i can't carry on with
these empty, dying eyes
i'll find a little fire
to rejuvenate awhile
i can't hold a candle
without it blowing out and dyin'
and i can't hold a candle
to the way that you been tryin'...

i'm another person
with more needs and less too offer
i can't carry on with
these empty, dying eyes
i might lose my mind
to the demon of frustration
but when i lay a demon flat,
i call it demonstration

know that youth is fleeting
see the patterns all repeating
catch yourself with grace
before the grace you have left dies
i can't carry on with
these empty dying, eyes
i've got to hold them carefully
at least i've got to try

i care about your shot dude,
and all that goes along
i care about your singing
and i care about your song
i was blessed
with real sensitive skin
i try not
to cry about it
but when she puts me up on top
i can try to help you out

He scrubs,
And scrubs.

I was thinking about dressing as a nerdy comic scientist,
And going into town and running experiments

To show you I'm still alive,
To show you I'm not just some boring dead guy

I'd bring a measuring tape or a ruler
And see if the grass grew any longer after you stepped on it
See if the river ran any slower when you walked by

And if people asked what it is we were doing
I'd ask them to rate you on a scale from 10 to 10

And I'd just joke around with them like that
Do funny things,
It'd be the weirdest date ever.

That is true,
But you still have your edges
You may be deranged
But I love you anyway.

Away and away and away
You keep pulling me out to sea
Away from the days
That felt vibrant and obvious
Where it felt safe to believe
I could be something great

I have become a sigher
The opposite of a designer
Wondering what's going on up in the citadel,
Selling myself short
Living in a privileged squalor

you were a flash of vibrant color,
then my back hit the ground.

suddenly,
my chest was breathless
and i watched vile things grow from the pause in my body

collecting by the Susquehanna when you never came,
i knew impotence would follow me home to Hatfield
and it did,

more rot from frozen frames
when being locked up got me locked up
a nightmare blossomed

i sang of black roses on your bedroom door

but there were red ones too.

i sat and played back colors on the projector screen
and said my favorite one was blonde,
so strong
so rect
Alive

feeling these new thorns
that were not yours
they made me wish i'd held you more gingerly

because then you were other things
loosing blood you didn't need
and staring at me from space with one black
empty eye
******* at life with your emptiness
keeping kernels that tell questions
and filling sacred chests
with ugly floods of color

now you unfold over that ridge,
San Antonio
far from anything and anyone
i've ever known

totally novel.

liberation beckons me

liberation from the past
from self-pity
from the dirt you shoveled early

& for the first time that girl
is fading from my mind
but i'm in love with it.

i don't think she'll ever really leave.

I hide
My lack of serotonin
I feel good as I did
As when I was young

I am ever so sprite
And alive
I feel vital
It's a sign of the times
Being human,
So worth it.

I know you run into the hills when I sleep
With little stolen pieces of me
Just like I know it's my job by day
To stay in once place

But we're both carrying him off,
Yesterday I emptied my veins into the river and became more than myself,
Because I was no one.

Because I forgot who I was for moment and let my brain become a stalk,

This solves nothing.

I know the same yellow light that makes me glow will some day make feel very old
That I'll have to shift.
I know it's part of life
But throw your dirt--

I'm not dead,
I'm just pining for a chance to say I'm still alive
That I still have some sense of eudaimonia,
That I still have drive.

I'll wake up with a grey feather in my hair like it's from noah's dove
And I'll know it was placed there by the girl who brings life color
And meaning--
You're lucifer's pet

But I know I'll wake to a strange girl
Holding my stars
In Her eyes--
Our love is a nebula.

drugs or obstacles
do them all in a frenzy
they'll leave you high and dry
let's hope the good ones are in stock

you tripped on me,
i think i tripped on you too

connected and secure
then we are fallen apart
this is a delicate dance
let's do it on our hands!

you tripped on me,
i think i tripped on you too

or we can just listen to R.E.M.'s "Stand"
i'm not gonna panic, i'd rather just dance
i'm not gonna trip,
you tripped on me.

i think i tripped on you too,
but i'm choosing not to talk about that right now.

my bones held staggering dissonances
i came apart in unclear tones,
frozen and fearful.

but mardi gras was awesome,
i got so ****** up.

i wouldn't lie and say I was the most
conscientious person
derailed and I failed to mention the details
but i won't run from them,
and i will always confront them.

but mardi gras was awesome,
i got so ****** up.

you & i are gonna have such a good time
now that we're done fighting
i'm sorry i can't be yours,
but it doesn't even matter.
mardi gras is gonna be awesome!

i got soo ****** up,
but i mellowed out eventually,
and i kept a ray of sunshine.

