I've been looking for you all around

I can't find you in old photographs
And sometimes I can't reach you by phone
    But when I look in the mirror and see my smile

*I know I've found you

If you look at everything a little sideways

     You would be amazed at the intricate connections between everything in this life.

       **Everything is poetry, just as poetry is everything.

You can
        Lean on me
  And let our broken pieces slide against each other
    And together, we will make a **beautiful ******* mosaic

Morning is a cold metal gun placed to my temple
Time is a trickle of blood I won't remember

My mind just fell
         Knee deep into an inkwell
You're pre meditated ****** of creativity
                      **Didn't end well

Ripping out pages and crumpling paper
Lately I can't just express without saying
Something too raw pulling **** out the closet
Leave grown women sobbing this **** is bizzare just
Bare with me I'm sorry my life is revolving
I'm falling in hallways get faded to jot this
Can't bring you up every girl I'm involved with
Hates you to death, because I share my heart with
You and you only
Only you see my side
We've loved and we've lied and we've cuddled and cried
We built up our pride
We've drank and gotten high
But every sober moment
Protected my mind
You rejected my kind gestures and efforts in time
made me realize I played the Jester
Just to get by
Wonder why did I lose love?
Well at least I did try
Stealing you rings just to make you all mine
Still remember your size
Those seven point fives that you'd take off at night
I know you lost a couple shouldn't come as a surprise
We both lost it all even who we both are
These emotional scars make what we had hard to find
I'm just stuck in the car strapped along for the ride
I tapped in to the side of me that's still too in love
I know its too much and you don't want to rush, but

Me and you were playing house
Start thinking that I'm losing touch
Falling asleep together on Mare's couch
Maybe I should loosen up
When I leave you and I go home
I start forgetting what it is
Gotta keep in mind our two beautiful kids
I mean that's *reason enough to ******* live

Why are we wasting our relationship on other relationships?*
You know how sticky these situations get
You go up higher than me some days
You know what I think we could be some day
But you already know my side of things, man

You are the truest part of me
When I close my eyes, it is not to sleep,
But to fade into a place where holding onto you keeps me sane and safe.
It is often called reality.
And any place where our love is stopped from flourishing
Is nothing more than an ill conceived nightmare.

I still have faith I'll wake up to a bouquet of your kisses, sweeter than any rose could hope to be.

Nails to keep me held high
   Looking down at what I love
Bleed me until i'm dry
        For every moment I lost touch
          I could never be your savior
      And truthfully its my loss
I know we look good on paper
  
              But I feel like I'm more at home on this *cross

Narcolepsy* hard and heavy watch me fall asleep
            Lulled to bed in a cunning thread of the tangled web we weave
    I dream in pristine colors, windows of my mind anew
No fingerprints or ***** looks or evidence of you

         I find comfort in forever wherever it may be
        I may have left my home but it will always stay with me
                 The smell of all the smoke with the sound of all the rain
   On constant playback every second deep within my brain

        I found that time is all that matters and everything else faded
        I spent years and years learning how to forget everything I hated
    I've only gotten older and have nothing left to show
              Except a ringing alarm clock and blood on my pillow

     Narcolepsy** hard and heavy watch me as I sleep
     Another pill, another high, another date to keep
      If I shall die before I wake, I hope that I'm with you
    Then it won't matter where I go, cause you will see me through

Every time I fall
You're there
With open arms
And neon veins
So I can see what it is
That makes you tick
With bleeding wrists so I can see the way
Straight to your heart
We're not perfect,
But we're art
And it never is
You would agree
Looking into my weighed down eyes
That you could always get to look up
You always saw the white in them
When others would see my dilated pupils
That seem to you like
Beautiful mirrors
Caught in arms of neon
That get cut in the process
To keep me from shattering
You say its worth it

Nobody was born here
    But we'll die here
                   Sink into this rough soil
  And fertilize a tree.
                       And that tree will grow leaves,
           And come fall baby,
     People will come from all over just to see them drift away from the thing that gave them life.

Nobody was born here
     But then again,
   No one knows what "here" even means
         The meaning was lost in years and years of general nonchalance
               It sounds beautiful,
   But ****** if we know how to explain it.

Nobody was born here,
            But we can choose to call it home.
   We can choose to grow old here,
And we can choose to die here.
               And if we don't know how to define it, then that leaves a blank we can fill in with anything we want
        No matter what
        Anything at all.
  And if that means you sink into this rough soil,
      Just to fertilize one tree,
          Then come fall, baby
    People will come from all over just to see your leaves change and drift,
        And baby,
           That means you're beautiful.

