The overture sounds a muffled thud,
       And scraping flesh against macadam.
Un-rosined bows screech across nerves,
                     Dividing molecules to atoms.
Each neuron fires off, splicing into three
The soul from the body,
          and something indescribably between.

Catching fire, he ascends -
            "This is what it truly means to be!"
Each piece, each side
Breaking away in-finitely
To somehow become more whole
Through division, and in balance.
                  Like a reunion, of holy trinity,
                       Caught ablaze in fissile symphony.

                   -  -  -

And like a cork popped from Prosecco,
Rewound, and played reversed,
       He careens with a whining pitch
       And
                 f
                    a
                  ­     l
                          l
                            s
   ­                           From orbit,
                                  Back to earth.

Glimpsing God
Only to be clawed back
To the pains and pleasures of Samsara,
        To taste the bitterness of my own blood,
        Transposed
        From the ecstasy of Nirvana.

This is how I came to know the realm,
     In which our feeble bodies lurch.
'Ere I was born as a phoenix
                       from the ashes.
      In the rear cabin of a hearse.

A lonely man, broken,
Crawls across the grass.
In his hands but one thing:
A heart made of glass.

His belongings were air . . .
The rest he left behind;
He crept slowly in search,
As time kept its bind.

As he crawled inch by inch,
Time passed the man by.
When he stopped for a moment,
To see his end growing nigh.

There, at last, he broke down;
His love yet to see birth --
When he knelt up from the ground,
And cried to the earth:

"What will be of this heart, what is it worth?!"

He tightened his grip,
On what he ever held dear --
But his grip became loose,
As his death became near.
Withering away, he let one plea be known:

"What will be of this heart? For this heart has no home!"

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.
​

For the past year or so, I’ve been hearing some singing –
Or maybe it’s pounding…
Perhaps more of a ringing.
Though I’m not sure what it is, I know what it creates –
Some sort of bond –it would seem… To forge together our fate.
The sound is near ethereal… It combines our raw materials.
And while I can’t seem to find precision in an attempt for definition...
It’s been playing since we met –
It’s music with no musician.
But what’s a musician to music?  We only need nature to infuse it –
We’ve got music all around us, for us to listen as we choose it.

I think we chose the sound of steel in hopes of finding something real –
For as bad as it gets damaged, a simple fire is sure to heal.
This world can be a cruel place, and we’ve got the wounds to show it.
I’ve found life moves too fast, but your soul helps me to slow it.
With how we’ve been bombarded, our steel was sure to be discarded…
But the fires gave us shape… and our work of art was started.

So a sword is what we’ll be, the finest weapon of you and me –
And although we’re made of steel, we’ll keep growing like a tree –
More intricate and divine, as we stand the tests of time.
Free to be shaped, not burned, in our metallic design.

I’m in my prime; at the cusp of my development.
A few more years of growth make decay a lot more relevant…

Glass Elephant,
Glass Elephant,

Irrelevance, benevolence,
Compassion, or malevolence;
I’m one of few who sees it sums no difference.

Glass objects.
Or Elephants.
Irrelevance,
Irrelevance

Striving for motion, with motive elusive
Each thing I endeavor is far too exclusive
I need something inclusive, objectively singular
A sinusoidal wave with a mean lacking integers
Peace in zero and equilibrium inclusion

Glass Elephant
Glass Elephant
Delusions, Delusions

I had never felt as though I could feel, and never saw that I could see.
I never smelled the spring night’s air, or even opened my lungs to breathe.
I had never lain down on the grass, to watch the leaves fall from the trees.
I was a coward -- afraid to let my senses free.
So I kept my eyes closed tight, for fear there was anyone else but me.

I couldn’t tell you what it was that made me open them that day,
There wasn’t a window in the room, but as my eyelids broke away
I swear I saw the ocean wave, and I saw winds cause trees to sway.
I heard beauty in a whisper -- and the whisper told me to stay.

