She lies

Because I lie

I lie

Because I am insecure

She lies

Because she no longer trusts me

I lie

Because she hurts me

She lies

Because she doesn't want me to see her pain

I lie

Because I fail to understand

She lies

Because she can no longer see the truth of me

I lost her

When I could no longer see the truth of her

So many people
diggin in the dirt,
lookin for a rock.
Can you see it from space?
I see one,
it burns so that people can travel speedily.
Chasin their shiny destruction
to the Earth's end
You used to be able to see it from space,
when there was still clean water.

This frame was built to soar
In the darkest depths of space
In the heart of an exploding star
Dimension defining a perfect state

The gentle bite of the stars reflected in the night sea.

Holding my gaze, and holding me fast to my vision,

So that I need never know the difference,

Between your eyes and the light of day.

Turn not away from me, but into me.

So that we might savor the entwining heat of our embrace.

But if you must leave me, know this;

That I shall surely fall into the depths of that same sea,

To perish, still contemplating the wonders of you.

That I should remain, still, beneath such turbulent waters,

Eternally reflecting a love further than the stars,

It would be the sweetest rest,

Suspended in the deepest sorrow.

Love stripped
Passion enslaved

Mind washed
Head shaved

Thirst for truth
Hunger to repay

March forward
Toward dark days

What is this thing buzzing around my ears?
I twist and turn but I don't see what it is!
I hop and swat and growl in frustration,
At this imperceivable persistent pest, this irritation!
It hums in my ear just when I'm drifting to sleep,
Whispering of longing three-thousand miles deep,
It reminds me of days in the sun, laughter, festivals, and fairs,
Music and movies, incense in the air...of days when you were there.
If I manage to rest it's even worse, I'll dream you're scared and lost,
That you're in danger or hurt, my search finding only blankets tossed.
Deceptive day lets me think I'm okay, then sun gives way to rain,
Stifling heat or razor-sharp chill, only strife matters, every breath is pain.
A black hole in my heart, an elephant on my chest, a grim guard dog,
Every face in every crowd might be yours, I seek a drop of water in fog.
I check up once every few years on the book of faces,
You look happy and well, so at least my fears are satiated.
Long and short, every moment is happy and sad, relaxed and stressed,
Darkness and light at once, I guess that's life when one is depressed.

Pick yourself a poison
Goin' down town's lucked out
Cry yourself a river
Stroke it back you've swum out
Bust in the driver's window
Metal that pedal you're spun out
Tip back a fat jar-a
Moonshine 'til you're plum out
Hear the siren? Fire drill!
Get your holler on 'n jump out
Let your hair burn
Rip a roarin' scream as you run out
Stop, drop, rock 'n roll
Stomp that beat drum it out
Why waste time
Dyin' in the heat when the sun is out?

I grew up moving from place to place,
Usually about once a year.
It is very difficult for a child to form friendships,
When they are never in the same school two years in a row.
Military brats go through this, I'm told.

My childhood was a series of disasters and moves.

Like the apartment building in Alexandria that caught on fire every other weekend.
Where my step-dad lost control of the car and tried to stop by sticking his foot out of the door.
My sister almost died from an allergic reaction to soap.
I fell off the jungle-gym and nearly bit off my lower lip.

We moved.

The townhouse in burke where my step-dad went through the sliding glass door, face-first.
Where he got Tiger, the 75 lb. German Sheppard,
Who was crazy and scared the **** out of us constantly.
Let's see what else?
I knocked my sister out of a second-story window,
Our babysitter was a ******,

We moved.

The townhouse in Fairfax where I first saw my step-dad hit my mother,
Where we lived when they divorced.
This is where we lived when the 300 lb. redneck enjoyed trying to **** me on a daily basis.
Our college student tenant had to stand up for me.

We moved.

Basically to make a long story short, not a lot of ****** stability in my childhood.

Disaster.

Move on.

Every single adult relationship continued this pattern.

Whether this is because I unconsciously seek out these situations, I don't know.

Probably.

I sometimes think that people need their disasters, so they have a reason to give up.

I am sick of disasters.
I am tired of moving on.
I am sick and tired of giving up.

And of being given up on.

like a star
our love died
before we ever
saw its light

You were never supposed to be a guest star.

