Little suicide notes were written between the colors and brush strokes in the irises of her eyes.  Some short, some long, some almost never ending, and some simply only said goodbye.  Some warm and well crafted with just a dash of despair.  Others cold and cruel crammed with complaints and self loathing.  Some written by her own hand, others memorized from books and films and authors unknown.  Beautiful maladies of the outrageous fashion of lifeless death after death.  She too often wondered is it really suicide when someone is already dead inside?

Even with the glazed over dreams of death that swam in the deep black of her pupils, her smile still had an innocent charm.  A perfect balance of teeth and lips and soft pink flesh.  There was an eager patience in the tremble and quiver waiting in the promise of her kiss.  It wasn't of wanting or longing but the simple passion of knowing each  moment of pressing and locking and pressure brought her closer to her final breath.  She wasn't interested in the luxury of suicide, its flashy pearl whites or final big bang... she wanted to know the intimacy of the unknown, the brief warm flush of the infinite end of the love and despair of life.  To discover the kindness or cruelty of whats next.  Too often she pondered why does she see much more beauty in death than in life or love.

She smiled, some days... and it was a warm and inviting smile, beautiful in its own graceful way.  Thats how I remember it.  All I can see now, shining up through the dirt and her grave, is one last note painted in her dead eyes.

Is it the smile of a mad moon
Or the toothy grin of a cat
With eyes as wide as dreams
Are they one and the same?
Blue eyes of oceans endless
And red blood of love bleeding true
Is the only thing crazier than beliving
Beliving that this love isn't true?
Is there any need to dream
If we refuse belive in impossible things
Take my hands full of madness
And my heart full of dreams
Walk down this impossible with me
*I'll forever swim in your blue
If you'll belive in my red of true

Do you know its you
The one that I want
The one that I love
Just last night
I imagined you
Sitting beside me
I imagined the
Heat of your hand
Holding mine
I imagined your
Beautiful smile
Your beautiful lips
I imagined a soft kiss
I imagined your hand
In mine all night
Until the curtain closed
And then I drove home alone
I wanted to call or write
Tell you I wish you were here
Tell you I miss you
Tell you...
But instead I crawled
Into my empty bed
And settled for something less

Take the steps and learn how to dance
Break open the bars and make an escape
Find a pair of broken branches
And  a handful of feathers
And some old kite string
And make yourself new wings
Fly out of the sky
Fly free from this world
Fly off to new dreams
Fly
Fly
Fly

He dreamt of mice
and he dreamt of gods
and he dreamt of mice
that were gods
and gods that feared mice
and he dreamt of secrets
that he could not tell
and of memories
that were not his
and he dreamt of days
that wished they could see nights
and nights that ignored mornings
and he dreamt
that the planets were fish
and that the ocean
was let loose to swim in the sky
and through the emptiness of space
and that man was never made
of flesh or bone
and that men where children of mice
mice that knew too many secrets
and they would not share
any of those secrets with man
but they would share
their milk and their cookies
and tell men how to avoid cats
when cats dream
because when cats dream
they become bigger than mice
and become more loved than gods
and in their purring
is the death song
of the kingdom of mice
and without mice
and their kingdom safe
that man would be lost children
that looked like worms
to the planets that swam like fish
in the ocean that floated
in the emptiness of space
and then he woke
and did not remember
what he had dreamt
and scurried across the floor
and ate some cookies
and scanned the darkness
for any cats that might
dare to sleep
and in sleeping dream
and dream the beginning
of the end of everything

