i can see your castle walls
from my bedroom window
i've been hiding under the mattress
counting the lines in the corner
only to put everything in perspective

i feel this solipsistic need
to make you love me

Well, I know
I thought about cold toes on linoleum
Insincere notes on a podium
Loving them after you scolded them
Sent to bed but still on wooden steps
Telling stories of policies left unsaid
The qualities of bread

i'm counting every breath now
each one bringing me closer to death now
there's a searing pain in my lungs
if they collapsed and i collapsed
i'd become the fortunate son
we're no longer talking in terms of days or weeks or months
but rather minutes and hours
i've lost my will to speak
and the air we breathe is sour
i don't think i'll make it
i want to tell you how i really feel
because it's killing me to fake it

oh, how the floor boards creak
they screeched words like
ooooh this place is either haunted or old
and
yeaah you should be startled
but i'm not
i'm brave
i have the heart of a lion
you're my light in this cave

i only want to hear the words you write
i thumb through this mess of mistaken identity
and spilled guts that i truly appreciate so much
but there's a heart i want to explore inside
and you're the only one

with the demeanor of a centipede
you intervene and impede on everything
interpreting what i mean
your sympathy is a foreign thing
i’ve never seen an evil being
be so in touch with what i’m feeling

a diagnosis
fictional british soccer team
i thought it would help
but my teeth don’t feel clean
left on the lamp in the bedroom
swept everything except
what needed to be swept up

JESUS
not even her
perfect earth
dying alone
the lazy ozone
smoking
and blowing O's
**** it i'm done

i feel like it becomes overwhelming
so many of my poems feel hateful
and i hate it

i want to write happy light stuff
about summer days and flowers
and feeling breezes
and skirts blowing
in that breeze

i could
rhyme every word
it would
be absurd
but i could do it
to sound fluent
and appease
these more traditional fans
of poetry
a theme i'll never understand
it seems the mainstream
will always be a dream to me
so i'll stick to my style
and what i've learned
the quickest way to get
my misled emotions on paper
a little bit of obscurity
with a rhyme here and there
to keep myself aware
that i am mediocre at best

the sky lights up brilliantly and my eyes right the wrongs written for three weeks. the only piece keeping me on the street is my feet tattooed to the shadows and shoes. the only figure at the same altitude as my head will be my expectations. any doubts about us not wildin' out will be squashed when the bottle starts passing around. voices tell me that my choices will give me hell but my buddy Bud light, he'll yell back too loud to be drown out. senses weakened, we smoke beer and drink cigarettes til we sneak into cemeteries and the ghosts leak into our socks. we speak in shocking dialect that we'll regret when the sun is met by skyline but tonight we shine like the stars that nod their heads to the music of a good ******* weekend and this feeling, i hope i never lose it. love will be our beacon.

you took my heart and ate it
after i divulged to you how much
i truly ******* hate it

i hope they know me like you did
but they won't
i wish they could hide like you hid
but they don't
i tried to breathe in the wind
but i choked
i wish i didn't drink six
but i joked

tonight
i may have fallen in love with a stripper

lift your chin, over encumbered soul
this is not the part where you quit
the townsfolk pray for you
the city folk prey on you

with all due respect,
your unspeakable beauty
is being overshadowed
by everything else you do

my last mistake
will be to make
the women in my life
carry me in casket
to my grave
so that they can let me down one last time

a tiny affliction presented itself
the bottle off the shelf sang
i didn't know there were thorns
on the vegetation where it hangs
a flower. for you. from me.
you kept it

i know it's not much
a touch of something
my eyes have a mind
of their own now
and only know
your captivating browns

the frustration is indescribable
i say as i attempt to describe it
when you're dissected and spilled
on a table and everything that was
once inside is now out and you
worked very hard to get that way
and nobody sees the masterpiece
in your own mind that you've created

yet you could half-hearted sneeze
and people might gather in mobs
to see the tiny piece of you that escaped
without any effort on your part

i saw it through tears
in the rear view mirror
i migrated to the great south
at the ripe age of ten
a heavy heart and impressionable mouth
it wasn't long before i picked up a pen
i'd love to write about home
but it's hard to know what that is
when you were living on the road

i thought i would miss you more
finding peace in realizing my independence
left foot still trips on the steps but it’s wet
so i like to pretend it’s coincidence

