I've challenged myself to,
in a manner of speaking,
summarize what I've learned,
To look within see where I've been and what I've picked up along the way,
And
I've learned looks are deceiving,
Like, life is a masquerade ball.
Where people tend to put on a disguise so strangers aren't a danger and potential friends will be lost in a crowd,
I've learned that until we wear true faces no ones character matches the way they look, even though I've tried to wear a mask my heart constantly is bleeding on my sleeve,
Beautiful facades can only cover what's inside.

I've learned that I take for granted what's right in front of me,
That time is substantial and that I don't spend enough thought considering it a blessing.
I've learned that buyers remorse is not only found in cash but also in seconds.
That I need to balance how I spend differently.
That people spend a lot of time wishing for what they can't have,
For example if wishes were fishes I could feed the 5,000 and then some.
the fast life isn't that attractive when you watch someone crash,
And the most interesting man in the world can't seem to quench his thirst.
I've learned that with a blessing comes multiple curses.
That I need to focus less on the volume and more on the value,
That even if the glass is half empty there's still water in the cup,
Positivity helps in negative situations,
Chasing the sun at sunset will leave you wondering "when did time get so fast?"
And where you got left behind.
I've learned that running from your problems will only make you die tired.
That if you run into a wall you probably built it.
and walls make my head hurt
And the ones I've built have forced me to navigate through a maze.
Frankly,
I still struggle finding my way back to the place I first started.
I've learned that looking to the past to change the future leaves us all nostalgic,
I can still picture all the times I got tripped up by the lines that didn't lead to anything.


I've learned looks are deceiving,
Like, life is a masquerade ball.
Where people tend to put on a disguise so strangers aren't a danger and potential friends will be lost in a crowd,
Until we wear true faces no ones character matches the way they look,
even though I've tried to wear a mask my heart constantly is bleeding on my sleeve,
Beautiful facades can only cover what's inside.

I've learned that I take for granted what's right in front of me,
That time is substantial and that I don't spend enough thought considering it a blessing.
I've learned that buyers remorse is not only found in cash but also in seconds.
That I need to balance how I spend differently.
That people spend a lot of time wanting what they can't have,
if wishes were fishes I could feed the 5,000 and then some.
the fast life isn't that attractive when you have someone else open your eyes,
people want what they can't have,
And the most interesting man in the world can't seem to quench his thirst.
I've learned that with a blessing comes multiple curses.
That I need to focus less on the volume and more on the value,
That even if the glass is half empty there's still water in the cup,
Positivity helps in negative situations,
Chasing the sun at sunset will leave you wondering "when did time get so fast?"
And where you got left behind.
I've learned that running from your problems will only make you die tired.
That if you run into a wall you probably built it
and walls make my head hurt
And the ones I've built have forced me to navigate through a maze.
frankly,
I still struggle finding my way back to the place I first started.
That looking to the past to change the future leaves us all nostalgic,
When looking back I get tripped up by the lines that didn't lead to anything.

Imitation is the finest form of flattery,
And can lead to great self-deception.
I've magic tricked myself into believing that every thing I say and do honors the Creator God I claim I love in speech but spite in action.
That actions speak louder than bumper stickers,
Christians are as flawed as everyone else,
Ive found the dark is comfortable,
That I might as well be a cockroach if I don't like the truth
It takes more courage to say your wrong than it does to tell someone else is,
the truth is infinitely more difficult to see if your eyes are always closed.
People who claim they know everything tend to also be the ones too naive to say they're still learning.
And what we call freedom of choice leaves us without it.
the best prison is the one you don't realize you're in.
I've been incarcerated all my life not knowing that I have been.
See I've had an epiphany.
I've been a prisoner of war my whole life.
Born fighting not able to choose my side
Intrinsically infected with a disease from birth.
With a human body and a zombie for a soul.
And I constantly wonder if the dead still rise.
I think they do.
See, nothing in this broken world is free.
Not even your heart beat.
But the gift of love is about as free as it gets.
So here's my gift to you.
Because I love you.
In a world where nothing is flawless and where not everything that glitters is gold.
Gods gift of perfect love is the most free you could be.
About 6,750 days of experience has gotten me this far.
See I challenged myself to summarize
what I've learned.
To look with in see where I've been and what I've picked up along the way.
And for your sake.
I hope you learn the same.

