I think I’ll just sit here
brooding so quietly
in contemplation, 
indifference washing over me.

I've  been sitting
on cracking pavement
all **** day.

Bored to tears, but I’m just full of being empty.

I won’t feel this. I won’t feel this sting.
I’m not feeling much of anything

And I say “Love is just a lie, formed to get us by.” You said “Its too soon. It’s just too soon to trust you."

And as I look up
to this skyline we no longer share,
I can’t help but to feel like
maybe I just no longer care.

Maybe that’s too easy.

But I’m taking the easy way out.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s nothing left to care about.


Things aren’t the same.
I don’t feel pain.


I’m just not feeling a god ****** thing.

Give me the best of whatever you’ve got
Take that last drag of your last cigarette
**** my heart up and laugh
Break my heart as you dance
Give me a night I won’t ever forget

This is the last chance to leave it alone
Bumming a ride so that we can get home
Tear this letter to shreds
Make your home in my head
You won’t stop ‘til the feeling’s all gone

And I guess what I said is, “I think I’ve had enough.” She said, “You’ll regret it all. You could have had it all.

And I guess what I said is, “I think you had too much.” She said, “I’d never take it back.”

“I’d never take it back”

I’ve got years of feeling empy and
I’ve got friends buried in the ground-
If these feelings last forever,
Can you please not let me down?

Run up that concrete flight. Assess the scene and know that’s it’s not alright.
And push the hair aside - like moving ivy out of the windows of those glassy eyes.

Check for that heartbeat sign. The steady rhythm that helps determine if you’ve still got time. But it’s the pulse that you just can’t find. Nothing but the the bloodrush beat behind an aching mind.

So cover what you can with a jacket to keep from prying eyes. Let out a tremble and a silent sigh. Pick him up and take him out of sight and know that things won’t ever be alright.

This silence between us,
broken by the sound
of the rain on the rooftops.

This aching in my bones,
like they’re splintering under the weight
of this collapse.

The sun
doesn’t warm my skin like it should; nothing is left to fill this void.
It’s a new dawn.

Echoes
of tired footsteps through a desolate, empty town
reverberating off concrete walls and asphalt
but somehow never make a sound.

Ruminate
on this discord, the situation that we’re in - an impasse and it's a disposition that’s wearing thin.

I’m so used to writing sad songs
But I’m not sad anymore.
I stopped letting those disasters
Define me to the core.

And I’ve been content with what I’m doing;
No longer bruised, no longer sore
From this hard beating I’ve endured
(From this heart beating I’ve endured.)
And I’m not sad anymore

I’m so tired of writing sad songs
I can’t shake these feelings I’ve ignored
Like when I fell to pieces in the bedroom
Or when I passed out on the floor.

I was broken and alone
But you felt like home to me.

And you felt like home to me
And I’m listening to those songs I wrote when I was seventeen
I never thought I’d let that go
And so I think that you should know

That you feel like home to me

I wasn’t there, but I still see that image of you in the front seat of your car. The lights were on and it was a hot and humid morning; the sun was just coming up.

I remember that hollow feeling in my chest and the knots in my stomach when she told me in the doorway of the office; it’s that same feeling that I get.

I made phone calls to all our old friends to make sure they heard it from a familiar voice than read it in cold, dead words from a screen.

Mike asked if I was kidding, but remarked I would never joke like this. I heard the faintness in his voice. I heard the aching on his breath.

I was dressed in black that Saturday morning sitting patiently behind that wall that separated me from my friends. The guitar sat idly on the ground; my hands trembled from the anxiousness.

I stood up in front of the most people I’d ever seen in one place. I looked out and saw so many familiar faces that I hadn’t seen in years. And I lamented to myself that it had been so long, and it’s been even longer still.

My shaking hands strummed out a simple song my voice croaked with regret; but I sand that song for you, my friend, and I’ve played it only

Once.

Since.

Give me passion soaked in remorse and sweat between these empty venue walls and all your burned out cigarettes, thinking "oh God, I've seen it all."

