I want to know what it is
that draws me to the floor of the shower
when the water is burning my flesh a stale red,
much like the color of your lips.
my skin may cry, but my bones lock,
holding me under the water.
it pounds like it once did
against my cracked window,
trying to burn away the words
you carved into my frame.
my wrists starve to see the white tile floor turn
dark.
crimson.
red.
while my eyes pull closed,
in an attempt to stay shut forever.
and the water dripping in it's slow rhythm,
from my shaking, aching lips
is the only thing
keeping me sane.



I want to know what it is
that draws me to the cigarettes
that tear me into pieces.
my lungs feed on their heavy smoke,
and my porcelain skin seems to
fade.
dull.
crack.
the glowing between my fingertips
reminds me of the way it once
danced and swayed
between your strong, rough hands.
but still, it seemed almost as if
it were a part of you.
(which I would never be)
my lips, and my cigarette, both agree
they'd be much happier
pressed to your waiting mouth.



I want to know what it is
that draws me to you
when every inch of me, inside and out,
is a reminder of how I've been hurt before.
how the words that have been thrown at me
now wrap up my organs like vines.
thorned chains pulling tighter
as I fall harder for you.
the way you speak,
fragile.
soft.
strong.
the look in your eyes,
and the whispers of the thoughts
you are so reluctant to let me hear.
the words that you speak so delicately
as if they will shatter, or I will shatter,
before your very eyes.

Weather Advisory: A long one*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited

Hell is not made of fire.

A lot of people believe that hell is a world covered in flames, with heat that sears through your very being, scorches your soul, and inflicts terrible agony. They say Hell is a place for fiery torment, where fire is a vicious serpent that winds through your existence and seeks to quench every feeling except anguish, but at the same time refusing to let you be conquered by nothingness, keeping you wide-awake so you can feel every blistering sensation.

They're wrong.

Hell doesn't look the same for everyone else. Hell is a multi-faced mirror with countless reflections caging you inside the hollow of a diamond so you can see the glaring facets you refuse to look at. Hell is not always a place; sometimes it's a feeling, sometimes it's an event--sometimes it's a person.

Hell shows itself not only in death. Hell is everywhere--it's just somewhere around the corner of the street, hiding its face behind a newspaper, waiting for you to make the wrong choices. It's just somewhere behind you, an invisible fiend watching your every step, waiting for you to stumble. And once you do, it will laugh at you. You won't hear its sinister laughter, nor would you notice the subtle shift of the ground beneath your feet.

The odds are no longer in your favor.

Hell is cold. Hell is calculating. Hell is terrorizing.

Hell is reaching inside yourself, searching your heart, trying to find out how you really feel--but ending up finding nothing. Hell is opening your mouth to scream but nothing comes out because there is nothing left inside. Hell is the immovable boulder weighing down on your chest, it is the desperate need for the ability to cry, it is the panic and anguish that comes when you realize you can't.

Hell is watching him with his perfect hair and perfect eyes and perfect smile, knowing he isn't even aware of your plain existence. Hell is realizing for the first time that unrequited love is not as romantic as people say. Hell is waiting, waiting, waiting for something you know won't come. Hell is finally getting the nerve to say 'I love you' but only receiving silence in return. Hell is laughing it all away and saying it's nothing, I understand why, all the while wishing you could run to someplace where you can cry and scream without being heard. Hell is falling in love.

Hell is the red mark on your record, the frowns on your parents' faces, the pitying looks on your friends' expressions. Hell is the star you failed to reach, the shaking heads, the consoling pats on your back. Hell is the mocking laughter ringing in your ears even after they've long ended. Hell is the condescending voices echoing from somewhere in the back of your mind, reminding you who you were, who you've been, and who you are now. Hell is laughing at you. Hell is disappointment. Hell is trying and trying over and over and never succeeding. Hell is failure.

Hell is building your life with damning patience, with meticulous thoroughness, with painstaking care, and having it all knocked down to the ground. Hell is desperation, hopelessness. Hell is the blooming rose standing amidst a bed of withered blossoms. It's the touching beauty of life at its most exquisite, the surging anticipation, the reckless triumph, and the next day when you look for the rose you only find a withered stalk. Hell is hope.

