
of the murdering of crows

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

Her smile was the salt and the beauty of the sea
Her hair was the mist and the tears of the ocean
Her head was lost in the waves crashing through dreams
Her heart was made of butterfly wings and humming bird songs
And her pulse continuously weaved a cocoon of love around eternity
Her skin came from the softest clouds of heaven
And her blood was pulled from the concupiscent flames of hell
She was the story spoken by angels
And the hidden whisper in the devils eye
She pulled black feathers from the night sky
And sculpted them into the first birds of flight
She gave one bird the sun
  and one bird the moon
    and one bird the stars
Then set them free into the night she had made them from
She taught madness how to laugh
Then gave it a mountain and a hat
She once had a cat
But only kept it long enough to teach it to smile and vanish
And then never saw it again
She spoke only in the lost language of sleep
But never slept herself
She watched over the breath of life and was the mother of death
She belonged with the dreams of a dream
And was the dream of the waves crashing through her head

We once burned witches...

No.

We burned people who were accused
of being witches or practicing witchcraft...

never proven but still burned....

burned alive...

wether or not they were witches
will remain unknown
and why should it
have mattered if they were,
what excuse was that to have
behaved so maliciously hateful and cruel

I will tell you this though
if I had been a witch
or knew any kind of witchcraft
the first thing i would have done

is work out a fire proof charm
perfected an unburnable spell
an I can walk through the fire
and feel a hell of a lot better
after doing so spell
a my blood and bones
burn hotter than the sun spell
a you better get that
little matchstick outta my face spell
before I show you how to burn
THE REAL MONSTERS here spell

the monsters with the lust
to watch flesh turn
to cinder and ash monsters
the monsters who feared
the unordinary who showed
any kind of extraordinary monsters
the monsters of the masses
with crosses that burned
like torches monsters
the monsters who screamed ******
in the name of....

monsters

the monsters who could not see
their own reflection
for the hideous creatures
they were monsters

the same monsters that still live today
on this side of the looking glasses
under our thin skinned social structure

still burning witches

subtly now

with words of disdain
full of pernicious intentions
towards the lost and the lonely

with the cold staring eyes of indifference
and hearts without an once of compassion
towards the homeless and hungry

with the revulsion and abhorrence
towards those who love
the ones they love

the witches being any unordinary
that show any kind of extraordinary
still being feared for their difference
still being hated
reduced to nothing but
pill size suicides
red ribboned wrists
rope neck ties
for feeling too much
pushing too far
flying too high
dancing in cinder to ash
being burned
burned for being alive

It's a cold heart that neglects what horror and darkness a person must go through to even think about suicide as an alternative to living, to a mind that has gone numb from the terror of drawing in another breath, to eyes that have gone blind to things that were once beautiful, to a person who has been gripped so tight by depression that the silence of being crushed under the weight of the earth is the last sound they want to hear.
Living can be hard, for anyone, no one is free from suffering, illness, death, we all have our battles, both private, public, family, etc... and at the end of the day in that moment between sleep and dream, all of of us are alone.  Alone with our demons and thoughts and prayers and despair, some more aware and some more blissfully not so.  The world is a scary ******* place right now, there is a **** load of bad things happening every moment of every ******* day.  It's not the devil running around **** *** naked spraying his jizzum of evil down upon our heads but it's the evil of mans own invention and indifference to each other.  We should be moving forward as a species and a community and a world... together.  And yet, somehow, with all our fancy tech and intellect and possibilities... we're not.  I'm not going to lie... daily headlines and newscast make me somewhat envious of those who found themselves able to pay the price for the luxury of suicide.  I mean, ******* come on... how can you not think every now and then... **** THIS PLACE!... it's truely a **** hole at times, people can be ******* horrible and are ******* horrible far too often.  Human misery spreads like cancer and the masses eat it up like it's a candy necklace wrapped around some ancient deities **** causing poisonous sugar to rush through their blood to fuel an ideology of hate so old no one could tell you when or how it started.  And the saddest part, sitting on the couch being ignored like a nerdy kid back in the 80's, is love...  and no one wants to sit by it and get cooties.  No, we're all to cool for that.  It's all about pretending to have good intentions and insta-gratification and self-degradation and hey hey hey look at me me me first and gimme gimme gimme...
This isn't everyone, and the world isn't absolutely beyond hope... but you would have a hard time arguing that the shadows aren't overpowering what little beauty there is left.
And that's hard knowledge to live with...
Then add on top of that, private and personal struggles no one else is aware of, or worse shrugs off or dismisses as nothing serious.  The signs aren't always easy to read... speaking from personal experience, it is far to easy to carry a lot of weight and fear and self loathing while wearing a plastic smile in public.   Some things seem too personal or embarrassing or what the **** ever to share sometimes and its just easier to say "I'm ok" than try to explain how terrible and dark and alone our hearts feel and our thoughts get.  It's real easy for the whole world to feel empty when that moment we experience between sleep and dream follows us through ever waking moment.   And it's easy to be mad and ****** and heartbroken when we read the word "suicide" in yet another headline... but what's harder is to imagine what that person must have been going through in that last moment between life and death.  It's harder to be human and feel compassion and empathy towards the departed, it's hard to walk up to the nerdy kid called love sitting on the couch and say, "****, I'm sorry I neglected you and ignored you"... but it's going to be harder and harder to read that headline over and over again.  So, for anyone, anyone at all, the couch love is sitting on is pretty ******* big and its nice and warm and cushy, so if your world feels empty, come sit down, we can talk, we can cry, we can just shut the **** up and be empty and alone together... what ever you need, I'll be here.