I forgot the melody I've been singing up and down these God forsaken halls and I've been feeling down and out, it ain't the same now since you've gone.

It ain't the same.
Since you've been gone.
It ain't the same.
Since you've been gone.

And I was kind of hoping this time I would come around.
And I was kind of hoping this time I'd stop freaking out.
And I was kind of hoping that this time I'd stop hoping for anything worth hoping to finally come around.

You and I have hands of bone. And when the darkness comes, we are all alone.

These howling winds are calling out in disbelief between the leaves in the trees and those weeds around your name.

These howling winds a-rattle my bones and this pouring rain never seems to end and these tiny rivers carry dirt from your bed on to my shoes.

You always looked so elegant in white and marble white suits you well, or so it seems.

These howling winds carry melodies somber and forlorn upon their backs and sending chills up my spine.

These howling winds scream at me in howling tones, "C'est la vie! Such is life!"

And I'll howl back.

My father said, "Son, your poetry is technically proficient and you certainly have mastered style, but you just say the words outright. You don't hide the meaning behind guile."

He told me that poetry was for interpretation of the reader, I was just to merely guide feeling but it was up to the reader to have to think.

Well, Dad. I think I'll have to disagree.

For me, poetry was a way to confront my fears of failure. To say the words I couldn't speak. To handle the loss of friends and family. To cope with the things that make me weak.

I suppose what I'm saying, Father, is I think poetry can be a narrative, just like any prose. So I'll keep writing the way I do, and hopefully it'll be good enough for you.

And if I'm wrong, I won't be great. I will fade into the obscurity of eternity, but somehow that seems satisfactory to me.

You know, I'm never sadder than those moments I realize how much I miss you.

And at first those moments came frequently and without delay but the pain they brought was simple. Dull; an ache.

But how as time crept slowly, the moments so frequent would come intermittently when I was most vulnerable.

But that dull ache was replaced with a deeper longing and a pain I couldn't shake. And it would stay with me for days and haunt my fevered sleep with memories I just wished would go away.

But I fear if they were to stop, I would lose all sense of self.

I already write so sparingly.

So please, just spare me the impertinence of soliloquy, that indecent exposé.

All these lines in the pavement
Start to feel like home;
Like cracks in the foundation,
I've got fractures in my bones.

It's become exhausting being a caricature of a human. All at once, I'm too over-the-top to be considered normal and much to internalized to have real depth with the people I wish to have depth with.

And god knows, I've gotten better at being honest. Not that I was much for lying, at least in perhaps the most traditional sense of the word. But I certainly was incapable of having real human interaction. Maybe it was fear that kept me frozen and unable to communicate what I wanted most to say.

Surely, it was a defense mechanism. It's a lot harder to be disappointed by someone when you refuse to let them be close to you. And it's certainly a lot harder for someone to break you into insignificant pieces when you don't allow them any hold on you.

But somehow being distant because of the fear of people breaking you leaves you even more vulnerable to it. I lost ----- because I couldn't be a real person.

I lost you too.

And perhaps it's too late to make amends and say, "I swear I'm not quite as horrible a person as I've pretended to be. The caricature I've become is definitely not what I intended to be."

But I just want you to know that I'm trying to be honest. And I'm trying to be happy.

But I know I'll never let you know.

I remember every single bitter goodbye I've ever had to say. Left alone here in this town, though I was never forced to stay.

There are ghosts I've left behind me and there are ghosts that still remain. I can feel their haunting presence every single stupid day.

How they tear at all my motives and pull on every string. Leave me choking on my failures. The whispered voice of muted things.

Am I just some bitter tourist dragged by my wrists through private hells? Am I author and conspirator writing the stories in which I dwell?

To what extent am I  responsible for this situation that I'm in? Am I really as alone as I have always thought myself to have been?

There is little I am sure of and fewer still of which I know, but I know that I am dying and that I'm still not ready to go.

I have unfinished business. I just thought that you should know.