You are not what you see or feel
Demons have robbed you of your eyes
And placed a nightmarish carnival mirror before you
Monsters have stolen your heart
And buried it in mountains high and cold
Replaced it with a comfortable pain of numb
Your light shrouded by the devils clouds of doubt and misery
It is not you you see or feel
It is the lie and reflection
These scoundrels have placed in front of you
It is only a shadow and shell that these beasts have made
To trick and deceive
To torment and steal
Your heart
Your soul
Your beauty
Your truth
For I have heard your truth sing
I have been inspired by your beauty
I have danced with your soul
And I have been touched by your heart
The have thier lies screaming over your skin
To steal your confidence
They clutter your head with thoughts of failure
To bring down your self esteem
They take the color and magic from your eyes
And leave only the grey and dark ugly nighmares
You're not what they try to make you do
You're not what they try to break you to
When you think its you hating yourself
It is them and the living lie they have made from your fears
The mirror in front of you
Is full of demons smoke and beastly illusion
It does not reflct you
These monsters and devils work
For the black demon dogs of depression
They strip you of your truth
To feed them late night snacks
They drain your heart of love
To wet their burning tounges
They break your souls bones
To give them something to toy with and gnaw on
And then they leave you alive just enough to stand back up
So they can come back for more
It is a never ending cycle of lies and deceit
They hide you from yourself and only let you see
The marionette they have made to mock you with
I have seen your doubts and pains and aches
I have heard your tears sing in fear and desperation
And I have felt the nightmare blanket wrapped tightly around you...
It is not a thing many could survive
It is a place where most cannot escape
It is the pit no one dares look into
Without instantly begging for death
It is the void that devours the weak whole in but a single breath
It is a place where light dies without the trace of a shadow
Where dreamers bury their hopes and lose their will to wish...
It is here they have tried to hide your true self
It is from this pit I first saw your light streaking out from
That I first heard the call of your voice
I was helpless  to do anything but jump blindly into the pit
Into the unknown dark
And I have fallen to the end of its bottomless depths
And found you here
And here where all light dies
You still outshine the sun
Here in the cold dark
You blaze infinite warmth
You fight countless battles
Demon and black dogs
Beasts and monsters
Devils and scoundrels
Fight against you endlessly
You have your scars
You have lost your battles
And yet you stay strong
Your lungs ache to the brink of death
But you still inhale deeply
You have pushed through this war
For many a day and nights
Alone many times without aid
I have fallen here
Given myself to you completely
Dedicated my purpose and drive
To your aid
You do not belong here
Your light too beautiful for this place
Too beautful for this world
I am here now with you
You never need fight or fear alone
I will always be by your side
We will walk out together
Fly beyond this place
Reunite you to yourself
You will then see
Your heart
Your soul
Your beauty
Your truth
As I do
And then you will see
You make all things beautiful

Why give us hearts to love with
  but not the wisdom to take care of them?

how many shots does it take
how many bullets fired
until you feel safe
beneath your kevlar vest
gun in hand
barrel smoking

was it fear in your eyes
or was it hate in your heart
a willing force of ignorance
that fueled such brutality

how dead does a man have to be
before you loosen
your finger from the trigger
how many holes
do you have to put into his body
before he is no longer a threat
how long does his heart
have to be still
before you feel
like you’ve done your job well

protector of the peace
upholder of the law
murderer of the innocence
yet innocent of ******

how do you escape the feeling of guilt
the taste of sin on your lips
how do you pray
with blood soaked hands

and the news is nothing new
the story stays the same
other than a new name
behind the hashtag
and the list grows
as does the number of grieving

Emmett Till is still dead
and the hate that killed him

so long ago

so long ago

is still alive
protected by kevlar vests
and loaded guns
that are emptied by fingers
choking triggers
with a noose tight grip

protector of the peace
upholder of the law
keeper of hate
how many more shots
how many more bullets
until you feel safe
murderer of the innocent
yet innocent of ******

