I am the tiles beneath your feet,
The air you breathe.
A door that opens and closes,
A laundry line left alone 
in the winter months.

I am not for you,
Nor are we for anyone else.
For I am a rock on a mountain side,
A fly in your soup.
Nothing more than the dust
Swept under a rug.
Nothing less, than the clouds
In an endless sky.

The life, running through our veins,
Runs through all we can see.
A bird, a stick, a metal disc.
We stand on a level plane.

As a chess piece,
I lose to my fellows.
For we are all pawns.
Or we are all queens.

it's just that ******* tap tap tapping
but away it goes
up and down, up and down the rows
of violets and tulips.
and she had two lips and violence
violent love and hate
crimes against humanity,
if there was ever any left
up and down, up and down the rows
of streets and cars
the lines and scars etched in his skin
but there's nothing like
a bottle of gin
numb around the edges, the seams
because everything is ever as it seems
and they just let it keep running
up and down, up and down the strands
leaving marks like brands to sell
the weave, the inches, the criss-crossed and sashayed
and she has one because it never looked to be
as long as she would like it as long as they would ask for,
and the years go on
so the tears flow on
growing longer, and taller
up and down, up and down the walls
of granite and moss
just one quick toss over the edge
because maybe humpty dumpty had it right.
nobody can piece that one together
like it's some big puzzle just twigs and grass,
make up the *** that he wanted to be
getting nothing that he wanted because he never asked
called or scrawled, just pushing, screaming
up and down, up and down the floor
of hardwood and paces
like jacks and aces handed out to those
who had them, no reward or achievement
it's own gift of life, and sometimes it's longer than you wanted
while crawling hands and knees to pick up
your ****** fingertips along the edges of cards,
because it's going to be okay.
because it will always be.

One so beautiful, so smart, who can apply themself.
One who walks into a room,
Everyone smiles just for them, they're in control.
It's natural, without effort.  
They don't worry about disconnecting,
From the people around them.  
Don't have to over-analyze to get there,
Where they are.  
Don't have to write their feelings down
In some mock poetry, everyday, just to understand them.

Woe to me, to be
Compared to thee.
That I should be in competition with you.
A contest that I know I would lose
Again, and again, and again.

One who can make it all up as they go,
They're great and they know it.
One who has passions.  
They can worry that they didn't do their best
Even when they were above the rest,  
Because they are so above the rest.  
Because they're beautiful, they're smart, they're kind,
They're, naturally, not a *****.  
They're just a genuinely caring person.

Woe to me to feel
Compared to thee.
For the last thing I could be,
Is equal.  The last status I'd attain,
Is to be a tower by your side.

To be in contest with you,
To have to formally face this.  
This knowing that,
You are everything I want to be.  
Nothing that I can be.  
I have to face that I'm not as confident
As I was or thought I was.  
There's a chip in my wall.  
I just can't compare,
But I can't complain.  
I'm a pretty face.
  
So. Woe to me to have to see
All that you can be.
Who am I? Who am I to think,
To wish and hope that,
Maybe. Just maybe.
I could compare to thee.

Flowery perfume, floats on the sound,
Forcing its way out 
From behind your teeth.
The chemical that numbs our senses.  

Now dead to the world,
I sit alone in the dark,
As your frosted window kills the sun.
Let all my blood rush out my core,
Don't freeze us, piece by piece,
Thick and sluggish blood,
Dead. With an ice cold heart.

How noble, such a pretty face.
That mask of porcelain and lace.
Dressed high and mighty,
It's no wonder why you fall
So far.  Here on the ground,
No grass, no soft silk to cushion the blow.

We people, of dirt.
Must learn to turn what's brown to clay.
To cook from earth a bowl and plate.
We survive, and we sing away the night.
We make filthy our clothes, and lie in the sun.

Lie in the sun and not to a face,
Equivocate. You fill your words with grace.
Justify your lie, prevaricate.
Then *******, all over their face.

Catch your flies with your brown honey.
I'll burn away all the world's impurities,
With the fire in my words.
Nurse the damage, with 
Cold hard truth.
Build scar upon scar.
Become new. Evolve.

I want to look out the window
And see bright stars
Lights, and shattered visions.
I want to see
Colors and flying discs.
People thinking, dreaming,
On the edge of discovering
Always not knowing,
Always around the corner.
The timepiece etched in diamonds
Solid, imbued with living darkness
And sheltered worlds.
Pass the time along rivers
Motion, curling smoke and ladies dancing
I want to hear bells and raindrops.
Scattered droplets of rejuvenation
And solitary gongs calling into the depths,
I crave to see the night
For what it could be.

For what it really is behind
Closed doors, and open windows
Behind every mind the desire to know
Others and people
Moving flesh and deep breaths,
Sighing into one another
Haunted by control,
Thoughts of distaste for the lack of
Efficiency.

For I fear acceptance,
To accept a flaw,
A spiraling flood of color
A crack in the shield of dawn.
The weeds pushing up through
Concrete,
Trees, skyscrapers grasping at the atmosphere.
Shadows beyond the fences
And your eyes when I've asked too much.
I want to feel the night for what it is.
Not for what it could be.

I am beautiful, and wonderful, and amazing.
I am strong, and loving, and worthy.
I am learning, and sometimes I won't be nice,
I won't please the people around me, or myself.
That's okay.

I know I won't always be satisfied.
I know that means I am capable of more.
That I am not perfect but,
I will strive for mastery.
That I will be known not for perfection,
But for drive and persistence
The focus on improvement.

I know that I choose to be alone.
Because I know what it is I am looking for,
I wish to grow to love a rock.
Not to fall fast and stop hard,
But to grow like ivy over barren walls
To become proud of those I choose to be around.

