There's a woodpecker
in my chest
tapping on my ribs
tapping on my breast
tapping on my feelings
even when I rest

There's a woodpecker
in my lungs
smothered by the tar
muted and unsung
choking on black shame
swallowed by my tongue

There's a woodpecker
behind my eyes
beating its blue wings
chained under the lies
weeping for passion
under my disguise

I want to set you free,
woodpecker
from the cage inside
my chest
but this conformity,
woodpecker,
forces you to hide
like all the rest

I would let you out if I could.

By: Sverre G. Holter & Digital Asylum*

I|

I am a man. I was put on
Earth to bleed from my hands.
Work is my virtue. I only sleep well
If I'm exhausted.
Your food and shelter is my gain.
My sweat is the salt on our table.

II|

I *am a man, but also child
with a paper-mache heart and
sandcastle dreams, a child wishing
for later tides while we play
splashing in and out of the waves
but the tide always comes,
and castles crumble, and we
we tell ourselves that there's no need for fear
because we will build stronger walls
tomorrow

III|

Today is our day though
Let us work at love.
Let us play with love.
Let us dance until our feet
Blister and we collapse
Laughing into each other's arms in equal fatigue.
All I want is you.
All I have is you.
All I've never lost is love.
It is our costliest toy;
Unbroken

IV|

Unbroken it may be for now
yet the time will come, as with all good things
where life and love will come to its bitter end
our lives will have ran their course
and in that moment, we will know and be known
we will laugh our last laugh
we will drink and be merry
knowing we loved and were loved
and as the water comes washing in
we still stand behind walls of sand
and we will face the tide together

*unafraid

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes.

I wish you could be here to feel my heart flutter when I think about you
Funny, because I hardly know you, but I still wish to be in your arms.
Arms which I've ever felt.

You're an enigma to me; mysterious yet captivating,
and I want to solve you.
I want to pick up your pieces and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle.
I want to see the picture they make when they come together,
and cry when I have to take it apart put the pieces back in the box.

I want to fall asleep thinking about you, and get a text message that you are thinking about me too.

I want to hold your hand and trace the lines on your palm, The heart line and life line, and laugh when yours and mine match.

I want to lean in close and whisper secrets only we know
and you'll whisper back that you agree.

I want you to mess my hair up.

I want my mother to be suspicious when I come home wearing your sweatshirt and not mine.

I want to lay out in the grass together watching the clouds with headphones in, listening to Green Day because I know you like them.

I know that much about you.
I know your eyes are brown and dark
and your mother thinks you are gorgeous.

I know your speech slurs when you get excited and start talking fast.

I know you tease me, and I think you like me too, but I don't know that for sure.

I know you have a silly ring of hat hair when you leave work, and I hate it but I love it too.

I know I recall all these things about you to write this poem, and I'm smiling as I think about you.

I wonder what you are doing right now, not this, for sure, you're probably playing Xbox with your friends and thinking about graduating in two weeks.
But not me, I'm thinking about you, funny, I know, because I really hardly know you, but maybe that's okay, maybe one day I will know something about you.

My mistakes
have a sad habit
of coming back to haunt me.
Their ghosts
waking me in the night.
Whispers of
"You're not good enough
you never will be",
ringing in my nightmares.
Walking in my memories.
Replaying the past.
Every tactless word
like a broken record.
But dreams, like insanity
are impossible to escape your own mind
Even if I tell myself
"Don't listen to them,
they don't know you",
the dreams will keep coming.
The ghosts are still there.
Not until I realize
that to rid the spirits
I've got to leave the
Haunted House.