It's the things you love and the things that you learn to hate. It's the feeling of despair and indescribable rage. It's the things you try to hide but you always seem to find

That the human aspects of life are fickle and flame. There's a communal need to pass on (not shoulder) the blame. When you stand back and look away, can you handle all the shame

Of the things you know you should have done but you chose to neglect? And you say you're doing fine but you're an emotional wreck. The things you try to hide cast shadows in your eyes.

It's the things you thought you knew and the things you try to forget. Is it a life well lived if it's a life filled with regret? If it's a shocking turn of events, will you trudge on through the end

Of the story to see how it all will surely unfold? Isn't there a strange sort of beauty in the perils of telling truths untold? When the questions that you have are the ones you'll never ask

On a search to self proclaimed enlightened truth and you seem to think you wasted time on this ill fitting youth. The things you try to hide turn my stomach and make me cry.

It's the things you did and the things that I know you regret.

She's a beautiful disaster with scars on her wrists and she said, "I'm glad I'm not dead, cause this'd be a ***** to have to talk about. I couldn't do that to my family and friends

So let's not talk about it. "I'm fine."
So let's not talk about it. "I'm doing fine."

And I know you never listen.
And I know you never care.
And I know you don't believe in love.
And probably never will.

She said, "I've been feeling like I'm losing grip on what I know. Between the distances I've gone and all those places left to go. And I was hoping maybe this time I could head up north, leave that awful past behind me.

And when the sinews break and the heart sinks to the stomach, I feel a retching in the back of my throat.

I told myself it didn't matter.
I wouldn't feel it anymore.
That I wouldn't look back at the bridges that I've torched.
Things always seem to work out for the worse."

I dug my nails into the dirt so I could tear the continents adrift to rid myself of the petty distances between us.

I kept pulling at the seams until the mountains started crumbling. Sweat drip, drip, dripping from my brow, but I'm still prying at the pieces.

Until at last I raised the oceans. High tide and high time, I pulled myself from the ocean floor.

If I let go, I would disappear.
There would be nothing left to keep me here.

I built castles made of sand and built them strong upon the shore. I laced in my fear of the ocean and of waters running cold

into the foundation and these walls; of these places I'd call my home, but can I really call it home when I'm feeling all alone?

Until at last I raised the oceans. High tide and high time, I pulled myself from the ocean floor.

If I let go, I would disappear.
There would be nothing left to keep me here.

We spit rhetoric in rhyme.
Who will save us this time?
There's nothing left to say;
I like it better this way.

I've paced around in empty parking lots with myself and a guitar. And I spent almost 9 years thinking about you. And now you're gone.

And everybody says the same thing. They say they think I've lost my mind. And I was counting stars on the overpass, baby. But I was just wasting time.

She said, "Boy, you almost had it. But you were just too blind to see." She said, "Right when I wanted you was when you gave up on wanting me."

She told me I wrote too many uncomfortable poems. Said I was too busy being alone. She asked me why I never seemed to notice how she sang along to every unhappy song.

Her eyes gazed off in to nothing and I knew I should have said something but I didn't say anything at all.

It was all private screaming but was masked as day dreaming but she left and she didn't say a word.

I've spent years of barely living. I've spent summers full of fear. When I had the chance to tell you that I loved you I knew I should have brought you here, to this over pass I used to sing at though I hadn't been in years, but instead I let you leave with out a goodbye. I watched you disappear.

I used to watch you in the moonlight out of the corner of my eye. I would listen to you breathing as you looked up at the sky. And I know you were counting stars and trying to figure why I could be so painfully reserved as the silence passed us by.

I started having dreams about having finally got it right. I gave you all the letters I wrote you every single night. I told you the things that really matter and I said it all outright. But instead I'd say it with a stammer and follow with a sigh.

You would say I never listen but I don't think you think that's true. The timbre of your voice is soothing; I could spend each night listening to you. I had to give up on the things I wanted and what I wanted most desperately was the chance to follow through with the scenarios in my dreams, but I fear there's nothing left that I can do.

