You
Decide to start and never stop
And years later
When the memories of life pile up around you
Like the books beside a crowded shelf
You learn to be content with where you are
As compared to where you could be
Because fame is not to be desired
No, fame is to be pitied
Because you didn’t start for fame
And you didn’t continue for fame
And if you did you are a fool for fame
Because you became what you became
Because you already were
You

There is no darker side of the room
There is no air left in to breathe
There is no light, there is no sound
When left alone with such feeling as these

Because

When one person feels
But the other doesn't
There is only darkness
Back to back

And the silence therein in between

Izaak is an introvert
Izaak likes his room and board exactly as it is, so that he isn’t bored
Quiet in his apartment, just as he was in his dorm
But soon his people started telling him, more and more
That he needs to get out more
That he needed to go out an explore
Just in case he ever should look back and wonder
What exactly it was, like if he wanted more?
And so he tried and so he went, out into the world
He spoke and socialized
He brought, and bought and spent until he himself felt very spent and worn
Because Izaak is an introvert, and for the outside he wasn’t meant to be
Let alone to be reborn, and so
After all the stretching, the social pains, the growing norms, which were not wrong
Just different, he was both different, and the same
And in his room, he was welcomed him back
Once again, to the walls of printed ink and paint which he himself did create
Because Izaak, did indeed need to see the differences within his own eyes
But only in time to better understand and represent
The quiet life which he was meant to lead, inside
Because Izaak is an introvert
And no introverted thing is ever truly a waste of time

She is a portrait in my mind
A canvas of flesh and blood
With an ink stain upon her chest
Where her heart still beats steadily
He life turning like the ocean
Her eyes as stead as the water underneath
She is a portrait and yet a friend of me
And by the sea she will always be

Let not the stubbornness stored away within your heart,
Deny your head the happiness,
And the ease of truth within the mind.
Which is found only when two similarities collide.

Because the inverse breaks the mirror indefinitely, without reflection.
But the same eyes resonate,
And reverberate both the feelings and the sight therein.

Enjoy the memory of the crossroads where love first met it's counterpart.
Oh, how I pray that you can let yourself live to see such a sight.

I'd write a town into existence for you
If you'd just end my agony
And let me be
Me

Paper
Yearns for the trees
No more than I
A humble man
Yearn for the pride of my prior youth
For once you have begun
You can always begin again
In some respects

Isn’t that write?

How deep is a puddle?
Underneath the sky
Atop the earth
And soaking into the dirt beside the rugged asphalt

Created beside the hand of man
How it reaches in
Just to stir itself into a frenzy

How it seeks to meddle and mend the crooked stream
From its own perspective  
When the preference is not to wind but to align

For this I say
Unto the man
Who holds the line
With his elbows locked and intertwined

That a winding way is not a way
Or a challenge from the immortal hand
It's just a steam of the natural
It's just the earth trying to begin again

Pulling the water back to the sea
To grind the eternal rock to sand

Ever so slowly

And this is why
Directly beside your creation
The puddles began

I pour it out
Like a bottle of wine upon the ground
I have spent myself therein
And soaked into the bitter ground
Behind the house

Because no expectation can withstand
The truth within
Which is that you can control the consumptive means
To make or break most anything

But I pour it out
Because I can

Stashing them everywhere
I store such coins to pay away the could've beens
To keep my bones and alabaster skin covered until the rainy day need not appear

At which time I can and will, take you by the hand
And show you either the former Winding Way, or create anew
By pulling coins out of the thin air, like a magic man

For this is how I make my way into the world of words

Why?

Because I like her voice.

Why?

Because it feels like home.

A man can only write as much as what he holds behind his eyes
And if you were the last sight to see
I can guarantee that you needn't be surprised
If he runs away from such of sight, occasionally

Because the expression is either all about you or nothing at all
There is no in between such things
No inner lining between the eye and the mind
Of what a man has always seen, in you

There is just the wall in front of him
The key to turn, and the inanimate door to find
Don't take it personally
But a man can only write as much of what he holds behind his eyes

Though storms may come let songs remain
Despite the cites firm embrace

Take photographs to pass the time
As I do wait and part the glass which separates

The scraping skies and flying wings
Both above and below the shallow sea

Let us walk beside the crashing waves
Just you and I, to smell the air and sense the breeze

That we might once again be free

If I could carry you between my ears
Record my thoughts, my mind, my ways
For an entire day
I would do so without hesitance
And send them your way
Just as I write
That way I wouldn’t have to explain and tell you so
In that particular way