And what if we're just bubbles in a dream
Dreaming up more bubbles as we breathe...

We waste our lives
chasing some false ideology
of what it means to be beautiful
dressing ourselves up
in the latest paper doll clichés
of magazine quotes
of how to look like a “10”

hoping to see something
other than our own reflection
in the mirror
hoping that a layer
of white washed lies
and vibrant coats painted
over fabricated truths

will somehow make us feel...
how do they say it
on the West Side?  
“I feel pretty and witty and...”
isn’t it somewhere around here
that the truth gets lost
where we allow the definition of beauty
to get painfully distorted

that we hand over our paychecks
and self-esteem
for the latest cure and concealer
to that ugly feeling
we get when we are left by ourselves
to face the doubts of our truths

and what is that truth?  

how was beauty defined
before we had a vocabulary of deception
before we danced to radio jingles
and sang along with our self doubts
what did beauty look like
when it was out there
alone in the dark
what was it that was beautiful
before we opened our eyes...

what was beautiful then
is still the same
as what is beautiful now...

and it is nothing we can define
with our words
or our books
or the noises we make when we speak
it is nothing we can see
with our eyes

it is as simple
as it is easy

it is there inside all of us
beneath our clothes
and inside our skin
and protected by our bones
and our marrow

living and blooming
every time we exhale
and every time we inhale

the truth of what it means
to be beautiful

is in just

being

and this truth is sung  
with every beat of our hearts

A crow never stole corn
   that the earth didn’t give freely
The man too often takes
  too much credit for what
    he puts down into the dirt
Wether it is a seed or a body
As if he alone made
  life sprout and grow
As if without him
   the earth would not be green
    the sky would not be blue
As if he himself is
  the very GOD he prays to
The man forgets his place
  when murdering the crow
   for nothing more
     than being a crow
Mistaking black beaks
  and black feathers
    and black eyes
  as things that must
    always be up to no good
A bird that is no good
  for anything but a target
    for his hate and fear
As if the crows heart
   was meant for nothing other
     than to give his bullets
        something to bite into
The man becomes something
   less and less
 every time he murders
    another crow

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

it’s all a fairytale gone wrong
we took the make believe
and made the horror real

history learned nothing
from all of that destruction
who forgot to read the book
that taught us our place
was not to play
the part of god

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

the blood keeps spilling
as we still haven’t learned
that peace can’t be kept
by the threat and poor wisdom
of an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth

who can we pray to
and beg for forgiveness
for the hell we create
when by this point
we’re past knowing better

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

we’re still not the wiser
as we repeat and repent
all of our sins
as again and again
we dress for the part
of playing god

and as the book ends
may the monster forgive us
for all the things
we have done

Every now and then
life gives you
a living and breathing
moment of poetry
be sure to read it
be sure to appreciate
that perfectly clear moment
of beauty and love
it doesnt happen often
and it doesn't last long
but the memory
can last beyond eternity
if you paint a picture
of it in your heart

