Thousands of electric pulses
scattered in confusing patterns.
Imagination convulses,
tattered, mind under matter.

Enveloped by space and time,
pardoned by neither,
eloped by both.
Pacing.

Shooting from the hip,
mind's eye is blind fire,
pawing through the labyrinth,
waiting for the shift.

Hopeless.
Blunder.
Shocks.
Over.

Holding long to longing,
longing, holed to holding,

I ode my tale for bold forboding.

Swiftly shores sung,
ripping, reaping, revealing

I stopped just short of saint-like stealing.

Madly minutes mumbled,
syllables stuck, syrup

My thoughts no longer mine to stir up.

i've come to learn
that they
become numb to
my cries
so often that they've
become deaf to
my whimpers

and i've
become hoarse from
my shouts
so often that i
become mute from
my whispers

after all
what can they do
to help
after
they've tried ev'rything?

after all
what can i do
to tell
after
i've tried ev'rything?

try some more

try.

Words can move mountains
Weathering away every grain of dirt
and every gram of rock.
Time is their ally.

Building mountains elsewhere,
creating a whole new paradise.
New valleys and new peaks
awash with possibility.

Debris blanketed the plains.
The same mountain lay diluted.
Except now it was anyone's to venture.
My mountain lay in ruins.

Rubble could be rummaged.
From it, castles were built.

Silence did not sanction.

I just want to be moved.

Can you capture my pain
with your photographic heart?

Can you whisper my name
through a telegraph or card?

The pictures I cut, I kept.
The pocket I thumb, you left.

Your voice is like a train whistle
Coercing me towards delusive home
A siren by the aisle
Whose lulling call is deafening to my ache.

In dreams I hear nothing
In dreams I hear only your name.

Won't you bide the waves?

i live for this moment
this
melting together of souls
that feels
how white noise sounds

we can cast our thoughts and feelings
into this ocean with ease

infinity is so serene

the undefined has no end.

Huddled beneath the desk
The files found were less
The script I scribed not
Of false fellowship

Murmured were the verses
Pawing for the curses
My hands I lended
Gave all I could spend

Battling my vices
Tampered herbs and spices
My wrist I twisted
Shy 'way from the shiv

Hands spinning lazily
Tracks run, a maze in me
The map I crumpled
To bridges I shan't pass.

So much flagrant anger,
and violet silence,
leads to frustration all in vain
and sirens, violence.

Ideas feed the blind,
look by it. die, grit.
frilled smiles by design,
be quiet. die, quick.

Friends before, now estranged,
both nigh from frightened.
Hurricanes to earthquakes,
to die from climates

You didn't know me before the loss.
You didn't see the red eyes, the toss
As I daily flipped a penny
To choose passion or apathy
So your hardened smile
Waived my gaze that was dry in the rain

You saw a lesser fellow,
Broken was his ego
But only it was his wrist that did complain.

You knew the vessel that sailed
Had left his harbor empty
Not seeing what in his harbor did remain.

Would you listen closer?
put your ear to the glass of my riddled compass.
And search a little longer?
behind the not-so-old photos on the iris' mantelpiece.
And hold a little tighter?
White knuckles on a steering wheel after a close call on the freeway.
What ills me is not so plain.

No more my heart is molten,
A drifting wind is ridding,
The company of stillness -
It will grow grey again.

curdling in the scarcely defined corners of the world
praying for change
falling into martyrdom for something you'd never believe in

I'll wither away
curl into a cane
from a sword that once was so gallantly played

leaking tye-dye
which colors are my true colors?

some people bleed false colors
some people bleed all colors.
and some people just bleed.

paint me a picture
paint me a pick, sure.
paint me a sad, sad lullaby
where tears fall like feathers
instead of lightning strikes

I'll lie here on the floor in wait
crying til you hear my call
But I'll whisper wisdom while I whimper.

I pray you'll stay away
I pray I'll trip into martyrdom
I pray you'll paint something
and you'll pray for me to pray.

I won't pray at all.
or you'll pray you never prayed for me.