what a wonderful afternoon
i stood underneath til fingers began to prune
my name is not being called
and my phone's not vibrating
there's chills down my spine
and my pupils are dilating
my skin soaked wet
as the water met
my sore shoulders
eradicating sweat
i'm not done yet
embracing the stream
i hate this ftx
it was merely a dream

she moves with the wind
they hold hands and skip
as they dance along the moonlight
they introduce themselves gracefully
to every fallen star and broken heart
handing out rectangular business cards
of condolence and compassion
the essence of what she becomes
when constellations reflect off
the surface of ponds and lakes
can not and should not be
describe simply by words
there's a very special room in hell
for those who even so much
as meet her presence with ill words

this night feels like a sigh
the painted sky
reminds me why
i feel so dry
landscape and flora
we were soaring
but the leaves dried

the airfield is calling
but not before i've fallen gracefully
against my will on and through the hills
of baumholder and dripped every bit
of sweat that wet the night before
we'll sit, love struck punched drunk bored
snoring in a tent while others open vents
not a dollar spent because there's
no where to spend it
yet there's a feeling of something more
a longing that didn't linger before
i hate my job

so what will you do when you're dead
will you find someone else's bed
a softer place to lay your pretty head
a easier way to release a ****** day
or will you make it home again.

turning bread into toast
peanut butter and jam
the part I miss the most
veraciously out of hand
I’ve been tying to slow it down
I’ve been counting through my breaths
distance found it difficult
to dwarf the pain that’s left

the list of things i wouldn't do
is shorter than the list of things i would do
to see you happy as a ******* clam

we beg for change
and then meet it with outrage and anger
we should all be ashamed for the way we behave
never will there be a fight won
when the tides we feel are not *the right ones

there's a wall, standing alone
at the top of a mountain
eight thousand and one hundred
seventy three polaroids pinned to it
some of them still yet to be developed
you can't teach an old dog new tricks
i'd like to meet the old hopeless quitter who coined that phrase

i love every stupid joke you tell
all your quirky punch lines
bringing me closer to shore
even the ones i don't get right away
because they soar high above my head

we must stage a coup
to free him from this oppressive heart
that has seized control of his actions
there will be violent riots in the veins
and looting in the arteries
we will toss crates of testosterone like tea
into the harbors of the bones in his face
flushed red and full of rust
they have neglected to consider what he needs
and only lust over what he wants
we will break the chain mil armor of adoration
and tear down propaganda named infatuation
and free him from this oppressive heart

everything that comes out your mouth
comes in with autotune and reverb
repeat transmission. again.
i want to hear and believe
it's just hard to conceive
that someone like you could love someone like me

i don't like romantic movies
because i know that the end
isn't really the end

Our love
is the dry sighs at dry jokes
at a high five at five in the morning
lacing dreams and subconscious snoring
no more exploring the subtle scores
if i’m boring, you’re boring
found a little soft sound brown couch cushion.

it's still going
i stopped growing
scabs and started sewing
my wounds shut
she grabs at what
she thinks is love
and when it's not
it's tossed in a ***
with every other
thing she wants to be lost
*she wants to be lost

bright orange illuminates the sky
making an ominous silhouette of the tree line
burning it's fragile frame into my eyes

behind the gleaming in your smile
is where i'd like to sleep for a while

and then it hit me!
like a truck or something that hits hard
you are the fly
a figment of my imagination
manifested through lack of sleep
and surplus of cheap german beer

my biggest fear
right behind clowns and dying alone
is that you would say yes
because you thought you had to

she was the flame that ignited him
from a sapling to a beautiful oak
but when he grows too close to her
he catches the fire she emits
and they both pass impetuously

he knows this is inevitable
so he waits until autumn
and prays his leaves will escape
from her burning passion
and shape the tale taped to their backs

you're* the thing i wanted
not the thing i needed
the way your eyes could ****
one day you said you loved me
           but unfortunately,

you're only as drunk
as other people say you are

where asphalt meets paper mache hearts
i'll stand amongst the cattle with a loaded
deck of cards. at the corner of content and 35th
watch me make money off of people who
don't have it and laugh at cabbage patch
kids in their graphic deaths
their parents' massive debts is probably the problem

there
a light pole looked back at them
from the top a hill
that's where you'll wait for me*
little did he know,
that's also where they would deliver his eulogy

i know she’s more than capable
she left me at the table
the lines we drew won’t intersect
it’s probably best we never met