We all have habits
Hang ups we turn to when words fade from use
When the touch of another feels false
And the skin that you're in feels ill-fitting and loose
Of addictions we choose, are you the user or the used?
Light-headed from smoking far too many cigarettes
But it's better than the spins I get when your name is said
Her toxicity is met with one of my own
Eroding with every upturned stone
To find a reason to use the air in my lungs to talk to her
Instead of fill them up with smoke
But I don't.
Returning burning bile from drinking far too many drinks
But it's better than the taste of blood from getting hit in the face
A father who longs for the respect of fear
Maybe he hits you because he hates himself
And he sees in you the colour of his eyes or the curl of his hair
Or maybe he just does it because it's easier to hurt than to love
The same way you drink because it's easier to be drunk than to forgive.
So **** anyone who does anything to keep you from being able to live
But try to forgive
Not for them, but for you, to begin to heal these wounds
Because your peace of mind was not built for two
Live while they rue.

I remember the first time I saw your face.
You, with an intense stare, a perplexed glare,
scrutinizing everything that was there.
Searching..
Looking for the perfect rhyme, an eye-catching design.
Going down the line I hoped you would find joy in mine,
and you did.
I remember the energy in your smile on the ride home.
Your nervous hand was hesitant to put pen to paper, wanting everything to be perfect.
Every piece of that puzzling emotion put together in a way that would  show how much you loved her,
and soon you could.
You opened my chest and on my heart you wrote what was on yours.
From that point forth I became a door.
I was an extension of your adoration and affection.
You felt like you were on top of the world,
and you were.
I remember the excitement the day you gave me to her,
I felt it too.
The words were coming alive, flowing from her lips like the most intoxicating wine.
Oh, how I wanted her to love you,
and for a moment she did.
But after a while I was put in a box.
I collected dust while she became bitter; a war was started,
one with no winner.
The words on my heart had lost their glimmer,
and so did yours.
I remember the last time I saw your face.
Unfamiliar, Unattached, you were not the same.
Something came, a sadness untamed.
Those words on my heart became a source of pain.
So you ripped me apart..
Piece by piece..
Just like she did to you.

Yearning for some order I notice patterns in the pavement
Racing lines, creating ties, crossing T's and dotting I's
Grainy memories collide with one another as I wonder
Pondering the source of my observant sense leaving life in sunder
Beautifully benign to me, remembering the sea of color
Yellow, red, green, purple, blue
Reeling up and down and out and through
Galavanting as I grinned, lost in patterns I felt within
Perhaps I long for those times of innocent whim
But now all I see in the patterns are flaws
Yelling their inconsistencies
Rendering my blissful thoughts impossibly apart from me
Pacing mind leaving grooves behind my eyes
Partially lost in myself, watching a slow unwind
Beckoning me closer, one step at a time

I find the time I spend alone in barren lands beholds a wonder all its own
The dip and turn of roads leading to holes
Bringing all the progress to a halt
Exalted madness rules over logic not sought
Chasms grow and here I am rooted to one spot
Becoming one with complacency
Once leading now takes second seat
I see the scene of life so keen through eyes I've been
I am not me
I do not think
I tread the ground with iron feet
Unravelled it seems I've become a string
In a single direction my being can be seen
So many wrong turns and right twists
Each leap leads to the next spread
Snow so thin interrupted with each step
And I trek
Spilling my insides with each stride
I try not to digress but the stress
And the hate
And my chest is raked with pain
I can't go back but forward isn't there to obtain
The air feels thin only teasing the blood in my veins
A thousand stories on my skin, stained
I've begun the process of forgetting my brain

Wind blows outside of my window
Pressing smooth yet firm fingers against my home
My mind roams and I imagine the glass smashing
Raining rainbows upon my mattress
How delicate that glass is.
I lie still as the windy hand takes grasp of my roof
Tearing the splintering wood into two
Harming the home that was bathed in my youth
How weak that wood is.
Whipping through every crevice it took
Parts of me, torn pages from books
Picture nothing left, so I take a look
An empty book except for the scars
How mindless those memories are.
Fingers reach and grasp the bed on which I lay my head
Soon deciding to drop the rest and hold onto to me instead
Causing a violent wind that can only press
Who I am explodes in my chest
How easily succumbed this heart is.
But I find I am back in my room
No invisible fingers summoning doom
And the window shakes from these thundering quakes
But I find it does not break
How sturdy that glass is.
The shingles shutter and the wood utters
Cries and groaning stutters
But I find my home still stands as a whole
Full of youthful glow
How strong that wood is.
And who I am is not flying past
Away to become a memory passed
Each piece has a place in this place meant to last
And each scar has a story, lessons amassed
How brilliant these memories are.
Now I lie still, in a bed untouched my body in one piece
A steady beat, is heard beneath
As the wind lulls me to sleep
Dreams of living and being alive form and flow from me
How beautifully resilient this heart is.