Two roads diverged in a wood
so I sat down on a bench nearby.
I watched as wanderers walked,
ambling or ambitious,
choosing their own fate.
Some stood a while.
Some sat next to me, twiddling their thumbs in ways no longer lonely,
outstretching their physical means to find a mentor or guide.
Some prevailed.
Others plopped down next to the bench, cross-legged with their heads in the hands or meditating with their fingers in the air.
I stared off for sometime.
Travelers came and went, boarding trains to near and far. Others didn't need the tracks but longed for them anyway.
I sat there for years, wearing the same old hat and coat, wearing thin elsewhere. Who do I want to be? Where am I going? What is my purpose? The only answer ever arriving in the form of some weary-eyed traveler.
We would lock eyes, expose our souls, mutter remorse for it, and they would move on.
And then I would watch the wanderers walk some more.

When you mourn
are your tears in vain?

Upon the scorn
you felt such shame.

Disadorn
emotion plain.

End the war
without refrain.

you were never mine.
you will never be mine
you will always be yours

maybe one day
I'll be lucky enough
to be "mine"
lying next to you while
you're being "yours"

I was pushed into a cold pool
with all of my warmest clothes on.
I chose cold and heavy over nakedness.
How long will I shiver and stumble?

a second light comes crawling
this time through the window,
reminding me I survived
another night wading
through the fiery lakes of hell,
naked as my soul on a cool night with a new love.

everything else is so easy.
it's all relative, isn't it?
and this is my reference point,
my floor.

I want to run
feel the sunshine on my back
as I sprint down the western highway
footfall upon footfall
the sun will not fall
instead it leads me onward perpetually
like a guiding hand
Letting me know
it's okay to run
and never look back

I'm just trying to find substance that can't be smoked, ingested, or injected.
You would want to think I love running marathons. That I'm some passionate ultra enthusiast, or some man who believes he'll one day jog across the entire United States - perhaps 14th century "United States": a never-ending treadmill of prairie where rolling your ankle over is as common as stepping on used gum at a carnival. With this much prairie, it's bound to happen. I'm going to fumble and fall. It could be that I'll have to resort to a crawl for a while. It could be that I curl up and accept my title. Maybe I'll even write a book about my failure: "Rolling Ankles On The Rolling Plains". The only people who would buy it would be the marathoners icing their ankles on the couch at home.

For some, smoke screens.
Others see their reflections,
brush their finger tips through the rubble,
make friends with the debris.
Calloused palms hold broken glass,
washing cuts with poison.

In ashes their hearts lye.

Don't you know it's a strange thing
The way my thoughts are arranging
September's cold at its core and it's all for show

Could have sworn you were witness
Meeting adjourned, concerns fit best
I swallowed more than my pride and now I'm alone

Lend me, oh friend of mine
Spare me, oh have you got some time?
Mend this, oh this heart of mine,
Ending, oh this tragedy climbs

Tempting, oh the exit sign
Hem me, oh have you got some twine?
Remem'bring, oh what was the sign,
Tending, oh wash my mem'ries blind

i opened
the protein
shaker, huffed
it like
one huffs
glue, and
hissed, "this
wreaks like
someone took
all the
trash, stuffed
it in
a sauna,
and collected
the condensation
to soak
the shaker
in!" i
think i'll
use it
tomorrow morning.

Ev'ry time I feel your breath
I sink further from sanity.

And when you burn, I patch you up
I complement your vanity.

The gifts you bring and songs you sing,
From clouds they lightning down.

And when you show your other face,
Enlightened, I can't frown.

The stairs I walked, the voices that talked,
Again will lead to heaven.

Cherries, treasure, it's been forever,
Again will land a seven.

spider
crawled out from under that
cinder block
thought all was
safe
in the shadows

another shadow came
soon
all was dark

I would have loved
to know
you searched the way
I did
That you dug for
every bit
there was to know
about me
That you scoured pages
upon pages
to see if there
was anything
you were missing from
my biography
That you hammered out
my name
in every search engine
known to
man That you wanted
to know
who I was connected
to and
how we were connected
That you
refreshed my social media
pages several
times per day just
to see
if there was anything
I forgot
to tell you. That
you calculated
the likelihood of my
emotions based
on the time and
what I
had been posting That
you thought
about my motives for
every post
every article every store
every movie
every question every curse
every call
every text every word
That you
spent at least some
of your
days completely cocooned in
the possibility
that I may be
someone entirely
different than who you
know just
for the sake of
wanting to
think about me further.
That you
might get so lost
in me
that you forget to
get lost
in you

Comfort in silence
No air to be filled
They said.
Comfortable around
The other.
Dead air or
Dead connection?
Starting fires just
To know we were
Both going to
Get burned.
At least we were
"Both" something.
Silence never slept so peacefully.

