I do the best with what I have
But I wonder if that’s enough
A call to sin greater than I can handle
I punish myself with misery

My own self-loathing,
The devil and I discuss
God desires so badly to speak to me
But I’m in the middle of a conversation!

Like a parent to a child
I talk down to God
Like the mouths of babes
Are not worth listening to

I know better
I do
I swear
I made four lines starting with “I” right there

I said St. Francis’s prayer without any help
My brain is better than I thought
God grant me grace and serenity
Fly me away from the Reavers

Innocent fear of an overwhelming urge
To break away from pain and to build up the courage;
To live life to the fullest with the deafening sound
Of euphoria breaking out, making silence again found.

Not knowing life's conclusion has a strong velocity.
But who is to say we should not fall victim of curiosity?
Living in curiosity is an understandable clause
When trying to live life fulfilled; living life unpaused.

Giving everything to our success should not be frowned upon
When happiness is the foundation we constantly draw on.
Without this foundation, a collapse is in progress.
Without this foundation, success is wrongly confessed.

Stress is not something we must try to disregard.
It is but a nuisance we must learn to discard.
Its abandonment will push life to its fullest extent;
Happiness will prosper if we show ourselves some intent.

the day ends, dusk approaches
i sit across from a glaring monitor.
eyes glazed over, mind aflutter.
information streams into my brain in waves
(only some of it managing to stick).
i try my hardest to soak it up, and to let it wash over me,
wash my troubles away.
in a way, instead of bottling my trouble,
i wrap my shaking hands around it forcefully
plunging its head under the murky water
to muffle the yet inescapable drone that follows me
(but it won't give up the ghost
and my arms get tired sooner than stress will set me
alight from my cage).

see, i've had this
unshakeable
feeling lately.
between the hi's, hello's, and how do you do's
this sense of incredible, indelible
dread
looms over me like a weight.
beneath the paper mache mask of humor,
avoidance of heavy topics,
and general gleam that is the man everyone knows of me,
there's a boy
and he's confused, having feelings he's never had before
wondering things and asking questions,
experiencing things that he never read of in health textbooks,
attachments, bias, beliefs, respect, and fear of failure,
learning things the hard way that he never would have expected
(having read only about mockingbirds and shakespeare).
he bottles these thoughts and doesn't know where to put them,
scrambling to pick up the pieces in a flush of embarrassment,
hoping no one will call him out as the
******.
("what? no! i got 100% on this test because i bs'd it so hard. i'd never actually try.
what am i? a
loser?")
he's alone and he's
stressing, calculating, hoping, dreaming, loving, hating, lusting, wailing, and
teetering on the edge of the precipice of the
abyss that
whispers
softly, soothing, sultry.

but the tricky part isn't the looming weight,
nor the calling and the teetering;
i could almost bear its press on my shoulders almost to the point of breaking
or the tremble accompanied by a height that i couldn't possibly comprehend.
but some nights
it,
(and i mean this
dread)
it,
twists above me and wraps around my neck.
and what scares me most of all is that sometimes it feels
comfortable
like a breath of air escaping from the very furthest corner of my lungs.
or a promise,
a secret panic door
with the key to a lock that i know i'd never open.
it coils around me like a noose attached to nothingness.

Sitting there
plumping up your Russian-red lips
around a straw that is
as long as it is thick
Girlie
I know you ain't read none of them books.
You wait for the movie to come out.
And do you know what happens in that movie?
Well.
There's this little girl in it
much like you
with the same red lips
and heart-shaped glasses
like yours
and sweet sky-blue denim
hugging the comely swope of
girlish *** and soft rounded thigh
hiding so little of slender leg that I wonder-
why bother wearing clothes at all?
And she and this man...
well...
she and this man get to be good friends
like you and I could be
if you would first just tell me your name.
Oh, you're busy, are you?
Well, I bet you are
Go on then.
Tempt some other sucker
while you **** on
some other such ******* symbol.