The fire in my soul was growing dim, but you made it burn so bright.
Because you made me see the day, when all I knew was night.
I had thought the world was empty -- just a room without a light.
But you taught me how to see, and you taught me how to feel.
You showed me things intangible, and you showed me they were real.
You knew that I had wounds, but they were wounds that you could heal.

If for a moment I thought I lost you, it would scare me half to death --
I had smelled the spring night’s air, for my lungs now had a breath.
To turn back was not an option, for no longer was I deaf.
I now could sense the world around me, and I knew you felt it too -
But I knew that it meant nothing unless we shared the view.
So I promise you my all, and swear myself I’ll see it through.
For I first heard beauty in whisper… and that whisper came from you.

I scream to drown the noise,
            And fight to hold my poise
Against this sonic wave
            That dismantles and destroys.

This place that I called home…
            It’s all that’s left of what I own.
I fear I’m destined to the desert,
           Or somewhere desolate to roam.

Tried to convince my brain this wasn’t real –
           That lies are all I feel.
I’m not sure why I fear this noise;
           There’s nothing left for it to steal.

                        -         -         -

Yet, I plug my ears and scream;
         Tear the stitching from my seams . . .
I find it difficult to sleep,
         And near-impossible to dream.
I scream so hard it makes me sweat,
And my skin begins to gleam

                        This heat turns smiles into tears,
                         Like water into steam

My head begins to ache.
My hands begin to shake.
If I chose the wrong path,
             I made one hell of a mistake.
While my lungs still permit,
             I’ll keep their volume set on high,
Lifting my head to the clouds,
             To scream at the sky.

I have yet to hear an answer,
        And while I’m not much of dancer
I learned some steps from Lady Luck
        In hopes to cure me of this cancer.

                        -         -         -

Now, I don’t believe in luck –
But she still left me with something . . .
While we danced I took notice;
The noise dulled slightly to a humming.

I looked back to Lady Luck
– and I’m sure this wasn’t just a dream –
But she had vanished to the air,

                             Like water into steam.

I said “I don’t believe in luck.”
She still left me something, though.

She said:
                   “You can’t predict the world –
                      I assume this much you know…
                      But if a farmer plants a seed,
                      In that spot, a plant will grow.”

One day, my throat gave out.
For no longer, could I shout.
And I don’t believe in luck,
             So I was simply left with doubt.

I cursed that lady’s words.
I told myself that she was crazy.
       When something caught my eye…
       There - at my feet - grew a daisy.
A daisy… In the desert…
So despite how bad my head hurt,
I thanked God for Lady Luck.
         I thanked God that I had met her.

The noise I heard was her opposite.
               It was the presence of chance.

I've learned the farmer can’t predict the world,
But, as surely as seeds grow into plants . . .
                     My only choices are my actions.
                     So, I think I’ll take today to dance.

My hands still ache –
I’m convinced it’s my atoms splitting
No one asked me how I got addicted –
They said the focus was on quitting

But I’m here in the present
So I must have a had a past
It’s too bad “Where’d you come from”
Is a question never asked.

I went through hell to get here
So it should matter where I’m from
I tell them “it should matter what I’ve seen…
It should matter what I’ve done.”
He then responded like a father and began his sentence, “Son…
It’s the shock, not the trauma, that makes the body the numb.”
He said, “The thing you search is silence.”
“And yet you let your monsters drum.”

You start to figure things out. You know --
When you’re locked up all that time.
But you learn not from what you’re taught,
Instead, you learn from what you find.
And I found mine in the written word,
I found it in a rhyme.


Numbers always helped me think, so I looked for something to count
And as I pondered that man’s words, the room’s only light went out.
So I counted the only thing that I could feel aside from air,
And his seven words made sense, as I counted the one thing
That in the dark was always there.
I’m my own favorite number, so I began counting,
“One…”
But this time I didn’t count to two.
And the monsters didn’t drum.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t rely on someone else
For the first time, in the dark, I counted on myself.
I then knew why “Where’d you come from” was never asked --
Both they and I lived in the present; we couldn’t act upon the past.
It doesn’t matter where you came from, or even why you’re here.
For your past dictates your penance, but the present is your frontier.