Stifling sentences from mind to pen to paper
Blundering from word to word
Forcing friend and foe to collaborate to hold together,
hand in hand a story to be told
But sometimes that art, those wells, grow old
So I dig and I dig for a fountain to come forth
And with it the words with which to refresh both mind and soul
A laborious task, too large to ask
Of one who isn't entirely mad
But no need for worry because I am that
I'll find the fountain of words.
Elusive, exclusive, entirely too much
A passionate flow, a particular touch
Extensively existing in the minds of those persisting
To indulge in the sweet words that flow from mind to pen to paper
To taste and sample the selected assortment
Fastidiously arranged as if awaiting atonement
Expressions from the fountain I've found it.

Beautifully cultivated and so carefully crafted
Into intricate designs of the mine
Are words flowing from perfect lips
So lovely they could slow down time
For all the world would turn and gaze
At the colour of sounds swirling in the marvelous ways
Tying stomachs in knots and setting hearts on ablaze
I find the words and in the right place
Compos a tale with the emotional weight
I can order the order of these words in my corner
To flow from your tongue in fluttering fervor
Or drop your tone line a sun setting lower
The power of these words an invisible wonder
Creating these moments for you
So see what I see and feel what I fear
Taste what I love and hold these things dear
The stars in your eyes are more than real
And the light of your mind so brightly shines
I capture these moments for you

I stand in the center of a balance beam,
Between what you want and think I need.
I am lost, still in search of me.
How can I save you?
Your honeyed words in my mind.
Sticky with the memory of your sickly, sweet lies.
You claim love but how can I find,
The truth behind these words, I have tried.
Do you know who I am?
Do you know that I'm lost, still in search of me?
How can I save you?
You smile your broken smile at me still as bright as the sun.
While your eyes tell a story of the hurt that's been done.
And I want to hug you until your smile becomes one,
And kiss your eyes until they see nothing but love.
But you don't know.
You don't know that I'm lost.
Still in search of me.
You don't know that I can't save you.

I live for the day I'll be rid of you.
Rid of your name that still sits in the back of my head,
picking away at me.
It's crazy, how such a lovely thing can make me feel so dead.
I thought I was above the allure of addiction,
but here I am, tasting your name again.

My problems began the moment her blood touched my hands
Over such minuscule strife I took her life
While too late I learned my love for her ran deeper than my knife
Oh, if only it were one time!
One wound they could wind together
Pressing the gaps of her flesh into one
Not nine, oh not nine times!
And if a crime as awful as mine deserves death I wouldn't mind.
Because I took from a life the components needed to survive
I watched the look in her eyes fade into a dull dark sky
I watched the life of my world become desolate and dry
Crumbling mountains and molten rock flowing like fountains
Draining seas and stifling the breeze
A breath escaped her lips
And in a moment of frenzy to capture her memory
Upon those lips I laid a kiss
Still warm from the afterthought of life
If only I could give her mine!
I screamed and wished to reverse the flow of time
To un-puncture her chest and stomach and thighs
Oh, the red grows
Nine rivers flow
Painting her hearts mural onto the floor
I will not believe I have lost her!
Her heart slows but her soul beats strong
The march of death descends, no! This is all wrong!
I am not meant to lose her
I've waited so long.
Nine years...
For nine years I loved her from afar
Watching her live a life I wanted to be to be a part of
I won't lose her now, she won't leave my arms tonight
I'll take her to my house and sew her up tight.
With her wounds held together I'll fill up her veins
I'll drain my blood, this will not be in vain!
I'll replace what I stole
I'm sorry! So sorry!
My vision is blurry.
I see more than one of her I worry
I see nine
Nine of her, dead
Now only one thing is left
Her heart won't work so I give her this instead
I press the tool of death to my chest
I must be careful, I must.
The blade is pushed inside I must be quick before I die
I must replace her heart with mine
While it still still beats to give her life
I will save her
My vision recedes..
I will save her
My breathing is ceased..
I will save her
I'm brought to my knees..
I will save her
My love it lives on..
I will save her
If only my body were so strong..
I will save her
I'm feeling death begin to dawn..
I will save her
I know I can't join my love..
I will save her
I'm meant for below, I sent her above..
I will save her
I mean it, I truly believe it
You'll all see!
But who will save me?

