It's been a while
It's been so long
It feels wrong

What are you?
What have you become?
What are you since I've been gone?

Shall I see growth
Or regression
Is it safe to call that progression

So much is different now
Who am I
To tell you what code to live by

Who am I
To judge your journey
Because at the end you will be worthy

But the return
The return
These painful scars, they burn

To carry these burdens
So far
But back here how usesless they are

The return is never what it seems
No welcome for the hero
Just pain that they must never know

I return to emptiness
Scars and pain no one can heal
I am alone in my battles that no one can feel

So we carry on, drag our feet
As we journey on to places no one has ever been
To things no one else has ever seen

To each his own
Battles to carry
Demons to burry

And we return,
We return to the things we used to know
And find they no longer suit us like they did all that time ago

Where to we go from here?
We only wanted to go home
But home is no longer the place we had known

Where to then?
For heroes at their journey's end?
Is there no place left for them to mend?

The return
The return is never what you dreamed
You come back and more time has passed than had seemed

And the return is painful
But you come and anyway you smile
Because after all that you know it is worth the while

To have left and grown
To witness what you left behind
For the greatness you came to find

The Return
It's been so long
It feels so wrong
But I think this isn't where I belong

The city before 6am.
Frozen. Abandoned. Empty.
If you are up early enough there's not a soul left for miles.
Just a creeping silence that's not even silent; but oddly alive with bird calls and wind whistles.
Oh the conversations you can have with the world before 6am.
The wind stirs it's way past every sleepy shop and household telling it's own haunting stories.
Plays with the trash and the flags on the street and they dance with a heart of their own.
I like this. Being witness to the waking of the world.
Slowly the dawn of grey shrinks back from the oncoming storm of colors; pinks and yellows and oranges gradually growing brighter by the second.
And the people begin to peak their heads out; stretch their little bodies and rev up their little minds and soon the streets overfill with busy beings.
Chatty as they are the bird's voices are trampled over with mundane screeches and screams; and the wind's already wheezing tune is diminished down to a mere annoyance.
Suddenly life fills the street in a different way.
The city before 6am.
Frozen. Abandoned. Empty.
At peace.

There are few things I truly love in this world

I love the mountain tops when the sun sets beneath them

I love the ocean when it crashes and cries on the shore

I love the trees in the forest when they are green and full of life

I love the air when it's pure and fragrant with springtime perfume

I love my dogs when they come racing by to be pet

I love my family when they get together for crazy afternoons

I love myself when I stand tall confident and beautiful

I love how you grasp my hand when we walk

I love how you kiss the tears off my face when I've broken down

I love how your arms wrap around me when I need your strength

I love how you make me feel whole when I am empty

I love you when you come into my life and bring me joy

I love all that you are when you're you

These are the things I love with all my heart

And that includes you

Memory is too fragile
Too often it forgets the past
All your happiness is faded
Your timeline, unsure and jaded

It remebers the biggest stuff
The "important" events and things
But leaves out intamacy
In the details of legacy

The little day to day gestures,
Moments of bliss are neglected
"Insignifigant" adventure
And all the laughter that they lure

These are the things I want to keep,
What I want memorialized
On my conciousness for ever
All these times we shared together

Precious moments unforgotten
Like the wind tossling my hair
And you sliding it back in place
How you lightly caressed my face

Every breathless time my heart stopped
And butterflies bred at  your touch
Every kiss imprinted in time
The veiws from the mountains we climb

The way we shudder and tremble
And whipser "I Love you" 's with care
The jokes  we shout, the games we play
The songs we sing, the things we say

These fleeting moments are ereased
To make way for pain or glory
Things with ceremony or scars
Not as good as sleeping in cars

Let my legacy be of my
Good times, fun times, small times when I
Made a difference for once and for
The smiles and laughs of my trade floor

I want to remeber these things
The small things that make up our lives
Because they make them all worth more
Than I ever thought before

I wish you were clear with your intentions so I can look you in the eye and let you see everything I feel.

I want this to last
Don't we all?
It has a great view
But a terrible fall

It happened so fast
I had to make a call
Can it be true?
What happens when I scale this wall?

Tie me to the mast
Tell me I have gaul
For falling for you
You were fake after all

But thats the past
Shattered in the hall
Made of China new
Like a fragile doll

How could it last?
No ones immoral after all
I guess it's over, guess we're through
How could I be so stupid to fall for you?

Sometimes I feel empty
Empty like this bottle
Laying at my feet
Empty like your smile
Worn and beat
Empty like the land
Desprate in the heat
Empty like the city
Not a friendly face to greet
Empty and alone
My fate is obsolete
I'm sorry
For the emptiness in me

Tell us tell us
Confide in us your tale
Us, we hungry ranvenous reporters
Who scavenge your lines for
Every private inch of you yet
Let us fester and spread in your gossip
Entrust to us your secrets
So we can discard them freely unto the world
The detail, the detail every last bit of it
Tell us tell us, feed our bottomless mouths
Lies and truth they are all the same
Feed us feed us!
Your rumors, we are to blame
And once we have it all
When we are filled, bloated
With your shame and your disgrace
We shuffle on for another victim
To pick at and argue over who gets the juiciest bits.
So trust in us, we harbingers of deceit.
Brings us your secrets
And we will feast

As my blood trickled
Down to the place where no one lived
Down into the place where people layed down their hopes and died
I heard the roar
Raging beneath the bodies
As they fed on my dreams and my goals
They rose up above me
Trampled over my corpse
And greedily took from the life that was mine
Through breath of my lung
And strength of my blood
I awoke the graveyard of quitters
And through my sacrafice they ascended to achieve a greater life
And to say I redeemed so many souls
To say I saved so many lives
I guess it was worth it
My little sacrafice
Or so I thought
As my blood trickled down to where no one lived

Coffee burnt breath
A Chocolate twinged touch
Strawberry kisses
And this is a bit much

Idle day dreams
A Careless scribbled note
Roseberry glances
And you gave me your coat

Dizzy drunken stares
A table for two
Blueberry whispers
And Its just me and you

Dying old age
A well placed blow
Blackberry wishes
And my love  had to go

Coffee burnt breath
A chocolate twinged touch
Strawberry kisses
And alas it was never enough

It's just a grave
Of a soldier, young and brave.
No body does it keep,
And few visit or weep.
I alone,
Sit by this stone.
And yet I know,
Though it brings me greif and woe,
It is not he,
Who lies beneath me.
There is no soul
For me to love and console.
Sadly, I must admit
With all my clever, all my wit
There is nothing here, save
This lonely old grave.

The night stars twinkle like the spotlights I used to know
Clear and fresh the silent air stirs with wind
Pierced by struggles and cries of innocence
The rush of Justice kicks in
And the night is quiet again
The night is mine to seize as I choose
Through training and greif I sprouted wings
And in the night I soar
Like the Bat himself

She lie dying in the hospital
Liver failure of the most innocent type
Not two days old and she had a foot in the grave
The doctors tried, and tried
UV, IV, Lights and drips and even ***** donations.
The nurses came and went
And the mother was worried sick
And then they prayed.
The father and his father
The mother and all her friends.
Her grandmother, her aunts and uncles and cousins.
And the grandfather prayed. He stood over her as she laid in the cradle and crossed his hands in prayer; head bowed humbly before his God.
And he called her his Little Kestrel.
The pastor's prayer did the trick
And she recovered nice and quick.
The baby grew and grew and continues still to grow
Making everyone who prayed thankful and proud for all she'd become.
And soon she will be a full grown Kestrel; ready to take flight with full fledged beauty for the world the behold
Ready to take flight and show her grandfather
What a Kestrel she had become