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.

Well, they say that the key to life,
Is to simply maintain motion.
              So when you can't breathe the air,
              It's best to emulate the ocean.

I've found that I'm much better-off moving,
So I'll let these currents do the choosing.
             Because I can't decide myself,
              If my self-worth is worth proving.

I've got wounds that need soothing.
                         I'm so tired of losing.
I've lived too much, in too few years,
                        For such a lack of improving.

                                  -    -    -

I need a device to twist this plot -
Some sort of deus ex machina.
I need a key to this lock,
            But, there's something blocking the
            Path to my salvation.
            I still long to feel elation.
But I'm being strangled by the laws
Of this "freedom-filled" nation.

                       I fell under the illusion
                       Of a perfect constitution.
                       But, this justice isn't clean.
                       It's hardly more than sheer pollution.

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.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
          Whisper in my ear.
Give me something tangible to touch –
           Something audible to hear.

Send me a sign, so I know I am alive.
I want to know it’s not in vain
The I let the world inscribe
           Such a mark upon my soul.
           Give me a sign to make me whole.
Help me find peace through the chaos.
           Just let me know you’re in control.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
Whisper in my ear.
I know each breath could be my last –
Yet, my death I do not fear.

I’ve been shackled by my questions
And I’ve watched them as they’ve grown.
I searched endlessly for answers –
When all along I should have known
That the answers I seek are not ones that can be found.
So I pray that you’ll whisper. I pray I’ll hear the sound.
I pray that death holds more than what we bury in the ground.

It’s been nearly twenty years, and somehow I still have faith.
But I fear the truths I know are lies; I fear that virtue is a waste.
Still, I wait for your whisper,

Mother Mary, Mother Mary.
Despite how much I’ve suffered; this burden I still carry.
Because I trust this world holds reason.
I trust my struggle wasn’t worthless.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
I pray I suffer for a purpose.

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.

My tides move in waves
Of reactive oscillation.
Bound to your momentum
By threads of gravitation.

Gravity, like rainfall . . .
I, never yours,
And you, never mine.

Each day I etch a tally,
And try to act surprised
That another day
Has come and gone
In which the sun forgot to shine.

Deplorable and horrible;  
              Despicable, abhor-able;
It reiterates, evaluates,
              Desiccates, and exacerbates . . .

It never fails, to fall too short,
But always fails as a support . . .

In an attempt to be freed, it misleads to bad deeds
And creates a hunger -- vacuous,
                               Yet, impossible to feed.
It chases the light away,
                               And it longs to be alone.
So I am so ashamed to say,
                               That in my skull,
                               It found its home.

So I'll fight and fight against it,
. . . But I'll always lose the battle.
It seems that even as I trudge ahead,
That somehow I still straggle.
It is the artist, I am the instrument.
Like a light bulb to its filament.
Every day I'm at the bottom,
Forced to climb back up the hill again.

But I think the day has come . . .
When I've finally stopped walking.
I've reached a door that can’t be opened,
And decided to stop knocking . . .

It's me and who I've become;
It's my actions and what I've done . . .
So, as much as I despise it,
It seems my brain, and I, are one.

I’m stuck.
Caught up in the hard times.

Peace arrives, and there it goes:
My meter, prose
And rhymes.

Is this setting with awful emotions,
The only place I can be bothered to feel?

Both latter and former, contrary and congruent
Neither gas nor solid, the river moves fluid.
No end and no beginning, just water moving… swimming…
A formless former that is a powerful latter
Contradiction through symmetry and space within matter
Passively energetic as potential becomes kinetic
Transparently reflective and silently phonetic
Thermally dynamic and fluidly frantic
The waters maintain a static chaos through mathematical mechanics.

