Second chances
Are simply
Excuses
To open old wounds
And drench them
With lemons
Just for the pleasure
Of the burn

Waiting is such an
agonizing
thing to do
But I'll wait for an eternity
if I'm waiting
on you

the happiest I've been in my life is in your arms,
in those short-lived moments
when i turn my face to yours
and your lips curl into a smile as you
gaze back at me,
when you stroke my cheek
lightly with your finger
before kissing my forehead softly, sweetly...

the worst pain i've felt is in each and every
moment i am awake without you
you... my love, my drug, my weakeness
the incessant yearning to see that tight-lipped smile spread across your face as my eyes meet yours
it's in these moments I know
you're going
to
break my
heart

Emotion is pain
And joy
Sleepless nights
And
Tearful goodbyes
Doubt and hope
Euphoria
Absolute ecstasy
And all-consuming
Pain
                                                           ­            Apathy is      
                                                                ­       painless
                                                        ­               emotionless
                                                     ­           
                                                     ­                  Apathy is
                                                                       Empty

it's 3am and
I miss you so much
I can hardly breathe

the shirt you gave me to sleep in
still smells like you
but every day it smells a little less like you
and a little more like me
and I fear for the day the smell of you is gone completely

because you'll just feel that much further away

there's always been something about her,
something that I know has been breathing life into my decrepit soul from the moment we met.
she carefully takes my bitterly realistic view of my world and changes it into something so beautiful,
I no longer recognize it as my own.
she's revealed to me such possibility,
such wonder and adventure--
it's the way she sees this delicacy in every human being that makes them so beautiful to her.
and it's her presence,
the mere fact that she's remained by my side despite my often dark demeanor,
that is slowly beginning to brighten the world around me, allowing me to see things I couldn't before--
to see this beauty, this delicacy of this life and the possibilities of the future

A vehicle rumbled along a sorry excuse for a road,
A convoy trailing behind it

A soldier looked out his window
Watching the dust swirl up in clouds beneath the
Heavy vehicle's tires

He said nothing to his partner and they rode in silence
He, thinking of his perfect baby
Whom he had not yet gotten to feel the warmth of
In his arms
And his partner, he was sure
Had nothing but the image of his fiancée racing through his mind
She was all he ever talked about

They were close
As close as a pair of friends could possibly be
But rides were becoming increasingly more solemn
Unspoken yearning for home had become almost unbearable
These days the soldier missed home so much
And longed so badly for his wife's warm embrace
That he swore he could feel his heart aching

The solemn silence was broken as something caught the soldier's eye

"Stop!"

The convoy came to a halt
The soldier jumped from his vehicle
His boots making a hard thud on the ground below
He called to a group of Afghani children who had been
Collecting shell casings they would later exchange for food
In the middle of the convoy's path

The children looked up, alarmed
And scurried away

The rumble of the military vehicles again resounded
Through the desert
And the convoy continued on its way


Looking back
At the men in the strange uniforms
With the huge trucks,
A little Afghani girl
Caught a glimpse of the sunlight
Bouncing off of something
In the middle of the road

She rushed into the street to collect it
Thinking only of how pleased
Her mother would be
With all the money they would earn
From her painstaking hunt

The soldier saw the young girl
Dart into the path of the convoy

He shouted
And leapt from the vehicle
The girl looked up in terror
As she saw the big trucks
Getting closer
And closer

The soldier leapt into
The path
Of the oncoming sixteen-ton vehicle
Toppling the girl to the ground

As she sat up, out of the path of the convoy
Dusting her self off and
Trying to comprehend
What had just taken place
She looked into the road searching for her
Treasure
And saw it
Reflecting the desert sunlight
Just inches from the still form
Of the soldier
Who had just
Given her
His life

my shriveled form staggers forward
with nothing but the slightest glimmer of water in the distance
fueling my weary heart
and driving my wilting frame on

my tongue lies heavy in my mouth
and as I trudge on I begin to weep
my chest heaves with each sob
but my torrid face remains untouched