✨

I stood looking up under that same moon
More desolate than the lunar landscape
More isolated than the furthest galaxy
More nebulous than any constellation

I stood looking up under that same star
Heart blacker than the void
Love brighter than a pulsar
Tears tailing like a comet

I stood looking up under that same sky
Missing you

Waiting will get you a life of servitude to a master who doesn't know you even exist.

That being said...I still hope. If you love them, you hope.  That's life.

You lose hope sometimes, you wonder why you still hold onto it sometimes.

There's no reason to hope, other than that she's important to me.

It just doesn't matter if it hurts, it's going to hurt no matter what.

You don't have to have expectations to just...hope.

This heartbreak was an incantation,
Rumor and influence and imitation.
Malevolent power channeled through,
Assumptions and lies deftly hewn.
Harsh runes gouged into bedrock,
Strong shoulders disfigured by stony bulk.
Fault lines grinding thoughts to dust,
Eldritch-enspelled entropy engraving rust.
Mortally wounded by arrival unreported,
Time and space...     by distance distorted.
Lost and found, wreckage on stormy sea,
Seeking our love, stolen in infancy.

I mean, what's 30 years between friends?
                                           between talks?
                                           between hugs?
                                           between kisses?

I am a reflection of
What should have been
The mirror darkened
Silver tarnished
Cracked in insouciance

I am the fallen fragments
Molecules devastated
Fractured facets of
Silicone sand
Meticulously separated

In scattered light
I am the shadow of
A jaded shade
An obscured apparition of
Abiding love

Framed in pain
I am the spaces between
The polished glass
The sharpened edges
The once-perfect dreams

I am the fist
Fear-enforced ferocity
I am the anger-driven
Hypervigilant philosophy
Responsible for each atrocity

I am the blood
Chasing each line
Filling each wrinkle
Draining reason
Never satiating time

I am the man
Left behind lies
Determined deficient
Dejected detritus
An unwanted prize

I am
I don't know who
I... don't know what to do
But since I don't know
I could be the superglue too

I've cut open the corpse of this love
So I could crawl inside to survive
The eternal cold night of this loss

My unintended snark
adds terminal velocity
to my words sometimes,
like when Captain Kirk
slingshots around the sun.

Maybe I can use Kirk's
Slingshot Maneuver
to travel back in time
and apologize for each one.

looks at clock

2:20

phew, nothin

2 minutes before...

wait, ****

looks at clock

2:37

phew, nothin

wait, 1 min before 2:38, but that's nothin, it would have to be 3:38

phew

wait, that's 1:01 before 3:38

****

_______________

Bewitched by the charming graces of my private hell

Honesty, leave me be, that I should never kiss and tell


Soul to the winds, body to the flames

Salvation is ash, destruction a game


Spirit starving, though gorging be

Whether passion, love, or ecstasy


Only eyes am I

No hands to grasp the things I see


Only prayers am I

Never to reach the powers that be


On bliss' wings I soar upon high

A slobbering slave of darkening sky


Mind for fire, heart for dust

My remains trapped in a body in lust


The master plans the subjects scheme

The circle of life, the cruelest theme


Only eyes am I

No way to catch the tears that fall


Only now am I

Too late to save one from the fate of all


At the end of my rope I dangle and twist

Should I climb for the top or cease to exist?


Reason and sorrow to sweetest wits end,

Ignorance and wisdom dance, twist, and bend.


Grey rains fall and tired eyes swell

Never again to kiss or to tell

Once upon a time, there lived a cocky young noble,
Who'd committed no crime yet hid many a foible.

Wherever he rode he'd arrive in the dandiest style,
Charmingly he strode and imagined the ladies beguiled.

He traveled the land in search of high adventure,
Codpiece in hand he was besotted nigh treasure.

Never were any dragons slain nor demons defeated,
Only empty flagons remained where our hero retreated.

He found love unsought, as fools tend to do,
Spellbound by the thought that she loved him too.

Their storied romance grew as the long seasons passed,
However, soon they both knew their song would not last.

Trouble stormed their keep, drawn steel in the night,
And she was stabbed deep by her beloved in his fright.

The princess did strive though she eventually succame,
Spirited away for her life whilst he cried out her name.

