For the scent of you
To come back around
All I need do is take a breath
For the thought of your silhouette
To pirouette across my mind
All I need do is close my eyes
For the tremors of your love
To shake my westward soul
All I need do is glance back east

Where our rivulets run quiet
And the cherry blossoms bloom
Where raindrops pool in the shadows
And the sky pleads, "mercy, mercy..."

For the steps of your feet
To echo through these halls
All I need do is stop walking
For the shimmer of your silken hair
To erase all colors of the rainbow
All I need do is drift off to dream
For the rhythm of your heartbeat
To remind mine to skip a beat
All I need do is be still

Sitting where our rivulets run quiet
And the cherry blossoms bloom
Where raindrops pool in the shadows
And the sky pleads, "mercy, mercy...'

Mercy.

Outstretched hands
I'm governed by a cycle of choices
Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Dirt under my fingernails
I listen to a thousand voices
Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Gripping a shovel
I break earth and hit layers of shale
Break.
Stop.
Withdraw.

Eleven barren harvests
Yielding no fruit; just a thin, darkened veil
Break.
Stop.
Withdraw.

I suppose by now my disposition is bitter
From the gravitas that courses these bloodless veins
Write.
Speak.
Destroy.

I collect no glee from your failure
Nor scintillating coins that rattle at feet like chains
I just write.
Speak.
Destroy.

Step 1: fall, and fall hard
Step 2: give up a piece of yourself that you won't get back
Step 3: take a piece of someone else that they won't get back
Step 4: rinse
Step 5: repeat steps 1-4

Keep pace, troubled feet
I am chasing my ghost through corridors again
Where the dark is boundless
And light is hunted like a hungry mouse
Save face, troubled eyes
Close now, leave tomorrow to the visionaries
Where life has become a race to the graveyard
A place where all the winners finally lose

So, I revel in my own destruction
I am judged by the jury of my own chapped hands
And I stitch wounds that have,
For all intents and purposes, become threadbare

Stay here, faint whisper
Stay within the shadows where I can hear you
Leaps and bounds have been taken
But night won't abandon me like the cowardly sun
Don't fear, faint courage
Rise up, leave lethargy to its hibernation
Clutch tightly to the reasons for your existence
Break skin and bone if it means your survival

But, I revel in my own destruction
I'm judged by the jury of my own squinted eyes
And I stitch wounds that have,
For all intents and purposes, become threadbare

Silence!
The field mice have scurried off,
With the last of our sinister seeds
In their spangled, spiteful masquerade
Now the reddest of rivers carry wistful reveries
Out to a cold, callous sea
Tomorrow, the sun may climb once more
But where peace sleeps, war dreams

Coveter!
Dwell within your own spirit,
For these souls have wretched memories
And their willful, wanton deeds
May yet still sunder sons and daughters
From mothers and fathers
Tonight, we stitch our children back together
Because where peace sleeps, war dreams

I know that I am the reason
Behind my pain
My suffering
My loneliness

But yesterday has set forth in motion
A dream
A new dream
A better dream

One that brings a measured cadence
To my voice
To my song
To my existence

So now the stitches that I have sewn
Will no longer tear
When tugged
Or when stretched

And the world will rest at peace
With the spirit within
Me.  Myself.
And my soul.

If you only knew,
Of the weight that attached itself
To my heart
If you only knew,
Of the grief that I feel
Knowing I brought tears to your eyes
And if you only understood,
That you were my weightlessness all along
My respite
My home
My shoreline
Then maybe I wouldn't be tethered to this anchor
Still drifting in the current of my dreams

Timidly, I step from hue to hue
In darkly lit dreams, I trip over blue
November abates, but December shuns
Nimble feet dance across a midnight sun
In exile, I stray into a path of thorns
Tearing flesh from bone like a lover's scorn
Grief, like rain, soaks me from head to toe
Stars, without name, chased back to shadow
I blatantly defy the brittle words of a liar
Yet, timidly, I step across the ice and the fire
West we go, for our chances are fleeting
I miss the mess that I was, is history repeating?
A plea resounds through the battered night
Names unspoken, surely an oversight
Take my hand, follow me back to the abyss
Where brokenness is whole and ignorance is bliss

It's become clear that I've been charred by the lighting
And left deafened by the thunder
And somewhere along this trail of clouds
I've failed you
But the more I breathe, the more I believe
That the storm we weather
Will always make us savor the blue

The storm
It started long before I drew a breath
And it's bound to rage
Far beyond when I draw my last
The stars have been landing
Just outside of my front door
In such brilliant displays
Of silver, whispers, and fury
And I've been told there's a place
Full of dark veils and darker dreams
That we used to dance through
On our blinded path to the light
And to this madness
That has yet to speak, I say speak!
Be heard in this silent symphony
Do not linger in shadow, lurking
Because the storm
Is not yet halfway over yet
And all the hours we spend wringing
Would be far better served singing

