You are the shelter, my egg.
A half-reflection of my time here.
I write with your hands,
I see through your eyes -
Green as the street where we spent
the two decades that meant the most.

So hip that you dissolved one of yours.
Always bringing the truth to the surface.
Not a law, a threat, or problem to stop you.
Defined by a friendly face and welcoming tone.
Refined by a southern hand and an era of sinners.
A mother to us all.

These words are all I have to give;
You taught me every last one.
Letters arranged to define the world.
Even though you know my intentions,
Remember, I do this because you let me be me.

You deserve enlightenment and laughter
Forever and again.

Even the idea was worthy of a fight
and all too much preparation.
We dolled ourselves up for alienation,
even though the faces present
were so familiar and etched into memory.

Who are you Mr.Cool?
If that is your real name.
Whiskey breath and filterless smokes
only impresses the girls in the movies,
with scripts written by clueless men
like you, who can't supply injury
so they bring only insult.

You are a secretary bird,
a mime, and the copycat kid.
Trying to be a bad boy and hide
amongst the spoiled brats you claim.

Keep on burrowing and severing ties,
ravishing resources leads to ruin.

You say you've heard rumors?
Well, I've heard facts.
I've seen facts!

Your parasitic disguise will crumble
under the weight of your genuinely selfish persona.
While the company I keep will only know
the side you wished to reveal
in front of all the pretty boys and girls.

My skin is hot.
I can feel it.

But my bones are cold.

Shivers are sent down my spine
And I know I am shaking.

The only thing I can think of is
You.
Your scent
Your energy
Your touch
Your voice
Lingers around me and dances with my senses.
I am burning for you,
But I feel cold.

Tangible toys to trifle with
Telescopes and televisions and telephones
Teaching us to tick and tock
Telling us time
Trading touches for tricks
Though doesn't it seem just so?

The collective ties then tears
Tucking individualism into sleep
Terrors of the twilight to wake and hint
Tweaked in turbulence to set the sails smooth
Trying at contentment to dig up but contempt
Though doesn't it seem just so?

Telepaths and tellers on muted megaphones
Teething a societal infant proves troublesome
Tight jawed and spoonfed
Track the time travellers, the ****** heretics
Tennessee in '33 preached inequality
Though doesn't it seem just so?

My uncle slit a man's throat with a box cutter in my childhood home and didn't apologize.
Sitting in a circle filled with crack smoke and stale beer breath.
This is a shining example of what I've lived with
and the lengths I've had to go to escape the thing people call "destiny".

Thievery, lies, pressure, and violence
has been calling my name for the longest.
But I know the voice too well to be taunted.  

Words are my freedom and words are my piece of mind.
There is not a single substitute.
Whether poem, prose, or paragraph,
This is the only calling I've ever had.

I've lived with a hoarder, addicts, senility, and ignorance
in a variety of different combinations and forms.
At times, power, water, freedom, money, necessities, have all been an unachievable thing to me.
Lost to the vile goals of those folk I love.
I am the only one who sees the beauty in the fragile and odd.
The others see only a mess on a paper, and move their eyes to the nearest glowing box.

My father drowned when I was six.
My grandfather followed soon after.
My mother felt the stab of this and caved so many times.
I witnessed and shared the burden of her pain and grief.
My grandmother forgot everything she ever loved or knew, and short after passed as well.
Pets and possessions,
friends and followers.
All gone with a drastic breeze.
I am the one with the vision, but I am trapped in a shell of a city,
covered with that wretched stink of refined soy.

Will I be able to unburden the world from myself?
You all give me such great courage and allow me to share the beauty as I see it.
You all have such great skill with symbols and it makes me feel like home isn't far.
I want this. I want this.

If I keep breathing like the rest of the world
I feel I may miss the sound of the world's heartbeat.
But my death would not bring a solution for the ones I love.
Only a warrant for more death.
I need this. I need this.

With my words, I conjure up hell.
And hell brings with it the familiar.
Run little kitties, run.
The Doubling House and The Sequential Church will not hold forever.
My havens are temporary, but the craters are forever.
I will struggle till the pain becomes all I am
and I buckle under the weight of what I shouldn't have taken
from the mighty Atlas.

I do this for me.
I do this for you.

The smoke rises and an aroma fills the room.
Relaxing and intoxicating.

It's just a coincidence that this is your scent.