A normal person from the west would see a town square here,
They’d see light from the sky,
Bricks in the walls,
Nothing to hide from
or expect from the outside,
They don't look on the hearts,
Oh the tragedy. Oh the tragedy

The faces of people they didn't want.
A model for what not to be,
They had no way to choose who they were.
They couldn't choose to be anyone else.
Oh the tragedy.
                 A wall covered in faces with names,
names with stories,
stories with feelings and hopes and dream,
So many stories that will never be said a billion years ahead,
I feel so small.
When windows have no reflection,
the intention was intending for us to not see ourselves in the picture.
I’m as cracked as the next man,
On a train to what only the darkest of dark men could find in the deep nooks of their black hearts.
Hearts like ours only hope to hide our eyes from the horrors
See the scars of total depravity
as we all fell of the rails from the start,
Who are we?
Oh! the tragedy

(STUMP)
"I marked the place of mass graves. Blood sprayed on my skin and my eyes looked into the eyes of all these dead men, women and children.
I saw them slaughtered like lambs. Watched hundreds of them be shot and murdered.
I now find my rest looking into the eyes of new faces,
those with tears and steely eyes, trying to hide their emotions."
Oh the tragedies I saw.
Oh the scars they carry."

(Boy with the sign)
Speaking doesn't take your lungs to send a message,
When dead men will say the atrocity was not the Jew;
but the people looking back at us.
--I wonder how old he was when he decided to
become enemies with his neighbor.
Oh the tragedy

They say building bridges
connects and unites,
I see here it’s used to do the opposite.
Bro-ken a p ar t like the way we came into this w o rld,
The separation from men
-and men
is perceived as the separation of men
and monsters,
Thieves and
liars,
Deceived and
Deceivers,
Bridges made to break what’s already broken.
Oh the tragedy.
(THE SOLDIER)
I killed a man in the hopes they would tell no tales
I raised my gun at his filthy heart in the
hopes to give him what he deserved
I am his executioner,
His god,
His judge”
I don't look him in the eyes cause he doesn’t deserve that
oh what a beautiful future it shall be
As I BANG
Men will look on me in the future and say…

Oh the tragedy.

"They did what was right in their own eyes."
How weak we are when we think we are strong.
All that falls apart had a place to start.

I'm stalling
Trying to hold back the truth in all honesty,
Filling the empty air with...
What ever is within reach and light enough to throw
Trying to keep hold of your attention without revealing the intentions of my actions
I'm stalling,
Fumbling over my words like a quarterback getting sacked and hoping that you'll catch what I'm trying to say
What can I say?
Can't form the words without shattering the fabric of what ties our lives together

 a Wish...

See I've learned that if you sit silently when people ask you a question
 they wonder if you're paying attention.
Or if they make cents while your trying to register
what they're saying or if you're trying to change your mind
People don't see what's jumping around behind your eyes
They only see the stalling...
I'm stalling
Attempting to push back the deadline to the expiration date of this definite dead-end relationship
As I futilly to resurrect dead memories hoping that the ghost of what used to be will reanimate but in all honesty I have doubts.

A wish,
To fill the void where my love for them used to be
While emptying a Pandoras box of vexation  in a confined and constructed yet confusing confession...
this obsession with stalling sends me bouncing off walls hoping my actions will speak for my words,
I'm stalling.
Trying to push the bars of times prison cell hoping that the seconds will last a little longer than the last one,two,three,four.
Seconds
minutes
hours
days
weeks
months
years.
But eventually time will stop giving me passes on making the past an eventual future;
These stalls will complete their decay and die and I'm only hoping to die with them...
I'm hoping that I won't have to face the lies I've been hiding under my breath.

The truths I've hidden under my bed

The lies crawling from my lips

And the anger I've buried in my chest

It's scary what lengths man will go to hide the truth;
And I think I've gone too far.

If i told you i needed help
would you listen?
Or would your silence
Echo off the walls.
See my life is like a car,
Sometimes moving fast
And other times so **** slow.
If i told you i feel hurt inside
would you not just hear
but listen
to what i said
I need someone to care.
Im tired of trying to fight alone.
Im tired of trying to survive at a table for one.
If i told you
I cry all over my body
And each tear is a knife
And they are leaving scars on my flesh,
Would you cut me a bandage,
Sop up my blood,
Or leave me to bleed out.
If i told you
I was alone and my demons are taunting me
would you get me out
Or would you keep walking
or keep scrolling...
Im not begging for attention,
But one cannot be expected to be alone and silent like a life long detention.
If i told you
I was ready to confess everything
Come clean from my secrets,
Strip myself naked so you could see my imperfections
would you care even the slightest bit
Or are you so selfish
And so ignorant
To walk on
And leave this person to die.
If i told you i was ready to die
would you blame it in cliche,
Or believe it and save me from damnation
Its time to think.
It could be up to you
This isnt just my world,
Its yours, too
and dont you want to be
somebody
To someone?
I need you.
Because all of these "if i told you's
Are becoming
**im telling you

