You're too emotional.
I'm emotionless.
Together, we're human.

You're looking at this poem,
Thinking I'm lonesome,

Or perhaps you're thinking I'm in love,
Though truly, I'm free as an uncaged dove.

Then why would I say I'm loving someone?
Truly, I'm writing this for you lovers, or just anyone.

My heart's been cold and dry for a while,
So this won't make me smile,

But here's hoping you'll give your heart a test-run,
Maybe find a loved one.

Have more success than I ever will,
Tell someone you'll love them even if the world ends, still.

Find a place in their heart,
Swear you'll never be apart.

Never let go of their hand,
As if your wrists are bound, you're sinking in your love's quicksand.

A brilliant drowning,
Minutes you'll never be counting.

You won't give up; promise me that,
Though writers are heartbroken, give your heart a door mat.

Let someone in the door,
You'll never need anything more.

Have I lost my mind?
Have I lost it all?
Is there nothing left to find?
Everything in an endless fall.

Pages blank,
No way to explain,
Long ago my sanity sank,
Bound by Fate's chain.

None left to turn to,
None left to blame,
I can't find that breakthrough,
Nothing is mine to claim.

Lost is my heart,
Lost is my love,  
Lost is my art,
Nothing left to dispose of.

He seems to me to be like a god;
he, if it is lawful to surpass the gods,
who, sitting opposite, gazes at you repeatedly,
and listens to you, laughing sweetly,
which snatches away all senses from miserable me;
for as soon as I beheld you, Lesbia, nothing is left to me of my voice in my throat.

But my tongue is numb,
a subtle flame runs down beneath my limbs,
my ears ring with their own sound,
my eyes are covered with twin night.

Leisure, Catullus, is burdensome to you:
in leisure you exult too much, and you run riot.
Leisure first ruined both rulers and prosperous cities.

Curiosity, they say, kills the cat.
I ask, though, does the cat ever think about that?

No, says the cat, I shan't dwell on consequence.
This makes me believe, then, that the cat is a creature of great intelligence.

After all, what being of intellect would never possess the urge to know?
Instead of lacking knowledge, shaking one's head to and fro,

Wouldn't a smart thing like a cat search for answers?
Indeed, the way to halt one's ignorance is to dig endlessly for what one is missing.

Like a puzzle being solved,
We must leave some things unresolved.

Leave a few pieces blank in order to fill others.
So now I conclude that it is not curiosity which kills the cat, but the necessary occasional lack of knowledge that leaves the cat thirsting for more.

You shall dine well, Fabullus, at my house
in a few days, if the gods favour you,
if you will have brought with you a good and large dinner,
not without a shining girl
and wine and wit and all your laughter.
If you will have brought these things, I say, our charming one,
you shall dine well: for the purse of your Catullus is full of cobwebs.
But, in turn, you will receive undiluted loves
of anything which is either more delightful or more elegant:
for I will give to you perfume,
which the Venuses and Cupids gave to my girl,
which, when you will smell it,
you will ask the gods so that they might
make all of you, Fabullus, a nose.

We are all afraid of falling, failing.
When we fall, we hope for a hand to pull us out of this endless abyss that we hurtle through.
When we are pulled out, it is a show of trust, belief, an support.
The people who give us this are unique, one of a kind, irreplaceable.

We all have imperfections.
When someone sees our flaws, and loves us more for them, we are lucky.

Friends. Ah, friends.
We would never dare to lose them, since they have always been with us, day-in, day-out.

I don't care.

That's what we're saying,
Disregarding emotions we hide in our mouth behind closed lips,
Are we preying on those paying,
The prices rise with the coins in the jar for tips

I'm not who you think.

That's what we're preaching,
Shooting our allies in the heart while staring at a script,
Lying that we're honest as their trust is bleaching,
The losses rise with the coins in the jar for your tip.

Get away from me.

That's what we're shouting,
Curling in on our wounds from too many falls and trips,
Our strength is what we're doubting,
The misery rises with the coins in the jar of tips.

The world needs less of those coins, and more of those ones that we give as advice.
But then again--what's advice in the place of money?
This is the equation:
Money>Knowledge.

Humans are so very foolish.

They're all singing some twisted up song,
Mayhap I've heard it before,
The people are all stomping their feet in the throng,
But not me; I'm deaf on the dance floor.

They're singing: LA DEE DA,
We ain't never gonna be bourgeois,
We ain't never gonna fit in your sick jigsaw,
We ain't never gonna follow your law.

