And all the loneliness floods and pools within
The darkened sea of sweetened sin
A pain strengthened of anguish
Lost hope breeds my languish
Sanguine eyes are blind and frail
Misconceived by this stupid veil
Til I've paid my final price
My life's vice has cursed me twice

How heavy can a heart grow in one's chest,
When the weight is measured not in volume but in resigned grief?

I
Sleep
Yet
Never
Rest

I see my friends in new relationships, in bliss
I'm happy for them
I'm also a bit bitter if I'm being honest
And if I'm being honest I'm never really honest
It's a protection plan of mine like
the kind you get when you're at the checkout and the
cashier who's on her
second hour of overtime
says that for thirty extras dollars all your broken parts can be fixed
if you bring it back
There was an asterisk next to the plan
Terms and Conditions apply, please sign here
so when you bring it back with a shattered screen
they say they can't help you because you did it to yourself
And I've done this
thing
to myself
Over and over and over again
Waiting for the time it works
The right formula of time multiplied by distance divided by maturity
But the solution I come up with always equals zero no matter what numbers I move around it stays the same
I don't commit because I've committed too much before
I don't walk on those egg shells anymore
When I love there is an asterisk next to my heart
Terms and Conditions apply, please sign here
Don't get too close because you might see me without my mask
And unmasked me is brutal and burnt out
As frail as thin ice covering the pond of his regrets
I've grown old groaning on about these things
A cold king with a cold crown sitting on a cold throne
alone
And I don't want to be alone but I don't want to change
This is normal for me and it feels safe even if it is killing me slowly
Nobody has been through my shoes
You can sympathize but don't ever say you can empathize
You have not seen through my eyes or felt with my heart
There are parts of me I lost with every step forward I took in absolute fearlessness and faith and it crippled me
So don't act like I have those parts of me, still
There are things I just cannot do anymore
Like an amputee who can't feel his wife's hand in his anymore
Like a paraplegic who can't run a marathon anymore'
Like a young boy who spent his love in fullness and never got any back
Please, just accept that this is who I am and I can't change that
Because it's not in my nature anymore
It just can't happen

rumble of thunder
lightning across the skyline
light shines in the night

.....
.......
.....

Words don't come to me as easily as they once did
I've said it before
Said it before
said it before
Cynical echo sound away
So I erase, backspace, highlight and delete every syllable of love, fear, anxiety, I've lived through in this life
Smother my worth with worthlessness but I hope someone else feels they are worth it
That's my drive
Keeping a stranger alive another day, perhaps
Writing on a beach just to let my words wash away in the sand
Let myself soul drift out beyond the waves, but my body forgot to become drowned in the deep
where silence is the deadliest sound
and I've grown deaf
breathing but not alive

Sleep
No longer rests
for the hauntings
In my dreams
Looking back
always
Never forward
For what is there?

I see myself
Slip away
Before I begun
Fear-ridden
By ghosts in my head
so much potential
yet I stay here
withered

I would describe depression as purple
and show you the frailty of my sanity
a long hallway with a long staircase
that goes up as it goes downwards
parts of you will fall off as you climb
rattling and echoing like a ghost
passing yourself seven times over
dusty lungs barely keeping you up
do you ever wonder if it ever ends?

Anger, agony, and a
Crass chaos curtained by
Smiles
Belies a bruised being
An "I'm not really okay" stare
But I'm not really "all there" so who cares?
Echoes die at the end of the tunnel, no matter how loudly you scream "I love you"
The corpses in my mind of lovers who left reminds me that they just knew better
So why don't I?
This is my diary where I die every day
Distant, dark, brooding
Bitter over what I couldn't have
Like swallowing sand

sigh

this doesn't help any more

my heart will always hold you
though my arms cannot
your name is on my every breath
whispered to the dark as i fall asleep
& i pray your spirit haunts my dreams
for i miss you eternally
you are the words of my muse
darkness & light of my heart
window of your soul pierces me
azure tranquility
punctuated by storm-wrought walls
oh how i miss you so

Sometimes music is the only thing I allow to run free in the walls of my head
Letting those sharp words cut away the feelings I create
Letting everything fall to the floor
Seeking peace in pain
Lyrics that hurt
So I can feel again

The embers of my heart laid out in a line
Laid out like a pathway to the pines
Get lost in the woods and
Feel the darkness creep up to my throat
Let uncertain breath escape
See what lies in wait

I can’t do this anymore
There is no strength left
I can’t do this anymore
There’s no faith left