There are things I wanted to be
An incomplete identity
A current that was dashed and spun,
Now looking for another one!

Watch the river twist and writhe
You'll find me in the rapids
But before you find me there
I must be peaceful, like the Delaware

An instrumentalist for sure
A writer, but a reader first
A learner, oh a student of
The drunk vicissitudes of love
A scientist and avid man
Adventurer with sturdy plans
I want to hold these eyes again
With certainty
With piercing gaze

A donor, for the sake of form
A human body feels so warm

Darna Trainer
makes me feel
Like a Fwanche

these puzzling coincidences
are really just the angles at which **** hits you,
things you feel really strongly about

confirmation bias is a *****
you are not the ******* antichrist

they say it's best to live with no regrets--
i haven't much to give you yet.
just give me time to straighten out
i ****** the turn,
i've much to learn

i'm driving into your sunset--
it's yours because you wear it well
floating intricacies into the Deep
like you tried to teach me
but i couldn't see

i've evolved into the consequent man

you can tell by the way
the orange light
touches my eyes

whether you're coming back or not, old friend
i will make you mine.

Oh where did you go,
My love
When you passed right through my fingers?

And did it hurt
When you fell from heaven?

...

My fifteen minutes of fame was cut in half
But I'm lucky it wasn't my brain,
Just hanging on by a silver hair.

I'll fall apart to the way you stained the sunshine,
With little token glimpses into whirling planets
With alien inhabitants

I'll keep it together with the way you fold in artisanry,
Or that eagle you put in my sky,
Or the kegels you do
To keep me satisfied.

And I'll fall apart to the way you say my name--
To the way
To the way we forgot this ever even happened.

I am turning with the leaves back home,
Tossing and turning and changing colors.

I feel the black stain on the back of my neck,
It hits me hard like a reverse sunburn.

It begins to insult my composition.

I envy quiet self-awareness
A deranged ruminant licking at its cud.
I want your stripped and tightened frame,
But at least I'm fodder for a better day.

You're a good mix all ways.

You're a damsel in distress.

You're a nightmare to conceive,

But you're a good mix,
All ways.

i was born the guy that should really hate you
that should really just feel nothing but ire and apathy
but my phone regurgitates the memory of you
and i'm reminded
that cute little voice i use
is how you spoke to your cat
the one that died in Oregon while I wasted your time

I'm sorry

I'm sorry I wasted your time
my eyes are wet

You are a world full of beauty
There is so much to you
I just want to exalt your name
And the fact that you exist

Keep going, don't hang on to needless negativity
Please power on, in case you're doing anything but
Because you really pack a punch--
You're so full of it!

So come sit for a while and talk with me
We could talk about the things I don't wanna be
If you wanna be mine
It might be a bad time
But I'll try and level with everything you say

i can never erase
the scars i left
on your heart

all the good days in the world
could never change things i've said

there is only one way
that sits right with you

and i can't do that

like i'll never leave your side
like i'm broken inside
like moonlight
like baby food and formula
like love
like the moral of a thousand words with eddie murphy
like me
like you
like anything except whatever matters
which, by the way
was always nothing,
no one
is safe

or nevermind, i guess
if you're safe you're lucky

and yes i agree
it is stupid to look at things
in such a negative way,
let me play with your head
now go back out

she loves a man with cactus skin
inside her heart, the world begins
it's curled up there
kept safe and warm
and in her eye
a twirling storm

performing for an audience
he shrinks to see his inner self
and up on someone's pedestal
retracts his spines for smoother skin

an evil eye reflects the light
of hotel room, some other night
where everything collides just right
but not here,
where this bead
meets a page

i want to write a poem about
"become a cartoon"
where you just become a figure
based on your surroundings
where you just become an image
and you lose your personal tether

become a cartoon, love
lose yourself in the static
get pixelated awesome
shoot yourself into the sky

make love to your surroundings
make sweet electric love
my name is Benny Saccharine
it's nice to meet you,
take my picture!

