Why do we let people affect us so
So much of our happiness dependant on
The whims of another
Shocking, how little control
We really have
How we actually have little hand in
Our own happiest moments
Why are words
Sometimes more than words
And actions quickened heartbeats
And how the grapevine
Can be a vein
Of hope or desolation
How little are we really
As people
Without each other?

Words scrawled
Like so many written
On the backs of mirrors
Broken and switched
But the message remains
Living day to day
On faith and Fate
I feel sometimes
I can almost make them out
But the heat dissipates
And they fade away
Leaving my fingertips
Painting nothings
Another night

The sporadic and spastic
Deliberations
Of chance encounters
On busy streets
Haunt my dreams
Like a raindrop in a well
A mile wide
And a mile deep
Rippling across
As I spin myself
Seeking contentment beneath the sheets
Begging to make sense
Of the surreality
To take something tangible
From thoughts that barely exist
Waking in time
To just miss my breath
And worlds spiral back
Into nothingness

As I wander in, the path ahead unfolding
I'm forced to reassess the playing cards I'm holding
Conquer and divide the uncertainties,
only to find they're alive, they've multiplied
And though my days wandering down the wrong path have ended
Its set for the aimless wandering to begin
Most days are unsurprising
I can see the sun arising
Illuminating the things I've learned thusfar
Though still leaving me with a tin can for a heart
It's like looking in the rear view mirror,
objects no more nearer, rather farther
And it's only getting harder seeing, believing that my intuition's not deceiving,
That the feeling that's haunting me
Isn't just because of where I want to be,
That what I see is what I see,
That I haven't shrouded my head in rose colored glasses,
Not clouding myself with whatever flight of fancy
Passes me from midnight to midmorning, warning me
That morning light dancing across my bed isn't the harbinger of another day of medioctiry,
But the bringer of the life I swear I see.  
That I haven't deluded myself concluding,
Reading signs alluding to some moment frozen inside my head subconsciously
That I swear has been there all my life,
That I'm fated like I thought, not condemned to waiting,
Not believing without reason, not deceiving,
But seeing the redeeming that I've seen,
Just believing what I've seen.  
Just believing.

Faith is a pillow
A blankets embrace
Reaching out towards
Such rhythmic grace

Creating worlds
Not easily snuffed
So many hours
But not long enough

Find wisdom, find strength
Divine intervention
No heartache, no fear
No source of contention

Find dreams and lovers
Touch hearts, touch lips
And always they slide
Through your fingertips

Some don't understand what home is
Speaking of our city with derision
They just don't get it
And sure, people have left in droves
It isn't what it used to be
But nowhere do I feel
The sense of contentment
That I do there
I've never fit anywhere
But in Buffalo I do
My heart understands what home is
Where it beats a little softer
Where I breathe a little deeper
Walk a little slower
Smile a little more
"The reasons
They don't seem legitimate when you say them aloud
But in your heart.
There's something real here."

I dream of you sometimes still
I confess
At how things ended between us
Of bitterness
Wondering how something so good soured
So Fast
Nostalgic at the times we had and that you
Couldn't last
But in the melancholy I
Won’t wallow
And while endings are bitter pills, this one's not so difficult
To swallow
And I know I won't miss all the trivial games
You played
Because in my nightmare you didn't leave
You stayed