The world is a stage and life is a tragedy / and a comedy and a romance gone bad / and a love gone right until it has gotten away from us / and it’s ugly and cruel and its strange and beautiful and it twists and it turns / and we all got something burning inside of us /and we all got something to cry about / and we all got something to regret / and we all got something to smile about / and we all got something to sing about / but we move along like background actors afraid of center stage / afraid to feel all of our lonely rage / afraid of what will the audience think / afraid of stumbling on our lines afraid of tripping over our own heart beats / so afraid of dying in the limelight that we hold our breath and close our eyes and sleep without dreaming / and stay out of the spotlight and stay off in the wings / and what is it we’re living for by not playing the parts of ourselves / nothing but a shadow of who we could be / when will we all realize we can make our hearts into something bigger than a fist / that our heart can do something more than just beat / that we got the whole universe inside of us / and all we got to do is let it spill out / we don’t have to wait for our turn to be heard / we don’t need the permission of the director / we don’t need the applause of the audience / this is our life / this our stage / we got our own light dying to get out of us / we got gasoline running through our veins and we’re ready to burn from the inside out / and keep on burning and keep on burning and keep on burning / and dance along the fires of eternity / we don’t have to hold back who we really are / no matter how awkward or weird we may seem to be / there’s a beauty only found in those who find comfort in being strange / we don’t have to give in to normalcy / we don’t have to be complicit to the script of human cruelty / we don’t have to play soldiers in the war of wealth and greed / we don’t have to play the blind to the homeless and hungry / we don’t have to pretend to not hear the cry’s for help from those stricken with poverty / we don’t have to play the part of the enemies enemy / we can rewrite the script  /we can turn the world around and stand in solidarity and find our way to unity / we can stand center stage arm in arm and let no one move us / we can tear down the facade / and open up the cage our minds have been living in / and fly free and fly too high and kiss the sun as we burn hotter and brighter and not melt into nothingness / and nothing can bring us down when we make our hearts into something bigger than a fist / when we open it and let all this love spill out and let all this love come rushing back in / simply by just opening our hands and reaching out to one another / sister to sister to brother to brother to mother to father to daughter to son to friend / and to stranger / and write everyday with compassion and kindness and empathy / and throw away the old script of human misery / and all take a bow / after we have made our hearts into something bigger than a fist

The truth is, I probably love you...
and what i mean by that is...
I love you...
and that is to say I have loved you
since I first heard your voice
and lifted my head
and saw you walking away

that may seem odd
or improbable or impossible
but I recognized that feeling instantly
and though it was odd
and improbable and impossible
it dug its way straight into my heart
and it made it self comfortable
and stretched out and stayed there

though it was sometime
before I saw you again
and then even longer
before I ever heard your name
and much longer before I sat
at the same table as you sipping coffee
and all that was a long time ago I know
but it feels as if it all may have
just happened around the corner
five seconds ago

I may be rambling
because I really don’t know
how to talk about these things
and I am not really that good
at talking in general
and its even worse when its
with a living person
that I know I love
but have failed to mention
that fact
to that person

and the best option
always seems to me
is to pack my bags
and move to the other side
of the world
and never talk to that person again

because wouldn’t that be easier
than rejection
or worse...
acceptance
because acceptance
can often lead to failure
and if I check my track record
that is exactly where it has lead
ever time so far

also in the side notes
it mentions that
i am i hopeless romantic
so the fact that I seem hopeful
every time I hear your voice
and every time i see you
just seems to point to that cliff
were I always find myself
tumbling head over heels
and down into the shards
of stuttering bad poetry
and pillow cases filled with bricks
made out of tears
carved out of the infinite ocean
of my own stupidity

and that seems to be my life so far
something to laugh at
that isn’t funny
but thats ok
because it’s more of a nervous laugh

so the truth is, I probably love you...
and what i mean by that is...
I love you...
and that is to say
I will most likely drown
in my own stupidity
before you ever know

Trying to hide from the day
As the world quickly turns
And time slowly crawls
As I count the leafs in the wind
Just waiting to see you again
Waiting to see you smile
Waiting to hear you laugh
Waiting to play and have fun
Waiting to read the next chapter
Waiting to hold you tight
Waiting to wish you sweet dreams
Waiting to kiss you goodnight
Waiting to tell you goodmorning
Waiting to make your favorite breakfast
Waiting for the next greatest week of my life

