There is only one difference between the first and the last
and it is is the amount of hope

I torture sounds from the ivory, begging
pleading for truth in sound,
it is the only truth I have ever known,
My fingers have become fatigued
willow branches in a storm
of thought
and sound
The piano will always know something
I don't

These place, these places that cut us with their ice and the sun
their wind and the rain
their silence and their sound
will fall one day like a thunderhead that has left its heart somewhere else
The diamonds we once mined for on the days when yesterdays were dying and todays were not yet born, you know what it is like to have lived a thousand lives and be embarrassed by nine hundred of them and fear they might resurface for how can one be and then not, how can one sleep and not wake, for death while living is so hard to understand.
These places, these places, how I have loved them for their pain, for if it hurts then I must have cared, and if I cared I must have loved.

When thin people hug
there are sometimes bones and angles
but other times there are notches that fit together
perfectly
like we've been waiting for it
our whole lives

You taught me to walk but gave me no where to go
You taught me to speak, but only words I don’t know
You told me to listen but gave me nothing to hear
You gave me a reality where nothing is real

You gave me a heart and told me to feel
As long as I don’t show it it’s mine to keep
You asked me a question and gave an answer to give
but they don’t match up and the paper is ripped

My pen is all empty, my heart is all broke
and now you have labeled me crazy, and spoke
with an evil tone that was far too kind
for the words that came out in too little time
and nothing was said
but boy did it hurt
that I am condemned and you are a ****
I try to get angry I try very hard
but all it ferments into is sadness and sorrow
and you say save the world
be kind be good
and I am trying like I know I should
and do you know that there are ten thousand kids
who sorta like me feel like they’re dying
and did you ask them what they want?
its not a car and husband to flaunt
you promised them the world
and they believed you
they all want to show you want they can do
but their hearts aren’t cheap and they aren’t for sale
you have to work for what they have to say
but you don’t think you need it,
its snake oil
so you give them options that they don’t really want
and they end up in ditches, in Chicago or Vermont,
any old place where the dying go to be dead
and they end up alone, in broken beds
and how can you blame them
they used to have places to go
now you turn them out into the snow
and the snow is all brown
with mud and with dirt
and you say life is hard
and yes life hurts
but how can you say that to bright eyed kids
who are trying to save the world that they’re living in
don’t you give out chances anymore
is there no trust? have we closed that door?
and why don’t you want me
what have I done?
was I wrong in my having a bit of fun?
or trying hard, or being too smart
do I ask to many questions,
I just can’t stop
is it my x-ray vision
is it cuz I see through you
because once I did it I couldn’t not see you
for all that you are
and all that you aren’t
and all you ever did was push me into the margins
Is that my fault? Is that my bad?
is this the only life I’ve ever had
because I’m calling for help
and nobody hears
and I know they are pretending because they all have ears
most of them two and some of them three
the third ones an their heart so its hard to see
And you give me directions, and people to watch
and they all changed the world and you want that to stop
this is it, we’re all comfortable now
but isn’t freedom a little bit more?
No? oh its not? my bad
So you bite me and kick me and then I get sad
so medicate me, and mentally **** me
turn me into an object
and when I object
You tell me I’m just the subject
of a biography of someone I don’t know
and I really hate to have to let the world go
But just for today
and maybe tomarrow
I will bury it all deep done in sorrow
you’ve ruined this world that could’ve been great
and now I believe it might be too late
there are too many people
who do not care
and they don’t want to wake up they would rather be scared
of going out at night
and of having a girl who doesn’t shave
they would all much rather be comfortable slaves
they take their drugs and they watch their tube
Things are okay, why should I move?
Some have it worse, so I have it better
If you want more you’re an ungrateful red letter
and you read to much
and you try to scare us
about things that aren’t really there, huh?
so when they tell you you think you’re too smart
theres only pain for the future in front
of you and of them
so prepare yourself
you are on your own,
they will never help
and you won’t back down.

Time is
dark blue and star pricked
bruised with purple light
cascading with a roaring sound no one hears because
it is not there
and a million long forgotten cuckoo clocks that have since turned into a black and white movie playing on constant repeat.