I rinse the cups
In case
They're lined
With poison

But I pop the vitamins
And leave my supplements
Under the drug cabinet
When my ambition is suitable

The tap water tastes funny
And the food never goes down
Quite right

My sleep is like my relationships:
Seldom deep and only existent
Because of normalcy

Judge my facade
Acting is easy
Madness is difficult though honest
I am simply mad.

people write poems comparing
smiles to sunsets and rain
and stars and meteor showers

eclipsing entirely that sunsets give way to the charcoal wraith of night
rain riddles the most novel of metals
supernovas sink entire galaxies
and meteors are just meteorites with less ambition

but what about earthquakes
and black holes
and wildfires

rib rattling
song swallowing
too close for comfort

what once warmed us to our core now leaves us in embers

and still we burn for more

The smoke caught fire
   and burned the ashes,
   and like a wildfire -
   something beautiful
   came after.
Sprouting from
   the debris was a
   metanoia; one cannot
   help but think...
The way a serpent
   leaves behind its
   former walls.

all feels like death
except...
drugs and *** feel like dying

Green

Yeah, I felt green around you.
Young. New. Go.
Get the hell away from me...
No, please stay.
I'm free to accelerate.

Yellow

Yeah, I felt yellow around you.
Energetic. Happy. Caution.
I need to pump my brakes.
No, I can make it.
**** it, I'm falling in love.

Red

****... I feel red around you.
Wait. Stop. Danger.
I can't keep doing this to myself.
Will you stop doing this to me?
Or can you love me like I love?

Your energies change like a stoplight,
and sometimes I want to open my door
and run into the middle of traffic.

I told you to run while you could,
get out before it's too late.
because I was the friendliest to strangers
and the strangest to friends.
My heart had never been open to dividends.
But your strangeness was similar to my strangeness: pushing out of fear - or had I made you that way?
You despised Mr. Hyde more than I did, but you loved Dr. Jekyl fervently with more compassion than I could ever give him...

I told you how it sometimes felt like I was living another's life... and looking at it now it's like I was sitting on a perpetual swing: x distance forward and x distance back.

We lucked out for so long because I would pull when you would push, and when I pushed you would pull me back. And for a while we both pulled. And then forever onward we pushed. Or forever wayward. Sometimes pulling in doesn't keep people from going away. And when you push someone, you can't expect them to pull you back. Because not everyone is sitting on the same swingset.

Ten years have passed
I feel the same
just more worn
more tired

In retrospect
has it been worthwhile?

Ten years
that may never have been.
They call it selfish.
Because the nods are one-to everyone-I-know.

I just want
to want.

Ten years
of lessons I wish I could peel back.
so many songs
I'll never unlearn.

Call me the bard
of self-loathing.

Ten years
of crawling on the gravel.
Can you help me pick
the glass from my elbows?

I'll focus on that small,
sinister lantern for ten more.

In the absence of everything,
I felt a sheer yet painful bliss.
I longed for stimulation.
A soft breeze from a drafty window,
the whizzing of a broken furnace,
the shriek of the floor as it was pranced upon.
But all of these things would not be enough.
I am lonely because the hour is lonely.
But maybe we're not so lonely, because we're both here together.
The hour and I are not alone
because we both are lonely.

wind, water, and rhyme
brushed away the sands of time
like golden hair - fine
out of a lover's blue eyes

revealing glimpses
into the past
little chocolate heart-sized samples of a
lost civilization swallowed like pride

wonder struck and sowed a seed of curiosity
like one who just discovered knowledge
and the depth of its beauty
desiring to seek that forbidden fruit
knowing well what trap lies there

its beauty, divine and sparkling
a silver crown encrusted with sapphires
that begs one to look further
dig for all the treasure beneath

its beauty: but also worn and dull
like an over-washed, one-size-too-large t-shirt
not highlighting assets
instead drowning them in an ocean of grey

its beauty: where sweetness raffles
like eating trail mix
and its bitterness is cold, black coffee
some crowns are stained with impatience

brush a little more delicately
around the fragile artifacts
never digging too deep
for fear of fumbling it all

uncov'ring these time capsules
conditioned as they were
preserved by memory lapses
laps in a labyrinth

why do we seek
buried, ancient artifacts
instead of building new ones
with the plant that knowledge became?

why do we bury deep
our prized possessions
like a dog buries a bone?
- to dig them up later

Cutting you off is like

never consuming sugar again
because you're as sweet as they come
quitting drugs and alcohol
because your love leaves me intoxicated
getting off my meds
because you stabilize me
pulling out an IV
because you hydrate my soul
pulling the plug on my life support
because I could live from you

melting, as all the parts of me
that make me human
die a slow and torturous death.
"no one is coming to save me."
and somehow,
that has to be okay.