From the darkness of Midnight
Shines the light of a new beginning.
The past fades away
And the future remains unclear.

Each moment of the present
Brings more to be decided.
We begin to pick and choose.
What is right, and what is wrong?
What is good, and what is bad?

Only our memories guide us.
The past's dark is un-lightable,
But the future is a torch, waiting to be lit.
Each year passes, and our lives go on.
We only have one choice to make.

Do we live life?
And stand by each judgement?
Or watch it pass by like a spectator in the stands?

Slimy sea feet.
Sandy salt tongues.
Gabby gulls and cautious *****.
Boardwalk smiles and sticky ice cream fingers.
Ripened hearts and eager tide eyes.
Tears in my ears from the satisfied sun seeking silence.

This is where I belong.
This is where I know God.

I don’t belong in a town that can offer me nothing.
I don’t belong in a massive city that’ll swallow me up.
I don’t belong at silly soirees or late night parties.
I don’t belong at the top tier or down with the underdogs.

I belong on the shores.
I belong arm in arm with my confidantes, walking through downtown streets of some sweet town.
I belong hand in hand with my true companion with our toes in the sand.
I belong sipping soda with my sisters giggling endlessly as we watch some cheesy chick flick.
I belong hugging my mama who I will never stop loving for an instant.
I belong sitting with my father drinking tea in the purest, sweetest silence, for that is how we were made to be.

I belong listening to my dad’s tall tales and my mothers soothing words.
I belong holding my stomach with my face streaked with tear drops from some joke that is only funny if you were there.
I belong forever in the future with that one, the one whom was made for me; the Tilney to my Catherine.
I belong holding the gazes of my friends as we try to hold back our cackles, tears, and even our own words.

I belong in the waves of the sea.
I only belong in the happiest of salty tears.

I can’t belong where I’m too afraid to face my fears.
I won’t belong in broken gears.
I’ll not for a moment belong in heartbroken wares.  

I’ve never belonged in them, but they live inside me.
They have and always will be
My demons and my skeletons
Yet you will always see them on my sleeves
So everyone can see they do not devour me.

NIGHT LOOKS IN.

Night looks into
my window; I sleep
in a dark nowhere

a nowhere spitting
up steam, the streets
in their wetness, the
rolling night, the moon
unbroken, hidden,
like the eye of fall
that blinks cold tears,
then recedes under
the soft ground.

A rogue wind and
a new season overlap
life and death; a damp
chill on my spine
illuminates it, as it
throws off the mem-
brane of fear. I seek
possibilities; they
have given up looking
for me.

I have given up
fighting back the chill
of solitude; a bare-
knuckled wind
holds summer at
arm’s length.
The snakeskin winds
itself around my mind,
shedding its snake,
pouring out cold venom

this is the best winter,
or the best in a long time.
I surrender to the movie
machine, the great blinking
eye, a shroud of black-
and-white. In shades of
in-between I find the

new ability to live
inside the celluloid;
this is where I make
my hiding place, and
I scamper from room to
room with no notice.
I forever sit and listen
as the great Rubinstein
plays, makes love to the
keys, coronates Chopin.
I am safe here, in 1950,
or thereabouts, sitting
in a chair apropos to
1950, and I answer no
phones and in fact, am
not truly of this world,
nor of Rubinstein’s,
but I can migrate well,
A Zelig of diminishing
returns, and a kiss is
the only thing I lack, and
it is getting warmer, and I
still wear my old coat,
And when night
again breaks into
my house, I am in
a better place, away
from the lost children
of my old hopes,

Away from the
fangs of tyrants who
want me happy;

Away from the blind
moon and the rocks
I could never stop
throwing.

Steven Stone
January 2012

Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
The land and not the sea,
And leave the soldiers at their drill,
And all about the idle hill
Shepherd your sheep with me.

Oh stay with company and mirth
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died bacause they were.