I've lived the kind of pain they write about
In the tales of heroes,
                       who came and went without
Salvation or celebration; and,
      instead, became close friends of doubt.

When luck leaves your side,
And there's no one left watching . . .
               There is no martyrdom.
No heaven to fall from. No damnation.
                Just nothing.
                Nothing and no one.

But I won't let myself succumb
To the temptation
             of self-righteous certainty,
             false justifications, or
             egotistical self-mutilation -
Just to bleed on those who lay
             Below my lowly elevation.

                     Not like you.
                     I am not made like you.

No longer, will I distort my own view
To lie to the few, who stand with me in the fire.

               It's true.

               I am a worthless *******,
               and even I can hardly stand it
               when I speak about myself.
But this time . . .
It's about more than me.
And, for once, I'm going to spend well the wealth,
That I was given and didn't earn,
On those who showed me how to learn
               And to never become like you.

Yes -
I am judgmental and self-loathing.
I am selfish and I am wrong.
I am naive, and strung out and strung along.

                                But I
                                  am not made
                                             like you.

                                             I am strong.

I think I've always been alone . . .
At least, as long as I can remember.

But there's a part of me,
                       that still feels so connected --
To something near the source,
                        At the core of somewhere true.

Where we exist without our existence's limitations.
Where duality, begins to mean overlap,
                         And both fiction and fact,
                         One and yet another,
                         Things like "this" and "that"
                         Are the same, still . . .
Innocently unseparated,
                         In this place near to creation.

Maybe it's just my brain . . .
                        I do have a habit of creating dualities.
"Together, or apart? No," I think.
                       More like doubting infallibility.

                        --------------------------

So when I say I've always been alone,
I have to ask myself:

                                              "Have you really?"

"Of course you haven't been.
But who you are right now,
is no longer that you . . .
At least . . . not fully."

                                      "So, if I was alone then,
                                       Does that mean that I
                                       might not be any longer?"

"Oh, no."
I explained back to myself,
"I think you misunderstood me.
It's just . . .
That you'll never truly know,
Until there's nothing and nobody."

                        --------------------------

That's a haunting truth to tell yourself,
            When you're off in your own head.
At least I won't be alone in my regret,
                         When I'm among the dead.
I'll find community in that.  
Surely,  that's the place to which I feel so connected!
The place where maybe two of myself is enough
                      to make just one of me feel,
Like I'm worth something more, than more or less,
                      In a place that's neither there, nor here . . .
At least, there, if I don't feel connected,
                     To myself, I may feel near.

Devilish torment -- her body is my lament.
She crawls beneath the cracks and finds
The dark cellar, where my "worst" ferments.
She feeds it as it rots,
Just to make its wine more bitter . . .
Squeezed from the finest lies,
        Designed to make an addict from a quitter.

Like a dark and tempting vacuum
                That my soul cannot escape,
Attractive in its repulsion,
                 It's a part of me that loves the way it hates.
Masturbatory and selfish,
With a thirst that can't be quenched . . .
She finds the spots within me,
                   That make even deities flinch.
Their knees crack and crumble,
                   At its all-consuming "nothing". . .
I never knew my zero could be so wholly unbecoming.

She, or it, will surely be my undoing.
Yet, somehow, that keeps me moving.
So uncomfortably I'll admit . . .
It's the brutal nature of it all,
That I find so disturbingly soothing.

With an audible sigh...
                 I curse the world to gain some clarity.
Things weren't so black or white before...
           But cycles of laughter and tears do well 
                                   To burn in their disparity.

Like washed-out sadness,
                     I'll make it hard to judge my smile.
"The sun may fade these colors," I say,
                  "But they'll be gone for just a while."


I exhale...
                                              ... And I miss you.
                Even though I’m left with just the pain
                             Most nights I alone past dark,
                 And curse the utterance of your name.

I longed for your shine
And the warmth within your Sol.
But your clouds gave way to Luna...

                                                       ...And I left.  
                             Still halfway short of whole.

For now, I'll do what I can to force these
                              clouds back over the moon.
Because even in depravity,
                                       Or lonesome solitude,
I find the comfort that is darkness...
                         And in the darkness I find you.

Still, I hope you feel the thunder.
Or that the light leads your way through.
I can't make this darkness bright, but still,
I think... If I can't discern what's true...
I hope you laugh, at least, in irony.
I hope you smile, at the storm...
                    That casts its shadow just for you.

I've found the lightning doesn't last,
And the thunder comes too soon.
So alone, in solidarity, I will fight my fate
To be construed...
                                          Against myself,
As the answers to my questions' echo --
               reverberating in an empty room.

