How many more beautiful hearts will I spoil
All high and unavailable, their eyes occluded
With sorrow as they watch me slip towards a sorry death

How many times can I keep walking into a
Burning building, a sea of tongues I cannot keep pace with
Before I stop returning, always short of breath

How many years have I wasted wringing
My hands in quiet discomfort and worrying
When all this worrying will stop

How many more patient friends will slip from view
As I blind myself with false changes, as I lie in waste
Through my solitude, wondering why no one is here

To rinse the poverty from my ruined eyes

elephants stomping on my head
laugh as they draw blood
fragmented ideals scatter in the wind
as trampled dreams mix with dust

cemented in 'supposed to'
hiding behind other people's 'shoulds'
jackhammer disappointment
crushes bones with broken boundaries

play me a song
to make it look pretty
and I'll pretend to dance
with you in foggy yesterday's

karaoke soundtracks
to a stranger's tears
that leave the heart blind
tripping acid just to see in forgotten colors

breathing bacteria
from the soles of shoes
wiped on my forehead
as they said, 'hello'

a mosaic of skull puzzles
grouted in the remnants of the ****
left behind as everyone
just walks away

shadows smell clean in dark corners
where colors are left to die
in clouds of expectation
leaving truth buried in the ruble

...of who they thought I was

what shall i write today
on this scrawny paper?

when a lion decides
to grow wings
and the old man wants
to become a toddler again.

when fire is ice
and ice is something else

when a melting *** can't hold heat
and loses its shape.

when a heart is prancing
and legs grabbing

when a man is not a man
but a rocking chair
swaying back and forth
and back
and forth
and back
and forth

on the brink of night

waiting, eyes open.

nothing in me is still

but nothing outside moves

hours of staring at lightless window

wasting time thinking about

the wrong person.



A glimpse of the moon

parted by leaves

outside my window

reminds me of how alone I am.

Always the one standing at the passageway

under the busy road

wasting time thinking about

the wrong

person,

I.

A cacophony of wasted space in a mind too full to see
boring holes to breathe or vent
or pray that there is no light to be let in

Was never done dying before yesterday moved
tomorrow is last year a lifetime ago
today, erased by was and will

Tears can't dry in incessant floods
bleeding acid that feeds unhealing wounds
in a mix of steroids and parasites

Faced with all that perception ever was
altered reality in crushed emotion
scraping the dregs of feeling to find a place to sleep

Jagged shards of memories offer the most comfort
as they slice what attempted to heal
killing me slowly anew with each passing moment

Moments torn in a million pieces of equal pain
encased in cemented ideals and rosy falsehoods
yesterday is the only reality left

Outside a clenched fist holding onto nothing
blood crusts in black paint
open or closed, there's nothing left to see

Longing to bleed out through the ****** of dreams
left to die in a place that packs holes with dirt
enough to exist in an invisible life

Killing the long ago before it finishes what it started
seems its own nightmare of weakness
will it alive or will it dead, just will something and make it so

A lifetime of dying in a half-life of truth
gray eats black as anguish feeds on beauty
nothing remains in untouched memories

I etched patterns into a tree with a pocket knife that had a red plastic handle
            Indentions such as these never stay
            Yet eternally we press against the world

        Hoping to make a mark that will shine in the daylight and glow in the dark
                    ~

           I'm a shriveled slice of the Americana pie
      With my soul on a swivel and the devil in my eyes

       Life was a son of a ***** with fists that spat dirt when it spoke
                And it ONLY screamed.
        
         ~

   I'm somewhere between *David Duchovny and Stephen King
      And I'm trying to rip up manuscripts that I didn't write and I don't know who did.

      Goodnight America. My patterns will explain my existence more than I ever could.

I blinked, Time winks with a smile.
He holds my hands steady and slow;
Guides me through the Cosmos, the
Only constant I've ever known. See,
Some will come, and some will go;
But this life is mine alone. And how
Beautiful are the things he has shown?

I will wait
blindly scraping through each day
on skinless knees
clawing through with bloodied fingers
searching for the truth to clench to

I will wait
in the bowels of a twisted mind
bending flickers to shadows
in endless search of the light
that teased with relentless promise

I will wait
for this Hell to freeze my bones brittle
buried in glacial daydreams
of a time that day meant
I could feel the warmth of the sun

I will wait
for the accidental happiness
that covered me like a puddle I fell into
while stumbling through existence
simply drawing breath

I will wait
in jagged darkness for the only reality
that makes sense of this place
for in that union is peace so pure
it washes the universe in light

So, yes, I will wait
an eternity of gaping wounds
bathed in the brine of silence
never giving voice to the grated truth
of the best part of who I am

Striated thoughts broken
by a life in dappled light
Shadows cool the flame
flickering wildly in exhalation
Stars mimic streetlights
in memories long left behind
Each speck a lifetime
and life seems eternal
Traversing shadows reluctantly
cloaking truth in darkness
A trail of flesh glitters
a path dragged on bended knee
marked by pieces of me I
just couldn't hold onto
Light debrides road-rash
unapologetically
Each transferred piece that replaced
a speck of who i was
slowly leaves a void in the shape
of the very damage the shadows blind
Can you see the truth
The light shines on the perfect pieces
for the world to ogle
as shadows mask the tattered flesh
of a life that tastes like
the muddy shoe that bludgeoned
it unrecognizable
Who are we if not who we were
Who can bear the truth
and still pretend to love the unloveable
Who can see what I cannot show
as fear has stunted joy
in the dappled light
that breaks each thought to pieces

Confined in close quarters
begging for quarantine
love tastes like carrion

Breathing mold spores
appeals more than
the kiss of a dying heart

For to taint joy
with the stink of decay
haunts honesty with living lies

A heavy heart
cannot power the light
that fuels a soul