It seems no matter what I do I cannot control my words
And the stories I have grown on my own are hesitant to be told
I feel a block is in my throat
And a numbness in my hands
And the only thing that grows is the frustration toward this blandness
Rigorous in searching this I've found myself no release
And I scream
I scream
I scream for me to find words that I believe
My anger reaves more than I think
I can't find a ******* break and no one can ******* see
Don't you find beauty in my unraveling?
In a mind swallowed by the sea?
Am I capturing the picture well enough for you to be a part of me
I hope you see
I hope you scream
And scream
And scream until you understand the feelings that I cannot help but be
I do not do this for amusement
I don't do it for you
I don't do it for praise
Or for you to find truth
I do it to avoid release in my youth
From a rope
Or a gun
Or a bus on the move
I DON'T DO THIS FOR AMUSEMENT
But boy is it fun
I DON'T DO THIS FOR YOU
But I want you around
I DON'T DO THIS FOR PRAISE
But I love the sound
I DON'T DO THIS FOR THE TRUTH
But it's something I've found
So I scream
And scream
And scream until I write these dreams down

I'm pulling metaphors from the air
Gliding over my fingertips and through my hair
What am I willing to do for a few pairs
Of rhyming words on a page?
I think I've let my passion protrude further than my happiness
And I find a thought lies in my head
It tells me how I am so in love with being alone
Obsessed with a search for a quiet home
I fight for the right words at the wrong time they say
While I try to run from the one who doesn't want me feeling that way
I can't atone for the thoughts I own
Because I own them nonetheless
And I can't contain the sadness attained
So I write and hope for the best
For through eyes as dark as mine
I've learned to document this horrid mess
And with stone heart inside my chest
I learn to live with less
I never thought that this facade would ever meet an end
But I saw art that's not as dark and prompted me to spend
A little time inside a light transforming who I am
Dispelling the cynical mediums
Between the ideas I thought of as menial
Maybe my hope lies not with loneliness
But rather it lies inside of your liveliness
And perhaps instead of silence I long for the laugh between your lips
I would move mountains for your love
I would drain seas to feel your bliss
In you I've found a future
In you I find happiness

I have found my loop
Where days radiate strange
And nights are my greatest fight
And I talk to myself
Solve strife from the safety of mind
Mindless monstrosities make their presence known
What would you find?
If you crack from brow to spine the shield to my mind
Take a look or advert your gaze
What did you see in the primordial rage?
The beginning act of the final stage
Tearing down the internal slaves
Cries from the core reach ears full of scorn
And behind fiery eyes a mind left behind
Empty temples and abandoned tables
A shattered scepter and crown with no home
Eyes reaping what they've sown
Seeing hellfire and brimstone
The tears flow
Rivers grow
Collecting on the landscape
White with marked lines words intertwined
These are my shrine
My abstract lines
They smear the mind and are a sign
Sight to the blind
The mute utter rhymes
while these costly crafts leave me behind.

When I was little I always counted my steps.
I would keep track of the delicate taps of my feet,
to see how many I could fit in one square of the sidewalk.
And while I was busy naming each step after a number,
I was unaware of the world.
Because I marched to the music of my own.
Choosing instead to see the smiles on the shoes I saw go by.
And when that little child grew I knew, I knew, I knew,
of the world and all its evils.
So my silly counting habits, they returned because without it,
I couldn't see the smiles that I found on all shoes.
I tried to see the other side.
But people's eyes just can't suffice,
because a smile is so certainly scarce,
on the faces of those I find.
so I count on my counting, my sacred devout thing,
to keep me from frowning,
by seeing the secret smiles on the shoes that march on by.

I heard ten gunshots tonight
Five followed by five
What would you wonder?
Would you ponder the loss
The potential life gone
The end of that song
Among the mass
Do we even hear the gap?
A missing melody and shoe taps
Breaths taken and cigarette butts tapped
People ******, persons loved
Lively laughter, friendly hugs
They're all gone
But it's just one
Who will mourn?
Who stole out of scorn?
What did they use?
Who held the gun?
I'm not sure
But my cigarettes done
Maybe one more.
That's the funniest part
Because to me in my mind
This cigarette is my gun
And the death is my lungs