I'm taking my life. to the pawnshop on a dusty summer-fall morning
     Because at this point I'm not sure what to use it for anymore
               And they'll give me cash for trash
   Like a mountain of crushed cans in exchange for a dream money can buy in a clear plastic baggie

We've carved tunnels through our hearts
   That led from lie to lie
  We've seen many forms of love,
But never eye to eye.**
      
     I lay hope with each breath
That you'll remain mine
         *My Shelter, my Renmar,
My Partner in Crime

Phones* are like *relationships:
*You really love them at first, but soon, they just don't do it for you anymore and you want one with better features

We loved.
           you left.
       I'm sad.

**What a mundane poem

I feel life from the words I write despite them being words I slurred over night it's like I fight but my pen is the sword of course I force myself into creative prospects I expect to wreck what in front of me is set
I wondered what would happen if I ruled the world gimme a shot at the top I'm not Clinton I only need one girl but seriously I hate this place controlled by industry it's ****** me up the environment and desire for right went out the window when the dead presidents kept talking from beyond the grave the money you made won't matter so cut it like a beanstalk

DaSH:
And fall into a pool of tears
From all the single mothers over all these years
Tucking youngins under covers
Undercover trying not to let the pain show through
This is the same strong woman that still holds you
Even though you're older and make your own decisions
Its gotten colder in the later years just wishin
You could go back to the beginnin
Back to when **** was simple
And all you had to do was listen
To another bedtime story
Next thing you know you're drifting
Away from all these problems and all these lights
Fluoride will **** our dreams they tell us to brush our teeth and cringe when we say reality bites
But I'm just trying to figure what's more important
Being myself
Or being Your kid
Just another thought from the tortured
I can feel the flames lick my body 'fore the torch's lit
Society's trying to burn us
And if they think they can teach us before they learn us then its straight out the frying pan and flying into the furnace

Nero:
I'm all alone like a watchtower my life turned sour but I'll devour any chance to **** up fools with rhymes perchance I'll leave you entranced with my writings but I'm sliding off topic so dash if you're ready then go a ahead and rip because we're cyphering on some poetic mafia ****

DaSH:
**** clips in the toilet with the ******* safety off
******* blood royal flushing with my king homie Alucard
All your ******* are old and lack any kind of support
So I'll hang em make their back straight with that ******* IV cord
If this cipher is random
Hope they deal with what I hand em
Four grenades a box of tampons
Watch these ******* explode while standing above the commode
Uncan them
The whoopass they deserve
Then im swervin in their hearse
Hopping over every curb
Speeding through every sharp turn
I love to watch their bodies burn
I love to catch every single ash between my teeth and eat them
DaSH is such a beast you freed him
By acting like a priest
When youre a demon in the streets
*******, capish?

Nero:
Alucard the damphir ******* blood like canned beer I'm near my apex others are below I'll free flow like arkham you won't question in a session when I leave your ***** barkin rhyme sparring call me Ali all these fools stay trying to Rock me like cheap Versace but I'm high quality leather built for your pleasure linkin words together you'll take home and treasure like Sinbad I don't sling crack but my rhymes are the pipe because reading this I know your *** got addicted tonight

DaSH:
Slicing high up on their frame
Like I'm aimin for the throat
Lots of gore on the floor
Need a boat to stay afloat
The walls needed more paint
You donate another coat
But I don't need your ******* charity
I'll stumble and I choke
Before I ever let you get to me
Before you start ***** you'll be history
How you ******* plan on ending me?
Just get Gone, Girl, be a mystery

It's our time
The sublime
Rhyme and reason
We season this reality with words instead of thyme:
Both are medicinal
Antiseptic chemicals to keep away the grime

                   *Don't tell me any different

                Bare witness to the gift of bliss that is *expression
                       Words can increase life expectancy in the midst of depression
             They can get back at those who hurt you without using a weapon
            Or refresh your mental image when you're feeling less than

They form legacies and dedications
Eulogies and congratulations
They give everything in existence an identity
Even the most ****** obscenities

Words are life and words are love
Words even form this silly cheesy stuff

       **To everyone feeling poetic, I have but one question
      What's one way, while writing, your life has been blessed in?