The gods do not greive for thier dead
for they know nothing is permanent
not their robes or shrouds or stars or altars or crosses
they will come and go
as light goes into dark
and dark gives into light
for they know from the first step
they take out of the void
and into names and prayers
when they will exhale and fade back into nothing
leaving only vague myths and flimsy fables
behind with their brittle bones
and they have handed down this story
and printed it on every crease and line
of every leaf of every branch of every tree
and left the equation of time and blood
and life and death
in every shed scale
of snake and fish
on every lost hair
of dog and cat and man
and the mystery
is no mystery at all
not really
the answers are questions
and the questions are answers
and nothing is so small
as not to matter
and no matter
has any weight
except for the matters of love
and love is all that is
and all that every was
and all that will every be
the mother of dreams
the robes of death
the keeper of time
the child of life
are all love
made from love
made of love
being nothing less than
being nothing more than
love
as we are all here today
made of love
made for love
made from love
and this is why
the gods do not grieve
for their dead

There’s nothing left to say
that isn’t another cliché
flags flown at half mass
because last months solution
was less than half-assed
more dead kids
more thoughts and prayers
and the mountain of *******
is only dwarfed in comparison
to the pile of money being made
by the repetition of violence
but dont worry your pretty little head
as long as its not your kid
lying on the floor busy being dead
just give it a week or two
and all that guilt will fade
until the next gun loving
american mass shooter decides to
rinse
reload
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
...

She kept the beauty of fairy tales
fluttering about her heart
and the reality of heartache
in the paint strokes of her eyes
she was always
a tear away from suicide
and a dream away from life
she walked the line between fiction and love
on a rope made out of razor wire
and whiskey shots mixed with turpentine
her feet could smoother burning coals
and bled and wrote stories
no one dared walk behind
she could speak in languages
only the stars and the leaves
could understand
and she sang to both
whenever they asked
she knew how to swim
but preferred the feeling of drowning
the cold searing pain
of lungs unable to take a breath
the fear and rush of staring
into the dark unknown
she would get lost at sea
to find her way to oceans end
where mermaids and starfish
waited to hear
the fluttering of her heart
as told by the beauty of fairy tales

She lives on the other side of dreams spending most of her time sitting on the bottom side of rainbows and every night locks of her hair paint each star in the sky and she always carries food for lost caterpillars and hummingbirds and knows the secret language of honey bees and butterflies and her favorite color is only known to the first leaf of the first branch of a tree older than time and life and she only ever shares it with those who know the truth and magic of love and if you ever get lost between dreaming and Oceans End all you have to do is close your eyes and reach out into the dark and she will pull you to the other side and dream you a pair of wings and some food and teach you how to speak to the bees and a butterfly will give you directions to not necessarily home but to the place your heart needs to go

Our love...  
you say we once loved each other
and this is true
and you say maybe there is no fixing us
and before you say anything else
let me remind you of this
our love is buried in a casket
you built with the hands of your betrayal
and the white lies painted on your teeth
that you use to spit out half hearted apologies
that only mean you need something temporary
a place to play pretend while you search
yet again for someone better
but you’re having trouble
finding someone to blindside
as your past keeps crashing
into your present
and that makes it harder to be manipulative
as your lies are bleeding through your massacre
and the color of your eyes
are heavily saturated with desperation
and don’t mistake this for hatred
and I wish you no ill will or harm
but there is no us
as you walked away from that
of your own free will and choice
time and time again
after I forgave you time and time again
only to find the same dagger
leaving new scars in the heart
that was still at that time
beating for you
and it took time
months and months
and years and years and years
before I realized the only thing
you could give me was false hope
that turned quickly back to misery
and that enough was enough
so I placed my still heart and our love
in the casket you painstakingly built
and let you bury it
and you buried it so deep into the ground
that it fell through the earth
and is now a satellite circling the earth
high above china
and much like you it shines in the night sky
as pretty as a star
but completely artificial

How did you expect me to react
When I felt your knife plunge into my back
And if that weren't enough I turn around to
  see a smoking gun still pointed at my forehead
My brains splattered on the wall
His seeds showered on OUR sheets
How did you expect me to react
When you told me your petty lies
It wasn't your fault he talked his way
  between your thighs
Promises he never meant to keep
Lured and enticed
A bigger house and nicer things
Than you thought I could ever dream
Did you really just admit that?!?!?