My skin’s so thin I could be a ghost
And fall right in with the dead
Blackened and blued and without a hope
What is there to l̶o̶v̶e̶  live for
I have no grave and must die
Let no one mourn for me

A brief breath stolen away
Wishing on a dandelion the rest will follow suit
Wishing the empty page would match my empty heart
Anxiety suffocating me, I'm barely breathing
Distant dark waters call my name to the shore
Lull my senses and deprive my feelings
The right side of my mind hopes
The left side of my mind despairs
My heart loves my head but my head says my heart is weak
Nothing is ever good enough and peace cannot stay
The voice in my throat often lies to me
Coping mechanisms just aren't enough anymore
Even suicide says she has nothing to offer me
In the briefest moment of honesty
I don't want this anymore
Whatever this is

Art should be disturbing to the comfortable
A comfort to the disturbed
A shape of two being one
The creator casting one half
The eye of the beholder creates the other
Unified into a single shape with infinite dimensions
Shining like a diamond
The shape of as heart
Windowed soul
Unshuttered and unfettered
A pouring of everything
Filling of empty spaces
The gap between the ribcages
The pain behind the faces
Unmasked, raw, refined, precise, agonizing
Hopeful and despairing
That is what art should be
Art is nothing more than that
Create beauty

it lingers
hovers
encircles me
this simple fear
in the twilight of my reflection
your face
your voice
not the same as my memory
im afraid
i have forgotten you
not your memories
but you
hold my breath in my lungs
to replicate your hugs
it's not the same
am i the one who changed?
i don't remember you as you are
but as you were to me
the painting on the walls
the halls of my loneliness
the emptiness of my heart
still love you always
still love you always