Let the future be your motivation
Your drive to make it down the road
Remain focused, remain persistent
Although the direction therein, you do not know

The most difficult thing about knowing more
About realizing that someone is capable of more
Is that you may come to expect, and desire more
Which becomes more apparent, when only one mind adores

It bends its back and cracks its spine
Out of sheer frustration
Much like a whip
For as it is, it seems to be, and ever will be
The unchangeable, and the uncommented

Much like the silent birds which breathe, yet are not without their own beauty
How they never sing, and will never speak of such things
Because this is how, and this is when
I know why the willow whips do weep

For as we are one and from the same
How they cry in silence, not out of vanity, but out of frustration
Because you, in stay, know no other way
Than to pass them by before they can speak

Of the way your footprints tread on the teeming dandelions
Leaving only the meadow left in pain
For you are so invested in your own sunshine
That you neglect to see and hear the same
That the willow whips now weep in pain

Feel the sand beneath your feet
See the waves above your head
Like the pressure in your heart
So deep
You’re the only one who gets to see
The sea this way
As it is
Crashing, rolling, underneath
How you stand beneath the oldest beast
Ever to be brought down upon the earth

Soft is the wind ere the trees
And rough is my voice running through each
As are flowers in the month of June, so beautiful
And yet cursed by the coming fall
As after which, above the earth, all else will fall
Until the clouds and morning dew have meld in, above the heath
Ungrown as I am in the mind of you
But it would not be so, if you would see me through

Have you ever known the most of this?
Or the truth which is
That it pulls a young man by his feet
To the bottom of the sea
When he realizes that
She isn't thinking about you

There are certain people who are going places
Who are doing things even when they are standing still
Such people posses a tremendous will
To succeed and grow, to change and know
And then there are others, who are just standing still

For just one day
Could the rain clouds cover the entire earth?
Could the rains wash the weariness of another Monday away?
And connect our hands, our eyes, our hearts?
To tip the glass and spill the words out, quietly
Until all is spoken and soaked in happiness
And the doubts have all been washed away
Into the flooded pasture of memories

For we are such on such a day
But even more so now than ever
That is, if the clouds could cover the entire earth
In which case we could look up and see
That the same old rain falling down upon us, you and me
Smiling as it hit the ground
Until the splashing molding droplets
Are just a memory to be relived

Let the clouds cover and the raindrops flow
To ever be

Have you any idea?
What you do to my eyes?
The wrinkles and lines which you evoke?  
With delicate ease…
You do this to me
And have you any idea?

Sitting on a mountain top
On a sliver of rock
As jagged as the pointing edge of the west
Indefinitely, is the earth beneath me
For I do not know how long this will last
But I know that I will sit and wait
For the sunrise of my youth to finally pass
Not because I fear the day that’s been or will be
But because I am smarter than the shadows
Which will not outlast the light

Forget not
That at the lowest part of the humble path
Resides the divot
Which concurs and divides
Not passing feet
But yearns to keep the honest truth
Which is bestowed upon the earth
By means of rain
Teeming with life and oxygen
How it tries to keep itself within
Both without fail, and with inevitability
Because the water will certainly soak or sway
But the divot itself will forever stay
Embedded in the earthly clay
Beneath our walking feet
So forget not to tread lightly, ever so
On this, the placid soil underneath

Your fingers as they brush the bark
Turn suddenly and bark back at me
All they wanted to be was here at home
Was to be alone  
And to know the self between the trees

She is nothing more
Than a playlist in a database
Which I never adored

Stored away in an ancient file on an aged server
But the list remains there anyway
Be it out of respect

So you need not worry about such a voice
Interjecting itself back into my life

When the truth is that
I know the sound which a whole heart makes
And hers was fragmented
By the pain which she always put on repeat

The worst illness available to man
Is not a fever of sorts
But fame
And the expectations stored within
That he has been solved
That he has been called by his true name
Which, ironically
Is never true at all

Because it's better to live in a house of wood
It's better to build without a name inscribed
Than to be called by all
And requested at all hours of the night  
Because what then becomes of life?
When you suddenly have
All of that which you have wished for?