Please
I ask of any god who is listening
*for once,
let that glimmer be
more than a
mirage

I see you in the parking lot
Sitting in your car with your eyes shut, head bobbing
As your music rattles your windows
And you explore the cavern of your mind

I want so badly to offer you a light

You feel me watching, feel reality encompass you
You awake from your trance
And you put on your mask

You are so sure that this mask will keep away the pain
But I see your demons clawing at it, begging to be set free

I've seen you
The you behind the mask
You have shed it before me many times
But as soon as I glimpse your naked face
And you see it reflected in my eyes
Vulnerable
Broken
You don your mask again and ask me never to speak of what I've seen

I've decided that it pays to be a pessimist
We love deeply, while not ignoring the feeling of our hearts begining to crack
This doesn't mean our hearts end up in any fewer shards
Or are any less impossible to reassemble
But at least we're not surprised when they shatter

I am the thinnest slice of pizza
A warm beer
A scratched DVD
A lukewarm shower

A last resort

I'm what one settles for when all other options have been exhausted
And what is disposed of the moment something better presents itself

Your perfect mouth forms
An inundation of sweet nothings
But your eyes don't echo the words

You hold my face like I mean something
But the reflections in your eyes show only
The ghosts of lovers past

Your body radiates beckoning warmth
I inhale your subtle scent
You're human
You're real
Every sense I possess tells me so

But as I reach for you
All I grasp is air
It slips between my fingers
And sends a chill through my body

Your electricity lingers in my lips, my fingertips, my breath
Raising goosebumps on my arms
Running a current along my spine

I yearn to again
Electrocute myself with your touch
I ache to feel your vitality
I long for a phantom
A man whose thoughts I will never again invade
I long for a memory

I should use a saw
to cut a path
around the spot I stand.
I'll set myself afloat
make my own deserted island
and never reattach myself
to the world

I walk the path of life
Looking for an out
An obscure trail perhaps
A detour
The kind you encounter and imagine
That some hiker who came before you
Became impatient with the beaten path
And carved his own out of the
Thick tangle of branches

But the harder I search
The less defined the path underfoot becomes
And I realize
My life is not yet a path
But a forrest
And I choose the pattern
It makes in the trees

her olive eyes swam with desire
as she gazed at this boy
this simple boy
whom she never expected she'd fall for
but who'd worked his way into parts of her
so concealed, so guarded
not even she knew they were there

love was a foreign concept to her
her past conquests were only that:
conquests
simple boys who flitted in and out of her life
and proven themselves to be just as they appeared:
simple

she was told that when you kiss someone
you feel sparks
the earth moves beneath your feet
and you feel as if you can fly

but she had never felt this power
she was told a simple kiss could hold,
dismissed these stories as fairy tales,
and went about kissing for the fun of it
and out of her desperation to become whole



he saw the desire swimming through her olive eyes
and gently stroked her cheek
he felt so drawn to this
enigma of a girl
and oh how tirelessly he strove to solve
the puzzles she created with her glances

"Kiss me"

she loved him
and she hated that she did
for giving into desire is not as simple as it appears
in the romantic comedies
from which she'd learned everything she knew about love

giving into desire means quieting your logical mind
and logic was the only thing she knew

"Kiss me"

he looked at her with tender curiosity
observed the conflict raging in her olive eyes
and wondered why she was so hesitant to let herself go
wondered why she seemed so full of desire
yet was unable to allow it to consume her

she leaned closer to him
the simple boy who had wormed his way into her heart
and he looked at her intently
tried to solve the puzzles she laid before him

she saw her own desire echoed in the green foam of his ocean eyes

"Kiss me"


she felt sparks
the earth moved beneath her
she flew
all those fairy tales proved themselves to be true

and oh, how certain she was she loved him

I read the Surgeon General's Warning
As I inhale my sorrows
And exhale all troubles
And a slight tinge of worry crawls up my spine
I replaced relationships with cigarettes
Poison with poison
As I sigh and allow the guilt to melt away
Letting it drip into the deepening pool at the bottom of my conscience
I allow myself the small comfort of knowing
At least the cancer sticks
Come with a warning label

