I saw stars
where there was only dust,
much the way high school hearts
confuse lust for love.

I felt forever
in the most fleeting of scenes.
I'll do it again.
Mistakes are built for repeat.

I heard you say, "Come closer dear"
as you were sprinting out the door,
clearly wanting less,
but all I can give is more.

I dreamt we were at peace
as shrapnel burst through the bed,
and I denied in my heart
what was clear to my head.

I hate hypocrisy.
I hate mine the most.
Sometimes I swear I feel your breath,
when I'm sleeping with your ghost.

My heart keeps the beat
as we tangle up our
arms and feet.

Your hand takes mine,
my heart keeps time,
suns rise, stars align.

This moment is the world
as far as I’m concerned,
flaming lips leave a sweet burn.

We laughed.
We kissed.
I got my wish.

You said I get four.

Wish number one:
Can we please just hide the sun,
let the night fade to eternity.

My second wish:
The words to match this kiss,
but they’ll never be.

Wish number three:
For you to come back home with me
I know I know, but I can wish.

Wish number four:
No. I don’t need anymore,
because it came true,
I’m here with you.

I’ll never see you boney face,
or get to feel your hunger pains.
Instead I’ll play familiar games -
drink and smoke those thoughts away

Why do you treat me so unkind?
Ruin my day from time to time.
take the meaning from my lines
rob my faith in a pure design.

What would you think of this here house?
The dollar bills I toss around?
What would you say about the frown,
from a girl that comes and gets me down?

So I’ll toss time at a screen
and still not feel a single thing.
Oh God what could you think of me?
I’m selfish and even worse I am weak.

I know you’ll rest your head tonight,
to dream of water, warmth, and rice.
Only I can hear your quivering plight,
but not right now, it’s time to get high.

All that I’ve got is this rich white guilt,
but indulgent feelings won’t pay your bills.
I am owned by rich white guilt,
Try to forget so I can’t sit still.
A spoiled boy with rich white guilt,
the only thing I’ve ever felt.
All I am is rich white guilt,
and you’re the one that it will ****.

All this freedom
has built me a cage.
Lean my head ‘gainst the walls
to hear the breaking of waves.
They sing the harsh chorus
of another wasted day.
All that I was given
is what they took away.

I hum myself a tune
a neighbor taught me in my youth.
As I’ve gotten older,
it’s only grown in truth.
It tells of a brave boy
who stood up to a brute,
and how that beast cut him down,
for some are born to lose.

All my life I’ve been told
that I am free as can be,
and asked to ignore
these shackles, wrapped around me,
but try as they may
they cannot change what I’ve seen.
Red, black, and blue
coalesce as I bleed.

I used to run so hard,
maybe 18 miles a day.
There was no end to the race,
but I was not running away.
I was stuck on a track,
every pace kept me in place.
I had nowhere to go,
so I was sentenced to stay.

The food in here ain’t bad,
and it’s a warm place to sleep.
The warden treats me well,
gives me his own book to read,
The TV is so big
that I could never even see,
I was born in a prison,
and I was born with a key.

She wakes up to the sun’s alarm,
takes a stretch, scratch, and a yawn.
She straps her bra back on.
Before he wakes, she’s gone.

Walking home in last night’s clothes
must be getting old.
But no one wants to sleep alone.
Sometimes Hell can feel like home.

Still in bed
He calls a friend
“God, it happened again.
I know, has got to end.”

His bright heart weakened in the dark.
Though he felt not the slightest spark,
he still pursued the yielding mark.
Fourteen hours, and game restarts.

Racing towards twenty,
no hands on the wheel.
I have a Peter Pan plan:
run when it gets too real.

There is an aching deep within me,
that I hoped  time could heal.
Threw desperate looks at the clock,
but it ignored my appeal.

I like myself much more
when I take the time to read.
Yet I only stir and sleep
or stare at petty screens.

The sand, it just keeps falling;
each night I hear it piling.
When the sound comes from within,
there is no such thing as hiding.

My biggest fear:

I will wake up and be thirty,
but an old old man.
Always talking about what I was
and all I could have been,

Then I’ll turn round and be forty
Just like all suburban slobs,
who have never read the classics,
grateful slaves to dead jobs.

Fifty will approach,
I’ll swear it’s too late in the day
for a man to make new ways,
deathly afraid of change.

Perhaps when I’m ninety,
scales will fall from my eyes,
my head will hang in sorrow;
having wasted my only life.

Once I was playing 1st base,
dreaming of the ice cream truck.
Now I'm rounding 2nd base,
just hoping she wants to ****.

Paths diverged in the woods
and I just stood and stared.
I waited for the tears or joy,
only to learn I never cared.

The waiting game came and won,
leaving me cold in its path.
Still waiting for the rising sun
that never seems to last.

The theme song of my twenties:
loss of innocence, that old cliché.
Learning to hate my friends
that still slur the word gay.

Bukowski gets so arduous,
and who wants to marry that?
I bet it all on truth.
No room for love on that track.

I built this golden reputation,
only through subsidized kindness.
I rob the words of minor poets.
My love is a plagiarized styling.

My head is on the pillow now.
In due time my eyes will seal,
and then I'll melt into my dreams,
just hoping they're what's real