Surreal like memories
concealed in melodies
playing and playing
running circles in my head.

Enamored for centuries
and armored for plenty pleas
fighting and fighting
wishing, flipping coins for death.

you embrace
be it hands, arms, bodies
you say, "see you soon"
with such faith

you part ways
your relationship pauses
the rest of the world winds

i didn't know i would be
seeing you
for the last time.

Some have asked
Will you ever stop writing
I tell them
I will stop writing
When I have captured her
In words
Imagery
Similes
Magic threes

I will stop writing
When I have captured her
In the perfect poem

the prettiest picture i paint
is biting cold, cobalt steel
counting down to
my great relief,
wondering if my teeth
will shatter
before eight pounds of pressure
turns all my thoughts, desires, and memories
into
the prettiest picture i paint.

parted, napsack full of fears.
again, where was 'begun'?
this labyrinth full of mirrors
has twisted all the fun.

i try again to find my way,
instead only i see myself:
a child - no games left to play
a bard - no tales left to tell.

if i scream, an echo's 'round.
nowhere are ears to lend,
wide'ning to my siren sound -
to me, my only friend.

so we grow old, sighed by side,
my voice strangled, wrung.
this carousel, the only ride.
there's nowhere left to run.

Hey, old friend.
I never thought we'd actually speak again...
All of our conversations abruptly ended
after a sentence or two...
Where have you been?
I've searched for you everywhere...
Low and high...
Especially high.
I never thought we'd meet again...
It's great to have you back, Me.
I'm glad we're back.

i'm lost again
trying to recover the pieces of myself
this room brings to remem'brance
i've tried to hide but i've only managed to pelt

all answers lead to nowhere
and i'm somehow worse-for-wear
the questions that got me here
perhaps, i never should have asked

these sides i show to no one
this nakedness - a sin
when there's nowhere left to run
these four walls swallow me within

she was a whirling merry-go-round
  shooting through outer space like an
  intergalactic firework

he was a grey pond where
  no life could be sustained

she floated when she walked like a
  snowflake in a gentle breeze

he called her tinkerbell

she turned all she touched to love
  setting fire to fear and
  sprouting hope through the
    salt-and-pepper piles of ash

he needed her like a
  flower needs a bee

she brought goldfish to his grey pond
  and lily pads
  and cat tails
  and shades of color
    warm and cold
  planting and painting a plentiful
    landscape

he now had this
  entire ecosystem
  inside of him
    living and breathing
    growing

she stole his heart
  to replace it with a
  habitat for love and art

Toxic masculinity is
I'm going to cheat
Instead of expressing my insecurities

Toxic masculinity is
I'm going to hit you
Instead of raising my voice from time to time

Toxic masculinity is
I'm going to **** myself
Before I let you see me cry in front of you

So I apologize
For being insecure
For raising my voice
For crying

But this is the emotion you've been dying to see in a man.

I'm sorry you're not used to it...

Home was wherever you were
Now home lies on treasure maps
"Ex" marks the spot
So I travel and I dig
but all I dig up is rot
Home is still a treasure
I've just lost the key

water the plants
first the dying
then the healthy
but you've forgotten
which one is which
or just haven't paid attention
so the dying
wilts away
leaves turn to a frown
as green turns to brown
you smile away
at your green succulent
as the other fades to mold

my mental stability is whitewater rafting.
drifting along this everlasting
river of de ja vu, my sanity
crashes against the rocks,
splashing in strings and fragments
that i once called thoughts.
this ****** little beige boat of mine
wasn't built for travel like this.

It is early in the morning.
The sun is turning the curtains that ugly, ***** hue.

I have not slept well in weeks.
My *** drive is dwindling.
*** walk.

I am beginning to wonder if anyone ever loved me,
running my tongue over a mouth sore.

I must be tired.