All the shadows
Have gathered in the square
To sell their petty little trinkets
To those without a prayer
"Pennies on the dollar,"
Is the word on the wind
His cryptic smile is slowly curving
His broken mind relearns to bend

For he is as penniless as he is penitent
Sorrow spills across the cobblestone
Footsteps linger as long as rainbows
Memory outlives brittle bone
"Deal of a lifetime,"
Is the word on the wind
His dreams are crumpled papers
His shadow, his only friend

Echoes have grown quieter
Raindrops on the tin roof have grown softer
And daybreak feels like just the sequel to night

Patience has grown thinner
Vultures have grown bolder, and hungrier
And I find myself starting to sprout wings

I used to speak with a fraction of compassion
I used to smile with a tinge of yellow
I used to sleep with the promise of sweeter dreams

But now, the reality is,
Nothing makes me happy anymore,
Not even sadness.

And mired in that realization,
I am losing all sense of color
And by tomorrow, I may awake as pallid as the moon

I am astray, again
Or asunder, one of the two
These broken, branching, pathways
Have a knack for leading back to you
I am astray, again
Or softly spoken, one of the two
These broken, branching, pathways
Speak in whispers that sound like you
I am astray, still
Or forgotten, one of the two
These broken, branching, pathways
Have never erased my love for you

There are depths of him
That will never see the light of day
The best of intentions only dig deeper
The seeds he plants only wither and decay

"My undoing" says the poet,
"Is the pity behind my personae,"
"The faults lie at my doorstep,"
"An eternity away from utopia."

He will never declare peace with his pieces
No matter how many wars he has waged
He will never surrender to his demons
Never unlock the key to his cage

"But the true culprit of the caper," says the poet,
"The orchestrator of this somber symphony,"
"The dastardly villain behind the hideous mask,"
"Will always....be me...."

She is the lightning to my thunder
The one behind all my wonder
The gentle beauty to my erratic
The infallible melody to all my static
She is the patience to my haste
The kiss forever cemented in its taste
The mainland to my unsteady sea
The passion behind my every plea
She is the story I'm never erasing
The dream I will never stop chasing
The morning I want to wake up to
The lover I want to make love to
She is the compass to my misdirection
The light behind my dark reflection
The gravity when I'm drifting away
And the home where I want to stay

I am falling through a nightmare
Now that you're not there
To catch me anymore
I am slipping into darkness
Now that I am no longer your mess
To save drifting out from shore

I am dreading my own reflection
All these mirrored imperfections
Burning a hole through me
I am pleading for forgiveness
Now that I am no longer your mess
To pull out of this careless sea

I am falling through a nightmare
Now that you're not there
To catch me anymore
I am slipping into darkness
Now that I am no longer your mess
To save drifting out from shore

Days removed from the womb
And they tell you that you have your father's eyes
Your brother's hair
And your mother's fiery disposition

Years down the road
And they tell you that the sky has lost its color
And speak, ad nauseum, of how your fate is entwined
With that of only the fairest of maidens

Pattering feet thunder down the hallway
As serendipity bleeds from eye to cheek
And nothing, no one, of this world
Can exhaust its endless supply

At the midpoint of what textbooks describe only as 'crisis'
Is where motion and emotion collide
And everyone, even the fairest of maidens
Run screaming back to the safety of castle walls

Then, almost as swiftly as life began
Oxygen starts to taste poisonous on an unfurled tongue
As pupils contract, ****, wouldn't father be proud
Of a son who sees what he only wants to see

Then come the grains of truth in the fairy tale
The ones so fine, that you would need a microscope
While tomorrow feels more like a curse
And the blessings, have taken flight and left the nest

Here at last, I feel at peace with the war I've waged
And sunsets don't seem as violet as the violence I've left behind
My mother's fiery disposition
Now simply ashes swept away by eastward winds

Without a vestige of sanity left
Seems I have succumbed to the space between
The space between what is warm, and what is frigid
The space between what is fixed, and what is broken
The space between what is real, and what is figment

Without a vestige of brown in my eyes
Seems I have succumbed to the space between
The space between what is white, and what is black
The space between what is subtle, and what is manifest
The space between what is merely past, and what is prologue

Without a vestige of love left in my heart
Seems I have succumbed to the space between
The space between what causes a smile, and what causes a tear
The space between what floats, and what sinks
The space between what is found, and what is lost

"My dear, I am a vandal,"
I am an eclipse of your brightest days
I am merely hollow, and in great despair
A turquoise sunset in a sunrise maze
I am an event horizon
Better left to its own devices
We are fragile as a sundered vase
Reaching for stars when clouds suffice