I've never been good with
Women or girls
Never brave, never able to speak
Mumble was the best I could do
And I did that too quitely
And too often
No... never good
Lucky enough though I guess
With the wild ones
The ones that didn't play chase
Or damsel in distress
The ones that wandered the night
Hungry for life and pain
The ones able to see me hiding
And mumbling to myself
Being shy in the corner
The ones that weren't afraid to strike first
They bought me drinks until I was drunk enough to forgot who I was
Or that I was shy
They lite the matches and the cigarettes and the fires and the madness
Took me back to their homes smiling
I was always too innocent and naive to know why
Until I woke up naked beside them in the middle of the night
And we would do it again
And in the morning too
Sometimes I got lucky for months
Sometimes years
And sometimes I got lucky
And fell in love
Thank the gods for the crazy ones
The stark mad lunatics
Crazy for the beautiful pain of being alive
I never would have known love without them
Would never find it again if they weren't still out there
Dancing in their darkness with their demons and heartache
No I've never been good with women or girls
But I've been lucky more times than one man deserves in a lifetime...
Still, it would be nice to fall madly in love one last time
Just one last first kiss from lips burning with the madness of love
Just one last time...

Is it love...
The longing and loneliness
The misery and emptiness
The heartache and sickness
Is it love...
The wanting and needing
The stealing and thieving
The touching and greiving
Is it love..
Or is it all just
Delusion and dreaming

She came and went
  wandering from one dream
   into another
leaving behind small trinkets
  underneath his pillow

     the warmth of her smile
     the pulse of her kiss
     the ghost of her touch

and when he woke
  the autumn scent
    of her hair
      danced lightly
        in the air

he took a deep breath
  filling his lungs
   until his ribs
    nearly cracked
       apart

then exhaled
  and smiled

   a sad

    happy

      smile

and the details of the dream
  blurred and rearranged
    themselves
       and bit
         by bit
          faded into
            the memory
              of mist

she slipped down into his heart
  and made a small fire
   and kept everything warm

and waited
  waited for him

   to sleep

    to sleep

     and dream

       again

How is it she make him happy from
  so far away a place?
How is it his heart so full when he has
  never held her hand?
How does it feel so much like love  
  every time he awakens
    in the middle of the night
How is it as if it has been there
  all along
Like she has always been the bird
  singing in his heart
He must be mad or crazy or completly
  lost it all
No skin no bones no blood no soul
How is it that he's smiling while
  lying there all alone
How is it he cant escape from a love
  he can't embrace

What’s is it that we are looking for
as we stare blankly at the sun
pretending to not be blind

what is it that we hope to find
in the lost space weaved
throughout the colors of our eyes
is there anybody there
we would really want to find

what is it we were thinking
when we lost our train of thought
I can’t remember were there
even any passengers on board

what is it that we are waiting for
before we can see the white
of one another’s eye
is it the lost meaning of the life
we are about to take away

different god
different country
same pride
same loss

killing in the name of who created who
the last whisper of a man praying
to a god praying to a man
pretending to not be blind
as he stared blankly at the sun

Why are you singing covers Bob
You aren't thinking of knocking
Knocking on that door
Your songs will out last us all
So why not you
Why not you too
This years been rough enough
And the cannon ***** are
Still flying
So stay a little longer
And don't go knocking on that door
...

Do not try to outwit your grief
do not try to hide your love
what is desire but to burn
what if the only true path to heaven
is to walk through the fire

what if the only real sin
is regret
regret for the things you never did
the things you never said

tell me would that change
what you do tonight
before you sleep
what you do tomorrow
when you first wake up

what if there is no light
at the end of the tunnel
what if there is no dark
at the bottom of the well
what if the closest
you can get to god
is how close
you can get to your heart
what if the only devil
is the fear
that lives in your doubts
what if god
is nothing more
than your reflection

tell me what would that change
what would you pray for
if the answer to your prayers
was the miracle waiting
in your own hands

what if your dreams
are no farther away
than your imagination
what if your imagination
is the key
and the door
and the path
to the home of your dreams

show me all of your secrets
and I will bury all of my lies
what good is a metaphor
that cannot hide the truth
in the plain sight
of the sleeping sun
and the first breath of the moon

when the weather calls for tears
water the fields
that sing the song
of your heart beating
and when the fire falls and spreads
hold my hand
and walk through the flames with me