Mechanically architected and architecturally mechanic
Water seems the perfect medium for analysis of a dynamic.
Dynamic existence and persistent resistance
Statically chaotic seems the architect’s insistence.
Equilibriomatic, with addition subtractive
Empirical measures fail to analyze the passive.
What simply is, simply is… Invincible to mimicry or microcosmic reenactment.
Experimental methods seek to unify the synonymous
Attempting to prove the objective with a subjective hypothesis.
Learn from the water, let its metaphor be imminent….
For the divine externality lies not without, but within it.

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.

A net sum of years,
            and romanticized numerals,
Built up by birthdays,
            to be torn apart by funerals.

Frayed ends of friendships,
            pulled until they popped.
A holy mess
            in the wake of a difference,
Between what said
            and what was thought.

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.

It's the same familiar road,
Dark and slightly paved,
Toward which my soul drifts at nighttime,
Pulled by nearly broken chains.
Sleepwalking to find some danger
Where, among the chaos, it can feel
A little less like a stranger;
Around the blind side of a curve.

While I sleep, it finds a way
To - despite my slumber - travel.
Lying down, and replaying how
Life and death, seemed to briefly
                    Stop their battle . . .
And rest so soundly,
Sprawled out, side-by-side,
Strewn 'cross the roadway's gravel.

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

Each morning I awake
And to the same spot I've returned,
Lying next to my soul, in wait,
For a lucky car to make its turn.
I stand up, and spark a cigarette
-- click --
Just to watch the orange light burn.

        I inhale the noxious gases,
        As a car skids, and passes.
        I start back home with a shrug,
        And flick the ashes to the masses,
        Burn some bibles, and break some glasses.
        And as the rain soaks to my skin,
        It corrodes the memory like acid.

Ignorance, bliss, an indiscriminate kiss
Gracefully balanced atop a bone-crunching fist.
A sleuth in the shadows, a looped rope in the gallows
Awaits to hang the one who climbs it toward the hallowed.
The stairs on which you ascended with the promise of heaven ended
Abruptly, unjustly, and with heavy fists corrupting
The body and soul, your constitution…
In contrast with your ego’s delusions,
Have shown themselves to be
The antithesis to illusion.

The reality belief is a cold-blooded thief,
That will rob you of your senses and leave the Self defenseless
To the distortion of optics, the twisting of oral…
Succumbing to illusions of evil and/or moral.

Of course, one would ask, “What am I to do?”
The answer is simple: Do not look within,
For the sought-after lies through.
Heighten awareness to see through the hallowed,
For the beast in you cannot be drowned
If it forces the waters to shallow.
Consciousness is heavier than the act of mere existence
If it is heaven is you seek, you’ll need much more than sheer persistence.

Oh, how I wish the world could simply see my view,
If for nothing but admiring
                               The infinite shades of you.
Your blue brings me down,
                               And your orange lifts my spirits.
Your voice shines bright like yellow,
Yet, I’m the only one who hears it.

I know some days you feel colorless,
Like a lackluster grey…
But I swear you’re more colorful, than the finest bouquet.
Sometimes I sit back and admire –
Simply watch your colors sway.
Because I know I could stare forever,
And they’d never melt away.

If I didn’t know better,
I’d keep her picture in my pocket.
I’d put another in a safe…
I’d double-check that I had locked it.
But her colors chose me, as their only admirer.
And mine chose her too,
So I pray that they’ll inspire her.

It’s a beautiful thing we share…
This reciprocal arrangement;
If you gave me a million chances,
There’s not a chance that I would change it.
It’s enigmatic and strange -- infinite and moving,
Your love’s the only truth I’ve ever felt,
That never needed proving.

I don’t need proof it’s the truth.
I can feel it in my soul.
I just wish the world could see the way
Your colors make me whole.

Since the day I saw your spectrum,
My world gained a fourth-dimension.
I saw your colors rise up; I watched their ascension.

I couldn’t help but stare…
To this day, I’m captivated.
Once our colors intertwined,
I knew our forever was fated.

