it's from the dreams that wake me up in cringes
nauseous from the sickening memory’s twinges
that poison the hours of the day with painful fire that singes
that set me off like explosions into my drinking binges

because of winning the debate that sobriety in this miserable place
would be insane trying to heal the strain with grace
my heart's been sewn back into my chest so many times trying to keep pace
with the thick black stitches of self taught renewed hope I hope to replace

just for it to burst or be removed and slit deep at it's throat again
as I slip down another ***** into the ways I try to cope as I’m drained
back into the times I can't escape because they really are the past I can’t feign
and knowing I was cast in a mold and I will never escape my shape or it’s strain

there will be no peace after the things I was told, not with age, no matter how old
not when I accomplish, not when I survive, and not now that my blood has turned cold
because my molested heart is too weak to beat, too scarred to keep a hold
after all the times it trusted, only to be opened from ribbon wrapped packages just to be sold

I keep having to buy myself back from the thrift store of my own life
***** back together all my feeling parts, always trying to justify leaving a wife
so now I kneel, praying on my knees in slobbering tears for the aches to be less rife
begging to forget the loss of a son, willing to cut my flashbacks out with a knife

my new life has somehow begun and their ghosts haunt me unforgivingly
carving slivers off of the inside of my skull, never letting the pressure free
educating me with the lessons of emptiness and cold pains deep as the sea
and always with creeping thoughts of what I'll never regain or again grow to be

and even now with all my new days and change
the life I knew is still estranged
and I live with the truth that the shape of my mould so strange,
my destiny in the shape of my loss, will always remain

dressed for my own funeral again
black suit and tie, I've died so many times without amends
I can't count the ways I've started over and then
the shadows of wasted loves show teeth and rend

cracking my spine in convulsing shakes chewing on faith that breaks
and it takes all of my fleeting strength to out swim the wakes
the drowning, dingy echoes of fake affection and birthday cakes
when there was no connection between us but the quakes

and you don't know who I am now in my disparity
any more than I remember who I set out to be

stressed and smoking too often, new nails in the coffin
black tar and coughing because the fists never soften
beaten so bad my heart won't beat if I can hear you talking
on the other end of a phone when the tears aren't stopping

the eulogy for a wasted man sounds like loved one's bitter tones
that don't understand that a dead man is free from what caring owns
and the soil not drinking one tear won't notice one more set of bones
but in the darkness, the silence, the solitude, I'll bury what my demons condone

to the praises of others you raised us but you were no mother
handing out soul snuffing black eyes that still won't let me recover
why did it have to be you; wicked you, split in two and not another?
schizophrenic, stick it in and twist it, breaking me and a lonely brother

it's you I'm burying in this soil
because I'm half you so I too and spoiled
like you, I am halved by my bipolar turmoil
giving up on surviving anymore with this blood that boils

ashes to ashes
dust to dust
the last of my crashes
because burying you is my final lust

with my feet on the ground
and my head in the clouds
I try to survive this trip stepping around
every stranger in the strange crowds

dreamers have no place in this world
so my heart fights my day job habits
my creativity shot from cannons is hurled
while I run down holes chasing white rabbits


have I lost my mind?
where was it before I asked?
did all the drugs politely turn down all the questions of my kind?
did every line of coke spell answers to my lifelong pain masked?


with my tie on to make a dollar
I can shake your hand with the fakest of faces
but the relief I need to loosen the collar
always leaves little strung out traces

but isn't life made to never count one person?
isn't that why we marry and breed?
so we have misery's company as the days worsen
and an excuse for the green bill greed


you think I fear the conference room meeting?
I'm more afraid of Captain Hook
because as I grow down I realize the stories
were precious distractions from all the beatings I took


******* wear my life for a day and try to endure the hurt
I've learned the pain killers that go down like spoonfuls of sugar
I've learned to suture when the blood spurts
and the bars and friends with compliments will always be my pushers

so with feet on the ground where the killers carry all the keys
I keep my head above all that's you spell out as real
and I'll never take another **** on my knees
because the pushers and the wonderlands make sure I never have to feel

it's quiet now without the sound of you breathing
life into this dusty aging house
but in the end I figured out I had invented all the reasons
we would still be together now

dusk always seems to hang in the sky
now that your light isn't mine
all the healing left with your final goodbye
and the solitude shows me the confinement of time

around and around and around we went
trying to make a home of the time we had spent
so somehow tell me now where the love all went
tell me now what the promises all meant