i can't say i love you

i'm peeling back my flesh to black
so i can Understand
so i can **** It Up
i don't love you anymore
stop bothering me
i just want a place to stay
i just want a place of my own

i don't
*******
love you

i'll
just
sit here

eating this bag of
sour brain

beneath
the sycamore tree
i never got high
that way,
that way

sir Jesus never had me
over
for dinner

with people passing by,
some laugh
some cry

some shake their heads and sigh

some look to their husbands,
never look me in the eye

October climbs his porcelain spine
and reaches hand to frothing mind

it tries to pull out something delicate
and smooth
but comes apart like wet tissue paper

i have this dream that you show up here and we run
we run into those woods with our shoes off and cackle
fall on some roots and make out
make out with our roots
all alone
like Brian made out with his roots that night, remember?

we'll never look back,
because unexpectedly, you cast concern aside
and i'll abridge my blues for you
so you can sing it, too.

i'd leave everything, everything behind.

i want to see you
when i turn on the lights

i am aware of the psychobabble

if you don't close those curtains soon,
i'll end this show myself!
i've got actors & entertainment galore
i've got music and philosophy,
gut-wrenching emotion.

all behind these lids.

my festering mind hisses and spits
stunted by itself
chemical burns and sleep deprivation
paralyzed by a world
it doesn't want to believe

i should be happy. i am.

like the black crayon that smeared into your yellow
will you remember next time
to use the yellow one first?

oh no--
i must tell you
my ex girlfriend
she has done
some awful things to me!

You need to tell me when,
I gotta tell you too:
I'll be a lost cause
If you want me to.

You need to push the pin
I need that sweet red juice
I'll be a bad *****
If you want me to.

A bad *****, bad attitude.
Bad *****, bad attitude.

Don't cry to me,
I'm not in the mood
I'll be a lost cause
If you want me to

When these walls are thick
You're in the other room
A lost cause
Cuz you want me to

You need to put me there
Where you can say I'm square
You need to
Feel **** in your underwear
But you need to change
I don't mean to stare
I'll be a
Bad ***** if you want me to

Bad *****, I'm not in the mood

I'll be a bad, bad, girl, daddy.

focus on living
life's too short for every explanation
just go
don't be so afraid
don't just run away

REALIZE what you're DOING
be humble and be bold

NOW--
simmer down your temper
stop whining, you're an adult
sometimes, it's still worth it
but this time, it's too late

i love not knowing

feeling up the walls with thoughts of you
i love not knowing what you're doing
i'd almost ask you not to tell

i love to wonder what you're doing
and thinking of your feet
in holey socks

but knowing's better
because it's the ***** of your neck
and kissing is even better
because, your little golden hairs in the sun

...

they're ours.

they belong to the whole human race,
like scars.

they swim out of my love
and they're all that you will find
if you pounded on my vision
and began to crack the sky.

blackfoot busker: i love the sun
it comes in slanted. woulda missed ya--
but glanced at you while passing Earth.

i'm glad he did. what keeps me going
a daisy chain reaction fusing

us. what floats around your mind, my brother
inside your eyes' sarcastic smile?

were you just looking at the devil?
i fondled my sardonic heart.

so while you're here, you may as well...?
but keep your ocean swell a secret--
like children we have never seen
except their screaming wounds that face
the world.

but keep your ocean swell a secret--
like cradle snatchers, velvet clad
that move through love
to slop up sugared guts.

keep it a secret--
like the wilderness, or skylines
like mud, or brown gulf water.

like happiness, or harvest moons
or anyone you've ever met.

I miss a nest
Of frizzy hair
Oh, yes I do
But it doesn't matter

I'll send you an emissary
Though this atmosphere
Is no trustworthy medium to carry it
I see my definition stretching
Ad infinitum
Like a hall of mirrors

When we were lovers,
The world was made up of little quantum kisses
Our bodies interacting
They were the atoms that made up reality

Now, that kiss is in secret
Marred
Withered and dried
Stomped to dust and swept eagerly off your dad's back porch
Where we used to smoke cigarettes

It hardly makes up a thing,
Flickering memories.

But if that memory flickers,
It existed.

I'll send you an emissary
And as these little pieces of my heart come off
You'll know.
You'll know that I loved you.

