My poetic subterfuge,
Is little more than a small boy's kiss,
Gone awry in the mix of things,
For all the pretty thoughts I miss.
Who am I to lie to you?
I thought when we first met.
I spoke to you in riddles,
Saying I hadn't lied quite yet.
Are the words "ruin what we've got"
Just enacted like a phrase?
You were dancing all around me,
And I was in a daze.
Getting caught up in the moments,
Little blades of grass,
Watching the sunset fall,
As we let the moment pass.
In the end I was wrong,
It wasn't us inside that song.
I find myself the bitter fool,
Who let himself get pulled along.
You never meant to hurt me,
I could see it in your eyes.
The difference then, between us,
Was made from my cruel lies.
Never thought it'd matter,
I was spatter on the wall.
After all, it wasn't subtle,
I crashed to end the fall.

I want to believe I'm significant.
That everything I fought for mattered.
In love, In many things, But love...
Love is when I shattered.

"Maybe there's a saving grace."
I tell myself I'm moving on,
The years pass & journeys end,
Down rocky paths I've gone.

Everything that's happened,
All the dead ends I've been down,
The drunken mom, the broken home,
The distant mountain town,

The walking toward god
And finding nothing in the end,
The burnt bridges, familiar faces,
And being left with just one friend,

I've gotten to know myself.
That big yellow stripe.
I'm scared to win, scared to lose,
I'm scared to have a gripe.

Because either way you take it,
Left or right around the lake.
We'll watch ripples in the water,
And know that I'm a fake.

Dying

I define the self,
With cascading thoughts,
Memories that flutter,
Like stomach knots,
Neurons that fire,
Aware of themselves,
Picking poems and stories,
Like novels off shelves,
But slipping through fingers,
Like arrows do souls,
Glancing off fragments,
That once made us whole,
Reminding the spirit,
We all had a name,
In a place that existed,
Just out of frame.

"In your chest between ribs,
Nestled on breath,
I wither with you,
In the embrace of Death,
Who constantly waits,
Just out of sight,
Breathing my name,
And blowing out lights."


I know I can't love you,
Whoever you are,
You glimmer like her,
And I still have the scar.
It may have switched sides,
It may be content,
But whenever I kiss you,
It acts like a vent.
I am what I am,
I'll make you unhappy.
I'll write her these poems,
Thickly and sappy,
Knowing full well,
She wont see a word,
As the thoughts that she loved me,
Come off as absurd.

In you, there must be empathy,
For my madness, I've become.
No other names to call me by,
I am Mr. Numb.
The pain of the daily tastelessness,
Seems to lose itself in obscurity.
In the abstraction of shape and form,
I care to question me.

In you there must be hope,
For my mirror, you've become.
You will be my clarity,
I will not be numb.
The moment that we met,
Was ingrained within my mind,
But as the hours turned to days,
In the darkness, I now find...

Abstractions, you and tastelessness,
I'm found, obscured in loss.
My mind is the universe you reside within,
And emotion remains the boss,
As hours, weeks and years pass,
A moment becomes them all.
In the way a seed becomes a tree,
As we watch it slowly fall.

Look the other way,
Don't think just do it.
Make sure to close your eyes,
Before it takes you in.
Every pain you've ever had,
All the words that broke you down.
Memories that span a lifetime,
Seem so small right now.
Close your eyes and turn your head,
Remember a song you hate.
Do it now while you have the chance.
Just turn your head away.
Don't look back like you've never,
Seen it happen a million times before,
Enough times to close your eyes,
And see it anyway.

She smiles.

Her words were subtle but aching,
as though they were torn from within.
He looked at her in awe of them,
The snowflakes melted on her skin.
He didn't know what to say,
He felt it tear from himself too.
He was afraid of saying something wrong,
So he just stood there staring through.
She knew something odd was happening,
Somewhere deep within his eyes,
Tentative, she said goodnight.
She was sure his words were lies.
A sigh left his lips in mist.
The evening sky bore a cruel wind.
He inhaled the crisp air,
Although he felt like he was skinned.
"You don't know what it's like, my friend,
And yet you know it all too well.
You were meant for me it seems,
But I woke up today in hell.
I found a girl that I once loved,
That I thought could not exist.
From the color of your eyes,
To the warmth of your sweet lips.
I loved her before you came,
And I lost her before you left.
The sands of time would be ours my love,
But I must live a life bereft."

He finished his lonesome poem,
In the solace of the night,
Then wandered into the darkness,
From under the street light.
He walked into his girlfriend's house,
And was alone with her again.
He whispered as she slept,
"I know how much I love you Jen...

But who we are is something strange.
We've fallen apart at the seams.
We never really felt right, did we?
Our lives were naught but separate dreams."

I used to be under the illusion,
That love was more than matter,
Strewn across time and space,
A pattern in the scatter.
Strawberry fields endeavor,
To tell us to believe.
That the illusion can survive,
If we learn how to grieve.

In the sadness and the woe,
That comes when we let go,
There's a truth that fails to show,
A truth that we should know.

Love is just a lie,
That we use to get on by,
A label for sensations,
That give us reason just to try.
There are those of us who'd say,
They can't take love away,
But nothing is forever,
In the shadow of decay

Perhaps it did exist,
Somewhere between lips,
But I dare not say it's this,
In the space between your hips.