I'm not sure how I really feel without you
here in my Neverland that's lost it's childhood
I'm having doubts, disbelieving what I was sure we made true
wanting to know that our years together left what closeness should

now it's not a whole life I'm left with living
there was something in the the ways you believed
that my faults never needed forgiving
and how you never doubted what you thought we achieved

I think the reason why when I think of you I still hold on
is that I can't feel I'm part of the world where you've gone
and now my bold hopes have withered and withdrawn
and somehow my heart still hasn't moved on

I'm not sure now what I feel without you here
to save me
but I'm sure I'll never live a whole life after watching love disappear
and take away all that you gave me

so
so you think that you know what comfort can lend?
when the days languish but the anguish won't end
why the blade cuts deeper when the knife belongs to a friend?
how it seems we can never make amends
for our cruel words rubbed into breaks that never really mend?

did you think you had the answers
to why a healthy heart so often kneels to a lonely cancer?
why love never means that you were given candor
and each of us eventually takes the stage as a lone dancer?

were you convinced that you knew
when the river would stop pushing me away from you?
whether the storm would pass on through
and which side I'd stand on after the line you drew?

did you believe the seeds we'd sewn would finally rise?
that honesty in words meant they would remove our guise ?
and that years past meant we had grown wise
or if hindsight is all that our risk ever buys?

god how I wish you were still here
to look through these eyes that see the past so clear
without the blinders of rules and fear
now that the lights are dim and there's no one to cheer
so I can hear the words that you'll love me year after year
god how I wish my wanting could make you reappear

so
so you thought two lives were something we could weave?  
and you could tell joy's tears from the ones the regrets thieve?
but I didn't know what I could say I really believed
and I never could have been sure until I felt you leave
and now I can say that I know what it is to grieve

my heart, that's always had to make a fist
had finally learned how to hold someone's hand instead
and to use it's grasp to keep you in our embrace
and how to touch softly with fingertips unclenched

but now it has to try and learn to let go

the bathroom doesn't smell like your perfume by the sink anymore
and a meal by myself becomes the first of an uphill march
every time I laugh I notice you aren't here laughing with me
hangers sit bare in a half filled closet and one lonely pillow lays waiting
and the cold edges of the comforter touch me where you're not
even the greeting cards become just paper and ink
and the medication doesn't stop the tears
and I feel half filled too

I need more words than my only language has to lend
to explain the ways I hurt over having to give you up
I had no use for a heart when I found you and mine always made a fist
now I can remember so clearly all the reasons

why I never take the risks

I can't seem to forget all the ways I loved
the wrong hearts for so many days past
and I can't seem to erase the brutal memories my mind won't let go of
after learning that false love exists and that it's deep wounds last

fear has become the background to my every new desire
and every soft affection I have now needs a gasp of air
it puts a chill on my every new beginning's fire
and it repeats it's horrible lesson that life is never fair

keep me safe from the wretched redundant reminders
and keep for me my heart, the abandoned waif
and make the days spent away from hope a bit kinder
please keep my pains locked away, behind walls, in your strongest safe

I've no innocence left to give a new lover
there's no whole pieces of who I was left to fit back together
I don't have a way to hold you that won't smother
and I don't seem to have any beliefs that the past won't sever

there are no blank pages left in this soul
and I can't see bright days for it coming
not because of age, but because of loss, I feel so old
and overcome by the sad rhythm I alway catch myself humming

tired from treading oceans, I sink with pockets full of stones
and I am alone in ways only sea floors know
so I become the drowning and suffering and fractured bones
to survive I learn to hate, with black hate I can't seem to let go

after the purity that's been lost could I still be worth saving?
could I ever be seen as silver to be polished?
could I really be anything you've been craving,
after all of the past infliction has demolished?

the dreams of possibly still having spiritual love just tease me
and etch the permanence of it's absence in dark inked tattoos
and I hurt knowing that no kiss and no touch and no *** can release me
because any time spent together is just a closeness askew

so I turn the next bottle on it's head to see the bottom
knowing I could've have health and my baby son's love
but somehow I pushed summer colors into a fading autumn
and chose a life of lament for everyone I disposed of

now ambitions fade like stained glass at sunset
and my dreams choke down the realities of each day
and this heart in poverty pays only pennies of it's lonely debts
while the words and poems come out obtuse no matter what I say

my existence and it's damnable persistence
is more than the daily revisions of my self can survive
so I put the ice in another numbing glass
thinking of the younger me and the ways I use to thrive

kiss me, tell me I am worth loving, say I can find guiding light
grab me, hold me, tell me I am worth never sleeping alone at night
deliver me, come rescue me, give me a sanctum away from the spite
save me dear someone, please, convince me I can stop the bleeding after this fight