Cut cut cutting out the cardboard of my tongue
I can no longer taste your kiss as my body has gone numb
I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head
Chopped off at the root of me, my essence running red

Something stupid, clumsy and dark stumbles at my door
I told you to get out of here and not come back no more
But silly you you slit your throat and dont know how to sew
Looking in my window for answers, acting like I know

Choke me with a guitar string, this music will be the death of me
But it'll get me lots of ***, so I don't even sweat the heat
Time will stop ticking when the world has finally lost its rhythm
And I'll be sitting on an oil drum screaming out of tune at children

Old men die just to do it once and see if they survive
While im happy just popping pills to see if im alive
I can no longer taste your kiss as my body has gone numb
But I still feel my way around the barrel of my gun

I see the earth crumble
                As I close my eyes
   In the mirror
                            A hundred civilizations  
Vanish in the literal blink of an eye
           Tectonic plates sliding together
    Forming volcanos in my pupils
          I cry magma
Hot tears burning holes in my cardigan
                   Fully shut, I can hear the subtle sizzle
            And untimely titanic "BOOM" of an imploding world
      The flames burn through my lids
          In incalculable nanoseconds
               Somehow I can sense
                       The smoke
                           It feels
                             Like


Marijuana.

Dragging my knuckles* on the sidewalk
      I find myself hoping for a *spark
     that would confirm my mechanical makeup
        Titanium and servos buried mere inches beneath faux flesh
        Scraping concrete

         *Friction, it would seem,
           is the only force powerful enough to reveal me to myself

Hey girl
       I caught you staring in the mirror again
       The same look of dissatisfaction painted clearly on your face
You look at your stomach and touch your waist
            Turn and look at your back with the same expression
       There may be wear and tear here and there, especially on your spirit, but that's not where you stare
          If you did you might see the most beautiful sight ever beheld by those big brown eyes
  
       See,
    A lot of men would see your thighs and to no surprise, try to get inside
      But I see your mind and what lies behind the obvious
           A question mark most would leave off the end of their sentence
            I could never forget it.
   I see the rocky road you've walked every time that we talk
        The gravel was never gentle on your soul
      But you continued until you came upon a house built from pain
  decided to stay and thought you'd be okay
      It slowly became a home where you grew into the furniture
    Your veins interlaced with fabric and every fabrication only wove you deeper
          And soon the drugs came to take you away only to fade and leave you to a fate stuck between these walls of abuse
    
                    I refuse
To let you go back
And even if you hate me now, I hope one day you'll understand and love me for that
                   See, I see a lot of things because I look past the mirror you fixate on
                    I've never had to see you as just a reflection
           But rather as perfection, because with every wrong direction you took to get to me it made the time we have together that much more meaningful
           And though your spirit may be bruised and tired, it refuses to give up,
It's gorgeous.
        


        
You've never had to see me as a reflection either. Every time you look at me, I'm anew. I'm not what's in a dusty mirror, and I'm not what's in a fading photograph. I'm a steady flame in your heart, and the most beautifully flawed smile I've ever seen. I could never thank you for all those small things you do without noticing. Nothing I write could touch upon the tip of the gratitude I hold in my heart for you. So I guess to come as close as I can in three simple words,

I love you.

Hey girl
      *I caught you staring in the mirror again

       The same look of dissatisfaction painted clearly on your face
You look at your stomach and touch your waist
            Turn and look at your back with the same expression
       There may be wear and tear here and there, especially on your spirit, but that's not where you stare
          If you did you might see the most beautiful sight ever beheld by those big brown eyes
   
       See,
    A lot of men would see your thighs and to no surprise, try to get inside
      But I see your mind and what lies behind the obvious
           A question mark most would leave off the end of their sentence
            I could never forget it.
   I see the rocky road you've walked every time that we talk
        The gravel was never gentle on your soul
      But you continued until you came upon a house built from pain
  decided to stay and thought you'd be okay
      It slowly became a home where you grew into the furniture
    Your veins interlaced with fabric and every fabrication only wove you deeper
          And soon the drugs came to take you away only to fade and leave you to a fate stuck between these walls of abuse
     
                    I refuse
To let you go back
And even if you hate me now, I hope one day you'll understand and love me for that
                   See, I see a lot of things because I look past the mirror you fixate on
                    I've never had to see you as just a reflection
           But rather as perfection, because with every wrong direction you took to get to me it made the time we have together that much more meaningful
           And though your spirit may be bruised and tired, it refuses to give up,
It's gorgeous.
         


