Today while I was at work,
an elderly couple came through my line.
Their faces were heavily wrinkled,
aged over time.

The man greeted me kindly,
asking for paper and plastic.
His voice was rough, raspy, and weak,
and most certainly unenthusiastic.

As I bagged his groceries,
I watched as he talked with his wife.
The woman he had to chosen to be with,
for the rest of his life.

Once we were done ringing up his food,
he reached out to pay.
His hand trembled when he extended it,
as I continued to survey.

"Debit?" he quivered with uncertainty,
as the cashier kindly took his card.
"Just confirm and sign right there." she said,
as he concentrated very hard.

Bent over slightly, eyes squinted,
he shakily signed his name.
A receipt printed, and was handed to him,
"Alright, have a great day."

I turned to the man and his wife,
and smiled as they smiled back at me.
"Thanks kid, don't work too hard!",
he said to me gleefully.

I nodded and smiled as they slowly waddled away,
and headed out the door.
I watched as they left, out of my sight, and thought,
there has to be more.

There has to be more to this measly life,
than just what I can see.
There has to be more to this pathetic life,
which means nothing to me.

The thought of death, it scares me so,
and leaves me shaking in fear.
My mind is clouded, thoughts a blur,
nothing seems to be clear.

The thought that someday when I'm old,
I'll wake up and think to myself,
"Welp, this is the end of the line,"
is really something else.

Because to be quite honest, I don't want to have to think,
"this is the final stretch."
I would rather not have to confront,
such an evil as death.

I don't want to face a wrinkled face,
brittle bones and a deteriorated mind.
I don't want to grow old, or die alone,
or face the powerful Father Time.

But then I remember what I saw today,
and it makes me realize how I will survive.
The man had a love, his wife, his soul mate,
which kept him alive all along.

So I will face my wrinkled face,
and I will face brittle bones.
I will face my deteriorating mind,
and I won't face them alone.

I will love you all my life,
and I will make you my wife.
And we will fight Father Time,
together, side by side.

i leaned to smoke
from film noir
the gritty grey frames
i first saw in cloudy rooms
completely antithetical to the vibrant blockbusters
from my childhood

if i can afford it
i still buy a non-filtered soft-pack
and puff them
three puffs just before
anything is inhaled
mostly for effect
drama

but when i cant
i just think of bogart
tear the filter off
and proceed

but it was never
so much about the act
drawing in a cloud
of overly-processed plant matter
but about the etiquette

if you have ever burned down
something without cotton
you know it is certainly a messy ordeal
but what hepburn and tracy taught
what grant and cagney spoke
with their actions of course
is that there is a reason to this madness

i practice
and i try to teach
that this is an elegant process

while taking in a deep breath
of something
you arent encouraged to love
without any health benefits
simply out of a base habit
some of that **** is going to get in your mouth

it may taste bitter too,
depending on how your buds are aligned,
but grow up
you cant keep just spitting where
other people will soon walk

they never did that
my heroes
instead
they stuck out
the tip of their tongue
pursed their lips
as the face made by
a baby on a commuter rail
staring at you
and you echo back
with a tiny poke
of your front 10000 buds
mostly for spectacle

and when that teensy bit emerges
within or without the train
you have to gently pick
with the forefinger and the thumb
the infinitesimal bits
resting at the tip
pluck them away
rub those two finger together
and pretend
that youre only smoking

and
if you arent looking closely enough
ill tell you
things are turning back into grey
and you turn RIGHT back into
the misogynist you hated
but emulated

youre still smoking though
handing out smokes in fact

holding up "the walls of jericho"
laughing at those
who dont know how
to fold a sheet

oh. but i pledge to quit
and you to change
and us to bond
and my smokes to wain

this isnt about the filter-less
that i had at 3am
its about what i commit
and what you
can respond with
how this can work
and the etiquette necessary

let me
let me
pick the fleck from the tip
of the teasing tongue
just for you
and you tell me
when i have something
in the place that
used to be my mustache

When I'm with you
It's like old honey
in a glass jar
so slow and sunny

Molten golden
nature flowing
But still, I see
where this is going

I'm not the apple
of your eye
Fruit rots and dies
Once it has fallen
A busy bee
Must spread his pollen.

Song


Intro


Your bedroom leaves you behind,

Remembering a blurry background.

You’re not in your world anymore.

Look up, look down.

Blue sky, and a green floor.

Look in between and another color

Strikes you like a knife,

And then another color, and another.

You've been stabbed by a tree.




First Verse


You're vision is the clearest it's ever been,

Each individual crease on every leaf.

The trunk is a clear brown, the browniest brown

That brings back blips of brainwork that believe to be begotten.

Crystal-like yellow leaves,

As if someone took the image

And manually added the color.

But you know it's a physical object,

You can walk around it and see the back of it,

And soon

You gain

The confidence

To touch it.


Second Verse


A pulse deep in the tree as you run your fingers across it.

As you recline yourself,

The knife turns gray

And the once eye-catching yellow

Silver leaves dance tauntingly towards another color,

A slow-moving car that tapped you on the back.

A hill overlooking a hill,

With a forest of grey trees.

You notice one is lit up,

A carbon replica of the previous chromatic timber,

And is begging for attention.







Chorus


You almost fly down the hill,

Isaac’s first helping you descend.

You alight beside the single resplendent floral,

Its chromaticity illuminating its ashen brothers.