You'll know that I'll love you forever.

pull me through the gates of old troy
let rose petals leave my mouth
like fractal horses running
like that fourth horse repeating

scary thought, that i
should own a piece of sky
my cousins and their steeds,
stampeding from on high

but that was just the rain
what men did unto men...
well once you're past the pain
you're pining for the pen

an awkward body
can't convey its rights
she thinks it's funny
when i can't fly right
she thinks it's cute
and she kept her poet pet
no, go ahead
because i understand

i've got no ground
on which to stand

well, it was great
it was a priceless day
but i'd never let my dreams leak
in through the wallpaper
or float across the horizon
gleaming on the other side
of the mattress

It hurts
Reading
The poems
Of a mentally ill man

I weence.

All my life is target
Practice, a bunch of arrows
Make me quiver.

Diana loves her
****** sport. Her visage makes
A good man shiver.

All my life is target
Practice, down by
That muddy river.

And Cupid's off his
******* rocker. Someone, please
Deliver.

If you fell from my sky,
Well I,
I wouldn't be quite sure what to say,
Which way
To twist my ugly face
There's no bite of me
That could taste sweet to you
These days.

Well, what a sad disgrace.

I circumscribed my world
It's true
With little glyphs
And memories of you,
My New
My learn to smile 2
Reminder to be true
A deep and solemn blues

Dearah, I can feel my heart
Latch on to something
When I think of you

Need I say more?

ana's been fantastic
her cherry red lipstick
underlining sapphires
that shimmer in the sunlight

i've been to ohio
i've been to the rodeo
i'll be wearing green
and white.
ana's been fantastic

no one really asked if
ana was elastic
i guess i almost broke her heart,
but ana's been fantastic.

subtle deformations compound
the twisted work of a drunken sculptor
but worse, it moves, and thinks
and turns,
it loves, and hates, and talks--
must work!

i'm not sure exactly where i went wrong
but i'm listing, dizzy
it's getting hard to see
yes, it's getting cloudy

i meant what i said yesterday
but it's as if i've had a stroke
...of luck!
i'm still alive
it's not that bad
just overthinking...
****!

i play with the holes in my brain
like a kid who picks his nose
a privileged, snot-nosed little brat
who counts up all his woes

i'll try to trade them in for love
no Teller will accept
i told the Teller Tell me something
found myself bankrupt

i think a human currency
is not as bad as it could be:
i've come to make my first deposit
You're beautiful--
Now tell me something!

it's been a while since 1984
i watched them pull the twisted wreck from the atlantic,
the virus we once called your heart--
it's been some time since the mainframe went rogue,
tore it apart

it's been a while since 1984
now, there are needles in my eyes
so i turn and run from the truth
blinding myself, running from

the sands of time make Ares blush:
the sands of Earth are green and lush,
i remind myself
as chains pull up

it was the missing part of a war machine
it was the instance where you could, and did
it was the fatal blow that killed a king,
the pipe dream of some hipster kid.

Science caught you red-handed
Science found you out
Romance in your right
But in your left was always doubt

Dexterous and sinister
You pulled the money in
Now none is left for me, or mine
Or any of our kin

Science left you cynical
Chest and in the head
Just focus on the positives
And focus
...on the bed.

i can't bring myself to it
it wants to live so bad,
cultivate.

but i can't wrench my mind together
it's howling, rushing in
suffocate.

i just don't seem to care as much
i always seem to **** this up
apathy

i was supposed to be so brilliant
but i'm just venting, babe
it's not gonna happen--
this is killing me.

the devil lives
in all our stomachs
souring them

when we know what we could do to ourselves
what we would do
with a different brain
in a different time and space

children collide
they burst each other's bubbles
decay and create more

when he stops to feel whole
call it wholesome

but when it's fight or it's flight
that's just another night

i wish i could shatter your crooked little heart again.

you paint a pure, innocent caricature of yourself
i was letting my cruelty and neglect sting my brain
when your letter arrived at work.

you cleaved away my job with your lies.

i stopped the stinging short.
your carefully constructed poison darts were successful,
you cheered when they found their target.

corrupt daggers of hypodermic hate
with little red flags of feigned victory, and you know it's true

were they harbingers of justice
there'd be a different chemistry,
but i don't have those chemicals
in my body.

how pathetic did you have to be,
that you stooped even lower
than me?

wish i could pull the pulsing red from your chest--
i'd look you in the eyes
and stomp your heart to death

and we'd both know what transpired
and we both would understand
because i know you don't believe your lies;
you set your goal to break my life.