You can’t leave without getting what you came here for

I know it’s hard

Finding meaning in life is about as cliché as a needle in a haystack

Just achin’ to fill in the empty spots

With anything you can get your hands on

Got some gaps festering

Afraid to unplug and let the hurt bleed out

Cuz at least you know your holes are full

But life

It punches us toothless

Won’t let us sleep at night

With the ache of mystery

You want a purpose

Hold tight and live

Just live

Like plants and housecats

Someone once told me that there’s a forest of redwoods out there

So big with roots so tightly woven you can’t tell where one tree begins and another ends

You got roots planted in my heart

Each step you take is a purpose

I can feel you even when you aren’t close

So don’t leave me

Not yet

We got too much fire fueling engines in our feet

Just walk with me

I’ll find you a purpose

There are haystacks everywhere

And a heartful of needles buried beneath

Just don’t leave

before you get

Whatever it is that you need

Reminds me of when I was a boy

  And you’d wake me to a punch in the gut

Say

“Sometimes life knocks the wind out of you”

So when I finally got to scatter you to the wind

   You managed to catch the wrong gust

So that I could choke on you one last time

  Made me hold my breath till my eyes watered

What no one knew

  Was that your mouth was full of firing pins

And that spit sizzled off the empty shell casings you capped over your teeth
  
   *******

If I had a nickel

For every potential broken rib

Or bruise so big it could’a’ been a hole

For every day I looked like dying fruit

  I’d have enough nickels to win your well every time

I look so much like you when I am angry

  I have to remind myself

This is not him when I’m angry

This is me when I’m angry

Reminds me of that time I grew *****

Shot out so fast their weight flung me forward

And I accidentally punched you back

What no one knew

Was that it felt amazing

  And it scared me

  Still scares me

So much that I have to remind myself

This is me when I'm angry

And I can stop

Watch me make things complicated

It’s a gift

So much a gift I never got much further than long division

Or tying my shoes

Or learning when it’s okay to touch people

Turns out

Life is not the game of tag I thought it was

Not everyone touches you back

Never learned that

Gets so bad

I break handshakes for hugs

and then I stand there way to long

I can never go back to my dentist’s office again

After he finally pried me from his shoulders

He was kind enough to loosen the foot in my mouth

Told me I got toes for teeth

And I was thankful

For the suction tube

And the Novocain

Asked him for more

And more

Just enough to numb the jabber in my jaw

Took 2 vicadin after to keep my arms at bay

If I could have

I’d’a told him

Every word burnin holes in my brain

And I am thankful

Knowing that I’d’ve at least stopped at long division

And tying my shoes

I never learned how

not to say all the wrong things

Never really learned anything

Remember how I said that I would write you into something perfect

  so that you would stop walking out on me?

  So I rewrote you by bending the lines of

STAY

Problem is

People change

   And I found you stretching into

HEART BREAK

   and

HIT AND RUN

And me trying to find anything better than

“Please don’t leave me”

That’s when I learned to write you into

AGAIN

    And

TOMORROW

Then I figured the math of

FOREVER

Is 2xtoo long

   When you factor in the absolute power of

ME

Turns out

Father

  Sound too much like

Forever

And

DAD

  Is something neither of us ever really

HAD

  And the

Past

   Is something we are both running from

Now

MAN

    Is the thing I am most scared of becoming

I find myself begging my reflection to stop me from it

That’s when I learned to write myself into

FORGIVE

And how to factor myself into the equation of

ENDLESS

My name was the first word I ever learned to say

It has 8 letters in it

Sideways it is ∞

Still chokin’ on my thank you note

While I got my apology burnin’ on the tip of my tongue

This is me bursting at the seams

‘cause I am a walkin’ talkin’ fault line

Cement cracking at the epicenter of heartbreak

And water logged

From all the sweat

Building on my cheeks

Livin’ in a parking lot

And couch surfin’ this wave

Till I run lines in the floor

It gets cold at night

Too warm in the day

Now though

Just need some mercy

And just enough strength to finish this

Just enough words to regurgitate a reason

For leavin’ like this

Just enough time to learn to walk away

Just enough God left in the souls of my feet to keep me standin’

Not nearly enough heart to break anymore

Not enough weight in this place to tie me down anymore

It’s all I got

And now I’m letting it go

dear December,

I know we
never understood each other
quite the way we should

although we spent
the time it took.

please watch over the buried
in your sallow snow fields
I lost myself there

along with smiles
my face was never suppose to make
I'm not sure
the indent I left
will soon be replaced
by tender new skin.


december,
i know we will never quite heal
the way we'd like
so please
let this memory lay
along the side of the road
to be scattered by the crows

let the bones bleach
in the fresh spring sun


dear december
I never meant to cause.

Sometimes...
The world closes you into its arms and you get freaked out.
You always wanted that feeling of being held... but it isn't worth losing your sight...

Sometimes things are dark.
One wonders, while they watch
another blindly ***** at air,
what one might find if they
adjusted.

Sometimes the air is black,
black like behind your eyesockets,
filling your lungs like the tar you swore to never touch-
so deep it seems to seep from your very pores,
seep..... and harden.
So much for flying, there goes your monstrous visions of
avoidance
You are the statue, frozen, groping blindly at nothing for eternity
(not that you would have necessarily moved very far)



Still, though, your tears stain the pictures of people you miss. To you the world is boundless, but you seem to see it differently than all of them...

Still, though, MY tears stain your pictures. To me the world is boundless, but I seem to see it differently than all of you...

I found a hidden picture frame
holding an image of you and her
butterflies hit the walls in my stomach
and my heart beat with pangs

I wanted to rip your picture up
and burn it in the fireplace
but those actions wouldn't mean anything
because it couldn't break your world

I could confront you with tears
but that would bring up past emotions
memories of a long forgotten love
and you might start to compare us

I wish I had always monopolized your heart
so that you never had another lover
and you would look only at me
with eyes viewing our present and future

my mind feels like it's cast out to sea on a line,
bobbing back and forth over the waves,
I resign myself to ride the tide,
these churning crests
do little to caress the stress inside
anticipating the Bite,
the moment to actually put up a Fight,
I hold tight.
My knuckles clenched,
the smell of my own fear an overpowering stench,
coupled with the realization
that there's nothing I can do to wrench
myself from this course,
of looking over and over these pages
that look more and more like Morse

raised in a way
not to savor the day
not to lay in the hay
or just play
but to
pay
pay
pay
caught in the gears
of these soul crushing years,
I feel Helpless
and so I turn to that sweet kiss
of chemical bliss
to experience some
of what this cage makes me miss.
I can't remember a time
where I wasn't in Line
rank and file,
won't you stand and wait for a while?
Do this.
Get that.
Do that.
Get this.
cause and effect,
a lifestyle that leaves
very little time to reflect
on what you're actually doing
every day,
this pattern cannot stay.
Apathy invades the hearts and minds
of our kind,
brought on by an inability to change
or even rearrange
this world that's become
so Strange.
Despair,
in the face of such a menacing machination.
Fear,
in the face of such an unfeeling application.
Behold the Beast of progress,
never to rest,
created by man,
driven by our hand,
fed by our compliance,
sustained by our reliance.