Countless tombstones lined up
  like shark teeth
Waiting for the next generation
  to march into their graves
Helmets waiting
  for heads waiting
    for their bullet holes
Dying in the same clothes
  as their father
    and their father
      before them
Because everyone
  loves a corpse
      in uniform
Left,
  Left,
   Left right left
The endless
   mobius strip
        of war

The American Dream needs feeding
It's bones are starting to show
Everyone cawing ME ME ME
Empty calories of greed
It's hunger is never satisfied
Feet calloused and bleeding
Spinning that hamster wheel
Gold plated bars on cages full of ****
No where to go but dead
And we got to get there first
No need for a fancy hearse
Just add the bodies to the pile
The stench is a mile high
The price we have to pay to touch the sky
Blood is cheaper than oil
So we have to keep breeding
For that American DreaM(achine) needs feeding

and there it was
playing out it slow motion
a flip book animation
of the white picket fence dream

two people so perfectly in love
it could only exist
in the paintings of a fairytale

and how strange to see
my face painted in this dream
to see such a foolish grin
plastered on my lips
to imagine myself happy

to see love once again
living and breathing in my chest
to feel my heart alive
to feel longing and desire
roaming in its chambers

if only I could be so careless
to abandon reason
to ignore my aging bones
my autumn years

to be so brave
to give into the hopelessness
of hopelessly falling  in love

to be daring enough
to tell the truth
to stand before you
to hold your hand

to hand you my heart
knowing you could not hold it
they way it is desperate
to be held by you

to let it get broken
and then to watch
every scattered shard
still sing your name  

if I were only braver
if I were only younger

maybe then I could believe
that a love this perfect
could jump off the pages
of a flip book animation
and find us both living
a life made up of the love
only painted in fairytales

The smoke of a cowards heart
   snuffs out the flame
     leaves no chance for a spark
Swirls and dances with the vision
  of the lost chance of a first kiss
And haunts with the question of
  what mite have been
My eyes are burning and I'm
  choking on doubt
And I can't stop fanning the embers
  deep inside a cowards heart

My self worth sleeps
with my self loathing
and the devil is watching
the whole thing go down
and whats one more scar
on a dented heart
and it hurts to breath
but it feels good to bleed
so I keep something sharp
underneath tear soaked pillows
and there is a dream somewhere
saying all this pain is worth it
and there is a reason somewhere
saying to keep my head up
and there is someone
who wants to listen
and there is someone
who wants to say something
and its all been said before
but maybe we can say it
one more time and maybe theres something more to living
than watching the devil
watch my self worth
sleep with my self loathing

When has love thrived under convention, convenience, or even wisdom?

I wish I had more time
as I can feel autumn
blooming in my bones
and the winter of my death
glimmers  in some star
waiting to fall from the sky

maybe decades away
maybe days
maybe hours
maybe already on it’s decent

no morning I wake
is guaranteed to sail
into a night of sleep

I have not much in my pockets
other than a poor mans fortune
of coins and lent and memories

memories

what treasure is to be found
in my heart full of nostalgia
for names of ghosts
of loves found and lost
and hands once held
that now haunt my palms

is there some strange beauty
to this life
I haven’t seemed to get right
other than in the small moments
that felt like eternity
passing from my lips to hers

then from hers back to mine

has it been
one too many names
or one too few

I...

I have been lucky in this life
to have known the face of love
in more hearts
than anyone deserves
in one lifetime

and what of the agony
it would leave behind
what of the desperate aches
that would echo
in my empty heartbeat

those long nights of crying
over forevers grave
how many lonely tears
have I buried

has it all been a fairy tale
wrapped in the blanket
of a nightmare
of badly ever after

and if I had the choice
would I read it again?

