Long do I labor
My back turned to the hot bearing sun.
Long do toil
Until my hardened hands crack and blood begins to run.
And in my labor, my heart turns red with the fires of anger.
At the pointless task set before me.
Why, I question do I place myself in such danger.
When it is all plain to see
That my actions do little to sustain me.
My body though young grows weary of these bleary days.
And my youth drains from me as color from a cloth.
I am left weaker at days end than when I started
And I obtain no recompence To cover the cost of all that I have departed
The weight grows greater by the day
And I fear I grow weaker for the effort.  

And yet at the time of my departure
When i lay down my toils pick
When I go back to the shack of a home
That i wearily built.
And I open the creaking door to a warm lit home.
And inside I realize that I am not alone.
For within the darkness eyes look back upon me
Small delicate hands reach out to embrace my leg
Happy for my presence, for the comfort that I endure to provide

Let it never be said that my heart were made of stone.
For even I in my loss, in my pain, I go to eagerly divide
What little my toils have to offer, what little the world sees fit to condone.
And when I see the smile they all give
That another day, by my effort they may all live.
I try not to weep, for they thought crosses my mind
That if I were to fall to jealosies grip
What wall would stand firm against he horrors of mankind.

What piller would hold the ceiling above them.
What furnace would give them warmth.
What sword and sheild would protect them from evils men
I am undone by my title
Weakened by my bonds
But for them, my pourpose stays vital
And for them do I treck on the toilers grounds
I will bleed so they will not need to
I will fall such that they may rise
And when it is all said and done and I am called on to
Let it not be not be said that my cross I did not bare.
Let it not be said that my dependants  I did not prize

Time like a river has past.
Like an ocean, it  has accumulated.  
I, a captain,  of land have I seen of last.
To the edges of oblivion have I, myself relegated.

Of the thousand steps have I walked.
Of this earth have I wandered.
Of solitude have I carefully stalked.
Of you I have dared not pondered.  

So long in this desert, so long in this desolation.
So long have I felt not a motion nor a spur.  
To the frost bitten isles, to the coldest snows, of warmth I have no relation
My skin has hardened of its shell my heart will not be lured.

And yet when I stop.
When my corded muscle ceases in its motion.
And in a hardened mind a sprinkle of doubt.  
And weary eyes turn to look back and thus begins my erosion.  

For there is no solace in this distance.  
No comfort in this silence.
The emotion, my every action withstands.  
Of all my efforts of violence.

I feel, and therefore I am undone.
I feel and my strength and will slayed, fall  down
I feel and time reverts and it feels like it did when it all begun
I feel and my through my bedrock erupts anguishes sound.  

I remember a face laced in roses.
Like a dream I am carried back into your arms.
And around me comfort closes
And again I am besotted with your charms  

I remember it all and that is the source of my madness.  
Of a loss of ones mind, not of reason, but of emotion.  
To be left barren, in pain constantly empty and  loveless.  
Of our union I gained something that merrited my devotion.

And at its loss, my mind broke at the eight of its cost.
And so I turn away from the warmth of memory.
I toss myself into the fire and the storm of loss.
I grind myself against life's emery.  

"Destroy me" I cry.  
"For I cannot bare this cruelty you have visited upon me."
But I only become harder in body and in soul not matter how hard I try.
Of the end as I walk I cannot see.
Out of this darkness I cannot find my light.

To sit, to be, alone swmming in a sea of silence.
To hear the sound of anonymity.
To bask in the glory that is obscurity.  
To hear, to see, only that to which is important to me.
The noise of the world left behind.
The deafening drums of what we now call life.
The noise, it saturates the soul.
Thick black tar clogging the path to a peaceful mind.
This constant grind, rolling psychotically.
Crushing, breaking, smashing, snapping.
Untill the heart is left plastered on the concrete.  
A smear I  ignore, a pain i medicate, a hole I try to fill.
It runs deep this damage.
Like blue ink on white cloth it stains me.
Throbing as it flows down marring the senctaty of my soul.  
My pain is not physical, not the sharp jarring pain of a broken bone.
Not the naked exposed pain of an open wound leaking life to the indifferent air.
It is that of a, bruised heart,  a battered soul, a troubled mind.
Abstract in its nature.
Understanding a bygone feature.
It has no beggining and no end.
When it comes the pain is everywhere and nowhere.
All at once then not at all.
Numb and yet so intense.
But the water of silence.  
Washes me, and the tar, the ink, the pain the stink.
Run down my body, the sensation sweet and heavenly.
Honey of the mind, milk to nurture the soul.
It is only then that I am weightless, only then that I am truely whole.

It starts in the throat.  
Bobbing up and down as if suspended in the moat.
Of my hearts emotion, in a vast ocean it is a point.
That gains weight until it disjoints my serenity.  
With anonymity it  pierces the natural flow.
Of the mundane that I comfortably know.  
And sustains the feeling of  an icicle slipping down my back.
I lack the traction to contain it, to will it away.
My words cannot stay and are wisked away.
Try as I may my walls fall away.
I am naked, bare in the cold.
Shivering snared unable to behold.
The figure sitting there, before me.  
The air within me, is too tightly squeezing.
I gasp for relief but all I do is sit there wheezing.
And in that moment my hope is lost.
Frozen solid with no way to defrost.
I leak emotion from bleary eyes.
And let out a agonizing cry.
Freshly cut and freshly bleeding.
The pain in my heart almost stops its beating.
It rolls in waves always searing.
All of this is the pain of simply being.