Hell is the silent night torn apart by raging screams and flying furniture. Hell is the deafening wail of a child accompanying every insult, every furious, careless word that escapes your mouth. Hell is the empty threat he took as a promise. Hell is holding his hand and realizing it's no longer as comfortable as it used to be. Hell is the sadness weighing on your apartment, so palpable you could wrap your fingers around it and try to snap it--but you can't, because hell is already there. Hell is the silence, the eternal quiet screaming in your ears, as you pack your suitcase, as you stuff in old photographs trapped behind the cracked glass of their picture frames. It's the painful need to sit still and concentrate on breathing because you suddenly forgot how to. It's looking around you, seeing the stripped bed, the empty closet, the unsettling dust floating along the light filtering through the misted windows. Hell is falling out of love.

I could go on about hell forever, and I would never be able to enumerate all of them because there can only be so many words that can describe hell, and there are too many people in this world who see different kinds of hell. I cannot accurately define hell, I don't know much about it. I cannot claim to have seen hell, because I've never been to a place like it before.

But I know that hell is cold.

Because hell is not always made of fire.

they told me
"never fall in love with a bad boy."

what they didn't tell me
was that bad boys
are not boys with scars
that have no stories.

they are not boys
with split bones,
stretched shadows,
black irises, and blacker bruises.

bad boys are the ones who
stitch together their words,
silk spider webs,
wrapping you up,
just like he did in his arms.

they are not boys who hide their faces,
and spill smoke from thin lips.

bad boys are the ones who
fill your hungry cries
with red wine and black waters,
dragging you down,
just like he did with his words.

they told me
"never fall in love with a bad boy."

but I did.

Everyday, A New Person

Stop!** Lest you think,
This is some poem, of a nature serious
I warn you with supercilious contempt
This is a mischance, a contretemps,
This is a dumb poem, like Suntan Lotion^
Inspired by that silliness's Broadway success,
About how everyday, I awake,
A New Person,
With a new designer hair styling

O Yeah, I gotta grip the sink counter,
When I see how my pillow friends^^
Have revenged themselves the night prior,
Upon awakening, I contemplate suicide by pills
But more labor saving for the undertaker I usually choose
Setting One's Hair On Fire

It be awful, it be ridiculous
That my hair defies gravity
Standing straight up,
After a night of lying down,
This is the product of rocking out to the
Hardest of hard rock n' roll.

Now I am a man,
Re hair and grooming I ain't usually
Prioritizing and swooning,
But get this,
It takes a tube daily,
Of alcoholic gel,
To get my pop,
To do the 'lie flat down flop'

When my woman strokes my hair,
She doesn't think I notice,
How she subtle slides her hand down my shirted arm,
To dispose of the newly acquired kitchen grease,
I sometimes, on really bad hair days,
Need to employ to encapture my Grayed Fleece

No faking joke, my mind out strokes
When I look at what handiwork
Has worked me over,
Multi-directional, punk sensational,
I swear it also has changed colors!

No unrequited love, just requited hate
For my torqued, drugged, twisted hairy fate,
Two minutes to write this idiotic ditty,
Ten minutes to nerve to open my eyes to look twice
At what the hairie fairies mischievously hath wrought,
Is unbalanced, demand a recount, a fair fight sought

Soon it will be clear, if you think this poem amusing,
Be in readiness for an Ode to the Haircut upcoming,
Be in readiness for an opera, entitled naturally,
Get Thee To The Barber of First Avenue
As soon as I get the nerve to leave the bedroom.

You.
When I think of you, I think of my happiest memories, as they were all with you, but they never do you justice;
How you could put a smile on my face no matter how down I was, or how you could, with a single kiss, light fireworks in my brain.
How I loved you, and still do.
You brought out the best in me, made me a good person.
You taught me that I should reach out more when I needed help, instead of bottling up (which I still do sometimes). You taught me that there's more to life than games and school.
I love you. Please come back.

How you set my world on fire....
I miss you.
Unlike some people, who love because they need,
I need you because I love you.

And nothing will ever change that.

do you remember when we
were children, and we would spin
in circles for minutes straight
just to make ourselves dizzy?

that's how my head feels when
i see you these days- it's like i can
feel the world rotating under my
feet- every thought, every edge
blurring until they're gone, but
(luckily) this paper is lined thick and
your name alone
is poetry.