So much is put on the passing of a second
Pressed with the weight of a world
Like sand they slip through grasping hands
The ever growing pile of a fruitless build
We long for control, a sense of being
To know who we are, and what we're seeing
Counting, keeping track of this and that
We're lost in numbers instead of life
In fact we can't ever seem to find the  time
But what do we lack?
It is not time
It's the same thing other creatures do have
The ability to live instead of keeping track
Never asking for time back
Or for more
They just are
So instead be like a sparrow, or a fox, or a fawn
And stop counting the moments from a watch on your arm
Don't document life with a series of ticks
Take back your freedom
You've got a life to live

Gone it seems are the days when I would structure words with grace.
A perfect place for them to stay,
To say what I need to display.
I struggle hard to find a way,
To keep the evil thoughts at bay.
The ones that threaten to destroy
and scream promises to take.
And the longer I live in their wake,
The more it seems I'm not awake.
This is a dream, I'm far away.
The nightmares chase,
I am disgraced.
They see the fear so clear on my face.
I break.
I know I cannot be ok.
They have all of me, those ******* snakes!
They promised me an artistic state!
So I could orchestrate my voice across this page.
I've traded everything for this,
I've lost my happiness.
To make these words sit, so beautifully primped.
To impress blank faces, I'm tired of this!
So imagine for just a moment,
A person sitting ever so lonely.
He writes what he writes,
While he fights with the light,
The one that shows all of your demons that hide out of sight,
And he cries.
Because the world seen is beautiful in his eyes.
But not from naivety,
He knows so well the horrid underside.
But he loves it.
What would he write about otherwise?
He needs it.
What else could inspire his mind?
He craves it.
All while it eats him alive.
Is addiction to sadness any less potent than madness?
I didn't choose this!
What's to gain?
Words in exchange for sane
Thoughts in my brain I can't explain.
Maybe I won't ever be able to.

I used to find comfort in my thoughts. The ones that whispered to me, telling me that you were indeed looking at the same moon I was, letting me feel for just a moment that we were together again. I believed in the story told in the stars. The tales that danced above me, they used to give hope. They told me that I was small and my problems were smaller. They sang of how I was not alone and I believed every vile, sweet word. My blindness and your loveliness had intertwined to become my distorted view of love and ******* it if I didn’t love you with every fiber of my horrid, broken heart. But you were damaged in your own way, the crack running down your being was impossible to see. Even after I cut my lips on the edges of your broken heart while trying to kiss the hurt away I still didn’t see. Still didn’t feel. Every day the scarlet rivers they grew. I was killing myself trying to save you. Bleeding out with every kiss to your irreversibly shattered heart; your razor sharp soul. You pierced every vein, replacing me with yourself.. The most addicting drug dulling my senses. Loving you has ruined me, it’s taken from me things I miss. Like being able to see stories in the stars.. Instead I’m isolated. On a planet filled with self absorbed souls. Stupidly wandering about wondering why they’re unhappy. I’m left cynical, jaded but aware, able to see that the spark in my eyes is gone. And now when I look at the sky I hope that you aren’t looking at the same moon I see. Because such beauty shouldn’t have to feel the piercing stares that you use to give to me. Such quiet wonder shouldn’t be made to feel worthless like you made me feel. But then again, we are small.. And our problems smaller. Who am I to believe that insignificant you could ever hurt such a large moon? I don’t feel hope when I look at the sky anymore, no, I feel envy. Because they are untouched, untainted by you.. They did not change.. While I can barely recognize myself.

Today I asked question
But I do not know to whom
I voiced concern for all the memories and the ever present mood
The one that crushes spirits, more specifically my own
While the barren land I wander has become a horrid home
I haven't told myself the truth, I turn away from day to day
And all the things I do not see they whisper gently so they say
They tell me that I'm gone and that my smile cannot be
they shout that I am wrong and oh so broken don't you see?
But I swear I've known this all along
I've watched the slow descent
Now I'm drowning in light's absence found in my head's recess
I carve these final words in the bones of age old souls
They scream with me the same matching the lifelong acquired tone
It echos hurt without a cause and loss that burns without a balm
I feel my structure is all wrong, chest is caving, heart is small
Mind is managed through a looking glass
To prove I have thoughts at all
Ones that don't drift in from the smog that sits so stale in this room
Ah, but the walls, they are so smooth
And no doors to allow the ****** and thieves to find their way on through
Solitude
No other view
They tell me I enjoy this so I don't refute
Content with time spent sitting wishing for some context
The prospect is unnerving
Voices rise with every wording
Therapeutic or otherworldly?
I am worthy!
I think..
I am sane!
So they speak..
But they lie everyday, so who do I believe?
Fully unraveled I see I can't even trust me.