We might all be made of stardust
but no one shines like you
and the only time I hear
the angels sing
is whenever I hear your name
and when those same syllables
fall from my mouth
it feels like the slow pour of molasses
and it reminds me of when
the gods first created love
and love created life
and then life
made sweet sweet love
on beds made out of sin and poetry
and if you are not
the definition of beauty
then beauty has no definition
and all this stardust
is being wasted
when none of us
can shine
quite the same way
as you

Trapped and chained and jailed in the grip of misery and the hungry mouth of despair
Its serpentine tounge wrapped tightly around your neck
A perfectly fitted noose
Deep rooted crooked fangs and hooks and teeth
To crush your bones
  Suspend your soul
   And poison your heart
Hanging helplessly as your
  Body and dreams and hopes
    Are dissolved into black sludge
Your arms stolen of everything
  You ever loved and held dear
And then without mercy
  Your very arms ripped out
Your face wiped clean
  No eyes to see with
   No mouth to SCREAM
Treasured memories erased
  And turned into daggers of torment
An endless cavern of echoes
  Of doubts and fears
     And blames
        And lies
All LIES
But the echos scream and
   Repeat and scream
     And repeat and
       Repeat and
         Repeat
           And
             Repeat
And you can't help but belive the lies
  Being carved into your skin
   Your heart your soul
It's all your fault
  it's all your fault
      IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT
YOU'RE HERE... BECAUSE
  IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT
Lies though... all lies
Misery lies and it lies
  In your heart
   And it lies in your soul
    And it lies in your everything
Misery wants your company
  Misery wants your EVERYTHING
Misery wants to paint its ugly
Over your beauty and **** your light and vibrance
Misery singing you lies of sweet oblivion and solitude
"stay here stay here... I'll take your pain away... just give me your all and I'll give you my numb... no one will love you so let me make it all numb..."
Another lie of misery...
   Carved deeper into your heart
Carving and slicing and burning lie after lie
Taking you apart and breaking you down
Casting and reshaping you the stolen pieces of you into bricks
Forcing your hands to build up a wall
Misery doing everything to make you feel at home
Venomous lies slipping from its rotted forked tounge
"This is where you belong... I'll love you... just let me make you numb..."
Misery lies while singing false lullabies
  Trying to steal you away
Trying to make the world darker
  By killing your light
Trying to hide your beauty in the
  Mouth of despair
Misery wants the world to sink into a
   Murkier shade of grey
It knows our world is falling apart
  And that by claiming you it can
    Quicken our descent
Its all just lies... the chains that bind you...
  the lies that cut and carve you down...
    miseries cold sinking in... the closer
       you get to numb the easier its
         lies are to belive... slipping
            away... the numb and
               oblivion. .. just
                 inches away...
                   comfortably
                    dark lies
                     LIES
                          ...
                    DON'­T
              DON'T FADE
            DON'T BELIEVE
           DON'T GO AWAY
       If... if you have done anything
     Anything wrong, it's this and only
   This, you're too beautiful for this world, this broken crumbling world, you looked too deeply, you felt too much...
Loved too much..  and then life hurt, breathing hurt... and you then you looked deeper, felt deeper, loved more... against the hurt and the pain... the sky was falling and you tried to hold it back up... too kind, too sweet... if anything this world doesn't deserve you. .. but oh... it needs you...
I've seen your light, been touched by the grace and beauty of your heart...
There's no easy escape from miseries grip
   And the mouth of despair
No quick fix
  No band-aid brand cure
A hard battle fought
  That not everyone can win
No guarantees I can give...
But I will climb into the mouth
  With you
   You don't have to do it alone
     Win or lose
       I'm right here with you
I'll die here by your side
  Just for a moment
   One moment to love your soul
     Your heart
       Your everything

Theres no cure for heartache
but there is always *****
and poor judgement
and my stupidity has no boundaries

so let me drink until tomorrow
is nothing but sorrow and regret
and love ain’t nothin
but a poorly written poem
on the napkin I wrote a fake number
for the girl whose name
I can’t remember
but can still smell
on the sheets we stained
as I was trying to forget
who your are

I should have known
I wouldn’t find anything
but the hangover of disappointment
from this kind of love
the kind that only burns in the heart
but never touched by the hand

theres no cure for heartache
and its always going to burn
it won’t matter how many names
I can’t remember
or how ***** the sheets get
when I can’t forget
who you are