I want you to know you’re my infinity…
I’ll live eternally with you.
Each time your colors grace my eyes,
I swear my soul is born anew.
Every day I grow older… Yet, I’ve never felt younger.
You color my world;
You’re my life’s biggest wonder.
You’re the paint to my canvas…
And the lightning to my thunder.

I carry monsters some monsters with me; they lived in the dark place that I’m from
They’ve dropped masses to their knees, and their footsteps sound like drums.
But I never heard them coming, despite the fact that they were running
For the worst one of them all, was the one I was becoming

They carry a silence so loud, it rattles the heavens --
Inaudible to the crowd, but my ears it deafens
I feared one day they’d take me over --
Surely, no one could handle this exposure
But their past victims ran… instead, I pulled them closer.

It’s the demons of my past that help me make this moment last,
They brought me to the point where she was just within my grasp.
So I stopped there in that moment, and took a second just to hold it
Paid no mind to the darkness, or the clay from which I’m molded.
And she paid it no mind either; so I pray the monsters don’t deceive her
She’s from the light I’ve never seen, and she’s made me a believer.

These monsters made me blind – taught me to doubt the things I’ve learned
They broke the gears inside, but it was she who made them turn.
The fire had been extinguished, but I swear she made it burn.
And she made that flame burn bright, to be my guide throughout the night
She and I both saw the sparks, but knew not fire they’d ignite.
If this is wrong, I can’t be right; she’s my lantern in the night.
And I may be from the darkness, but one needs dark to see the light.

Inside the machine, the mechanism turns --
Spokes and gears, built from lessons learned.
But the gears are rusting, not turning so smooth.
So the product they yearned;
Would be one the thing they would lose.

                                                          ­                                 The gears still rusting, not turning so smooth.

Placed inside were the finest reactants --
Ordered specific for the upper-class faction.
But the gears are rusting, not turning so smooth.
So the machine produced no more than a fraction...
Far from proficient for the hunger to be soothed.

                                                       ­                                     The gears still rusting, not turning so smooth.

Inside they found some things unexpected.
The outside was fine – yet, the inside dejected.
They found the gears rusting, not turning so smooth.
So they closed her back up, left the rusting neglected.
And maybe for the best, for the machine had been abused.

                                                        ­                                    The gears still rusting, not turning so smooth.

But the rust bore down, wearing the gears.
Until the machine had seen her final years.
The gears still rusting, had stopped turning smooth.
She closed her eyes and her ears, to free her from her fears.
For they learned from the machinist, and chose simply to lose.

                                                          ­                        The gears still rusting; not turning, however smooth.

So they fixed her up inside, with some tape and some lies.
But she refused to move -- for the machine was now wise.
The gears were no longer rusting, yet not turning smooth.
The diagnosis unclear, they said “Everything dies."
But the machine had learned the ability to choose.

                                                        ­                    And her gears no longer rusted, yet never turned smooth.

This path showed her poise -- her new eyes, ears and voice.
To exclaim that her gears had stopped turning by choice.
Outside they found shine, but inside laid the rust,
Festering, growing, and being taught to mistrust.
Until the machine could no longer function --
Though the catalyst was no more than a simple deduction:

                                                     ­                          The gears no longer turned, regardless of how smooth,
                                                         ­                  But that's simply the product of a machine left to choose.

I can feel you all around me, like the oxygen I breathe.
You're the poison of my choosing, a masterpiece of a disease,
The most daring contradiction, and my favorite affliction.
I can feel you taking over, but you're a welcomed addiction.

I want you to course through every vein, like the blood that feeds my brain.
I want to invade your every bone to cause the sweetest kind of pain.
I'll take you, then break you; destroy, then recreate you.
If you're the world's most sacred temple, I'll be the first to desecrate you.

I'll be the motor to your machine, and we'll burn white-hot like metal --
Too ***** to be clean, and as shameless as the devil.