You said you'd like to start again and maybe then you could feel fine and maybe you would be less afraid if this were a different life.

I was hoping you could forgive yourself for all the things you thought of but didn't ever do but you kept wearing away at yourself until there was nothing left of you.

I know that you'd sell your soul to any agent of change if they could give you what you needed most, but instead you waited in vain.

You left here on a north bound plane, never to be heard from again but I like to think you found your peace and a whole new life to begin.

I'm watching Donnie Darko with the lights on
And I'm thinking about all my old friends
And how I've wasted all these years, but I coped with most of my fears, and you know: things seemed different then.

And if you fall apart, the bottom is a good place to start when you have to pick yourself back up again.
And if you're falling down, when you hit the ground, give it a kiss and realize this: you know, it's not too late to be the end.

And I fell in love with all the things that make me human. I forgave myself and everyone else too. And I stopped looking for the answers. They're still there, but they're different for me and you.

And if someone tells you no one cares, please know that that's not true.

I keep on writing
to continue hiding
myself from the fears of failure and regret

but I've been fighting
while agonizing
over what by now I thought I'd forget

like those stupid moments
the disappointments
when each word gets more stifled than before

it's evanescent
the coalescence
the sinews carrying my heart have torn

were we ever happy?
I'm just asking
because I don't know if we ever were

just placating
the soul from hating
but it never really seemed to bother her

What's another sleepless night on the path to infinity? Here's to the pills to make me chill but still don't do anything. So I'm just staring at the inside of my eye lids watching the scenes of my life play out on my internal movie screen.

I see in vivid colors the memories that I thought I had let go, but were continuously burning from within me. Like the time I spoke venom and rhetoric at the loss of my notebooks and it was probably then and there that you fell out of love with me.

Or the moment you got too close so I shut down and refused to speak. Those times got more frequent and fraught with the fear to be open and honest but a liar I'd never be. So we sat in silence in the car like a sad film scene where it would rain, but we wouldn't cry, and so you fell out of love with me.

And if there's a demon in me, he's learned to speak in silver lined tongue and in prose and in rhyme and to paint pictures with words so he can pretend he's free. But I'm still haunted by the actions and the fears of a scared and tired little heart housed in chain and ice and it's when these fears came to life: I learned I'll never be free and so I fell out of love with me.

My whole generation is getting laid down in caskets. We're leaving the scene in body bags on our road to Damascus. Being buried by parents while grandparents attend service. And I can't help but to think that the future makes me nervous.

We're just waiting for the world to end but the world's not ending.

My whole generation is getting lost in translation. Between these ******* self help books and ******* antidepressants. At one time the future seemed bright but now I'm just too ******* tired. A generation that feels nothing; coldly embraces indifference.

I know you wanted more than feeling empty

I'll never know why I didn't answer. I just needed some time to pull myself together. And I was fine just for the moment. You were quick to hope but I was faster to anger. And now you're gone. Headed northbound. And I was hoping you'd stay but now it's time to move on.

The ******* in me says I'm not good for anything. The liar in me knows it's true. I was thinking last night about my purpose for being here. I spent all night thinking of you.

So here's to you. And all the fall out. And the fears you left behind in your desertion from this town. And I'm still here. In my parents' basement. Singing song after song about my discontentment. And all my friends- they feel the same way. But we're not giving up after these disappointments.

I want to break you with a jaded memory. I want to leave you like a faded misery. Fading quickly, but you won't break me. And if this world starts collapsing, I'm sure I'll be okay.

She said she's got way too much blood in her bloodstream.
She said she'd let a little out and she'd feel fine.
She said these razor blades are the closest thing to best friends.
And she's just rehashing all the same old lines.

She's not one to quit but now she's giving up.
I told her that I love her but it wasn't enough.
If nothing has changed, then why aren't things still the same?
If nobody was listening, then who the hell's to blame?

What the **** are we waiting for?