Yes

over and over

these memories
this foolish heart
full of nostalgia
with all its scars
and broken pieces

is a mountain full of gold
burning with the bright fire
of a dragons breath
and raging with the blood
of a king gone mad

and yet still
I wish I had more time

if not for the autumn
in my bones
and the winter of my death

waiting to fall

maybe decades away
maybe days
maybe hours
maybe already on it’s decent

All I want to know is what what makes
  her beautiful
Is she just a dream lost here amongst us all,
  this can't be her home
Did she fall down from the night, a star so
  full of light
Some might say its how she smiles
Or the way she wears her hair
Or the swirls of magic in her eyes
And I can't deny that she's the look
  of perfection
But there's something we just can't see
And thats where the answer hides
To what makes her so beautiful

Death dances with a beautiful soul tonight
And though my face is streaked with tears of mourning
My heart will celebrate all the Lovely Things you taught me
And the life and love you gave me
When death bows and thanks you for the dance
The Lovely things will lift you high in the ever after
And make you queen of all the Lovely Things

I'll miss you mom...

The world today... ****, what can I say... for the most part it's just one big dung pool filled with the **** and bile of humanity.  Things have gone from bad to ******* right out absurdly ******* horible.  At least here in the U.S. it has, and almost everyone just walks around like nothing is wrong.  We've turned off the fire under the Melting *** (and lets be honest, it was barely a matchbook under there in the first place... burning a single match at a time) and freed the hideous multi-headed snake of racism and bigotry.  It's embarrassing and disgusting to hear politicians spewing hate filled reterhic and then pretending that their **** filled speeches are inspired by the voice and righteousness of god.  These ******* wearing ******* are ******* on the devils **** while mumbling out their pathatic lies, claimng to have scientific fact on their side of reason.  They would rather protect the unborn spawn of ****** than the lives and hearts and minds of the women *****.  Build more prisons and invent more crimes than feed those who need food, educate our children to be better and do better, poison water for outdated resources we truthfully no longer need... and the list is nearly endless.  There are more criminals hiding in plain sight in goverment chairs than there are in our slums and dark alleys.  
In part, I envy those  that we're able to afford the luxury of suicide... Hunter, Cobain, Williams and all the other genius minds and beautiful hearts to kind and caring and passionate to take another day of watching this world sink any deeper into its own excrement.  Tired of trying to save us from own stupidity, their voices hoarse and hearts bruised, caving into the comfort of leaving this mortal coil, not able to bear watch it collapse and bury itself.  So they jumped the line, rushed to the front and flew over the edge... laughing I'm sure.
The world today... It breaks my ******* heart... Humanity as a whole?... **** IT! Long have we been capable to do better, to clean ourselves of hate,  to raise up and join hands and hearts and souls and love one another.  Instead we turn our heads, plug our ears, and hush our voices.  Letting greed and corruption **** on our dinner plates and then gobble it all down like we are nothing more than starving orphaned children.  
Is that all we are?  Blind, deaf, mute and starving children?  Willing to swallow anything placed in front of us?  Changing history books to their liking?  Placing Moses next to Jefferson,  erasing the actions and voices of King and Parks and Mandela... I wish I were lying, but in hopes of a more obedient society these same ****-wits want to stop teaching of civil disobedience.  They want our children to do nothing more than sacrifice themselves to the endless crime of war and to the gears and teeth of the machine.  Feeding and defending the crimes of the dollar while  grinding pennies into dust to make the ink they sign our paychecks with...
I don't know what else to say...  to those with the heart and the voice and the hope... Keep at it.... write, sing, scream, dance...
Love your friends, family... Raise your children to be better than we were, than we are... let them become the ones to bring about a world were compassion, empathy, and love define the success and wealth of a good life lived.