I’d place this song between your ears
Your fingers in-between my own
I’d turn this world of our inside-out
And Upside-down
Just to find you a place that you'd call home

The best is when the conscious mind
Focuses in on what it knows
On what it is
Never once considering what it means
To be that "something" for someone else

Simply looking around
Tells me enough about myself
To know that someone, someday
Will walk by my shelves in all of their glory
And smile at the mind in which I've built

I do not know
What I mean to you
If anything
But I would like to know
I would like to know

Clueless isn’t the word I seek
But unknowing of such and in such moments
Untouchable
That is what I strive to be

Eternal summer
Stretching out before us both
Before us all
Like a tempered path or a winding road
Before us now
Like the direction in we each must go
Away from one another
Perhaps
Walking slow

You are the twist at the corner of your cheek
Like a youthful expression from the past
Meeting at an intimate place, which I’ve yet to know
But hope—beyond all hope—that I could meet

And then suddenly you are there
And someone has come out of nowhere
And changed your life
For better or for worse
You are changed…but not me

There is a glass box in the ocean
Invisible to the nautical eye

How it hides beneath the subtle waves
As the breakers and boats berate the tempest skies

For amidst the ocean of unending salt
Amidst the darkness of the currents below

There is only this
An ounce of freshwater in a box of glass

Unfound, both in and of itself
How it will ever preserve and still outlast

Ours is like a strand of yarn
Stretched across a narrow gap
Though the wind berates
And the rain pours out in the summer storm
It will not break, it will endure
But perhaps in time will sag and fray
As if we let it so to go
Or even chose to cut it down
Because you have your own phone lines now
Made of woven steel and unbroken arms
As we were just a childhood yarn
Or a single strand between two hearts

Who knows where the heart of a man resides?
In the mountains?
In the sea?
In an empty chest like cavity?
Be it hers or mine?
Because who knows where the heart of a man resides?

Run from yourself long enough,
And you'll circle the globe and find your old self.
Probably just standing still,
Waiting for you.
Because a wise man once said,
*"It's alright to do what you want to do,
Until it's time to start doing what you're meant to do."

I refuse to not try
Let alone die
For the life I could potentially lead
Therefore you see
That I must try
And thay there is no in between

When surrounded by darkness of every kind
As the fog of sadness hangs it head
To wallow low, in the valley below

Only you can smile, be it there beside
Only you can be gracious and ever kind
Within that moment

May you be so, for those who you know will not be so
For the retaliation is not to react
But only to only act out of what is kind

That way your own head won’t hang low
As you pass through this
The valley of perpetual time

Crystallized
Is the place
You will find
Within the blue
Within my eyes

My hair, drifting in the howling wind
But you don't know the sight
To know that I am alive and well, within your eyes
Though you don't know the sight

I know when I am kept at length
I feel it still

The distance between
The shortness of breath
The memory of such

Did you know that such things never escape me?

Like the way in which you used to be
How you used to breathe
So...openly

Just know that this change is not insulting to me
But speaks more firmly than any word
And more clearly than any crystal stream

So I need not ask if I may drink
I simply cannot
Nor am I capable of thinking beyond

For that is how you have made this to be
Quiet again
And short without sweet

And thus, I am left
Disappointed in myself
For sharing like this
So....unabashedly

How I feel like a child standing beside a rapid river
Raging onward
How it runs and swells and passes by my confidence, quickly it flees

For in my mind comparatively
We were the same in prior days
Like a mountain stream
Clear and crisp

But now, just know that I must learn to flow more cautiously
In order to be and protect myself 
Remaining as is

For this is how it must now be
Directional, proportional
Or at least based on what I've seen
For therein grows a greater distance between
And greater still

And I will not pay
I will not suffer
When your attention in such moments
Is no longer free, to the likes of me

So here I lay the honest truth
In an honest statement, without plea

Know not the turn of my cheek
The strength of my chest
Or the way in which my mattress rests
Just beneath the sill
Yet in front of the envelope which waits for you

Though you ought to know
That every line and every word
Was meant to be
In broken verse
Just as it it

That way one day
Only you could find me there within
And surpass the number set before
Thirty-two

For I am my own
And none of her names
Though in idealism
Perhaps a bit, one and the same

And should you never arrive by me
Then the envelope as directed will be
Delivered to you

So worry not
But hopefully it will not come to that
And that I will live to see your face
As you learn such of things

Like the envelope without a name

Standing on my windowsill
Your breakfast blend the only name on my lips
How I wash my exponential coffee cup
With cold rain water
Just to splash me down
As it falls to the ground
Rolling off that fated roof, and feeling amiss
For that is that, and this is this

I am an ocean
All men are
But especially me

You can look and see
Now for yourself
And also this

Within my name
Can you see?
The Sea?

Are you scared?
That someone will
Or will not understand?
The meaning therein?
Because you can ask any of those who really know
For I am such a man

I thought about me, long before I became me. And though I am here, I believe, this is where I was meant to be.

Although I often try and speak
In subtle tongues
I have no other language than this
Or so it feels
At times it feels