She was the first sin made of flesh
when no act of love was lewd or wicked
before men and gods
invented shame and virtue

hers were the fingers
that carved the heart of every star
and whose kiss set their fires ablaze
to burn eternally
in the vast emptiness of space
to give us something beautiful
to look up and pray to in the moments
we can find no beauty within ourselves

and beauty is within her name
and the colors of her eyes
and lust and desire burst from her womb
like a wild garden spilling over the universe
to give life hunger and reason

and she carved out a small piece of her soul
to give time a heartbeat
and set eternity into motion
and she is as old as she is young
for she lives outside
of the rules of deterioration and death

she is endless and kind
and you felt the warmth of her breath
in your lungs in your first gasp of air
and you will know her again briefly
as your take your last
and hear the sound
of her gently black wings carry you off
to the place where stars are born
and she carves you into a heart
to float in the sky
and comfort those
who need to find beauty
somewhere outside of themselves

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

Her name was Mad Violin
We had met at a bar
Where I was half past midnight at drunk
And she had spilt smoke
And smoked whisky
And I remember her talking
About suicide and music
And writing and art
I was halfway through a strange dream
And she was completely undressed
And we were ******* our way
Through the nightmares
Of hope and illusion
She stood there watching
Our bodies tangle and sweat
As she played the violin
And strangled the life out of me with its strings
I woke up stiff and hungover
In an empty bed
The dream still clawing at my back
Her ghost still playing
That ****** violin
It was in all the papers
And on the all the news
Another death
Another suicude
Another note with a name
And a goodbye
I didn't have to read
Or listen or watch
I already knew
Mad Violin
Wouldn't be playing again
She was gone

Gone...
  Gone...
              gone...

I wiped off a tear
Before it crawled out onto my face
And choked back a sob
And pretended to laugh
She got out of the lie
Out from under the strings
Burned her name and violin and stage
And set the whole world ablaze
No one noticed her before
But now everyone claimed
To know her name
And I couldn't actually remember
So I just called her Mad Violin

Your name is a sharp thing on their tongue
and they always mispronounce it
and it always has an odd way
of sounding like boy
as it leaves their mouth

they are still spitting the last syllables out
and already their teeth
are full with your ******
and their eyes can’t see
anything wrong here being done

now that you aren’t breathing anymore

and your fifteen minutes of fame
have stretched out
to a twenty minute story
on sixty minutes

if you weren’t already boxed
in oak and velvet
and buried under the ground
maybe you could have enjoyed
the lime light of it all

but there is no joy
surrounding your name today
but thanks to the alchemist
who turned the pound sign
into a hashtag
you’re part of the movement now

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

hashtag another body breathing
at the wrong time
in front of the wrong fear
being pierced by an old hate
bullet after bullet after bullet
till it isn’t breathing anymore

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

maybe I already forgot your name
maybe I’m guilty of mispronouncing it too
maybe I’m just too tired to say it
tired of being tired all the time
tired of watching things get worse
tired of knowing we could be better
tired of knowing we should be better

tired of the painful burden of hope
as someone else’s name
falls in line
and becomes part of the movement

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

i don’t know what comes next
or where you might be

I hope wherever it is
It’s somewhere better than here

Somewhere better than us

Love letters and suicide notes
Torn out page
Scrap of life
No one stopping
To read the last lines
Forgotten envelopes
Lost life post
Another dead heart
Another souls ghost
Everyone dying
To find themselves a home
After writing their
Letters and notes
Just so they
Could feel less alone

Remind me why we sin
with the pressure of your lips
tongue tie me
to your sheets
and whisper long syllables
of slow honey
and sting me with your gaze
meeting mine where
fear and pleasure mix
and strip me of my human name
and sacrifice it to the love
of pleasure you keep within your ribs
and show me the stars
you keep below your skin
and tell me of the scars
you wear proudly on your heart
tell me no lies
and I’ll give you my truth
and with a silent word
and a burning kiss
let me remind you
why we sin

I am so tired
that I can’t sleep
I am so exhausted
that my eyes
wont stay closed

I am ridiculously sure
that I am not human
not to say
I know the mothership is coming
I don’t know that