Brush its rigid shell,

The lights fade in its core,

But analogously,

Its closest neighbor is afire,

You now understand,

You are following a circuit in the wilderness.







Third Verse


You start to gain impatience now,

You flow through the achromic forest

Touching every blush of color you see,

Following the maze of crayoned woods,

Journeying, immersing, submerging deeper

Into a blank woodland.

You soon come across something,

Hidden in the bright green grass.

A mirror, a flat, square plank

Of cooled and melted obsidian rock.

A light ray reflects off it.

You pick it up, the ray

bouncing back and forth,

And store it in your pocket.


Fourth Verse


You almost loose hope,

Not to mention interest,

About your current predicament,

But something, something about the atmosphere-

You stop.

You know to stop, just for a second,

An epiphany.

You look once, twice, three

Quick turnarounds until it glimmers in your eye.

A barely gleaming church door.

And you realize.






Chorus


You realize so intensely,

You almost can’t perform the action.

You pull out the mirror with glee,

Catch a small ray through its skin,

Aim the ray towards the door,

And you spray

The sunshine

Onto the

Door.







Second Chorus


Your mouth agape as the perfect light

Reflects onto the invisible passageway,

Causing it to enamel the door with a beautiful shade

Of orange.

You spray the door planks with your infinite atomizer,

Covering the small blotches you missed

Until you drop the mirror, turn around,

Say goodbye to the gloomy forest,

But discover an luminous explosion of color.

Each tree has awakened for your departing.

You smile, and turn around,

Pull the doors open and walk into the white.


Outro


Blurry background.

You recognize it as if you never left.

Because you didn’t really leave,

You see yourself asleep on your bed.

It’s everything you remember but just a hint

Of chromaticity is left behind the walls.

Not wanting the feeling to end,

Waiting until just the right time

To finally elope from your now distant memory

And regenerate to another adventure

In which you hope will have meaning.

His eyes are revolting,
colorless and dull.
Yet there’s something that makes them
unequivocally nauseating.
When I look through these windows,
I see that lust and greed have joined hands
with revenge and apathy
to form a being capable of no earnest good.
The most horrifying trait of his eyes,
is not the color,
nor the size,
nor the dilation,
but
how ******* reflective they are.

Young girl
Dumb girl
How many times are you going to think he’s the right one
How many times are you willing to get hurt
Mentally
Psychically
Be careful
You’ll get a bad reputation
I know you
You pretend to be strong
But you’re weak so weak
How many times will you allow him to break you down
You’re to young
I want to protect you
But I’m no better than you
I fall just as hard
And as fast
Im impulsive
And weak
But I want to change that
I want to help you
But what could I do
What if this time he’s the right one
Or
What if he’s just like the others
All the broken promises
All the heartbreak
We’ll never truly know
Until it’s to late
Why must we bare the burden of young love
They think its dumb
And it is
They say it wont last
And it probably wont
But we still look for it
Hoping
That maybe
Just maybe it’s him
That he’ll be able to fix all the hurt
Always saying
Maybe next time
Maybe next time?
How many next times will there until you know
Is it even worth it?
I guess we’ll just have to wait
We’ll find out together
We’ll go through the pain together
We’ll do it all together.
But
Maybe next time we wont be so young and dumb.

Regrets, they come in waves and break around his feet
And he begins to wonder who he might have been
Had roads diverged in different woods and fields
Not yellow or yet any colour still unseen
But clearer now by day than windless nights
Still nearer than the objects of his dreams

It'd rained late into the evening, and when the lights were shaded
Around the pool outside and with the windows shuttered
He'd thrown on loose clothes, flicked open an umbrella
While high outside the stars the lightning flashes muttered
Pulled open doors that led to the veranda
And moved outside once more with all his thoughts unuttered

The smoke, from fires on Java lies heavy on his senses
An omen of the time of year and of the past condition
He shrugs, ***** in the acidic nighttime odors
Reviving lives not lived but revealing his admission
That time beyond the present that mirrors every movement
Within, without, and yet again, the flicker of suspicion.

The pistol in his pocket, illegal not unloaded
A symbol of his state of mind and by  his sole discretion
He kneels beside the water, deep-set and in the shadows
Lips forming wordlessly around the last confession
Images of where and what and who and why and whether
A portent of that final action, sensing and impression

The smoke from fires on Java lies heavy on the water
The reek of cordite mixing with the smell of burning grasses
Indignant birds protest the crack of one small set expulsion
The echo round the swimming pool reverberates and passes
Nothing more and nothing less and time and space and matter
Slick red upon the treacherous tiles, the shattered bloodied glasses.

Now
I don't normally do this
And
I wouldn't normally say this
So I'm writing this
The idea hasn't elevated to speech
In my head
It is there
But I'm not sure it'll ever reach my lips
But
I've loved you so long
And
Again I don't normally do this
In fact
I never do this
But
I pray and I ask and I yearn
For the day
When everything is natural
And
We are united under the Sun
Or the Moon
Preferably the Moon
Because the Sun is nice
But the Moon is beautiful
And
If we were to be something
That is deserving of unification
Under such a wonderous thing
The gentle light bouncing off your unreal grace
Your aura radiating through your space
And invading my body like disease
I would probably fall to my knees
And die right at your feet
Because
I'm a sucker
And
I'm a fool
And
I know nothing else
But to buckle at your words
Your beauty
Your face
Your energy
Your grace
Our chemistry
This place
This closed and open gate
This disgustingly fulfilling state of mind