So,
they say you can read a person like a book if you look from the right point of view.
If you try to...
Read deep enough into the book you may actually understand the person as a whole.
But when I look at you I feel fogged because where words should be is empty space.
A black hole.
With infinite knowledge and
Secrets like
Like empty space in our conversation where I should be attempting to say something funny but I only feel the tension that could be cut with a twig.
Or...
Your soft stare because your warm eyes seem to draw me.
Catching my glance like I'm stumbling I ask a question that I already think I may or may not know the answer to.
Only to end up mystified again.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul.
But when I get the guts to try to verify its like I'm a peeping tom with tinted windows on the other side.
I see my own reflection,
Myyyy own...
Confusion
My pauses in my sentences that I try to fill with a smile that fills about as quick as it takes to pour out water.
Or blank like my soul search history
But I got mostly doubt
I strike out
Because I got all L's when I tried
And when I tried to go for the goal I tied on the way through the ribbon.
Last time I tried to read someone the game was  over before the first base was ever touched.
And all my " loves " were L's or lies because I lied to myself in saying I was an okay person or that somehow my dream girl would become reality
Because this heart is open for realty
Realtor is Cupid with a diaper and tie but I may end up with another tie because when I asked if u wanted to hang when u came back.
You said yes.
And then you asked why it was awkward for me
I said somethin like umm it was...
Nothing that I could remember
But I remember the feeling I got when I got caught in that smile like the tide. Thing is I thought I could read your emotions but could never read between the lines.

And then I blink again and we are in an embrace.  
And after the "date" we never went on
I think I tried to save face.
But the mask was more of my real face and it was blushed
All the guts that I had were kinda flushed with the flirtation and...
Space that is or isn't between us.
Because that 5 second rule was probably established between just us
And now I got space bars where my voice should be
But it's become more of an injustice
My puzzlement got me locked up in this prison
That I've been living in since the beginning offfff...
this year.
And there's a fire in your eyes its plain to see
And right now I'm hoping this is not another fantasy.
Like every book there's always the words and those are plain to see
But when I open the book I can read the seen words but the mystery lies between the lines.
So in a leap of faith I,
I cast my lines.
But, where do they lead?

They say hearts get torn easily,
Like the fabric of those thin shirts you like to wear when it's hot outside,
and those tightly knit fibers that have been aligned and In sync since the day it was was strung together now seems feeble and fragile
And these young hearts like ours are torn from the wear and tear and get faded from getting washed from the tears and all the salt that comes from your heart being shattered to pieces,
Hearts like ours
quilted ones with different fabrics
Some soft some hard all have to be put back together like jigsaw puzzles and be made somewhat new again but not all the pieces fit together completely
See the complexity of a heart is that even the most calloused,hardened, scarred ones need to be filled with something.
The fractured missing from the whole get sown back together and redesigned to learn to deal with the pain they just experienced. And then the fabrics are made complete with safety pins to make sure the fabric stays pieced together in turmoil
See hearts like ours need safety pins like any other fabric in our life needs to be washed
Whether by hand or by beating and battering the crap out of it hearts like ours
Fragile hearts like ours need cleaning
And like any other well used fabric
hearts like ours fade and wrinkle and tear but they're still the same
Our hearts are still the same

I wonder if,
nightmares are from the monsters trying to be free
I can sometimes feel them
Seeping into my being in my slumber
Taking over my frame of mind so that the facets of glass leave me blind to any sign of light in the dark.
It's so dark here
And I'm fumbling for function like fumbling for the right words and moments of clarity  these typewriter lines make incoherent sentences
and I but I can't be stop be heard
Because nightmare-sleep leaves me a victim
And I can't erase it,  
Can't escape it
Backspace doesn't exist in the dreamworld
Where reality is a distant memory,
Until the blank spaces and missteps
Get covered up by white out and wishes of waking up in the morning to a day where there are no monsters hiding behind my eyes

I wonder if,
nightmares are from the monsters trying to break free
They bite at their chains
Claw at their prison
Fight for what freedom they have as they baptize my mind with the coldness of their poison,
Neurotoxin making my nerves go hay wire,
Entrapping me in a trance
I try to escape
Not letting me break from the pain that they inflict on my brain and body
Assault and battery convicts stampeding  like elephants across my minds eye making me beg for control
But the guards aren't in charge of the prison anymore
It's so cold here

I think monsters use
nightmares to break free
Because when the sun rises again
I'm left with the scars
And it's a battle to let them stay behind the facade of,
"Everything's alright"
Depression presses through the fake smiles and laughs,
And stretches the sinews of my hope until they scream,
Scream at the world to stop spinning
And until I wake up
The ash and dust that is my temporary refuge
suffocates the hope of my escape from reality
And makes my nightmares come true
Because when we have nightmares we are prisoners too.
It's so lonely here
all in my head
Where reality is a distant memory,
And wishes of waking up in the morning to a day where there are no monsters hiding behind my eyes
Dance across my subconscious
Like stars in the sky,

I wonder what would happen if I let the monsters free,
Let them out of their chains
Freed them of their cages and let them crawl out of my mouth with the wind of my breathing letting them take flight and disappear in the distance.
I wonder if they would come back thinking my mess of a mind is where they belonged or if they would take refuge with the skeletons in my closet and comeback to haunt me.
I'll let them out
Watch them fly away
And go to sleep

The damage they left behind is still there
But,
It's not so dark here anymore...