Cheated and defeated –
                  my mistakes, themselves, repeated . . .
A monster made of gluttony;
                  I’ve no option but to feed it.

I saw the writing on the walls,
           But, my feeble eyes had failed to read it.
Still... I’m not convinced that this warning,
        Was chosen by my eyes, not to be heeded.

Perhaps my head was the catalyst
           A byproduct of an acid trip;
           Had split this world in two.
Some for me, and some for you.
Maybe . . . this warning wasn’t meant for me.
Maybe . . . it’s for the second half of two.

“Ye kind-hearted shall not go forth”
                              … is what I believe it said,
But I can’t be too certain.  
                              After all, I’ve lost my head.
Which brings up some emotions -
                               Or maybe, they’re allusions?
But, I can’t tell through the hallucinations
                If these are real or illusory movements.

So the fish hook pulled me deeper . . .  
                       All the while, stretching skin.

                       I knew not about the rabbit hole
                       to which I just dove in.

It seemed a lot more like an alley when I first took a glance,
Once I took a second step, I guess I chose to dance.

               Oh, what a performance it’s been!  
                And we haven’t yet hit intermission!
                 Although, I’m not sure when that is…
                            As I seem to have lost my vision.

The Queen of Hearts shouted,
                              “Off with his head!”
But without a brain to notice,
      I couldn’t hear what she had said.
She said it before the guillotine dropped…
So was my brain already gone
                      When my head hit the block?

I’m not sure where to find the pieces.
                     I didn't know I fell apart.
                     I didn’t know
I was a headless servant
                    To the heartless
                    Queen of Hearts.

Now, without a head,
                   I’m trying to piece it back together.
And I’m worried that this rabbit hole
           just may have me trapped here forever.

So, I’ll trace my steps backward, to try to find my "forward."
But as I set my pace faster, I find I'm moving slower.
Things turn upside down, when you’re this far down . . .
And the carousel just spins – around and around.

Gaining speed, with increasing malice
I hopped right on
        And chose a different path than Alice.

Here we arrive again at choice, but was it one at all?
This is when I found the Hatter – where the bounds of logic fall.
He asked me why I was there.
             He said, “My boy, have you gone mad?”
And as I searched for reason,
                                          I concluded that I had.

Standing on the ceiling,
            we both watched the world, twirling.
Sipping from our cups,
            between the stirs of sterling.
We chatted over tea, and while I was now content with spinning . . .
My content grew simultaneous
with the Cheshire Cat’s grinning.
He looked at me and said,
                                      “Upside down, yet, you seem alright?”
I responded with a “Hm…”
                                        and my spinning turned to flight.

I flew from the table and
       As I questioned if I was stable,
I grasped for the air.
       And for the first time . . .
                                          I was able.

Apart from the question, I now knew that I was mad,
Because I gripped a fist of air,
                             knowing full-well it can’t be grabbed.
I swung through the air…
                                    maybe I flew . . . I’m not sure.
But as I passed over ground, I surveyed it for Her.
I looked for Alice as my guide,
                              but someone took her place:
The "heartless" Queen of Hearts
                                     and her over-sized face.
Was it the face? Or just the head?
                            What’s ahead without a face?
It seems I lost the bounds of logic
                                    upon my fall from grace.

Was I flying?
Or was I falling?
It seems that orbit was my calling . . .
Where, as high as I fly,
   the paradox of orbit keeps me falling.
Maybe I’ll stay out here, where it’s quiet by the stars
And there’s no signs to read;
               no catalysts for scars.  
But did I ever escape?
                Am I still in the hole?
I found among these fragments
          the completion to my soul.

Somewhere between falling and flying,
              I told the truth while I was lying
And found my equilibrium
               between the living and the dying.

We won a chance at life, and to forevermore be losing --
Losing life, and losing love
As we struggle to keep moving.
We grow older, and bolder
As the weight grows heavy that we shoulder;
If when we were born it was warm, then it's surely growing colder.
From gas into liquid, and liquid into solid
Our freedom is deleted as we fight to re-install it.