Days became months and months became years, yet no word arrived,
Whilst our young hero drowned sour tears and feared that she'd died.

Dour doldrums spurred our knight to stand a little braver,
And so with long-suffering sighs, he sauntered forth to save her.

Briars and bogs he did cross and the dark forest he did pass,
Battling the dread of her loss our desperate knight espied her at last.

With beleaguered head ringing, he'd worried she was mistreated,
Yet he found her laughing and singing, did she not feel as he did?

Crestfallen he reached out to his love in his woe and his fear,
Firmly she gave him a shove and looked away with a sneer.

She claimed her contentment, and bade him leave without quarrel,
So with shame and resentment, he was gone come the morrow.

He sorrowfully still sings and mournfully pines, our hero apparent,
He thanks you for sparing us these wee lines, for one lonely knight-errant.

The things I miss the most
From the life we never lived

Memories give way to today
To the weight of the day
The way it was played
Just the trap that waylaid
A debt never paid
On a promise never made

Caution: Objects in poems are deeper than they appear.

The more shallow it looks, the deeper it is.

Please wear your life vest at all times,

And may we take this moment to highly recommend the buddy system?

We happen to have one available if you are unable to locate a buddy.  😊

I fell in love forever,
She made love for fun,
For me, it was the future,
To her, we had a good run.

The cost of a soul is never cheap
A heart broken whole sleeps ever-deep
Healings toll is inclined to be steep
Heaven toils, devils reap

Silent lyrics sung, line by line,

Page by page, movies projected on my mind.

Words that moved me like waves, washed me out to sea.

Words that, like lighthouses, revealed the shore to me.


Sailors of stars, stories in hand,

Of heartbreak and romance, of adventures in distant lands.

Where words can lift you up and make you fly,

And stand with you against demons that darken the sky.


Whether high [on life] and humming happy tunes,

Or maudlin (in my cups) and singing the blues,

This drunken sailor would doff his cap,

Clear his throat, and raise his glass;


To all of the writers in their own little worlds,

To all of the pencils scratching, and all the pen whorls,

To all of the cluttered keyboards clacking,

To all of the rhythmic fingers tapping,


For all of the dreams and even the nightmares,

For all of the times your words let us know that somebody cares,

For all the truth, guiding ship to coast,

I raise my glass in an old Irish toast:


May the dreams you hold dearest,

Be those that come true,

And the kindness you spread,

Keep returning to you.


Slainte!  

Keep writing! <3

It wasn't feeling your skin against mine,
Or your breath whispering in my ear...

It wasn't feeling the heat of your body,
Or the wild intellect burning in your eyes...

It wasn't your fire lighting up my entire universe,
Or the electric ecstasy in every breath between us...

It was thinking that you felt it too,
And believing we would for eternity.

I would rather have lived in a trailer with you,

Than to have lived the rockstar life without you.

Cord our arms with steel
Bolster our hearts with fire
Fill our minds with light
Drag the veil from our eyes

We have endurance and strength to fight
We have mercy and we have passion
May we learn the wisdom to choose what's right
May our eyes weigh, measure, and ration

Call it hope, poem, spell, or prayer
May it be a boon for those that care
To rise and challenge, to stand against
Control by precedent and ******* by consequence

_

Each heartbreak eroded my confidence, hope, and health.

The hole yawned ever deeper, strip-mined of its wealth.


Like it was left to scream at the sky,

Empty and silent, lost in time.


Megalithic earth-movers encircled, discarded in dust,

The desire for improvement exhausted and left to rust.


Like memories of lovers long-lost,

Distant, faded, and star-crossed.


Mighty metal arms mock this as weakness and point,

Their massive hydraulic muscles fused at the joint.


Like even their strength could have held us together,

Or glued wings to our backs, feather by feather.


Why do I dwell on colossal contraptions of shame?

Each a construct of missed opportunity and lingering pain.


Like remembering too late, forgotten promises,

Or waking alone from dreams of soft kisses.


Queue the architect, compass, ruler, and pen.

So sure of the design he won't look at the plan.


Like he knew exactly what he had to do,

To make sure this would all fall on me, instead of on you.