I choose to wait patiently,
To work toward my long term goal.
I choose, to put myself in the line of fire,
To challenge myself, that I will learn and become more powerful,
More loving than I've ever been before.

Sometimes I wish you would just be real.
That you would be more
Than a phantasmal image of
Everything I want to be.

Sometimes I just want.
Sometimes I just want to pretend that I didn't know,
That you were joking.
I want you to see,
See the person you're acting to be.
The hazy image of a being
That you project into the fog.
Into the fog of your own breath.

I see you.
Sometimes you tell me phrases,
Moments, glimpses of who you are
Behind the mask of a jester's guise.
The joking face that isn't distorted with 
The scars of other's lives,
With scars of the days gone by
But now I suffer, yearning for them
Selfishly.

I know I won't burn away my facade but
Sometimes I wish
That you'd take off your paper mask
Just for me.
The mask that holds the blades
Away from your face.
That you'd feel the danger 
Of a close shave,
So I could hear those phrases.
Those honest phases.
Before you flicker back out.

Who do you think I live for
I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe that I live for anyone but myself
that any show of joy or act of love I give you
I give for myself, not you
that I choose to be here

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe that I subscribe to anything
other than the pursuit of my own happiness
and that direction will change as I change

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe that I am imprisoned here with you
that there exists a promise beyond myself
that I will stay with you till the end of time
I am not but flesh and sinew, fragile bone
my hour is limited
I am no god to sign myself away
And I'll keep this soft shell of flesh
but as for time, I plan to give you mine

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe that my independence
will lead me to exist without you,
a stubborn persistence toward satisfaction
would lead me to your doorstep
time and time again

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe I have not considered a world without you
a world without my commitment to grow with you
a world without your kindness
for I have, thoroughly

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe I hold anything but gratitude for you
that the light in my eyes is not clearer because of your influence
that my heart is not lighter and fuller
that my days are not brighter and longer

I hope you are not misguided, my love
to believe that I would ever hesitate to say
I do

Just, what.
Not what am I doing,
For I know very well that I'm
Contracting and relaxing my diaphragm
And doing what I call
Breathing.

Not where am I going,
Because I know that I'm trying
To get through school to do well
In a high paying and enjoyable job,
To live happily with a man by my side.

Not how should I live,
As I'm not quite sure you can call this living
And when people tell me I'm doing it
All wrong,
I say it right back and just keep on
Keeping on.

Not why am I here,
Because I've asked a thousand times
But nobody seems all that willing to answer.  
Regardless whether there's someone there or not,
There's certainly no answers being spoken so
Either I'm doing it right or it
Just doesn't matter.

So, what else is there?
What else is there to ask,
Because I've come and gone,
And this is all I've seen.
What else isn't there
When this is all I've got?

Time spent on the current day,
Forgotten in future sway.
Lost in the moment.
For a moment and for time.

Escape is futile

The passage of time
Does not exist,
As our bodies perceive it.
Nothing short of death
Can stop its passage.

Escape is dangerous

I marvel at the idea,
Of stopping, staying,
Not having to... anything.
Not having to anything at all.
Not having to sustain or endure.
Not having to follow
The seemingly fate decided path
That is the cycle
Of the moving matter
That takes up the space
That I occupy.
That anyone occupies.

Escape is paradoxically pointless.

As everything and anything is,
Life is pointless.  
As nothing but moving matter,
My only biological function
Is to further the survival of my species,
To enable more endurers of my kind
To enter, "existence".  

As my mass slows,
All thought and memories
I have are lost.
To what have I accomplished?
Nothing of value,
Nothing unique,
Nothing of importance.

Whether or not I let pass
Another endurer into this place,
All I have done,
Is been part of the cycle.

Surely I would like
To leave a mark.
To better the world
Because of my influence.
However, to what more have I accomplished
Than changing the statue environment
Of those who endure.

To leave a legacy, is to extend a memory.

Nothing is permanent.
All is part of a cycle.
Nothing is of true importance.
Escape is unimportant.

Escape is inevitable,
The body cannot last forever.
The unavoidable moment will occur
In which the mind,
Due to its physical state,
Will cease to function.
Will quickly cease to exist.
Breaking down into the cycle.

No demand
Nor desire
Can stem the flow
Of time's passage,
Escape is as wasteful
As its counterpart.

To escape.
Meaning to end, stop,
Cease, die,
Or to not be,
Is a waste
Of what could and will be.
Those moments of joy
And sadness that will be lost.  

The sadness spreads
Through other's mourning.
Caused by a selfish action
That wastes the time of others.
An act that steals their happiness
Without using it for one's self.  

To continue is to
Pursue the earthly pleasures.
To hope that one may
Skirt the void
And it's moral dilemma.

To live is to
Selfishly seek a change
In one's state.
Be it happy or sad,
Slight or grand.  

To avoid the void is to
Blaspheme. To consider one's self
Able to avoid the clutches of death.
Immortality.
For we are all immortal
Until we are not.
When we are not,
It doesn't matter what we were
Or would have become.
Once one ceases to be,
One cannot wish to be or reflect.

Do I have a death wish?
No, as it is morally repugnant.
That enough is suitable reason
To stay in the world that is
Everything other than nothing.
To avoid passing into nothingness.

In hard times we wish to stop.
To seek the relief of
Not having the stresses of life.
However, upon death,
No relief is gained,
No stress is lost,
No happiness or acceptance found.  
For one simply is not.
Simply, one does not be.
Does not exist.

Being nothing seems
No better than anything.
For at least being something
Is comprehendible.