Doing a dance,
to wear a mask,
To play a game that you can’t stomach . . .
Just so that the truth doesn’t have to face you,
The way you recoil from reflections of yourself.

You’d forsake your happiness, your health —
                                                  You would burn it all.

To do a dance,
To wear a mask
To play a game you’ll always lose.
             To look in a mirror . . .
             To tell an image, that it’s anything but you.

And it is in that moment, that you'll find
                           You’ll tell the unfamiliar truth
As you bleed and feed
                           Your own obliterated youth . . .

To feel, and then
                          to lose —
Just like the loss you always knew

                          You would find in disappointment.
Like an unholy anointment
                          of your least desirable possessions
That retire from the heavens
                          Back to you.


To betray, and to amuse
                                                          A­lone.
The ides of irony rejoice!
               For they’ve found their lamb... or
their ever-dying muse.
                 Forsaking life itself, you clamor
To see others just like you.

And maybe, one day, one will choose
           the path that you can’t leave,
As it reciprocates to thee —
            Two partners in misery, fated to excuse
the waste of each other...
            until they find there’s nothing left.

To feel the flame within its breath consumed.

Wearing a mask,
To live a lie,
                And die a death,
                Whose dance you six-times misstep


                              And on the seventh, betrays you.
​

The difference between actions and habits,
     is often measured by the person you're asking.  
One bump, one line, one half ounce . . .
All shared by people you don't even give a **** about.

These chemicals make me sick --
              Limitless . . . Why quit?
              When it's only ten bucks for a hit like this?
Even Jesus Christ would have gotten addicted,
              if drugs in his day were half this good.

"Yeah, I'm smashed -- but I promise I can drive fine."
      Walk and push the limits of a real fine line...
If I don't **** myself, or someone else . . . I'm happy.
       Stare death in his eyes, wink, and start laughing.

Gasping as I swerve lanes --
Stay safe, get paid. Mundane daily.
Living a-live . . .
Eat. Sleep. Dream. Get laid.  
Chase feelings.

           Please, just feel me now.
                                    You know me, right?

           Please, just feel me now.
                                    You love me, right?

I want to melt with you -- let our souls collide . . .
Dissolve the boundaries between students and teachers.
        To bridge the gap in the great divide
        No secrets between us -- bleed into the speakers.

Feel the air in your chest, and ask God for a reason
To stay or leave Him.
He makes excuses . . .

                                                    . . . Believe Him.

In a wakeful contradiction, it lays fact between my fiction,
Tangling subatomics, it unravels as its tricks spin
deeper toward the outward...
                                      it won’t let up, 'til I give in.

Over matter, lay my mind…
I tell a lie to pass the time...
But there’s no reason nor a rhyme --
                                            Less still, a purpose?
I search for something to remind my mind
                     that there’s truth that isn’t worthless…

But as always, failure appears;
                              in a sort-of amnesic continuity.
And my reality lies to my own mind
                              Just as well
                              as it succeeds in its futility.
With destruction as its manifest,
It tells me that I stand my tallest
                              Upon two buckled knees.

And just as faith will find one’s doubt --
                  a search within has left without.
It seems that an answer, once sought out,
                  will be left lacking its question.
My truth divides itself,
                   as a product of infinite misdirection.

I try to substitute a reason for a rhyme.
But with no lies left to pass the time...
                              I swallow a dose of ignorance.
It goes down smoother than the truth.

In a war that started with a truce,
This world betrayed my faith to show me:
                                 that I'm only tall enough
                                 Once I’ve been
                                                         cut
                                                             down
                                                                ­     slowly.

A pill too large to swallow,
                I think I’m choking on myself . . .
Or the irony of asking,
                     “How could I be so careless?”
Here I stand, Barely standing,
                   Consumed almost entirely
By my own dry-heaving self-awareness...

Left to fight the fears that my nightmares create;
I’m still running from my past,
                          yet, haunted by my fate.
They walk beside me always,
                          shadowing wholeheartedly —
Existing as a duality, both apart from,
                         and a part of me.

These ghosts have taught me very little...
                                    Aside from what I hate.
But, I've come to learn not to fear
                                    The forceful hands of fate.
For I shudder not at the thought of destiny,
                                    Or the inevitable in time...
Instead, I fear the eventuality of the choices
That were solely, and entirely, mine.

I fear that my will may be of enough influence, alone...
That fate itself may collapse beneath decisions like my own.
Or that I, myself, might be constructing
What destruction I will find
Among my shattered spirits and convictions,
In these depths to which I climb.
​