She whispered to the metal gears
and machine parts.
An incantation fell
from her glossy lips.
Each long held L
and calming O,
every soft, vibrating V,
and gentle E,
plopped onto the cogs,
slipped into the cracks.
Suddenly, the machine melted,
the grey steel becoming red muscle,
the whole contraption
wrapped up in blood vessels.
No longer rusted, my heart surged,
turned human once again.

When I get high my songs all ****
I'm nervous for an audience that
doesn't even exist
But I feel like a million bucks
giggling like a school boy
interested by the dumbest ****
Trying to figure myself out
by staring in the mirror
then rearrange the interior
and pour water on my eyes
to try to see clearer

So I know it's late but I need to vent. Sometimes getting held to higher standards kills me. It's like I'm on this pedestal and I can't breathe
I'm my mom's baby boy and my dad's therapist
I'm our friends' secret keeper
a sponge that soaks up all the stuff no one wants to remember
I'm summer and I'm winter in the thick of December
the ember in the fire and I'm burning low like I'm the fuel for peoples' furnace
and maybe I just imagine it
maybe I make it up in my head
but it feels real to me
Half of me wants to be the one people confide in and trust
but half of me wants to disappear
to just leave and join a crabbing ship
somewhere out at sea
so I can prove to myself that people will live on
that with me gone they will end up ok
maybe it sounds like I'm full of myself
or that I put too much weight on me as an anchor
but that's what I feel like
an anchor cast out into the ocean to keep everyone from drifting, safe on their ship while I
sit at the bottom
with a mouth full of sand and cold salt water seeping into my skin
Even anchors
need a break
a reprieve from their duty.
Even anchors need to surface
for a taste of
fresh
air

Fine rain falls onto the reflection pool,
tiny ripples bouncing off each other,
transient touch.
Mist hangs on the mountains,
shrouds peaks.
A bell tolled out,
reverberating purity,
find peace in obscurity.

We all said how much we hated it
that little town with nothing to do
we cried and called about its absolute
           waste of space.
Oh we would leave it and be
                                                      Glad
­No one ever even whispered a
maybe I'll miss it
just a little bit. or
                                           I lived here my whole life
****
Then I went back to visit
and for the first time in years
                  I was having a great time
                      in that little town we all swore
                                we'd never
                                           go back
                                                            to.

One last thought from a withered mind
I have to stop this chemical grind,
the *****, the ****, the cigarettes
made me a fiend for substances,
I ran out of my last tobacco pack,
today I caught myself digging
through my trash
for a **** to light up
that's when I decided
enough is enough

Life like dust

If the seed
was replanted in
the wrinkles
of these aged brains
would it grow into
a garden?

I call my bed my ******* best friend
it'll always hold me when
my head is cracking, pouring
tequila and brain matter all over the floor
when I'm hacking, dying
from the poison I chose to take
laying naked and shivering
but too hot to cover up
I'm generally not a **** but
for my bed I'll do anything
just put a few thousand shots in me
so I can be with my best friend
so I can finally
fall asleep

Ink spilled from the needle tip
that slipped under my skin.
I didn't think, I didn't think,
it sinks in every time she cries.
I only suffered pin ****** and laser burns,
to her it stings continually
and sometimes stabs, stabs, stabs-
On those nights I want to take a knife
to the defiled flesh and cut like hell,
dig out the pigment, remove the skin,
but I can't, I can only say I'm sorry.
What worthless words,
stupid, worthless words
that can't do anything to ease her hurt.
She hurts, she hurts,
I'm the worst.

I feel that there's a cage inside my being
no matter how ******* high I jump
I never reach the ceiling
turn on the daily news and all I see is killing
bullets fly from clips but there isn't really meaning
in the blood shed that's spilling ever further
I don't even want to be a ******* father
cause my kids would inherit a sub par
school system, and it'd be worse if I got a daughter
guys with sick thoughts always picking on her
what happened to good old fashioned honor?
Hell I can barely afford community college
It's not like I'm a low life, just got an empty wallet
Work a minimum wage job if thats what you want to call it
but even 9 dollars an hour doesn't count as profit
when the government turns around, grabs half a pay check and swallows it
The good get put on blast while the bad get ******* all of it.