Her tattered skin is a testament to old friends.
And the hell they put her through before they left.
She said of all the things she loves, she loves those knives best.
She said it was a love she wouldn't ever second guess

You've been silent now for days on end.
And I just hope you're happy with all the hope I can give.
But I still think about you every single night.
And I wonder if I'll ever get this right.

I write too many sad songs.
I think too much about death.
And these feelings so familiar
And how she'd cut her ******* wrists.

Everything I've known has just disappointed me but I can't let these disasters keep on defining me.

To,
Who knows? For everything. And nothing.

I was asked to write a poem about insecurity.
And how to get over it.

Like a poem could supplant the search one has to do of himself.

And I was told to be subtle.
To be symbolic.

I had to make sure that the poem had direction.

So I decided to write a letter instead. And to be blunt. And to be literal.

But I'll keep the direction.

So, to:
Who knows? For nothing. And everything.

Stop thinking of insecurity as a transgression against yourself. You dwell too much and I can't imagine it's healthy.
Everyone is riddled with self doubt and the worry. It's the human condition. And by it, it means you are human. And you are, thusly, conditioned.

I think you lack ambition. And not that you're lazy. Or don't have high hopes. I just think you're content. But aren't we all? It's the human condition. And by it, it means you are human. And you are, thusly, conditioned.

I think we confuse self doubt, that feeling with which we feel we are incapable, and lacking ambition, that feeling with which perhaps we are too tired, too empty, too busy, too over simplified, too overly complex, too full of excuses. It's the human condition. And by it, it means you are human. And you are, thusly, conditioned.

And maybe that's not true. I'm not a philosopher. Not a psychiatrist. I'm not a self help book. I'm not even really well adjusted. I am woefully ignorant of most things. It's the human condition. And by it, it means I am human. And I am, thusly, conditioned.

Perhaps, it's not about getting over insecurities. Perhaps it's about how to make the world a place where we aren't conditioned to feel so insecure.

If there is beauty in humanity, surely it is in the imperfections and the fears and doubts that coincide.

I believe that we are meant to change in the world the things that terrify us. The things that break our hearts.

Find that.

From,
Chagrin Masked as Empty Bravado

I used to play you songs when you were feeling down. But now you're not around. Now you never hear a sound.

I've filled notebooks up but I trash them every fall. You never ever call. No you never talk at all.  

And if we're honest for once, I don't think that we could call each other "friend." What a stupid way to end.

But I've got no more ***** to give.
I've got my life to live. And I can't help but to hate you. And I know I should move on. But I still write you songs. And I can't help myself but to love you.

And if I've had hope then I guess it's gone and it's not ever coming back.

You left and now you're gone and I am all alone. But now alone just feels like home. And alone is what I know.

And I remember times, when our hopes were all alive. How you set my soul on fire. How you never said good bye.

And if we're honest for once, I don't think we could know: just how things go. That was a long time ago.

And I know that there's no need to stay, I might as well just go.
But you know that I know that I just want say that I've got

I've spent the past seven years reading secrets from post cards and the last 24 trying to act like I've got a cold heart. But I'm still sleeping with the blanket I stole from my brother when I was four and was afraid he'd get mad and say he didn't like me.

And my grandfather died, he wasn't blood and we called him Tommy. His real name was George, but he loved us like family. I visited him in the hospital when they pulled the plug and I brought my guitar and sat alone on my car.

And I hadn't written anything since he passed. Not a word since October. But this is me at 2:30 am  watching old 90's tv with the lights on and writing this down and I'm thinking of where I want to be.

For the past six years I've been waiting patiently for you to call and say that you've missed me. But I've waited in vain, and now your vanity's wasted. You're a ghost of the past and your sincerity's faded.

I built a new book shelf and changed rooms and painted my new walls a shade of gray and I hung up red curtains. And it was ten years ago that we moved here to the place I would call home though, then, I wasn't so certain.

The last eleven years I've been writing to try to forget you. I've spent so much time staring blankly through windows. This is me apologizing for the past and conceding hope for the future. This is me staring out at where I am and where I want to be.

