teen age, young adults
how’d you make choices in life
go straight or u-turn.

Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath

Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013

What we think we know
Will only go to show - we don’t
We shrink every time we think we’ve grown
We’re simple and slow
Submit to an illusion and in the confusion feel taller
True growth is an intrusion and only makes you feel smaller
Can’t expand nor extend
To infinity’s end
But we stand and pretend
To understand and comprehend
But all that’s discovered
Reveals even more uncovered
The abundance proposed
Makes us redundant, exposed
We like things enclosed
So our minds stay closed
We’re merely superimposed
Into small worlds we’ve composed
We want to believe we’ve understood
Never conceiving all we should
Can’t see the trees - for the wood
We imagine we’re building something good
Loose our childhood
Pursuing a livelihood
Our blood is only coded with part of us
Our life force is loaded with more than this.
Line after line is written in rhyme
Lyrical magicians have tried to define
In rhythmic patterns sublime
We try, we try
An immense power moves through our essence
Ever reduced and cleverly condensed
I feel incensed by the pretence
We abuse without recompense
Virtue is compressed
True beauty suppressed
We feel less, and less!
So self absorbed. We want to be adored
We cut the cord and can’t be cured
We fail to ever really be whole
We impale, even sever our dreary souls
Needlessly faking what’s ours for free
Forsaking true power
We cower and flee
We think our humanity weak
We don’t even want what’s real
Can’t afford to feel
Don’t see the price of ‘care-free’
We simply can’t bare
To truly care
So we stare into space
And don’t know how to face
The sheer vastness that we effortlessly fail to embrace

There are lights in the sky
Each a lamp lit for someone else
And none for me

I’d sent flame after flame
Up there for you hoping that
One day they’d be bright enough
To reach you

To listen to your words of white heat warmth
That will send a wave of fire through
The void and light a billion stars
For me
Even if you didn’t intend to
Your words, your smile,
Even your silence is what
Lit up the sky for me
So that I saw besides everlasting darkness
And ever more endless shadow
There are life brewing in the silence
Though not for me

The silence only smothers, and suffocates me
Like an invisible hand tightly gripping onto my throat
Without me noticing, ever so violently
Yet ever so slowly squeezing harder and harder
Till I cannot breath, not knowing the reason why

It forces me down into the depth of the abyss
Till I am no longer one, but one with the shadow
One with the bottomless pit of despair and fear
Till I am no longer within the void, but am the void

Yet, when I saw you
When I met you
I was lifted up out of where I thought I belonged
And could hold against the weight
Of all that is without light
The gloom, the shadows, the night
The black of space
The silence that cries
And floated weightlessly
Above, below, and within
All there ever was, and will be
For, even though I know not how
My love for you
Has the power to lift me up:

Beyond the wild fields of stars
Beyond the glistening ocean of light
Beyond the dreamless darkness
Beyond the unkempt bed of life
Beyond the inescapable swamp of death
And beyond
All of time

To a place where only the existence of you
Holds out its shapeless hand to me
And lead me
Rather the merely dust, and breath of me
Through the void, to the empty vessel
Carrying all the pure
Feelings, senses, love, and even pain

Though it is a place
Way beyond the rays of any sun
Way beyond the circle of life
Way beyond decay and apathy
Way beyond flesh and blood

I saw every color
Every being
Every state of being
Every possible and impossible thing
Every time and space
Pass through the ghost of you and I
And cease to be
At least that’s what they appeared to be

The twinges, the sharp electric sparks
You sent through out every atom of my body
And every participle of my soul
Told me that

They are no longer life that exist exterior to us
But within us, or rather
They are us, were us, and will always be
As they have never existed otherwise
In and since that moment of eternity

I see every river through me
My blood and hair
Every fish, your touch
Every dancing seagrass
The joy your gaze ripples through me

I see every mountain and valley
All around you
Every bump on your skin
Every wave on your fingertips
Every stone and sharp edges, my pain
Every field my words of love unending

Every burning star
Dots our shining eyes
Every moon, every heavenly body
That passes, they are the fleeting
Yet never ceasing reflection of affections
Waltzing again and again across our sight
Playful like children
Not yet exposed to any worldly sorrow

Every bit of space without light
Every pit of pure darkness
Caves of eternal shadow
Every howling silence that plunders pass
They are too, forever part of our love
For
They are the pain of longing
That makes each moment of proximity
So frighteningly precious
Afraid to be lost, so keeping it close
Like a token of innocent love
Pass down through generations
Till no being of flesh and mind
Remains, yet the dust still holds
Tightly onto it
Never letting go

And,
At last
Every bit of you
Like water droplets through the given earth
Like sunshine in an inseparable bond with life
Like rains of stars that will never leave the sky
Have seeped, melted, and spread
Through every drop sweet and bitter of me
Till I am no longer just acquainted with living
But am the very dream of life.

