There are people who read
All that I have to say
And have said nothing
In return
Like random gifts
Still waiting on their Thank you notes

There are people out there
Who have read my poems
That I have grown
From the shards of broken Love stories
Too numerous to count
Poems that to me are more
Than just words
They are memories
Taken out in the pale moonlight
And cried over in the privacy
Of my bedroom
They are wounds that have remained
Open , stubbornly refusing
To close and leave me alone
They are all the things
My voice refuses to acknowledge
In the harsh glare of the morning sunlight
When there are eyes that seem to stare
From every corner
Of my unwatched life.

There are people
Out there
Who have read my stories
And have presumed to understand me
Those who have told me that my stories
Are too complex, too painful
That it blinds their sight
They have laughed at them
Like they were some third rate joke
And they the sole listeners

And I shout back at them
That darkness you see is not sarcastic
This is not a satire on society and its more’s
These are my wounds and my bruises
These are the fracture lines of my soul
Laid open and bare and the slightest tug
Will unravel the break away puzzle
That is Me and my Life.

There are people who presume
That this pasted on smile
I carry with me is the truth
Of my existence
That it is not the best disguise I own
That inside I am breaking, breaking
Broken
Till I am nothing more than dust
And ashes
And unfulfilled sentences

There are people who assume
That I am here to fit
Into their twisted world view
That I make sense in their
Cookie cutter perfect lives
They cannot
They will not see
That I am damaged goods
That each sentence break
Is the point at which I broke
Each full stop has been bought
With the blood of my own
Damning uncertainty
That each question mark on paper
Haunts me in real life

I will write a poem
About a flower that grew
In the meadow of the greenest grass
And the brightest spring
I will write of all the beauty that fills
That glade in the summer winds
I will make it seem like
The most beautiful circumstance
And leave the world smiling inside
I will leave out in the ending though
About how I was that flower
And how I died….

We are the coffee stains on waiting tables
That lie unattended in cafes
Of our own making
We are the imprints
Of a life lived haphazardly
Without any patterns to follow
We are…and are nothing more

Each day I immerse myself
In the torrent of a New York Sidewalk
Knowing that  Life and death
Have never been closer
Than at this very moment
Each day I see people
Living lives of quiet desperation
Caged in suits of blue and black
Bought for 250 dollars
At  Saks fifth avenue
Without looking at price tags
Because who argues
About the price of a straitjacket

I leave the crowds and walk down further
On a street that seems empty and yet full
There is a tree standing at the corner
Of two numbered avenues that
Are different ,yet the same
In the nightmarish way
That only cities can hope to achieve
It looks anaemic and withdrawn
Gnarled beyond recognition
Unnoticed , except by dogs
And posters for lost dogs
That offer paper rewards
For a live beating heart
It seems to cry, tearlessly
Soundlessly
At each nail that tears through its skin
Trying to find its pulse point
And silence it for good

There are brownstones lining
The street that I turn into
Brick mansions that should
In their ridges hold
Stories of wealth and  joy
That surely follow
All green paper trails
But instead, house
(Like exotic museum specimens )
Cheating fathers and acrimonious mothers
Drugged out sons and prostitutional daughters
All by products of a generation that measures
***** into its morning cornflakes
And keeps itself alive
On a steady diet of Adderall


I come to the end of the street
And watch as the sun sinks down
Over a dead end world
Wondering if the night will hide
Or reveal all that lies hidden
Wondering if remembering
Buries or resurrects …
Or whether we are all graves
Postmarked optimistically “To Heaven “