My eyelids paint a picture that I just can't recognize and I thought at once, dear, that it was you here- but now I see that it's just sorrow in disguise.

And I am bothered by the slaughter that her hands and wrists and knives and heart had cost her. She said that this time would be the last time, but she still cuts herself to ribbons in her free time.

She said, "I don't care anymore." She said, "This life for me is stale and growing cold." She said, "I'm not fine, but I can't find why I should care anymore.

I've had as much talk about fear and distraction as I can react to before I start going numb.

Between secondhand smoke and lies in the bedroom, these serenades to no one start to feel rehearsed.

But she said, "I don't care anymore." She said, "I'm sick and ******* tired of being bored." She said, "I'm not blind, but I can't find why I should care anymore.

She said, "I don't care anymore." She said, "I never wanted much but to feel loved." She said, "You were the last good thing in this world left to me. But now you're gone and I can't care anymore."

I've had as much talk about fear and distraction as I can react to before I start going numb.

Between the secondhand smoke and the lies in the bedroom, these serenades to no one start to feel rehearsed.

Like I couldn't tell that I'm ****** up. As if I didn't know I was boring. No. I'm not talking. I'm just choking on biting my tongue.

It's the things I neglect when I'm trying to stay calm:
Friends
Sleep
Picking up phone calls

Nervously eyeing the clock again. I'm running on low it seems.

The sound of your voice, crackling softly over telephone wire, is cracking from the miles between us.

I don't blame you for not picking up.

I don't blame you for not calling back.

I don't blame you for any of it.

It's easy to forget:
Five years seemed to move so quickly.
And those scars, have they faded yet?
Do you know how I hate I remember it?

I'm haunted and losing it.

I know how it seems. I'm lost and empty and tearing at seams. I stare at walls and off into nothing. I know that I'm boring.

I'm just trying not to scream. At these strange feelings, when I'm not feeling anything. I'm afraid of myself again.

I know how it seems. I'm awkwardly tugging at sleeves. I don't like to speak. I know that I'm boring.

I know how it seems. I'm pacing my room again. I know how it seems. I've got a heart made of porcelain.

I'm afraid of its brokenness. I'm afraid of myself again.

I know that I'm boring.

Take me to those places where I first learned that I could love. In school yards, and in churches, car rides, Longhorn's, and smoky music clubs. These places feel so empty now that we're telephone lines apart and I'm alone.

Take me to those places where I first learned I could hurt. Phone calls on my bed, the last of car rides on the road. The street where we last embraced before I left and headed home. These places feel so empty now that we're telephone lines apart and I'm alone.

Take me to those places that I first learned I had hope. On couches watching movies and those places I wrote poems. In Rome, where we saw zebras. And that mountain path we got lost upon. These places feel so empty now that we're telephone lines apart and I'm alone.

Take me to those places that I had happiness. All those places in time that we had shared before you left. And when you come back, we would share some more time in places I won't regret. But then those places will feel empty when we're telephone lines apart and I'm alone again.

In bitter seas of ruin is where you cast yourself to drown 'til tides of fury would carry your body back to the shore to rot upon.

And gleaming eyes in life are now dead and staring cold. Lifelessly your body lays in its repose.

In death you have now traveled to places I dare not ever go, until my time to join you in the vastness of the God Knows.

And I recall your stuttered breath and your final sputtered words. How your breath cut like knives, and how your words had cut like swords.

I remember the upheaval of my heart and how you snared it with your claws. And how your bitter end etched into my brain gave me a cerebral pause.

And how I wondered if I had caught them, if I had acted on warning signs, would I have been able to stop it: your self inflicted demise.

But now you've left me to go on to a place I dare not ever go. Until my time has come and when you finally call me home.

We spit rhetoric in rhyme,
Who will save us this time?

I'm doing fine without you asking.
So don't ask and save your breath.
I was fine before you waltzed in.
And I'll be fine even now you've left.

You were the last good thing in a world of "I don't care anymore."

If I let go, I would float off.
I would disappear into the abyss.
There'd be nothing left tethering me
to you,
Or this place,
Or to just this.