        
You've never had to see me as a reflection either. Every time you look at me, I'm anew. I'm not what's in a dusty mirror, and I'm not what's in a fading photograph. I'm a steady flame in your heart, and the most beautifully flawed smile I've ever seen. I could never thank you for all those small things you do without noticing. Nothing I write could touch upon the tip of the gratitude I hold in my heart for you. So I guess to come as close as I can in three simple words,

**I love you.

Frost on your window
     Heartbeat off tempo
     Don't wanna open the door too scared what you're in for
     You've been here before
     But it's never hit so close to home
     You don't know if you need to be held
     Or just be left alone

But come in girl, I swear it's warm inside
If you can't take it baby, we'll both go hide
Tell me what you're thinking, I've been around
In a room full of frowns, you still put it down

     Calls on your phone
     Letters at home
     They used to not talk, now they've missed you so long
     But they just can't make it
     Their time has been taken
     And your stuck here waiting
     Circumstances won't change just

*Let me in girl, I promise, just confide
I can take it, I've got nothing to hide
Tell me what you been thinking, baby I've been around
In a room full of frowns, I'll still hold you down

The room floated away
     Careening through street lamps and parked cars
    Flying through neighborhoods and dirt roads and green pastures
     It shot upward
A carpeted rocketship among dying stars

        I moved to touch you but you turned and left
     You opened the door and pushed yourself down
Hurtling toward Earth with reckless abandon and an annihilative smile
       I felt the shock of you hitting pay dirt way up here in my heart
You found peace in the rubble of the comfort of others
     And though it hurts my thoughts to know you're gone
   My soul knows I'm the same.

Way up here in this room shaped rocket I know we're both the same.

I met Sally on the hill with a nickel bag of ******.
      She didn't pay me in money.
Instead, information and a little persuasion made the baggie leave my right back pack pocket
     “Dollars could never have made sense of it anyway
          We throw pennies away opting for the opulence that big bills entail
   Retail will never amount to the amount I've blown on blow”
    Or so she said behind Louis Vuitton shades shielding eyes half dead
           A ****** with a monkey on her back fed by a steady stream of opiates
       “I open this line of communication so you can see we lack foundation and stability and yet
      We're trying to build a sand castle with all the powder we can possibly get
And if we're forced to forfeit that fortress, we snort more, still trying to forget” and with that she placed her sunglasses on top of her head

     I stood back with my back pack and I finally understood
                               Why drugs will make you richer than working ever could
                   They bag a gram put it on the scale and tell you what it weighs
      But they don't tell you how unnoticeable it is when your life slips away

         We sell the dream, we sell the aesthetics
    The drugs, the parties, the scene with guest lists
     Invincibility
        Pretty lights.
                Fun. All a lie.

*I almost fell on my face walking down the hill, staring into those blue eyes over my shoulder all the while.

Talking to the mirror I done learned some things
  About self preservation
Who I see myself as and if I'll make it
          I stand here naked
With no protection
    Just my reflection coaching me
      All I see is these scars
Vanity lights reminiscent of cars approaching me
     I traffick myself in words
You read every inch from the drivers side
A little sniff
My standard's stiff and I'm firm handed when I write
Guess it comes out ******* white
                            Paper
Lines later I'm in the shower sitting on the floor
The water hits and I'm gripping on the door but I'm slipping trying to soar
I can't escape, can't fly away
But I've given so much of myself there's not enough to sell
I can't reup on myself
      So I'll stand here staring at my face
And figure how to keep what's left of my heart in it's place.

I say a prayer that the dim light of the moon won't hide your shadow when im finally able to touch you

         Despite feeling your hair on my face
         Smelling your sweet perfume
         Tasting your kisses
         And hearing you say you love me,
  
                            It may be the only thing to convince me you're back in my arms

I finally figured a piece that could fit
     Decent enough to mention
          That gets deeper with each visit
     And though it wasn't my intention
       We invented vivid scriptures Shakespeare would weep to
           Crackheads could sleep to
       That's just the calm of absolution as it creeps through
         We never needed a deity's forgiveness or god to bear witness
   To this **** that we do behind closed doors cause in these moments I'm finally yours

      And that's all that should matter

I stop in my tracks,
Listening

A hollow clinking in the darkness
In an alleyway, somewhat familiar
Vacant and forgotten in the twilight hours
Except for the lingering cigarette smoke
And the scent of dehumanizing hate

And a clink
Low and somehow beneath the dense, dank dark

A sound disillusioning and honed to a fine point, like that of a blade meant to harvest death

A clink
And another clink

                                    There is a man sitting near the end of the alley
                                    At the back of the throat of Hell itself
                                    He has his head down
                                    But through the thick black smudge of night
                                    I can still see the base of a brown glass bottle tap the bottom of an upper row of teeth

He stops, and looks up at me with eyes that resemble mine a little too much for my comfort

                                    He brings the bottle down, and lowers his head, gazing at it as if for the first time
                                    Suddenly he snaps his eyes up to mine, instantly staring into the deep void that is my soul
                                    He smiles a knowing smile, and thrusts the bottle against his teeth one last time.