Truthfully
I don’t know much of anything

I am a child
in an aging mans body
which
I am pretty sure
has a lesbian living
underneath its skin

which probably doesn’t make sense
to you when you hear me say it
but nothing inside my head
makes sense to me
so why should you
have the luxury to understand
anything I might say

but it is to say
I will never be a manly man
or see or understand
that way of thinking

that macho drink and ****
as much and as many
people as you can in life

dont get me wrong

I love everything there is to
love about women
which is just everything
their great

well...

most of them at least
or maybe just some of them
I mean that they are no different
in the way we are all the same
we are all
just people
some are great
and a treasure to have in our lives

and others...

not so much

and I have done more
than my fair share
of drinking

A lot more...
enough to never have
to drink again
but I probably will anyway
not so much now though

and, well... yea...
I've liked
the ******* parts too

most of the time

its just that I like

the love

part of *******
more than the
bim-bam-boom ahhhhhhh
I’m sooooo sorry part
that never but sometimes
and almost  always
happens part of *******

that awkward moment when
oh **** my ****
throw up on you moment
it always gets nervous
around pretty girls moment
that I don’t know what to say moment

that...

d’oh!... moment

but I do know
I’m not suppose to say
thank you...
moment

even though once you’ve gone
I will get down on my hands
and my knees
and thank every name
of every god I have ever heard of
for that painfully beautifully
awkward moment
I was lucky enough to spend with you

I guess I’m just a little too quite
a little too shy
a little too nice, maybe

a lot too sensitive

emotionally speaking

in that sense that everything hurts
and everything is beautiful
and the world is ****
but still there must be something
here worth living for

someone who will cringe
and roll there eyes
every time I write
and read another garbage poem to

someone who will love me regardless
no matter how bad things get
no matter how broken my heart is
no matter how horrible
I may look when I die

someone who I will love
as much as I loved
to hate everything about life

Oh, I hates it soooooo much

someone who made
every miserable moment here
worth  the madness of it all

Pluck a feather from a dead bird
Lost in the middle of the road
There's no place left to run to
There's no where else to go
Map a trail up to heaven
While burning down our homes
And when we get there
If its just a field of dead flowers
And a pile of angels bones
We'll have to hope for something better
Inside our own souls
And that dead bird has found its nest
Hiding in the middle of the road

Loneliness does not leave my body when I walk into a crowded room /it only amplifies itself with thoughts of why didn’t I just stay at home /what did I expect to find here / a pretty face with a kind smile and deep soulful eyes that would not only see the troubled and lost thoughts inside my head / but would be a mirrored reflection of the same struggles and doubts / someone who would say more by saying nothing and understand all the silence pouring out of my mouth / you know the girl / the one I read about in the poem I wrote last week / last year / yesterday and probably again tomorrow / the imaginary one I write all those fictional love poems to / the one that kind of looks like me in a dress / is it weird that I think she’s kind of hot? / the one that reminds me of the real girls and women I am always too afraid to talk to / I swear if it weren’t for alcohol and aggressive women I would still be a ****** today / it was so cute how they told me they never brought guys home with them... I don’t know maybe this was true / maybe it wasn’t / and I was always so naive that every time it happened I expected we were going to just watch a movie or something... / we did the something / just a something not as PG as I was expecting / something not really PG at all.../ oh...young me, where has tho gone.../ (sigh)... / I don’t drink so much now and I am not as naive / still a little / but that’s another story.... / and now I have been alone so long that it has a certain comfort and warmth / so long that I rarely notice being lonely at all / the dull buzz of silence / the peacefulness of an empty house is louder than the empty echo and cries of desperation from my heart... / that is / until I walk into a crowded room

Starbuck napkins and depressing one liners and my hands are shaking and my nerves are on edge and it feels like Thursday is never going to get here and I can't sleep until I find myself oversleeping and it's two hours past the time I had somewhere to be and another day has slipped past before I could take a breath and find any kind of calm and it's  a day closer to Thursday but Thursday still feels like it's never going to get here and my coffee has gone cold and my hands are busy shaking out depressing one liners on a pile of Starbucks napkins...

I start to write into a
puddle of metaphors
meant to be a love poem
and as I write down
the word love
for the thousandth
of the thousandth time

I accidentally misspell it...

