Whenever
you enter
a room,
your
whole life
enters
with you.

---

Once I wandered
into the labyrinth
of madness.
I spent
some quality
time there.
I don't know
that all of me
returned.

---

We were as gods then, he said, but the clocks came and rendered our lives into pieces.

---

People misunderstand me;
I only mean what I am.

---

On good mornings
I wake up
and sincerely vow
to change my life
for the better
which never
seems to happen.
On bad mornings
I realize that
I am what I am
and even
in America,
land of
mindless optimism,
endless second chances,
tsunamis of self-help books,
and an infinity
of religions,
that is all
I'll ever be.

---

If something
we value
means nothing,
then more
of something
becomes
an excess
of nothing.

---

Life without
a woman
to temper
my stupidities
is difficult
indeed.

===

It is easy
in stray moments
to forgive
yourself.

---

Don't be afraid of the world;
it isn't afraid of you.

---

Love rarely suffices;
friendship often does.

---

You are
the only sunlight
on my skin;
when you go,
I slip
into darkness.

---

The future
is a patient
dog,
always beside us
waiting
to be noticed.

---

I would die
for your eyes.
   ~mce

Did you know
over 100,000 people
die every year by
careless drivers, slippery stairs,
not following printed directions,
lapses in common sense,

These are common errors we share.

Some of us get lucky,

we evade, we clutch the banister,
we start at step one,
We double check electrical wires,
& carry scissors blade down,
never running.

People die at work all the time,

on the Monday morning drive,
rear ended in traffic on a rainy
Thursday night.

The 9 to 5 can take you,

spirited away at the desk
during a 45 page monthly report,

you get to cell C83
on worksheet 8
and your heart explodes
from stress,

blood vessels burst in
your brain like black cats
on Halloween night
from strain,

All for a gold watch,
a 401 k,

so your wife can smile
and your children can
play in their backyard.

We do it for 48 hours we can
call our own.

5 days of Hell
for two days in Heaven

means the devils
get their dues
and the gods
give yours to you.

Oh, Weekend
Mourn,
How I love thee.

I wake up
when I wake up,
no alarms needed.

Sometimes I shower after
coffee, sometimes after
dinner.

Death leaves me alone
leaves me to my
streaming movies,
old books
and my poetry.

Oh, Weekend
Mourn
How I love thee

No worksheets.
No stress.
No Death.

Until Monday,

everything is fine,

until Death wakes me
with a whisper

"Get up,
It's almost time."

Oh, Weekend
Mourn
How I love thee.

you sent me a love letter, a message in a bottle
but when i cracked it open i cut up my hands.
i guess i’m the same way;
i wrote you a love song
but i forgot i didn’t know how to sing,
so i yelled the words at your window like
i was flinging pebbles and you told me to put down
my boombox because i was going to wake up
the whole **** neighborhood
with my teenage angst,
my painfully naive i love you-s.
i think my heart is too loud for suburb lawns
and white picket fences.
and i guess that’s the trouble with us;
we were always
controlled chaos, a dormant volcano
and all the kids counted down to the eruption
like they were waiting for the other shoe to drop  
and numbered their calendars for a date
that should’ve been on a unmarked grave.
and we’ve just got short fuses,
kisses and bruises
because when someone is the pin to your grenade
when someone is the oil spill to your wildfire
you’ve always got to be wary of explosions.
and we were always going to ***** each other over,
we were always going to
burn too bright, burn out too fast.
because i was just a pretty girl in a sundress,
and this is just a memory you’ve been trying to repress
hand clenched in the fabric of us,
so determined to not let the inevitable happen on schedule.  
and i love you so i’ll ruin you, it’s inevitable
and i love you so you’ll leave, it’s inevitable
and i love you so it’s not going to work out like i want it to.
it’s just... inevitable.
there’s no avoiding it the future unless
you take your own away.
sometimes i have to remind myself five times a day
that destruction, that implosion,
that falling apart isn’t as poetic as i think it is.
and now, i’m biting my tongue to keep from saying
baby, bring home the wreckage
maybe there’s still something there for us to salvage
and if we're a sinking ship, i'll go down with you
and if we’re doomed, i’ll be ****** with you.
because i’m still thinking there’s an off chance,
because i’m still thinking that maybe if you still...
i’m still thinking that all this time
i was just wishing on the wrong star and there’s still a chance,
there’s still wishes to waste
and coins to throw in the fountain
and eyelashes to count on.
but you know somebody once told me
that the stars aren’t really there, we’re just seeing
footprints of where they used to be.
we’re always looking a galactic graveyard, a sky littered
with the star-studded remains of supernovas.  
always thought you were more of a black hole than a star,
but maybe there’s some truth to every cliche;
i see everywhere you used to be clearly,
i can see your presence in every absence.
because i miss you terribly
and i know i’m not supposed to.
but i still wonder what you’re thinking about sometimes.
i still wonder about the stars
you’re looking at sometimes.
i still wonder if we see
the same constellations
anymore.

You know poetry is your life
when you initially wake
and you're already in a conditioned mind state
reciting lines in your head

You know poetry is your life
when you go to bed
and rhymes are drifting you
away into a sleeping state

You know poetry is your life
when you are driving along
and you suddenly pull over
just to scribble down some narrative thoughts

You know poetry is your life
when you are at work
and you refrain from doing your job
just so you can jot down some formal expression

You know poetry is your life
when you are reading the mail
and even names and numbers
inspire a distinctive phrase

You know poetry is your life
when thy words of choice
become rapid fluency
and part of the Shakespearean language

You know poetry is your life
when random collections seamlessly take over
and are scattered everywhere
from journals, to loose papers, hard drives, & accumulating memory

You know poetry is your life
when you begin to realize
and everyday you must traditionally release
the spoken word writes to its divine legacy

You know poetry is your life
when you are typing away
and all of a sudden,
you lose your precious work
yet you can still retrieve the files
from one's own mental database

Poetry is your life
Life is your poetry
Whether you live a good one
Whether you live a bad one
Poetry is real
Poetry is fake
What is it really?
What is it not?

Poetry is your life
A therapeutical salvation
Cycle through the emotional manifestation
Peddle away from the soul's padlock
A spiraling staircase that leads you to freedom
The universal process of exhibiting experience
It's a divine intervention
Revelations of truth and discovery
Creating artful expression of one's existence
You know poetry is your life