"My dear, I am an arrowhead,"
I am doused in poison with no remedy
I am a covetous despot and a saboteur
Forever an omen of our catastrophe
I am the first feet in a field of mischief
A master seamster of discord
We hoard the rain in this eternal drought
Just to corrode, and rust, our lethargic swords

"My dear, I am a bane of goodwill,"
I am marshes in your gardens green
I am ravenous and armed with tongues
A veil over your dreams unseen
I am corruption in the incorruptible
I am a syndicate of deceit
We strive to thrive in a heartless abyss
Weaving webs and yarns of the bittersweet

Silver lullabies
Or golden symphonies?
Does it make a difference here
In the fallout of me?
There's a silhouette
Of my future failures
Cast upon the wall
By the violence of the violet
In her eyes
And now I dwindle
Receding into the twilight
Pushed through my own dreamcatcher
That you slipped right through
So gracelessly, so carelessly
And silver lullabies
Drown out golden symphonies
As my dreams keep on chasing you
I finally plead for tomorrow's mercy

I am currently failing to feel a pulse
And I am shriveling into nothing
The thought of waking up to this cold world
Concerns me,
     About as much as the icy breeze

I grasp at straws that all turn to ashes
I drown deeper within all the madness
I have closed all the windows in my heart
But instead,
      Blood seeps through cracks in the floor

I am poorly designed, not just broken
Made prisoner by a mind that's outspoken
I am famished but I feast on nothing
Besides the pain,
     Pain that my heart's been serving

I am an octave below the sound of silence
I am a victim of my own violence
And the straight line I've been walking
Is finally curving,
     Curving into a circle that is far from perfect

Metallic heart,
Savor what you can
While you can
And rest where you lie

Rain.

Sanguine flesh,
I will pierce thee
To feverishly rip, and tear
At these rusted-over heartstrings

Rust.

Sluggish pulse,
Hand over calloused hand
Wipe the luster from her brow
And drown me in the clamor

Pain.

Dangerous dreams,
I smell the rain from years away
I recede, and believe
That time won't repair this erosion

Lust.

.

Sometimes,
It's just hard to see it
But as time creeps on
It becomes clearer to me
That you, my dear,
Are just a fair-weather
Endeavor

Because,
In times of grey and disarray
You are nowhere
To be lost or found
And you, my dear,
Are the slowest form of
Quicksand

The demons in my head are trembling
From the madness that's overcoming me
There's only one step left to the bottom
But my feet only delay the inevitable

Your silence has kept me climbing
Your tripwires have kept me falling
Your many faces have blurred my vision
Our beautiful failures have erased my canvas

I need a new scar, so I dangle from the ledge
If only to glimpse at the love we once knew
No matter if love or hate laces our words
Treacherous, is our only state of mind

Maybe I'm a fraud, or just a demon myself
But I gave until my heart became an empty canteen
And though the end looms closer every hour
You drank 'til nary a drop was left

Light floods dilated pupils
As life scribbles its autograph upon them
White roses fall from the sky like rain
And I know there's no turning back now

Tilt me sideways, so the world is askew
For a minute, for a lifetime
Because I'm seeing everything for the first time
With this pair of brand new eyes

With no vanity, there is no mirror to break
And with no allegiance, there is no fate to disobey
I watch as the colors flee from predators
And I know there's no turning back anymore

This sharp breath that I finally inhale
Destroys me from the inside out
Because I'm seeing everything for the first time
With this pair of brand new eyes

I am off...
Slightly to the left.
No.  Slightly to the right.

Never straight, never
perfect.

I am disarray...
Out of order.
Out of sorts.

Never aligned, never pristine.

I am inharmonious...
Causing a cringe.
Causing a sigh.

Never melody, never beautiful.

But, I am content...
On my island.
In my sanctuary.

Always me, always in dream.

.

Frivolous fairytales?

Frivolous fairytales, be ******
These goals are anything but lofty
I have owned my past mistakes,
But seems my demons still own me

Frivolous fantasies?

Frivolous fantasies, be expunged
Because the taste of your salty skin
Kept me dehydrated,
From outer layers to depths within

Frivolous affection?

Frivolous affection, be absorbed
By the heartless pit in your chest
For my blood is still flowing,
But this love needs laid to rest

Embedded in my consciousness
Clouds of endless fire and fever
Lick at my salty face like a lazy waterfall
I have been unraveled outside the stratosphere, where
Pieces of starlight consume my decaying skin
Sun and moon crash, collide, eventually crumble, and
Everything I once touched, no longer touches me

The rust across your eyes
Should have been a shallow warning
The ease in which I become a failure
Should have been clearer by now

Perhaps the trust I bartered
Was just a copper coin of insignificance
And maybe, the kiss that lingered
Just smeared against the windowpane

The heralds came and left
Their static signals clamoring in our minds
The ringing in my ears won't fade
While we tepidly embrace our fate