In shadows she cries as the weight of the world consumes her.
No one ever cared, they all seemed to stare right through her.
On the wings of the angels she flies through the skies just to be with him.
Trampled by devils, she's dragged underground as the light grows dim.

Torn into pieces, her soul she unleashes in the crimson flow.
The blades sticks fast in the dirt as she gasps in the pale moons glow.
No whimper or whine as she counts down the time till her heart stops beating.
Her skin grows pale as her life force fails and she welcomes his cold greeting.

Today is not Lord Byron’s birthday.
Today is May 3, and I’m preparing to enter the real world.
Graduation comes in nine days.
Before me like a flag my future unfurls.
Poetry is something I must never give up on.
The class that I took this semester reaffirmed that.
The feedback I gained was something to feed upon.
My poems felt like more than mere lab rats.
Dissected on a cold, steel operating table,
Without hope of being understood, only analyzed.
My mind has always served me well when I demand that it be able.
My work is not something that I want privatized.
So I’ll continue my work in the field of poetics,
To try to make the world understand what goes on between these ears.
The words that I write shall be unapologetic,
As I drift through these forthcoming years.
Graduation is in nine days.
Today is not Lord Byron’s birthday.

The drunk chanting of "chug" has faded away. The liter of jäger is at war with my liver as I take another long drag of a Seneca Red.
Embers in the grill still smolder away, the taste of pork chops linger on my tongue. My stomach feels empty, although we've only just eaten. The hot dogs are gone. So are the hamburgers and chops. I can't just throw some food in the grill anymore. I must journey to the main campus and sate my hunger for heated meat, perhaps some wings.

I check my phone and see the time is eleven. Now is as good a time as any. I flick the **** into the cool spring night and cross the parking lot towards my Toyota. I grab the wallet from the glove compartment and place my headphones around my ears. Roger asks me if I've heard the news. I tell him I haven't. He says the Dogs are dead. I say that must be good news for the Sheep. My walk, or should I say incoherent stumble, from the town houses is accompanied by the sounds of Animals, a truly relaxing atmosphere.

As I progress down the road from town houses to the main campus, flanked on either by side by wooded areas, memories start coming to me through the darkness. I've walked this path almost daily for close to three years now. Sophomore year I'd walk to Francis from Doyle to get dinner, or hang out with friends who lived there. Junior year, it was from the Phase Twos to my classes and back. This year, it's from the coveted Phase Ones, which I don't truly understand. Phase Two and Three are so much better. Why does everyone want to live in Phase One?

These semi-joyful, or at least not totally depressing, memories flood my consciousness, and bring me back to easier, simpler times. I lack liquor, so I drink these memories down, savoring the sweet scents and full flavors my mind is so adept at bringing back to life. I smash the bottles which held them as I finish them, watching the drunken starlight shimmer and dance over the bits of shattered glass.

As I pass by Doyle and enter the main campus, the memories begin to change and shift. Instead of days which were laden with friendly laughter, I now begin to remember my freshman year, living in Shay Hall and having a whole new campus to discover. When I was forced from my shell and began to meet new people. One of those people would become my first real relationship, and would last all of nine months in my life. Her name was Gabby, and despite her undeniable insanity, was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.

We did everything together, from eating and sleeping to going to our pals parties. She loved me, I loved her, and life was wonderful. Until it all, just, wasn't anymore. She grew demanding and distant, while at the same time requiring more and more attention from me, until one day the dam failed under pressure and let the reservoir flood the lands we'd been cultivating for nine months.

She cheated on me. While this was no new fact for me to deal with, looking back on my history with women, it was nonetheless still quite hard to face. She had the good grace to break it off face to face, but there was still a great deal I couldn't forgive her for. The constant demand she placed on every thing I did, no matter how minor or minuscule. The night she struck me for not putting my cell phone on vibrate. The words she would say, layered with condescension whenever I should fall short.

So I cursed her. Not in the typical sense one associates with curses, but more of a silent prayer that she would one day feel the pain that she subjected me to. I didn't have to wait long, though. The following year, she made her way to New Orleans to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Her new beau, the one she had left me for, stayed behind in New York, and put her rightly on the receiving end of the pain she brought me. While she enjoyed the festivities of Fat Tuesday, he enjoyed the carnal company of three seperate women. When she returned, she was heartbroken.

I never received a phone call. No apologies for what she did. No offer of kind words to soothe a soul which still had yet to recover from the blows it had been dealt. No lesson had been learned. No insight into her own actions taken away. No moment of clarity in which she realized the mistake she had made, or the pain she had caused with her selfish actions. The curse remains, hanging over her head like an everlasting storm cloud, dissipating only when she realizes what she has done to one man who enjoys nothing more than holding a well founded grudge.

Half of me runs with the lions at night,
Feasting and sleeping on wide open plains.
The other side keeps me safe in the light,
Through the sleet and the snow, the hail and the rain.
Half of me leaves myself open to others,
Ready to spill all the things that I feel.
The rest will only confide in my brothers,
Because before others my heart will not kneel.
I'm open and fearless and quick on my feet,
Nothing can slow me or hold me in place.
I'm closed and concealed, hidden from heat,
No one but me will see my true face.
The right and the left are two sides of one coin,
Two different pieces shall never be joined.

There is no air in the land under the sea,
But that's never stopped us from having our fun.
The fish don't need air and neither do we,
We still get the heat, the light of the sun.
We swim with the eels and eat with the sharks,
We jump with the dolphins and sleep with the fish.
None of us dare to go down where it's dark,
For the ones who have gone shall be dearly missed.
Terror lies down where the sun does not reach,
But they do not come up to the light of the day.
The young ones are those that we have to teach,
For if we do not then they shant stay away.
This is how the future shall be unfurled,
Such are the ways of Water World.

I'll tell you now, girl, I've never been good at expressing my emotions. I run my mind around and around in circles, seeking solace from the lullaby of loneliness I hear every night before bed.

I'll tell you now, girl, I'm not your stereotypical tough guy. I'm not going to start squabbles for the sake of excitement, or purvey pain like the pimps and the players.

I'll tell you now, girl, I'm not the most confident man that's ever sauntered down these streets. I have a fragile ego, one that breaks like brittle little bones nearly every evening. The few things I take pride in seem insignificant in the face of my follies, fallacies, and failures.

But I'll tell you now, girl, you keep me alive through the worst life throws at me. When the world is whirling and I'm weak and wasted, I wish for a woman to withhold my wild ways. I beg for the beauty that will battle the back breakers and ***-bombs that burst in my brain. I sing for the siren of all things sweet and ****, of salvation and accompanied solitude.

But I'll tell you now, girl, you don't exist. The joyous and gentle girl I describe within is mere myth. A myth, but a mystical morsel of my mind, one I shall seek till I'm sickly and saggy. A soul that sends shivers down my spine every succulent second they're in sight.

I'll never stop my search, fantasy female. When I at last locate you, love, I won't let you leave, and I won't leave you limp and lifeless, from lures and lies.

I can only desire your deliverance, dream dame, and I leave my heart on your fireplace hearth, hoping to hold you.

For an instant.

For an evening.

For eternity.