Fix me with subterfuge;
one-hundred feigned smiles
crash, condense and disperse,
all because you shot me
that polar glare.

Trick me with posed gesture
and we backtrack, for miles.
Your stare ignites, melts and
drools off of your frozen eyes.

Wet blue tracks
through Salt Lake City;
these roads need gritting,
these walls must melt.

it's so easy to talk about loneliness and pain
to romanticize all of these things that i've been feeling
and throw in rhymes here and there

but how do i get myself out of this mess?
how do you fall in love when you're so uncomfortable
with yourself?

it's 5 am again and all i can think of is
how quickly my fingers hover over the keys
and there are people rising but
i still cannot sleep

i am engulfed in sad songs and books and the quotes
in those books that tell me more about myself
than i ever can

(sometimes i wish some dead poets were my friends
and then sometimes i wish i could put on a mask
and masquerade around as another person,
as a stranger even to myself
i feel like i'd be more comfortable then)

tell me, what does it feel like to fall in love?
does it feel like electricity crawling up and down your spine,
like warm fuzzy feelings swirling in your stomach like wine?
and does it last? or do people just pretend?
will i ever find love? or will i be all alone in the end?

The hallways seem strangely silent
a wistful sense of emptiness fills every room
rammed full to the brim
with nothing but previous occurrences
and quiet, clean air.

Curtains grow duller with every second,
the falling sun creeps carefully
behind grass and trees, beds and walls.
A “climate control” unit hums
met only by murmuring voices next door.

I irritate a light switch, flicking it
on, off, on, off, on… off.
There is nothing of interest in this room.

I turn inward, sticking my thumbs
into my ears and hands over my eyes.
At long last, serenity.

corrosion of the soul
happens slowly but surely
by crushing grind of monotony.

each day society tells me my
value is based on my function and production,
and little by little I am crushed by failing expectations
that are not my own.

my soul slowly corrodes into nothing, but
out of the vast emptiness, life emerges again.
I yearn to be free, and this time I bear my
wounds with honesty and dignity. I am
unashamed about my soul being free to be me.

I have value period, not based on function or production,
but simply because I have a spark of life within me.
a divine spark that gives brith to new life
within me each day, each moment.

the night I was going to die
I was sweating on the bed
and I could hear the crickets
and there was a cat fight outside
and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
mattress
and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
I was almost too weak to walk
but I walked around and turned on all the lights
and then I went back to bed
and dropped it down again and
I was up
turning on all the lights
I had a 7-year-old daughter
and I felt sure she wouldn't want me dead
otherwise it wouldn't have
mattered
but all that night
nobody phoned
nobody came by with a beer
my girlfriend didn't phone
all I could hear were the crickets and it was
hot
and I kept working at it
getting up and down
until the first of the sun came through the window
through the bushes
and then I got on the bed
and the soul stayed
inside at last and
I slept.
now people come by
beating on the doors and windows
the phone rings
the phone rings again and again
I get great letters in the mail
hate letters and love letters.
everything is the same again.

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

Times like these turn your mouth into a gullet
your frown into a scowl
your yawn into a howl

Times like these make drunks alcoholics
you scamper then you walk
you scream then you talk

These are glorious times, my dear
They turn our boredom
into your fear