I sit at the window and wonder
If your memories are like mine
Or have they been scorched by time
I wonder if you remember my voice
Or if I remember yours
God I miss you more and more
My throat wants to shout on the shore
Just to see if my voice could carry to you
Useless and fruitless as it may be
Just to say I'm sorry
~~~
the ghost i knew still haunts my view...

I'm okay with not being okay
and that's okay
I didn't want to wake up
and face the day today
Didn't want to be alone again
Surrounded only by empty air
and voices in my head
Telling me they've told me
For the millionth time to let go
and I hold on tighter
Let it out but keep the leash on
Let it leech my hopes out of me
But that's okay I guess
I promise I'm okay
Even when I'm not

Today my heart decided to weight down in my chest to keep me grounded in reality. Reality that I love and I hate just as I love and hate myself for reasons only understood if you walked where I walked.

The sun stretched her rays across my face and somehow it reminded me of her, the subtle glow she had at times when everything just felt right. She was a sunset waterfall on a clear summer evening.

God, the thoughts in my head that are stuck like a spin cycle. I fall asleep loving her, wake up missing her, and live every day without her. That thing I mentioned earlier, reality, says she's gone but my heart still says no.

So let me write about everything inside that makes me feel so hollow. She was everything I invested in but could not impress so instead she impressed on me that she wasn't the one for me like she knew better. Maybe darling, we both are wrong.

You're an unknown,
An apocalypse waiting for someone to say "yes"
When the storm brews and bruises everything you know,
What is there to show or to tell?
Battered hearts strewn at show & tell;
Go tell the teacher we're all hurting down here;
Our pride keeps us from looking up, so we look down and let our tears water the grass and we call ourselves gods for that;
Like surviving a broken heart is a supernatural power
that surviving love transforms us into super heroes;
Nothing about us is super or heroic;
We're just all broken to varying degrees

Amazing how for no reason//
Everything will remind me of her//
And all this weight I carry on my spine//
Breaks my mind in two//
The past//
The present//
The what-ifs//
The colors of reality move in slow motion//
Just like the memory reel playing in my head//
Lost in thought and talking to ghosts//
These headaches don't go away anymore//
I'm drowning in the deserts of my mind//
Let it go, hold on, it's all the same
Sterile and stoic madness, shame//
I lay down and dream to never wake//

Oh these dreams have made my eyes feel hollow and heavy
Ready to lay to rest, regrets and remorse of yesterday
Pulled in every which way 'til pulled no more
Every piece of peace wrought 'til crushed
Meaningless words found meaningless
Words meaning less and less
Lest freedom be found
Alone I walk away
From my self
Myself

Draw out the bitterness and depression,
forgive me for making myself a *****, God,
I never meant to hate You or Your Bride,
This is poisoning my soul,
Deprived of Your free love,
You can have the pain,
the regrets,
to make me the best I am,
for You.

People unfold, and relationships do too//
It hurts like ice on an open wound//
Fire in the stomach that won't subside//
Lightning that flashes and dies//
A hundred thousand lies//

I don't love you anymore//
I don't love you anymore//
I don't love you anymore//

Maybe this time the rose will wither//
Open this chest up and remove me from it//
Push me away like I pushed you away//
I don't deserve it anymore//
Believe this one lie//

I don't love you anymore//
I don't love you anymore//
I don't love you anymore//

Because//
I still do//

Concrete meets the sea
Illusion of heaven's gates
Crystal lies breed plagues

.....
.......
.....

It's dreams that keep me going
Dreams that keep me awake
Trying to capture that moment
That feeling stuck in my ribs
Love is not supposed to be caged
Is it?
Unless the love is unwanted
Boundaries
Just to be on the safe side
Alone
Just to feel safe in pride
I always know better
And walk my talk
Spare some change for an old feller
Who didn't win in the end
Fought the good fight
Only to learn fighting isn't good
Tragic // comic
Pushed too far over the edge
Forced ink on ragged paper
To say a million reasons
Not to fall in love
She's one in a million reasons
To fall again

I spoke to you in poetry &
Left real words unsaid
My art was fiction &
Heart was true

What was it worth?

You never read them &
I never sent them to you
I just said I loved you &
Left it at that

i'm just a small boy staring at a dead tree in the rain
looking up
wondering why love won't grow

Gah
There is a stick in my throat
Emotions I cannot *****
Slice my chest open
Pull them out
Untangle it all
OCD has its uses
But
I get stuck
So I leave them out
To air dry
To suffocate slowly
Til I feel nothing
Gah

Maybe I miss the late nights of flesh interwoven
sheets cast aside and candlelit silhouettes
Baby I miss the peace found between kisses
placed on the nape of your neck
Crazy that this blue flame misses your
Red fire and riding rhythm
Vainly I miss watching those hips walk away
But it's a sight I'll never trade

Distant
Slow shadows
Growing grey
On the inside
Washed out
Flavorless
Fallen
Feelings I hold
Write it out
On the walls
Missing piece
Anxiety
Nobody gets this
But me

Well most days I'm fine
But today I'm not
Mind is trapped inside
Feelings sliced paper thin
Just to fit in
All the cardboard boxes
Neatly labeled but all blank
Words are meaningless
Words have no reason to hide
So I hide
I write it all out
Cuz I won't go outside
The darkness doesn't like the light
And today I feel dark
Haunted
Most days I'm fine
But today I'm not

All these efforts to keep the tide from taking the shore
Change always comes
Sometimes invited but mostly not
So I learned to sit and be still
Til the water took my air
I learned to breathe again
To die a different way
Better days are stuck in the past
Days that never would last
Pain learned to stay, though
Turns out she's addictive too
Or I'm just comfortable
Or tired and defeated
Fill in the blank here
My words are too small
Vocabulary died in '09
Or '12 or '16 or '19
Whatever year I choose, the loneliness is the same
The same slow-cooked ache between my ribs
That only cider or *** or songs can soothe
But today I face it
I face the tide
Maybe I'll go under
But I'll never have died

These walls were meant to keep people out, to keep me in;
These streets are narrow and only one-way,
And I can't decide if I should change. (Can people change?)

I want to open the doors, but I only stare silently,
Imagining the devil on the other side,
And I can't decide if it's worth it. (Am I worth it?)

This is a prison and I'm the warden of my hell
I'm the judge, the jury, and the executioner, too;
And I can't decide if I should live again. (Am I worth it?)

... and when they find my body still and cold
i hope someone decides cry
but i fear they won't
i fear
they will simply see a man who lost
and perhaps they will wonder
at the peculiarity
of why someone would die
when they gave so much
loved so much
and failed every time
that despite his best
the only marker on his grave reads
"wasted potential"
so no one will grieve when
the back of my head disappears
in a red mist
that matches my love
crashing into the walls others built
one
    two
          three
i dont want to see morning
& every "i love you" was a lie
i cant swallow anymore
oh how many lies i gleefully swallowed
despite knowing
trust was already severed
and a dead end was the
upcoming feature film
of reality
**** it...
im done

This feeling is a starry night behind my eyes
A revival of beauty I chose to forsake
But never left

You are this heart in my chest and I love you
Everything about you is perfect as is
And if you change I will change with you
You never wanted to hear it but you are loved
And prayed over constantly
God will replace every pain with a golden rose
You will find love in this life
For I've always loved you
Even from afar

My greatest friend
My greatest love
Wherever you are
Find your way home