She said I
                 "Just look happier."
She was right.

I had that dream
with Sydney all close to me
and today two street signs stood out
what did they say?
The top one was my name
and the one right below was hers
I sat on the curb
head in hands
"When does this end?
When does this end?"
Every corner I turn is a reminder
smashing **** up in the grinder
but her
but her
what the ****, why does she linger
is it because I haven't loved since?
I just want to rinse my hands
get rid of her name
it's a a sick game this world plays
let me break the rules
let me cheat
so I can get her syllables
out of my cheek

cold
finally dark, damp
cold
eating at my bones
spearing my nerves
was I forged in
a forst draped with snow?
why does the frost
call me?
I long to be covered
suffocated with freezing hands
returned to
the hardened ground
a land covered
in ice

Fairytales once seemed far away,
things for folks who were fools.
Frog princes, magic kisses, happily-ever-afters
just trifles for filling time.
Resigned to let whimsy fade,
my poems grew dark.
Gloomy art from a gloomy heart.

Once you fell into my life,
a quick kiss, a skipping heart,
the veil was lifted.
Like all fairytales
the darkness was defeated,
magic restored to the land
and the hands of this silly poet
now set to pen brighter things.

My poems swung toward the sun,
and life with you has become
the fairytale,
bound to have a
happily-ever-after.

For all the tensions,
the connections and hastened breath,
I don't think it's you who I'll
end up with.

Last night's fire is all but ash.
Pine needles flutter with the breeze.
At ease in a recliner,
outdoors,
open,
aware of the connection
between all things.
There is certainty in nature,
the promise that everyday holds change:
birth, death, growth, decay,
and yet it all remains the same.

Lately I haven't been saying much
chillin' in the corner, that kid with
those eyes, high as ****.
My mind's been working on some
next level ****
about the dimensions of luck
but look,
It doesn't even matter
because in the morning my notes
make less sense than this
mad scratch of an excuse
I call a
poem.

Divorce
It electrified
my impulses, demolished
my beliefs, left me
face down in bed, stark naked.
I can't go home anymore.

Give
I lived in your rib,
felt each breath you took with me.
You blew out a cloud.
"Sing some sorrow ocean blues.
We can drown holding hands, love."

Take**
She thought of me
as LSD, I changed her world
with guaranteed leave.
Absorbed me through her tongue tip,
expelled me with every spit.

My brain hurts
all day
from the constant
growing pains

Being tied down
wasn't so bad
at least I knew who
I'd sleep next to.

Distance breeds jealousy,
the kind that clings to my chest,
nestles in around my ribs and
whispers up to my ears.
It tells me all kinds of things,
the city will take her from me,
that boy that's just a friend has his hands around her waist,
they're taking shots after going on a date, and there ain't nothing I can do about it.
I've tried shoving my fingers in my ears,
stuffing them with cotton and
expensive ear plugs,
somehow the whispers breach it all,
slip through the cracks in my walls,
giggling menacingly,
ecstatic to see me fall,
to ruin,
to ruin,
to ruin.

Two months left sits in my chest pressing against my vital organs. Days play out like recordings on fast forward while I struggle to press pause. It may be best to cease this hiatus, yet part of me will miss this.
The watch on my wrist ticks ever on counting down the hours till I'm
gone...

My mother once told me
                        "Never run from your problems!"
but here I am
escaped to a smaller town
and it seems all
my problems
have left me alone.

sober up
dust off
the dirt won't bury you
yet

Biting into this brownie is like stepping into a dream of pancakes. Don't let the savory taste fool you though, one of these bad boys will have you hiking into uncharted territory. Split with a friend for a smooth trip of heady goodness. Who knows where you'll end up, the Shire? The top of the World? Where ever it is, you'll be having a good time.

A desert wind blows hot and dry,
whispering a prayer for rainclouds.
The Milky Way spills across the night sky,
with Saturn and Jupiter shining down,
interstellar eyes
that see the white lizards
skittering in the sand,
and me laying on my back,
gazing up,
swimming in starlit possibility.