They're all calling some famous name,
Mayhap I've said it myself,
To me, it's all the same,
All the records on that dusty shelf.

They're calling: LA DEE DA,
You ain't never gonna love my flaw,
You ain't never gonna see my ice thaw,
You ain't never gonna watch me withdraw.

They're all preaching some aimless creed,
Mayhap I'll believe it someday,
To some faith; I'd rather not plead,
Not get caught up in a loud fray.

They're preaching: LA DEE DA,
They ain't never gonna get my gist,
They ain't never gonna bind my wrist,
They ain't never gonna find a twist.

They're all trusting some useless thing,
Mayhap I bought it once,
But I'm not strung on their string,
Not like some wretched dunce.

They're trusting LA DEE DA,
Thinking it isn't the Devil's claw,
Thinking they can escape the law,
Thinking they've got it all.

What wicked intent, wretched little Ravidus,
casts you headlong into my iambics?
Which god, ill-invoked by you, readies to stir up a crazed fray?
Or was it so that you can become the subject in popular chatter?
What do you want? Is it pleasing to be famous in whatever way you desire?
You will be, since you determined to covet my loves, along with eternal retributions.

Some lives, they say, are linked across time.
If I could find a rhyme,
I'd point out to you that some things are meant to be,
Unlike friends and ends,
Love and adventure don't rhyme.
But you see, they're all meant to be: friends, ends, love, adventure.

Things are simply this way,
Truly, we have no say.
As if someone has written our story,
Thought of our glory.
Written it down in some grand design,
As if what they write has the ability to intertwine our lives.

It's like everything we do is searching for scattered lines of text in our corner of this person's mind.
Many a wise man said we are all connected.
If the grand design were a book, we would be.

We say: I need it.
Do we not mean: I want it?
We find some things necessary,
Others desirable.

Humans, I find, lack the disposition to distinguish between the two.
We lack the desperation to say that we truly need something.

Only desperate humans truly need things.
You see, humans have created so many shortcuts in nature that it is entirely unnecessary to depend on any one material.

However, we have large, far-seeing eyes that fixate on particular subjects.
Our minds fixate on this subject at the same interval, and we are left with desire that will never be relinquished,
For if it is satiated, we come back for more.

Thus, we require nothing, and desire everything.

Sparrow, delight of my girl,
with whom she is accustomed to play,
whom she is accustomed to hold in the fold of her dress,
for whom, seeking rapaciously, she is accustomed to give her fingertip and to urge sharp bites,
when it is pleasing for me to make some loving joke for my shining desire,
and a solace of her sorrow,
I believe, so that her so heavy passion may grow quiet.
If only I were able to play with you yourself,
and to lift the doleful woes of your soul!

It is as pleasing to me as they say that the golden apple was to the swift girl,
which unbound her girdle, having been fastened for a long time.

It seems that humans have an obsession with light,
That where there is light, we lack in fright.
It seems that there is fear and uncertainty in the dark,
That nothing is certain, yet everything imagined.
What if the dark were a blessing,
So that there would be no guessing as to what lurks in the shadows?

Like a thorny rose,
You want it.
But if you're not careful,
You're hurt.
When you can finally admit to wanting this rose,
Things seem to mend.

A funny thing, Love.
It changes, like a chameleon.
It changes in strength, like a storm.
Only one thing is certain:
You are left different than before you set your sights on this rose.

I would like, papyrus, that you tell the young love poet,
my friend, Caecilius, that he should come to Verona,
leaving behind the walls of New Como and the shore of Larius:
for I wish that he receives certain cogitations
of a friend of his and mine.
On which account, if he will be wise, he will devour the road,
although a glittering girl might call him back a thousand times as he is leaving,
and, flinging both arms around his neck,
she might beg that he delay,
who now, if true things are announced to me,
perishes through uncontrollable love of him:
for from which time she reads his incomplete "Mistress of Dindymus,"
from that time, flames consume the innermost marrow of the poor girl.
I forgive you, girl more learned than the Sapphic Muse;
for the "Great Mother" of Caecilius is elegantly incomplete.

Hope, a crude thing:
People who possess it, end up losing it due to pursuance of an objective centralized on solely having Hope.

Hope: A cruel thing,
That tears things away from those who wish for it.

Hope: A villainous thing,
That can be existent and absolutely unrealistic.

Hope: A false thing,
That we imagine to console ourselves that there is a reason to go on.