To fight the pains of growing up, our souls are made numb --
We keep crawling toward the light, but to the darkness we succumb.
Then we heal, so we can feel anything at all
And we climb and climb so high -- just to feel the fall.

You ran this boat aground, and your luck was running thin.
So, as if to test the bounds of fate,
You pushed your boat back in.
And continued on your journey,
You feel the fire inside burning --
You've grown so strong since you were gone,
The devil himself fears your returning.

Once you've lost so much already, there's not much more to lose --
You might bleed and you might bruise,
But your resolve won't be removed.
For now you're stronger than ever,
Free from those ties that you severed --
Your world fell apart, but you forced it back together.

Now make survival your bible,
And write the story of your revival;
For your heartbeat sounds a symphony --
And your movements dance recitals.

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 rain keeps falling
As dry as a drought.

                       “ Rain drops heavier than water,
                           When it’s laden with doubt. “
He said,
                       “ The ground simply can’t hold it
                                     … So it must go without. “

               ” You’ve never known water to stain,
                  But you’ve never felt this kind of rain.
                  It’s thicker than your skin.
                  It stains your clothes and what’s within.
                  It sounds like hammers as it pounds -
                 And yet, the ground won’t let it in.

          So it flows like a river that only gets bigger;
          It runs like a force that knows no remorse.
                     Despite endless efforts to stop it -
                     It still runs like a faucet…
                                        With nowhere to drain. "

But if the ground holds no plants, is the water so vital?
Is the rain’s sole purpose this lifeless recital?
The ground stays so strong.
It holds fast, like pure stone
But can one stay so long when one’s so alone?
When one is forced to move,
               Will the ground or the rain?
And when the first one has gone,
               Will the other remain?


For now, they coexist,
Each facing a challenge it can’t resist -
Both unstoppable and immovable,
                              They hopelessly persist.
As complements, they combine
                        With the product of a flood.
But the water that’s collecting
                        Has the consistency of blood.

There’s a heart behind this water.
It pulses, instead of flowing.
So you turn to the only man you know,
             for parting words with danger growing.
And he says, as you leave:

               “ I wish you luck where you are going.
                   My son, you’ve only seen the rain . . .
                    . . . The winds are not yet blowing.

“You know, son… There’s a reason...
God had a reason to give you broad shoulders --
It’s so you could carry this load… It’s so you could hold up all these boulders.”

“But these boulders aren’t my own, so why did He leave me them to hold?”
I can hardly hold them now… surely I’ll collapse when I grow old.”

“You can’t think in terms of time, it is not a restriction by which He is bound…
Instead you must think it as your cross, think of the thorns upon his crown.
He will not notice the time; that’s a human concept we’ve created…
Instead he’ll judge you by the size of the burdens with which you’re weighted.”

“Well, that’s a relief, but how can you be so sure?
He’s never turned the night to day; I’ve never seen a disease he’s cured.
Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I struggle to have faith
When the world that he created has become this wretched place.”

“I can’t convince you that he’s real, I can’t show you how to feel.
But if I showed you cold and silence, would you say that they were real?
Yet these aren’t real things, simply the absence of others…
So you must look to the voids, when you wish to discover.”

“I hope that you’re right. I hope he’s up there listening…
I hope there’s golden gates I can admire, I hope that they’re still glistening.
I hope God can take my hand, and tell me ‘Son, you’ve done well.’
I hope to God there’s a heaven – ‘cause I’ve been living in hell.”

You led me down the mountain just like a raging river
My soul had no path, no less a nomad than a drifter.
You carried me as if there were no other way
No slow pace down the mountain – in your current, I will stay.
We’ve built an interdependency, your water begets life
But be gentle, my dear— water cuts just like a knife.
You maintain and sustain, bringing life within the rain.
Carving rivers into rock, your blood pumps through my veins.
Body to blood, and earth unto water
Propelling each other, we’ll make us stronger.