Better pack well
another infection
called bitterness
is spreading into hearts

How many rose from the earth
clay monsters
clay men
to be empty
or a single thing rattling around a tin chest?


not one

Our hearts turn to leaky tin roofs
Our souls feel themselves becoming confined
smaller spaces
win races
but they don't get you many sweethearts
We burn our feet off
and our hearts we cough up
into cups of styrofoam

Others gave me music
but you gave me my instrument
and I am forever in love.
Because of you I run my fingers across her pearly teeth
and tease from her the only truth I have ever found.
I have written stories on her keys
and I have died a thousand times on her steps
only to be find myself alive.
I can not help but pay homage,
in stripes, and hats, and glasses, and feathers,
all competing
to beat out what I take from Tom
and Bob
and Paul
and Billy
and Stevie
and David
and of course
my Boys

I saw a lovely creature
who created life
in the form of felt and fleece
and ping pong *****
and made it speak kindness
and friendship
until he died
and left the world a bit better

I am forever amazed at how the world breathes with its oceans and its forests
and how you love with chocolate eyes
that have hurt themselves more times than count
and that harbor such love and dying guilt
and a secret laugh that I am allowed to see, and touch, and hold in my hand and in my heart.

Do you know the fear of me?
Know my name
it is Tyranny
I live in fame
and infamy
You knew me at your birth
It is I who give you worth
how well can you serve?

Her heart burns at her center
Torn into two or eight or eleven
And in it lives a green world
That was not given the means to live
And instead kills her pleasantly

May you never be a lovely fool
may your knowledge of your lack of knowledge torture you
into mottled flesh, pock marked and stained with your awareness,
and dappled with your love of what is true, the nothingness blue of the universe,
the everything held within an eyes,
nothing matters, so everything does,
for why else,
never be a lovely fool,
may your knowledge of your lack of knowledge torture you into mottled flesh.

A Super Nova in my chest, a love for life that will **** me in the end just to set itself free from flesh
Aren't you lovely when you smile, it breaks invisible bones that will ache for days
The keys of a piano have become my fingers
I wish I didn't fancy myself such a tragic figure.

A bruised sky turning black and revealing stars
like a burlesque dancer would her garter
Is above me.
The wind whispers, oh how I love it
the sweet sorrow of knowing that this feeling will not last
even an hour
the darkness and
the cold will drive me in
but I know this will come again
and you
are
invited.

They don't have to make sense
these words you say
just so long as you say them
send them off
and send them out
whisper
shout
scream as if you are dying
go beyond the definitions
so long as the feelings there

A secret vale she lived in
one they could not see
the moon was a lady
and she was the moon
though she didn't want to be
it hurt to live and never bleed

Out of touch
disconnected
a hundred applications
all rejected
what have we learned during out time made of stone?
other than how to not live alone?
You've only ever loved yourself reflected
Haven't you, Mr. Jones?

There were a million things that could be said of him
and the most important was "he loved her."

I am so deliriously in love with you
my heart races at your image
and more at your touch
and I know
I will wait a million lifetimes
for you
and I am comforted by thought that you are doing the same
I love
and I am
And you are here
and that is
Wonderful

Summer never came that year, the year it was all well, for perhaps the first time they went away
and left us in peace, the nights were not warm enough, the stars were too far away,
it was not summer that did not come but I who hid away.
My life has made confinements, I followed them you see, Now my heart is hidden and hidden too from me. This world is not made for forest folk, for poets, or the ones,
who cry at thoughts of dying soldiers, yet they have never met one. The world is not kind to artists who still do not fear to dream, our angers have gone cold, and instead they burn us well.

I stood there
in the haven of damp
while the rest of the world sat
soaking wet
dripping wet
and frozen
There is no sun
but its better than bleeding

I love
is that not
enough
I am
happy
is that not
enough
I am
is that
enough
yet


I live
with a
wonderful
fever that
you don't
know
and that
is
enough

write me if you would
and tell me if you could
you would write
your love in stars
and gardens
and write me that you've seen the future
and tell me that I was there among the wires
and screens
and that I was alive
even after they buried my friends in cement and asphalt
and tangled my voice in phone chargers
and security tape

You'd think
that perhaps
people would look
older
or talk
older
eventually
but they don't
and it is very
disappointing
to think that after all of this
time
people still believe
they are just
people
to me

paint myself on your skin and then wash it away
how could I not love you?