Hope: A lie,
We tell to those we love to get the point across that we will always be with them.

Hope: An ugly lie disguised as a beautiful truth.

Was the saying not with beautiful lies and ugly truths?
It seems that Hope is a shapeshifter,
As well as a master of deceit.

insanity.
a beautiful word for a mind yoU BET woUld FAIL
Insanity.
i’m clawing at a locked door. is it my mind that ails, or the wood beneath my nails?
InSanity
hot tears streak down my cheeks. are they glad, or are they sad?
InSanIty
harsh laughter crawls up my throat. am I amused, or confused?
InSanITy
my knees burn on the floor. have I knelt too long, or were these the strikes dealt?

IS IT.
insanity.

Our Demons are not under our beds,
They are in our eyes, wherever we look,
On our lips, whenever we speak,
In our minds, whenever we think,
In our memories, whenever we remember,
In our hearts, whenever we love,
In our tears, whenever we cry,
Our Demons do not exist without us,
They exist within us.

Don't depend too much on anything.
Even our shadows leave us when we're in darkness

Spotlighted like some movie star,
how do you stand, being so far?
Lights that glare on polygraph eyes
twitching at truth instead of lies.
Gave your life to forbidden love—
find me some thorns, make me a glove.
Capulet to my Montague? Try:
summer red to my winter blue.

I've been saying it for a while,
But no one takes my words,
Thinking they're only hostile,
That I'm throwing stones at birds.

I've had enough.

They all think I'm okay,
Sure, that's what I said,
When will someone see past what I say,
When will they see how I've bled.

I've had enough.

You're telling me not to fall,
You're shouting my name,
Waiting for the next phone call,
Wondering if you're to blame.

I've had enough.

It's all crumbling down,
The weight of worlds on my shoulders,
I felt my spine crack,
Watched the fall of my crown,
Felt the air grow colder,
The lack breaks my back.

Hello.

S'been a while, huh?

I've been missing that,
Those letters you wrote,
The lipstick stains stretching across the paper.

Red was never your colour, love.

You'd never wear anything but black,
Unless they'd make a darker colour.

You and your punk rock.

It wouldn't be wrong to say I miss it.

But does missing you make a difference,
In you and I?

Do we change from who we are,
To miss the person we once had?

The light to our dark?

Does the coin suddenly have two sides,
When it's been polished again?

You never liked my cryptic words,
And I hated your honeyed poison.

But I could never turn away,
From the part of you,
That did not speak.

I could never stop looking,
At your black and blue,
At your simple formula,
At your sun-kissed smile,
Nor at your cut-up honour,
Your tragic vanity,
And your stomped-upon pride.

And you could not forget about my words,
Because even the ones you don't understand,
They ring true,
And they ring loud.

You do not lie in words,
But I live in words.

Overused,
Abused,
The word never:
A word we are told not to use, ever,
Told because superstitions entail that using it would cause misfortune,
But I would rather see beauty in distortion,
Find the cure and reasons through an imperfect lens,
Instead of allowing superstitions opportunity to cleanse.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Times the clock.

Crunch. Crunch. Step. Crack.
Boots in snow, to asphalt, to a broken bridge.

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.
High heels clamber up my back.

Tap. Tap Tip. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tip. Tap.
Echoes every drop of rain outside, mayhap?

Clock timing my demise from the sky to the ground, to the floor beneath your stiletto heels, the pain washed away by the sound of rain, so numb so as not to even feel the water trickle down.

You want *** to be soft, to be sweet,
                    like dripping honey warm
and liquid flowing
         boundless you don’t
               want the mountain ridges
                                   on your lover’s chapped lips,
                                                           ­            you don’t want the
                                                vase to
                                   s      h     a     t    t   e       r
              on the floor as though there is a
                            limit to the sugar, you
                                    want to pour prettiness
                                                  into every crevice of your
                                   heart and you want love
                      to be sweet and soft even
            when your lover is
                                   hard and cold, eyes like
                                  ice and mouth powerful
                                 like mountains and heart
                              weathered like beach pebble—
                                                         ­                     you want a ****** with
                                                          candy lips and long lashes and
                                                      feathery thoughts with long
                                                   sighs of hot breath not
                                                    real words not speaking while
                                                         loving not thinking while kissing
                                                         ­                          not hard and bitter,
                                                         ­           you want soft and sweet,
                                                                ­    you can’t take it like
                                                         bedsheets and bittersweet
                                not soft not hard
not sweet not bitter.