Could it be
I've never seen
Beauty in me
Took time to reflect
On all that I am
I haven't shared everything I can
On this soul-searching road
The winds and turns
Each corner holds secrets
Each road taken holds challenges untold
Which road you choose is how life unfolds
Some are rougher, Sometimes it's smooth sailing
All the time I've invested in this world
I've come to realise
Each moment is just a piece strung together
In this story called life
I have no wisdom in my words
All I know is I've survived
Yeah, still alive.

Some would say I feel too much
Some would say, I'm too ******* myself
Mistakes I owned them
Haters I outgrow them
There's a whole lot in me
Only a few people see
A light that shines slightly through the cracks
I'm not all bad
And all this strength gathered
Has taken me to heights
Others couldn't imagine
Like a lighter, a little spark
Can ignite a torch
Revealing truths in dark corners
It's all these things
That makes me a lyrical philosopher
Through these lines I conquer

A man made up of scars
Each marks a tale
Each a reminder of lessons learned
I've been through the ringer
Still standing, And I'll still fight
Until my last breath drains all my might
No matter what the world throws my way
I'll always say...          
"Challenge accepted."
Never gave up
I still dream
I still fight my way
Through each day
No matter the odds stacked against me
I'm a raise my head accept the challenges met

Some would say I feel too much
Some would say, I'm too ******* myself
Mistakes I owned them
Haters I outgrow them
There's a whole lot in me
Only a few people see
A light that shines slightly through the cracks
I'm not all bad
And all this strength gathered
Has taken me to heights
Others couldn't imagine
Like a lighter, a little spark
Can ignite a torch
Revealing truths in dark corners
It's all these things
That makes me a lyrical philosopher
Through these lines I conquer

Nothing is going to hold me down
I'm going to dance like a warrior
All these bad habits couldn't be sorrier
All these battles I've won
Some left me scarred
But through this my skin became hard
Got a thick skin, Never cut through it
Got a good heart, shines through in my art
Belief only takes you so far
Have faith, it'll take you beyond the stars
They say wisdom can't be found in bars
In unlikely places, you can find yourself
And accept it is all you are
All that you've become
Water washes over me
Setting me free
All this dirt cleansed from me
You haven't even seen the best from me

Some would say I feel too much
Some would say, I'm too ******* myself
Mistakes I owned them
Haters I outgrow them
There's a whole lot in me
Only a few people see
A light that shines slightly through the cracks
I'm not all bad
And all this strength gathered
Has taken me to heights
Others couldn't imagine
Like a lighter, a little spark
Can ignite a torch
Revealing truths in dark corners
It's all these things
That makes me a lyrical philosopher
Through these lines I conquer.

Don't make me a role model
That I can never fulfil
All I wanna be is an Inspiration
Show people if they stick to it
They can make it
They won't fail if they fight tooth and nail
Revealing truths through poetic paragraphs
Silver linings rising, capture lightning in a bottle
Hard to contain, just striking in ways they don't expect
In life, you'll realise your blessed
If you take a deep look around
And all that surrounds us
Just shows that you can achieve
Be anything you want to be
And all I choose is to just be me
Open up your heart to see.

Some would say I feel too much
Some would say, I'm too ******* myself
Mistakes I owned them
Haters I outgrow them
There's a whole lot in me
Only a few people see
A light that shines slightly through the cracks
I'm not all bad
And all this strength gathered
Has taken me to heights
Others couldn't imagine
Like a lighter, a little spark
Can ignite a torch
Revealing truths in dark corners
It's all these things
That makes me a lyrical philosopher
Through these lines I conquer

©2018 Written By Benji James