Upon the beaten path I walked
and though I tired still I walked  
upon a glittering stone I came
and I stopped in my palm It lay
upon my gaze It shone
but in my heart reach it did not
upon the beaten path it fell
and still on I walked

upon a young woman I came
her eyes, upon me, she looked
a flutter Within I felt
and in my arms I wished she lay
But upon my heavy tongue my words stopped
and upon me ceased look did she
so upon the beaten path I walked
my tears slowly following me

tired a grew of this beaten path i knew
upon my tired frame exhaustion came
and down I went to Sit
Upon my beating heart relief came
and with it a wash my memory came
Of a time where on this  long road I did not walk
and upon my relaxed heart came grief
brief my rest was and up I stood
and upon my beaten path I walked
my past barely understood


upon an old well I came
Parched my throat had become
so away from my beaten path I strayed  
my journey temporarily delayed

upon the water did the light shimmer beside lay a  bucket
upon it I wished to drink so down the bucket want to sink
up it came with satisfactions wink
upon my lips did I drink
and upon my mind was I releaved
But upon the bottom lay a snake
Its  poison within the water  it slyly  lay
upon the road did I go
blissful in what I did not know

upon my eyes the darkness came
sluggish my legs began  to feel
  and upon my mind worry came
as upon  the path my body fell
Rasping came my breath  labored came my air
But upon  the ground i began to see
all that had been around me
upon the scenery came beauty
And upon my heart did it reach

upon the road had I stayed when all around me I could have played
upon the second when the reaper called
I cursed not the path  I took
for upon   the  moment of my death
at last I came to my peace
upon the goal of the path did I clearly see
For without the beaten path beauty waiting in the scenery would I have missed entirely

I don’t want to hate you
Despise you, place you
Down there in the back of my mind
A dark and brooding place where no one but me will find
You, I don’t want to hate you
I don’t want to blame you  
As the reason I have taken sadness as my lover  
I don’t want to lay awake at night
Wishing evil to befall you
I don’t want stay awake at night
Having to constantly fight this feeling
I don’t want to hate your being
I don’t want to be confused  
Wondering what drove you to abuse
The love I had for you
I don’t want to go again
To that dark foreboding plane
Where a horned being asked me what he can do
For me, I don’t want to even take a moment to consider
To let hatred be my Hearts leader  
And yet as I sit here  
I feel it boiling, slowly soiling my soul
Painting it black, turning into a black hole
*******, taking devouring me whole
It eats me, taking away my bliss from me
And so I am left alone
To again trek across this sea of emotion
Knowing that somewhere within the water’s
A monster lurks just waiting for me to slip  
A single moment a like a whip
Coiled and ready it will nip me
And take me, I don’t want to hate you  
In the end you we all must do what we have to  
But I can never again love you.

Is it that my hands are too slow or my mind too fast. Is it that my ambitions are too high or my progress too slow. Words seem to fail me in this my time of need. As the only emotion I feel throbbing in my mind is that of frustration.  Like a painful sore my abilities do not meet my expectations, I become afraid of the pencil and my art has become my prison and punishment.  It is like a whip upon my back, an insult against my person. Every pencil etch becomes a scream of inexperience,  every drawing becomes a draining endeavor of self-mutilation.  I will the lines and figures to take their proper places, but like inexperienced children they dance and jeer and jump mercilessly on my fears that I am inadequate. To whom should I measure myself to, for those above me seem to sour like eagles. They fly seemingly free from the ropes of doubt that snake around the throat of my art. Those below me are untouchable as if merely by looking at them I am drawn down to the muck and mud of mediocrity. Perhaps I think too highly of myself, but this talent I have is a curse upon my person. Oh how I wish that some days I had never picked up such a cursed pencil and put a line upon the paper. Like a child wailing in the middle of the night I begin to regret this arts conception.  Like a wife turned into a shrill banshee I regret my marriage to this art form. Why I ask my cruel mistress. Why do you expect so much of me. Why is every line I put down on the page not good enough for you. Why do my shapes and figures not appease you critical eye. Why do you dive that blade of criticism deeply into my side, and painfully twist  until you make sure that I have died.  

Is this the process. Am I to simply endure until a morning comes where you will lovingly embrace me and hold me until the pain of the years of torment subside? How do you expect me to love you?
When you tantalize me with the potential you see within me. How do you expect me to reach for you my art, when you pull yourself ever the farther away? What reason do I have to put a pencil to paper?  
Oh this perpetual agony I suffer, this intense need I feel, this addiction of creation I need to fulfill.  You call to me, you tug at my very soul you are a craving that lives far deeper in me than anything I have ever felt before. I must rise to the call I must seek out the pencil like a man racked with thirst must then seek out water. I cannot allow my ambition to die. I will not wear the widow’s robes, or the mourners color. But how am I to rise when the very earth around me slips beneath my touch. My arms grow weary from this fight and my mind is tiered of this question.

Are my hands too slow for my mind? Are ambitions too big for my ability? And if I do truly posses the tools and my talent isn't stale then how am I to progress. How am I to grow?  I am a flower overcast by the shadow of doubt yearning for the sun.