She is in prison

it is my fault

Society tells her it is
That she, a woman, shouldn't have worn such
A short dress
Shouldn't have been "asking for it"
With her wandering eyes
And coy smile

what is wrong with me

She has come to resent the image she sees reflected back to her each day
It is unrecognizable
foreign
And she finds the sight of it
makes her physically ill

help me

The volumes she speaks through her
pleading eyes
go unnoticed
She is silenced by oppression
her words that push the crease
of her lips
elbowing, shoving, clawing their way out
are swallowed by her fear

Open present
Smile appreciatively
Repeat
We're disgusting
Spoiled
Wretches
We receive gift upon meaningless
Gift
Every **** holiday
And every **** birthday
We write lists
Put in requests
And throw fits if
We do not get
Exactly
What we want
We are spoiled wretches
Greedy animals
We take without a
Second thought
With smiles
Of polite appreciation
Plastered upon our
Ungrateful faces

It's funny how
that one drunken slip of the tongue
that led to slurred confessions
so drastically altered my life,
altered me.
It was the ***
that gave me the courage to tell you
how lovely you are

As sloppily as they had dripped from my tongue,
my words started a fire,
and before I knew it I was falling deeply in love
with every piece of your fragile being.
You fanned the flames and ran
not turning back to look upon the blaze as it ravaged me

I just find it ironic
that *** started this hellish blaze
that is tearing through my heart,
and with ***
I now make inane attempts
to put it out

There was a time when I glimpsed the future
The possibilities it held sparked something in me
I was no longer consumed by the tedium that had been relentless in recent days
I could taste new beginnings
I became blind to the gray scale world I'd been living in

Ah that lovely haze
Those were the times when I climbed on rooftops
When I'd walk on the train tracks over the river smoking menthols, drunk on life and ***** sprites

Since then the fog has lifted and the world has returned to its dull state
I don't have any desire to climb on rooftops
I don't see what the point would be
And those train tracks that stretch over the river
Can't even reignite that something in me
And it seems I'm stuck on the 27s again

there is nothing more
distressing than
the heartbreak
of a poet

Once upon a heartbreak I jumped the border into Apathy
Leaving the destruction and tumult of my ravaged homeland behind
And it is here I now sit, in the land of Apathy
Swinging my feet off the edge of Nothingness
With my eyes closed and cool air weaving between my fingers while the sunlight gently caresses me
And I know I will never go back

Every day my cat paws at the back door, yowling to be let out
Every day like clockwork he does this
And every day we let him out

I always find him crouching where the porch meets the grass
Staring out into the distance
He'll do this for hours
Sit at the porch's edge until his wanderlust is quelled
I think he wants to run
I think he wants to leave this place that is all too familiar,
All too comfortable for his wandering heart
I know how he feels
Yearning to run
But not wanting to ***** his paws

The wall I built was one of unimaginable beauty
As I laid the final brick I wiped my hands on my jeans and took a step back
I gazed at the wall in all of its fortified glory
Each brick laid with painstaking care and carefully cemented in place
I looked at my wall with an empty smile I had plastered across my face as carefully as the cement I now watched drying
Not a thing could breach my lovely barrier
Not a single ****** thing

I turned my back on my creation and began to let my new found tranquility wash over me
Then there was a sound
A crack, a thud
A slight whisper of impending horrors
I turned and watched as my wall
My beautiful, impermeable wall  
Crumbled
Becoming a wretched pile of rubble
A pile you stood behind, your eyes piercing mine
A satisfied smirk stretched across your face
You wiped your rubble-dusted hands together
Took a step back
And gazed at your destruction

I am
so envious
of the cities that
get to
hold you
while I sit here
at home
with empty arms