Please pardon our dust for just a tick more,

We're still picking the pieces up off of the floor.


Like a half-broken robot, program scrambled,

Assembling a semblance of life from fragments in shambles.

Hell threatens no pain,
I have suffered it all.

Death hides no fears,
I have seen them all.

Anger hoards no fury,
I have wasted it all.

Life offers no fire,
I have burned it all.

Longing loses no sorrows,
I am them all.

Religion watered lies with cultivated fears
Pure liquid guilt methodically poured down ****** ears
Harnessed young thoughts to grim shadowed years
Harvested dumb belief in blood, sweat, and tears

Constant torture over the soul's fate
Hideously murdered that innocent state
Contrivances uttered with no trace of hate
Whose venoms still stain now balding pate

Taught to fear what we fail to understand
The devil himself possessed the idlest hand
Preferring instead to let us hang ourselves
Ironclad morals dragging us down to our hells

Time is always in the past

Even now

Is in the past

Now

All the years I will spend waiting

Will eventually be one with

All the years I have spent waiting

Still, I will wait

Very Zen...

But it's not because I am patient

I am not a patient boy  hums Fugazi

Or some studied guru or master of meditation

Nor am I Rip Van Winkle, for that matter

But if you ask me if I'm waiting, the answer is as it has always been:

Yeah, I'm waiting....

I want to wrap myself around you,

My entire self, my spirit, all my life,

I want to cradle you in the arms of my galaxy,

Serene in the timeless embrace of our fusion,

The rest of the universe spinning around us,

Starlight fireworks dancing to the beat of our heart.

I love reading.  My favorites are fantasy novels.

When I was in middle school and first starting to grasp the idea that one could read for fun --gross right?-- I read an awesome series called The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey.

Man, what an amazing series for a young reader (soon to be aspiring writer, thank you Anne McCaffrey) to cut their teeth on.
It is intelligently and imaginatively written, adventurous, suspenseful, emotional, and like duh, it's got people riding dragons!

Well anyway, in the very first book one of the main characters is being attacked by an extremely large beast called a watch weyr, a genetic cousin of dragons bred for guarding castles.

At the very last instant, as the beast is pouncing upon our hero, the watch weyr realizes its intended target is actually one of the very people it was bred to protect.

In a desperate attempt to fling itself aside and spare the life of our hero, the watch weyr snaps its own spine, killing itself.

Now, this is no dog, it's a descendant of dragons, intelligent, sentient, and centuries-old.  That killed itself to avoid hurting someone it didn't even know.  Without a second thought.

Sometimes, not always or even most of the time, mind you, but sometimes...

I wish I had never read that book.

When I broke, it was not her fault

I broke myself upon her, like water on rock

The way a wave breaks itself, eternally at most

Thrashing wildly then crashing blindly, deluging distant coast

Great weight driven by moon, gravity, and tide

Powerless over it's course, fateful in it's dive

Rising restless from it's shifting sleep

Drowning itself dripping upon silent shores feet

Raining it's bulk down on sand and stone

Dragging itself back to dark depths, alone

Ladies and gentlemen,

Please keep your arms and legs

Safely inside the poetry at all times.

Please don't fall into the black hole,

We know it's very attractive,

But our insurance rates will just be unmanageable

If we lose another one...

Cruisin the interwebs the other day,

And I saw someone call a He a She and call them both gay.

Maybe I picked the wrong week to quit trollin, but I was dyin to say:

Are you too limited on intellect to pronounce Them or They,

Or is your empathetic deficit a debt other People should pay?

But the fact is, We are all actors on the same stage in this play,

And sometimes We all need someone to show Us the way.

Whipcracks, needles, and scorpion stings,
These are a few of my least favorite things.
Why do we devolve to insult and injury,
I don't want that, I need your arms around me.

A garden trowel in a patch of irradiated weeds

An odometer in an endless maze of MickeyD's

An encyclopedia in a pawn shop full of tweakers

A love song on a boombox with broken speakers

May I present several examples of useless things with nothing to do

Now if you think those're bad, you should see what I'm like...

Though my heart was dead long ago,

This ******,

Through my chest,

It is as the first.

Though I knew long ago,

The break of trust,

Denies me rest,

Heart smoldering, mind cursed.