What's it like to trade your friends for all the latest trends in music and art, when it's not from the heart?

And I'm wearing these heartbreaks as a symbol of pride to help to remind me that I'm doing just fine.

You can't keep me silent cause I'm a screamer from rooftops, a screamer in car rides.

I'm a dweller of basements and a stone's throw from walking to find peace of mind.

So we're packing our boxes and selling out short. And when they ask us, we'll say it couldn't have worked.

This isn't a good bye. It's a bitter "farewell." I've known you for too long, so believe me: "I'll see you in hell."

This isn't a good bye. It's a bitter "*******." I've known you for too long and this is long over due.

This isn't a good bye. It's a bitter "I'm done." I've known you for too long, that's it and I'm gone.

And how?

With bitter decay, I've felt my heart gone to ruin. Behind its cage of bone, flesh, and cartilage.

And when the sinews break and the heart sinks to the stomach, I feel a retching in the back of my throat. All the synapses in the nervous system start to snap.

I feel cold. I wonder what death feels like. Hands plunged in ice, but still the forehead sweats.

Lumbering between doorways and up and down halls. Collapse on the bed and pretend to not feel anything at all.

And just sleep. Restlessly.

It's funny how you use photographs to remember the things you want to remember the best. Using colors and shapes to isolate what you love and to forget about all the rest.

And how I draw out scenes and emotion using poetry and prose. Capturing the minute details and the seemingly superfluous differences and nuances in the way life and love flow.

I know you despise being called an artist and how you claim yourself "lackluster!" in romantic expression. And I know how you call me poet even when I write too much about death and it gives your heart some trepidation.

But, love, the difference between our art isn't in talent or creativity. It's in the vulnerability in my words that I've penned for you. It's the realization that my art isn't good enough for you.

The difference is you don't let your art let someone break you.

It's okay. I never had much hope in it anyway. And besides. I'm horrible.

I don't know if I ever had hope at all.

I don't think I could handle it:
That crushing feeling of never being good enough.
Hoping has let me down so many times before, I'm tired of coping through misery.

And if I'm afraid to love then it was learned through disaster.
Too many sudden stops of the heart after it kept beating faster and faster.
It's scarred so much more than before.

I don't think I can handle it.

Oh love, that crippling defeat.

I write in fragments,
Becoming more stagnant
'Til I write nothing at all.

And so I falter:
Stammer, stutter, stumble.
Mumble. As my words crumble.

These notebooks I've filled?
Toss them. Tear pages out.
Destroy it; fury unbound.

Let's dissect the hate.
I'd hate to disappoint.
Disappointment? I digress.

So tell me what you think of when your whole world collapses, leaves you brokenhearted and it leaves you worthless, breathless.

So tell me how you're coping. Keeping copacetic. When at first you walked on water, and now you're just submerged.

And if you fear your self destruction. Can I tell you I fear mine?

I know you're scared to death.
Of your whole world collapsing. Caving in.
But I also know that you almost welcome it.
So we'll just keep chasing the Brightside.

And the images of the horrors you've met.
You've held on to them.
I know you used them to break your skin.
But we'll just keep on chasing the Brightside.

Life is what you'd expect:
Lies, lies, lies, and more broken promises.
And I know that your joy won't outweigh your disappointments.
But we'll just keep on chasing the Brightside.

So you're writing poetry.
Not with pen and paper but with your every breath.
And I know that you welcome death.
But we'll just keep on chasing the Brightside.

From the rooftops I will scream it.
For love and now death, I've wept.
And I know that I won't forget.
But for now, I'll just keep chasing the Brightside.

Gray streets where cracks marble the asphalt.
Long walks and each foot step echoes.
Dim lights casting shadow on shadow.
Headed northbound - southbound - every which way the road goes.

The chill wind questions in whispered timbre.
The leaves answer in their choir of rustled refrain.
The trees moan with a creak and whistling sway.
The body feels tired and if the heart feels nothing, it feels everything in spades.