...with the letters
of your name...

and I know visually
that it looks wrong on paper
but when I hear it in my head
it sounds right
and now I can’t quite remember
any other way to spell it

and thats not really the worst of it
because I’m really just rewriting
the same poem over and over again
somehow hoping that rearranging
the letters and the words
will somehow align the stars in heaven
causing my heartbeat to sync with yours
and somehow you will just know how I feel
and I won’t have to stutter
and stammer and choke on the words

because every time
you’re are sitting across from me
or standing anywhere near me
or being anywhere out there
in the world breathing
while just being you
causes my mouth and my hands
and my body
and the whole world around me
to tremble
as I begin
to feel so dangerously close
to not feeling so alone

and alone is a thing
I have grown to be
incredibly comfortably with
alone is a safe heaven
of quite and peaceful solitude
where pain is a thing
easily stitched away
inside secret pockets
of regret
that nobody knows about

alone is something that has
become the best friend
my heart has ever known
a secret companion
no one can steal away from me
the person that knows everything
about me that is too embarrassing
or strange
or heartbreaking to talk about

it knows things that
I don’t even know about myself

I am sure that I am
about to be swallowed
by some armageddon level event
and be forgotten by history
because this isn’t the kind of story
that i get to be a part of
except for the character
that no one notices
so there is no need to remember
who I was
or how when I thought
I misspelled the word love
with the letters of your name
was the first
and only  time
I ever actually got it right

it is in the language
of the stars
and the secrets
of the leafs
it is the smile
and laughter of children

it is a tear blooming
into an ocean
it is the lost sands
stranded on the shores
that time has forgotten
it is the infinte sorry
only eternity can hold

it is a blanket of forgiveness
warming the beds of sin
it is the lips
and the color
of a first kiss
it is the serenity
of a dying breath

it is the birth and life
and beauty of love
it is loves lust
and desires prayers

it is yesterday's tomorrow
and todays yesterdary
it is the here
and the now

it is the air in our lungs
and the song of our hearts
it is the blood and marrow
of our souls

poetry is in everything
and everything is poetry

poetry holds onto
what death takes away
so we will know
that no matter how long we live

life

is always
too short

so always remember
do not squander this gift away
this may be
your once in a lifetime life
this could be the only
heaven you walk through
the only hell you suffer in


poetry does not lie

so in no circumstance


ever


lie to poetry

poets however will lie
almost always
except for the ones who don't  
they always tell the truth
the devil cheats at dice
and every other game he plays
and even angels can decive
be careful in who you belive

always be kind
hug daily and often
love who you love
no matter the odds
or situation
or how ridiculous
or improbable
or illogical it may seem

break the rules
when you must
trust your gut
and belive in your heart

it may not work out in your favor
it may break you
and if it does
it will feel terribly unbearable
but you will get through it

eventually

it will not always seem fair
it will not always feel good
but in the end

love

is what will make it
look beautiful
when you take
your last look back
at the life
that no matter how long it was
will have been too short

Our hearts become abandoned churches
housing the broken stained glass colors
shattered in the reflection
of who we used to dream ourselves to be
while being afraid
to face what we have become

and we have become monsters
much worse than any of the ones
we use to fear
living beneath our beds
and in our closest
and down dark alleys

men who ****** truth
children who **** children
mothers who grieve for attention
fathers who hope for death
clergymen who stalk prey
prayers of hate
spoiled milk and rotten flesh
no longer the kin of kind
only the kings of misery

and then petition the empty sky
for the answer of how we became so cruel
that we would abandon our hearts
with the churches along roads
too overgrown to find or travel down

looking for the devil at the crossroads
so we have someone else to blame
for the shameful mess we have made
of who we use to dream ourselves to be

She lives in his heartbeat
nourishing his blood
feeding it
keeping it warm
comforting it
walking through its halls
and chambers
telling it fables
only the stars
of the night sky know
in a language only the roots
of eternities flowers understand
keeping it safe
in the hours of sleep
holding it close and tight
through its moment of dreams
snuggling deep in its blanket
after a long
and well earned yawn
she closes her eyes and sleeps
then he walks through her heartbeat
and tends to her dreams
and nourishes her blood
bringing with him fairy tales
of warmth and comfort
anxious to yawn
and rest in her chambers
snuggled deep in her blankets
ready to dream of her
dreaming of him
dreaming of her
walking hand in hand
through the fields of forever
tending the flowers
found in the palms of eternity