Bodies shiver
On a night of thunder
Eyes stay open
Thoughts bedridden
Lying side by side
It's better staying inside.

I want to write this poem
Like a band-aid
For a knuckle scrape the stucco frustration

The adrenalin shiver
Maybe you look at your fingertips
And know you'll never be a doctor

A poem that finds you peaceful

We go to exrtremes so often
This middle ground has leeway
Move around in it

There are things I need to say
Halfwritten letters
Stacked inside a gut-heavy dumbwaiter
And if I ever found the courage to pull the rope
I might choke

This poetry gets scared sometimes
I know you get scared sometimes
There are memories you re-live
Like a masochistic dvr
Or a photo album labeled
"Let's not go back to this place"

I want there to be poems in response to this

A literary anitbiotic
For the sickness we create

There is a reason chemistry makes use of the alphabet

And I find myself searching for the language
Like a child holding his head up to the rain with his mouth open
And wondering why he never feels a single drop touch his tongue
Like a scientists he decides that the water evaporates because of the heat in his breath
So he holds it

It has taken me years to finally understand
You don't need to hold your breath
But you do need to be still
And the reason you think the rain never touches your tongue
Is because your tongue is already wet

And you
Every moment of you
Already is poetry

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

“They’re killing my art”, I enounced, once more.
I cannot remember how long it has been,
since I’ve taken reason to account me the pleasure of truth.

Too long since I’ve allowed
the eloquence of ambiguity to persuade me
like a drunken, sunken, driven violin
that by its arduous harmony
knows not love
but the expression entangled
between deception and madness.


What a lovely step,
each and every step
of every pronounced pitch; rhyme - never to be heard, once more,
and never again;
should these feelings fade,
should I know any more.

I know not less than written
formalities and informalities,
messages, designs, rules;
they’re teaching me how to think,
how to drool over so-called precious,
unblemished restrictions,
while the only thing I can procure is
“they’re killing my art”.

They are killing me,
with every step;
every step of a pronounced pitch
that only grows louder as I grow older; weaker.

They are attempting to make me a follower,
attempting to rid of all
mesmerizingly morbid sensations
engraved in my sphere - even me, even you.

I could not recall the last moment
I tried to picture your smile,
still now,
I deny myself the ruthless pleasure.
I do remember, it was cold,
I felt a rigid tangent of merciful memories raiding;
all I could bestow of tendered hope,
then I remember dissolution.

“They’re killing my art”,
they dare deny it.
They dare to outstand me
and enforce me to exhibit myself as a self-evoked,
developed work of admiration
only so that they could indulge of a sense of liberty
while they are chained to an unsustainable
glimpse of stability they dare defy as happiness.

Much unlike myself,
much more like you.
It was a fault,
you’ve only ever wanted to be loved, accepted.
The moment in which they took
the blossoming of your efforts
with calid gestures and tinted words,
pitifully glanced upon your seldom eyes
with a misunderstood applause,
you felt at home.


But I could not stand it,
for I am no more than you,
and no less than myself.
I apprehended that while they exalted our blossoms,
they knew not our roots.

They cared not for our feelings,
for the treasures we buried
beneath every step of every word,
in every line.

they only admired what they were taught to,
and diminished what they loved
but soon were taught to forget.

For we are us,
“not them”,
how many times could I have repeated
these words before you stubbornly gave in?

Sometimes I still listen to you,
after all,
you are me, and I am you,
but I chose to evade you
in a sad and solid place,
where I, too, exhibit my sorrows,
and the brief explanations
which one brought me
to become a beautiful being
but are no longer relevant,
driven.

Sometimes I still listen to you,
when I am lost,
and I find not an excuse to better,
fearing I have become like them, while I wonder,
“why not? is it so wrong to belong?
Is it so wrong to **** a part of myself?”
For I have done so with you,
and shall never regret it.

While every time I listen to you,
I am comforted,
blindly submerged, yet alive;
reminded that no matter
how cold and frighting
a lonely path may guide me,
it shall never be as empty
as a world without art,
for that, is me.

My need is to let my pen drip and let the puddles form letters. These letters find who they feel comfortable with like my hand searches for a pen or pencil because it feels comfortable with one. My right hand feels naked, feels as if a part of it has been cut away, if there is not a writing tool in its grasp or near its fingertips. I am sure the letters feel naked as well without the other letters to form words. The words move left, some push to get their spot on the right, until all are in their proper place and a story appears. But the problem is never what to tell though there is much to say. No the problem is how to share a story. Should I compose a book with a character’s flaws and misgivings and then he or she rises to the top? Or should I be very blunt, pluck one word from the endless word vine and let the letters run sideways? Or maybe just tell a story in the format of 5-7-5? Or just let my hand move to and fro until words no longer clog my head and cloud the insides of my eyes, until I empty for the day? However I tell my story, or the story of others, my pen, or whatever tool I use, will never dry. It will drip endlessly

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

.

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.