i'm finished with your games
i'm finished with your lies
you like to play the joker
you like when I'm your victim

you mess with my head daily
you trick me every day
no one wants to play
your pointless little games

Tears shed over a voice
that belongs to a person
you've never met.

She understands how you feel
and her words you will never forget.
Regret falling in love with
the voice of a stranger.

You share qualities in common
like the abilities to spill ink
over paper. Minds that are so alike
and considered neighbors.

Qualities that qualify us as a writer.

Where did she acquire
the skills that have made her famous?
Where did I discover the ability
to publish pages?

Every piano key she strokes
chokes the life of another note
and her talent produces something
beautiful nonetheless.

See her perform live at Joe's Pub
by my lonesome. Appreciate her art from a distance.
Hear her voice echo off the walls inside the venue.

Hear her pour something into a microphone
as it translates her emotions into sounds.
Watch as ears react and eyes water.
Streaming river of tears that I decide
to follow.

Voice travels through my head.
Disturbs something along the way.
Triggers emotions to begin
and memories replayed.

Rip the veins of my pen and watch the ink spill onto this page.
Don't regret the ****** because I'm making art.
Display it to the world and watch them pick it apart.

You are my biggest influence and this session is here to show it.
Thank you for the music and the songs that you've recorded.
I really hope to meet you. Work with you surely.
You are the definition of talent. Thank you, Birdy.

before you **** yourself
just remember
there's places to see
people to meet
books to read
poems to write
photos to take
and
memories to make
so why,
oh why,
do you wish
to be dead?

There were children
climbing onto a big yellow
Richmond city school bus
on Forest Hill avenue
the neon cherry red stop sign
emerged from its chamber
speaking traffic
and the children looked so happy
to be getting on that bus
even though it was eight AM
and they were on their way to school
so pure and untouched
in their lack of days
it's better than driving home
after a party
still probably a little too drunk
to operate heavy machinery
but the children were laughing
the children know
life boils down to little more
than a great big
cosmic joke

The morning is serene
sober shafts of light
filter through the trees
which were planted
lining the streets
to make the city seem
just a little less man made
and it isn't too hot
and there isn't too much wind
only a light breeze
and a gentle wash of
sunlight

Mornings are holy times
times of reflection
times of rekindling
the spark
of the spirit of humanity
and I'm not a morning person
so I'm graced with these moments
much too rarely
but they are my best moments
and my favorite moments
easy summer mornings
when the birds chirp their loudest
and the sky is the cool blue
of the pacific ocean
morning for the usually dreary
hydrates the brain
better than any cool
perspiring
glass of brita filter water
the morning is the birth
of a new day

Today I was the river
I felt my soul melt in the water
I became the water
I am the water
I felt my being-ness dissolve
Into complete oneness
“I” disappeared
Felt my spirit
Reunify with the truth of who it was
Which is everything
I was the river
I saw as the river sees
I held silence and observed
A quiet place within me
Where time does not exist
A peace so deep that
It melted me.

I am lost,
Only to be complete in my brokenness...
An imagination left to its fragments -
Almost methodically widdled down to dust,
My body left mindless,
My soul in shambles -
I am empty.

An uninhabited cup waiting to be filled,
A blank canvas needing paint -

Who am I to wander this world?
Who am I to love someone?
Who am I to exist?

I, with every ounce of who I am, need you...
               I need you to complete my sentence, my day and me -
     You are always following my thoughts,
                    Knocking on my every conceived notion to be let in -
                                                               ­                                                                 ­     Please, come in...
                 
I, fiercely want every morsel of you -
                       I want you beneath me, on top of me, in front of me,
But...        more than anything...                
                                         I want you beside me...
               Walking with me through this haze of a life together -
                                                          Figur­ing the world out as one,
                         Living a great adventure and setting the world ablaze...
                                                       ­                  All it will take is one word -
                                                               ­         

                                                               ­            Yes.

Today I watched rain spatter like paint on my window pane
and I remembered how you looked the last night I ever saw you breathe
I remembered how you told me it was like heaving for air
when you don't have the lungs to lead
Yesterday I watched a feather fall from a birds wing
and I thought of how you floated through life
wishing you could fly away
I couldn't give you those wings
the wings you needed to pull the strings life couldn't give you
If I could've said "I know how it feels"
to be the beaten up vet looking into an empty bottle of whiskey
with the empty heart flooded with never ending sounds of a gun
to be the adopted child torn away from his mother
the woman beaten and battered by a man called friend
I could've said "I know what it feels like"
but I never did
and now I'm sitting here with your casket on my shoulder
Praying to God that someone will be bolder
than I ever could and hoped someone would
because now I'm sitting here collecting daisies in an open field
under your favourite sycamore tree
and I promised you I would write letters when you moved to Tennessee
You never made it
I carved your name in the pavement where you picked up that dying bird
and told me every single word of the songs your mother used to sing
about putting life in everything
You told me you couldn't do it
If I could have told you I know what it feels like
to lose your focus on the 9th inning of that World Series we call life
Instead you used your knife and carved a ****
and laid yourself in a bed of ashes
and I swore to God I'd never erase it
I couldn't erase it but time
It was always ticking, tick
tick
tick
If I could've wrapped my arm around yours
threw you on a boat and brought you to Venice
so you could have seen what beauty was
or I could've given you a mirror

Take a picture.
Freeze the moment.
Catch it in a butterfly net and put it in a jar.
Snag the sunshine.
Hold it in your heart.
Keep it safe in a nest of forgotten daydreams.
Send a murmured song of contentment
Floating towards the horizon.
Let it catch the light just so-

Preserve the sun-dappled hills.
The sparkling brilliance of the
Ocean.
Caressing the shore,
A musical blue.

That lone bird
Soaring in the midst
Of an azure peace.

Frame the feeling of completion.
Of happiness.
Hold it close in the heart of the storm.