              It does much more than clink.

I stop in my tracks,
          Listening

  A hollow clinking in the darkness.
In an alleyway, somewhat familiar,
Vacant and forgotten in the twilight hours
Except for the lingering cigarette smoke
And the scent of frigid, dehumanizing hate

  And a clink
Low and somehow beneath the dense, dank dark

  A sound disillusioning and honed to a fine point, like that of a blade meant to harvest death

  A clink
And another clink

                           There is a man sitting near the end of the alley
                           At the back of the throat of Hell itself
                           He has his head down
                           But through the thick black smudge of night
                           I can still see the base of a brown glass bottle tap the bottom of an upper row of teeth

He stops, and looks up at me with eyes that resemble mine a little too much for my comfort

                                    He brings the bottle down, and lowers his head, gazing at it as if for the first time
                                    Suddenly he snaps his eyes up to mine, instantly staring into the deep void of apathy that looks back.
                                    He smiles a knowing smile, and slams the bottle against his teeth.
  


              It does much more than *clink.

I'm writing myself into my own little horror movie
             One where all of my victims are **myself

Sometimes I sleep so **** long
    
  The fabric of my dreams rots around me*

                                             **And im left lying on a cold unforgiving slab of reality.

The blood splatter dripped and pooled at the floor
       Even time slipped amidst all the gore

Step it up
Step it up to the bars
Break through so I dont break down
Quit asking how long it will take
Start paying attention to the steps as you escape now
That dungeon
Lonely cerebellum
Celebrity status dwelling
Inhaling stale stagnant smoke
A magnetizing choke
As the **** ties tantric knots iside your throat
Thoughts float from the dark
Poke and **** the slot to the key of happiness

Do I regress?*
If I regret my next step
Or do I stay in the night
Crying I wished I'd try
Into a broken mic
Downtrodden eyes
Staring at a life with my body nothing but a reason to build a shadow behind a hollow object

No.
There is a force inside of me
A silent tide in me
Feeding a violent seed
Raising a timeless tree
Etchings proclaiming I'm poetry
Lasting forever
Engrained internally
The grains absorbing the light
The limbs moving towards
The beautiful afternoon rays

Stranger things have happened
The splitting of an atom led to all the Eves and Adams
We just keep climbing up this ladder
What happens when we reach the top of it
Does it matter?
Still, stranger things have happened
I hung myself with string theory gripped in madness
And visited the vast void dripped in blackness
Crippled past tense reminds us of what was
And how inevitable it is that everything gets crushed and
Deboned with time
My skeleton remains hesitant at 11:59
Still even stranger things have happened
I woke up as a lab rat with a hazmat and a gasmask
Phantom of the operating theater with the seats packed
Breathing in sterile air trying to feel the breeze
Strap my self into a gurney
To perform out of body surgery
I said I'd never turn the other cheek but
Stranger things have happened

I miss you
Now you only exist through photographs
     And I wonder if you smile between the frozen moments I see of you
   I plead its true
          Cause I'm bleeding new negatives of myself
    But the only pain I've felt was putting you on a shelf
                 I can't see it any different
    I think of you an infant and now I see you crawling and I wanna call your momma but I wonder if it matters and when to cut ties
     I cut all the veins until most of it died
     I got blood on my hands but most of it dried
  Somehow the blood mixed with filth and a vine grew inside
      And I wonder if I can touch your face if I climb

        *When is all lost?
When its all tossed aside and goes out with the tide?
                   I need a vanilla sky to make a horizon and bring back the water
             Meanwhile I hear mommas having a daughter and I want her to be a doctor automatically
     Cause success is something none of us ever got to see

Once when I was young,* I was told you could swing so high you'd be able to just *fly away.  

   I learned early on
               That not everything we're told is true
               The fantastical can sometimes amount to a pile of plastic bags scattered in the wind
                    The end isn't always happy and there's not always closure
      Punctuations are more often question marks than definitive periods
                And looking for a definite explanation took prevalence over allowing our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
         Play time was replaced with study time,
             And before we knew it, it was time for work
                      We strayed from the playgrounds of our youth,
      Never returning to the top of the slide, we'd hit the ground a bit too hard to keep the enchantment of seemingly endless possibilities going
                                              Carriages became pumpkins long before midnight,
              And the school bell rang before we could finish our fun
                       But to tell the truth, sometimes,
     When everyone else has gone inside, back to the real world, full of logic and banalities,
         I sit on the old swingset kicking my feet
    Hoping it will let me *soar