Punk lips in perpetual paralysis,
and they're too afraid to let them kiss.
Too afraid to try to let it last
because of the blurs in their past.

I think the kids are in trouble.
Hanging out with temporary people;
making the wrong times never stop.
Smoking dreams with glass lovers
to indie sonnets and neon power pop.

The world knows they can pretend,
and it's their hearts they can't defend
from the illusion of what they could be,
and the loneliness of what they'll never see.

They skate the pavement until the sun sits,
and drink ***** from water bottles until their hurt slurs.
It's the preparation of tomorrow and what it may not bring
that makes every moment before, everything.

They're scared because it's real,
and I'm scared because they're scared.

I am as empty as they come
a ship with holes in its floorboards;
life seeps in and out of me, a constant balance of nothingness.
I'm aware of the input, but it slides out from underneath me
before I have a chance to bid it a proper goodbye.

I am as empty as they come
a disillusioned body suffering from disorders of the mind;
a carcass of medication packaged neatly with skin and vacant eyes.

I am as empty as they come:
An abandoned ship,
An abandoned mind,
the disillusioned eyes of the blind.

I am as empty as they come.
But I too,
was once filled to the brim
with heart-pounding vigor.
        
                                      *-lf-

Isn't it funny how
You **** your suicidal thoughts by talking someone out of suicide
You **** your sadness by telling someone it's not worth being sad
You **** your happiness by sacrificing it for people who don't appreciate it


Isn't it funny how
It's so easy for you to say " tomorrow will be a better day "
But tomorrow never comes

Isn't it funny how
It's so easy for you to say " good things happen to those who wait "
But you never know how long the wait is

Good things don't happen to those who wait,
Good things happen to those who are bold enough
To venture through the spirals
To seek their way through the holes
And emerge stronger than ever

Good things happen to those who are willing to try


and try



and try




and try


After being shot down,
*A million and one times.

You play three.
Me, seven.
Fifteen for two.
This is where I lose you.
Your phone vibrates,
You leviate
Sitting across from me,
Making me an unwilling audience
To all the drama.
You vibrate. Your shoulders droop
Like the gape-toothed village idiot.
You gesticulate,
Fading in and out
In a semi-conscious awakening.
You're trembling under stones
Sitting on your chest.
It shows in your tembling hands.
Twenty, for two...
Twenty-five, for six...
I overhear your child is truant,
Another wants a ride,
Another a car, doctor or lawyer.
You're shuffling in your seat.
Not to worry.
Affter the stones are lifted,
And you're properly pegged
In the stink hole, the game's over.
Thirty, for twelve and a go. Game.
So deal with it.

Not you again
An achy yearning rises in my chest
You show up out of nowhere
The hairs on my body stand
Won't you go away
Lips crack and dry
Maybe just one
I lick my lips
One won't hurt
You only need one every now and then
Unconscious actions lead me to the door
One that's all
Dopamine rush
I look up
"Big Al's smoke shop"
It won't be bad
No no no
It's relaxing
No no no
It won't hurt
No no no

" Hey yo"
My head turns
" Are you going in or what?"
I glare back at the store
" Nah"

Sickened he was by her bad word choices, special need for
incongruous expressions,words spelled the way she likes,
blanks that can never be filled, invented quotes, fabricated realities,
thunderous "****" repeated in intervals, as if  each an inlaid jewel,
and then, having no fixed meaning for that favorite word of hers,
nothing more than an intention to denigrate ******,
                                                                ­                   and women as a whole,
a subconscious compulsion, strangely included, her's also in it's ambit.
He understands her compulsion for such expression thus--
fulfillment of some innate need, an expression of her own worthlessness,
resulted from some grave injury of the mind that happened,
sometime early in her childhood, one could guess.
He took the decision to mark her "UNREAD" for ever
with deep anguish of course,after reading her many fine and sane pieces.

She didn’t always drink her coffee black.
The milk would spill in, staining the drink
until the perfect hue was achieved
and she’d think what her mother used to think.
“You are always right where you need to be.”
And she’d watch a sugar cube float around
for a few minutes, until the bronze sea
took it away. And her silk dressing gown
trickled past her body just as her new
buyer came to the door. She took one sip
and tried not to let her mascara strew
or even let the mug smear at her lips.
She poured everything down the kitchen sink
and tried to forget what her mother might think.

When you tell your daughter that your life has been a series of near car crashes
Forgive her for mistaking the gloss behind your eyes - as nostalgia for a wreck that could have been
Forgive her for clawing her skin with the intent of stirring a tornado so violent she could match your presence
You taught her to see you as a fatality; too late to be saved, too proud to be held

Remember that an animal licking it's wound does so out of self-preservation, not self-pity
Remember that saline is salt water and tears need to be shed and that humans are capable of healing

Remember to feel
Teach her to pummel her fists
Teach her to shout down the boys

Remember the hollow below your heart that echoes like an abandoned house
When ivy grows out from her chest cavity and encapsulates all around you
Remember that she is not unruly
She merely sees within you a potency to create beauty

And consider her ability to grow and grow and grow
Encourage her to expand
Be mindful that little girls should never need permission to occupy space
Be humble - she may even teach you a thing or two

They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.

O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.

What I love is
The piston in motion ----
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
There merciless churn.

And you, great Stasis ----
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful

God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.

The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.