Searching dark streets for the answer for everything.
And cracking knees and the clatter of rubber soles.
Hands in pocket to protect from the autumn cold.
And winter's coming, and I can feel it's death in the depths of my very soul.

Bitter biting of nose and with gnashing teeth.
I travel further in search of finding everything.
The wind breaks and leaves whistle and the cold sings.
To harken the demons of malcontent and of apathy.

So at crossroads, I scream and I beg and I plead.
I wrestle with these demons and with the cross I bear.
And if I can't find an answer, I do not think I can care.
So I'll trade these arms for wings to take me away from there.

I painted all the walls in my room a mix of black and blue. Except for a small part above the window, I painted red. And that was you.

So when you came in with a fury, the anger of a hurricane would look at the piece I called love and be subdued.

Instead of trading in our last dance for broken granite for the heart wrenching eternity of a tomb, I beseech thee to cast out your doubt, your insecurities, shed the armor that protects you.

And open up, and let me in, betray all of the worst you hide inside you. Fear not my love, nor my ambitions, for I have nestled my heart within you.

Before night fall, before I nod off to sleep- I am the worst of all the things that have always bothered me.
The devil of all the worst to keep.

The stories and what they meant- behind the pen and words to describe them so patiently.

Without purpose, and of no direction to speak. I paint them in a line dividing my mind and my reality.

Of these things I've hoped to have accomplished but have failed and how if you've succeeded then it bitterly depresses me:

So, dark streets with no lighting but for the car. A long drive seemed fairly uninteresting. All thoughts about the girl sitting next to me.

And how she stays quiet for a while before she starts to talk about the things she seems to thinks we need.

And in that moment I can sense it- a destiny. Not for the rest of our lives but for the hint of self discovery.

All the fallacies we believe, can they start crumbling?

It's short lived, the quickly dissolving feeling of warmth. The lines falter between the physical desire for lust now and the need for love more than anything.

And if I missed out on both was it fear of further failure or the consequences of love that's been shattered?

I never wanted to get left behind. And so I treacherously denied myself the feeling of hope and watched it all slip by.

Without hesitation, no doubt of anything at all, I pushed on to try and find meaning. No meaning. We just expose all the carnal parts. To try and find healing in the arms of those we hope to know.

I want to experience love without doubt, without wondering if there went something wrong. I want to bury the ghosts and put them deep in the ground. And I fear the dangers of my fears that have been overwhelming me. I want to know why I fear to love the most out of everything. I think it's a shame that I just can't seem to get over you.

Why am I so scared?

I see her blank stares. As she tries to read me. Tries to understand. But it's not dreams or fairy tale land. I'm being haunted by the past and all the broken glass used to cut skin and write out the names of sins.

So was it ever half as much as it seems to me? Or is it just a gentle whisper of what I had thought it had been?

Just us grasping to nothing and holding on tight to the ropes in the hopes of something glorious happening when we sense those feelings we so long to forget.

And so all we know is regret, and I am afraid to admit that I might be ashamed to be feeling. So I try not to feel anything at all, and so I let you leave and you forget and you forget and you forget what we were close to feeling anyway.

I've become addicted to pain. The kind that leaves you troubled, broken, and insane. 

I've become indifferent to shame. So cast out all your sins and let me shoulder all the blame. 

I've become distracted by flames. As I watched you burning out, I felt nothing- what a shame. 

I've become indifferent to rage. I've put the past behind me, I'm not bothered with why you didn't stay. 

I've become addicted to pain. Not the kind were skin breaks, but the one where the heart's ripped out its cage. 

No one said forever would ever be forever enough.

And if I can abandon compassion and if I can abandon hope, would it make me less human? Would it make me a ghost?

I'm trying to reconcile the difference between the things in my head: the inconceivable anger and the thoughts about death.

And this brutish indifference and that bitter betrayal. The loves long forgotten and how that same love always failed.

And I can picture your reaction; how you wouldn't even react at all. Because when you left here,
you left me.