I am an old soul
I never asked for explorers to progress
I never asked for inventors to invent
I never asked for science to discover or scholars to detect
I never asked to go from Steamers to engines
I never wanted to trade vinyl for headphones

But I’d always trade city lights for a mountain range
A worn out skyline for an open plane

Why do we complicate our lives in attempt to make them simple?
And why has living simply, become to most something trivial

I am raptured in this soul that refuses to age
In times that are always persistent to change

"Old Soul" -JP

In her smoke, a heavy burn
Leaving him thirsty and parched
She taught a heavy lesson to learn
That loving her and her alone,
Is a church bell ringing above an alter dark

"Church Bell" -JP

Could I in my own efforts, pick myself up if I were dead?
Could I in my own efforts, heal the wounds which I continue to inflict
Could I in my own efforts, prepare to mend the sickness for which I have no cure?
Could I in my own effort, become the person I want too, but don't have the means to become

Could I in my own efforts, harness the power and the strength that I simply do not possess on my own
could I possibly in my own efforts, conquer something in my past that I have failed to over come

The answer is elegant yet most simple, of course I could not!
Could I in my own efforts fall to my knees
Could I in my own efforts, weep and lay still
Could I in my own efforts, move not one inch
Could I in my own efforts, utter a cry for help
Could I in my own efforts be liberated?
Not without a liberator good and strong to break down the gates
And I ask myself will I call for such liberation

The answer has come when I fear I shall not be liberated.
And so in my state I confess that I, am in need of a liberator

Dust by dust and word by word
You formed me from the walk-able earth..
Reforming the wind while turning it into breath
The very first milestone beaten with the very first step..
The garden giving the eyes something to see
Some type of solace born into simple majesty..
Making the ground good for walking
The same way syllables are proving grounds for talking..
Everything new without the need to begin again
And it’s all-overwhelming given the wealth to take in..
A brand new world

"Brand New World" -JP

No battle is won by merely one man
It is won in the blood stained garments of many
It is not dictated by the resolve in his final stand
But the impact of the burden carried by all, on every step of the journey

“Battles”-JP

Every great Leader
Was once a humble Student

"Humble Beginnings" -JP

Somewhere between your heart and your lips
You become a puzzle

With every piece I pivot and fit
There draws inside me a hunger

To love you with every shape and color

Whether one thousand pieces scattered on the floor
Or masterfully put together

What if love gave way to hate, and hate as equal to love

What a wondrous deed it would be!

To leave Athena confounded in the heavens above

The gods suspended among amusement and jealousy

How tranquil would the movements of adoration and goddess be

If hate were thief to an expression called love

"An expression called love" -JP

She said,
You have a boomerang
H
          e
                 a
           r
t
That just doesn't know how to quit.

"Boomerang Heart" -JP

I thank God
For taking from me everything He has taken
and
For giving to me everything He has given
For every step has a purpose of its own

"Thank You" -JP

The Magic of a Miracle is
That a Miracle is no part Magic at all
For a Miracle of course could not be a Miracle
If Magic were ever involved

"Magic of a Miracle" -JP

We go round and round like wheel chairs
Back and forth like bad decisions
Counting up taxi fares

If I could, I'd kiss you to the moon and back
But we don't have time for that
do we.

I look forward to each half-embrace
Maybe, it could be full some day
Some day....
Some day we'll see

I already know I'd go where you go
Follow you even if it's to the end of me
No one ever wants a good thing to go away
Why should I be selfish and think I'm any different

There is no difference
You say it makes no difference
And If I can't make it different
If your mind is made up
Then I make no difference
To you

"No Difference" -JP

Hope is fragile hope is frail
My hope has aged within years of betrayal
Praying for a longer shelf-life than expected
Despite the cracks glued together with worn edges

Through hail storm and fire burn
Somehow my hope has survived
Despite being tossed around
And thrown from way up high

One night a proud display
The next evening packaged up and boxed away
Hope so strong it used to be worth every penny
Now it's torn clean up
Now I'm lucky to find any

So I'm sending my hope off to be restored
Maybe another's hands can make it shine
Just like before

But for now I go without
And I'm placed with petrifying doubt
Weather hope will be there for me
Once more.

"Fragile Hope" -Jp

If the sun shone a little less you would leave it behind
If the moon became unfaithful you would abandon your forgiveness

Sometimes life forgets to keep on living
If only death could forget to keep on dying
I wish our breath could part ways with the kinship of sighing

And that disappointment would move just a few doors down

While there is hope in need of mending
Stitching together a promise that never stopped believing in the hem of tomorrow
I, yes I… have found a friend in the depths and lakes of sorrow

So my dove
Won’t you swim good
And carry us straight on til morning    

"My Dove" -JP

Let your losses be losses
And just sew up the hurt
Where it bleeds

-JP

The storm argues, the professing innocent sky
The angry drunk of lightning, grieving grey bruises on the clouds
Leaving Her too weak to do anything but cry

Hoping the blue she once knew might return

In the last of her efforts she stretches color,
Arking over the abuse of the sky

In an effort of promise, to love once again

There is a longing somewhere deep deep within me
Deeper than the hurt
Deeper than the pain
Deeper than my depravity
Deeper than my darkness
Deeper than my own human will
That longs to sing out
That longs to shout
That longs to cry
That longs to long to long
To hold onto something permanent
That longs for an anchor in this ever-screaming sea
That longs for a line tied around my waste as I seemingly cascade down this sheer mountain side
That longs for a compass in the evil dense of my thoughts
That longs for a glimmer of a door in a windowless room
That longs for a hidden key in the floorboards of my captors dungeon
That longs for a drink of something wet and not dry
That longs for something more stable than the stilts to which my feet are tied
That longs for something more steady than the sways and swifts of the tower to which I have been hoisted
In all of these things and more I am a survivor
In all of these things and more I am a witness to they’re in-permanency
In all of these things and more I am a survivor
Only because of the revelation of something to which I can cling to
in tragedy, that is convinced it must continue to move

"The Longing" -JP

Bury me up to my neck in water

Soothe my like you would a preachers daughter

Like someone who’s sore from bowing at pews

Who’s secretly ****** up

And never amused

“Nevermind” -JP

One minute you're on fire
The next
You're burnt
That's just how it works

"Burnt" -JP

Leave Me Be

I never wanted anymore then what it was I asked for.
I'm tired of waking up thinking about you
And losing sleep doing the same.
This isn't what you want every time you speak,
But you want nothing more every time you act.
There isn't much I want, and even less I need,
I hope in speaking action I can ask you to

Leave Me Be

This whole ordeal takes the nostalgia out of my coffee cup
And pushes me away just as much.
Soft and gentle is how I tried to let you down,
For it would be best on both ends, if you might simply

Leave Me Be

Turning my back on someone like you, I could have never done
But, here and now have forced my steps.
Oh if I were a man who could commit to resolution,
Little do I know, I am.
Resolute all right now I will ever need is for you to

Leave Me Be

So love me in truth and love me in lies or love me not at all.
In any direction the leaves may fall,
We fall opposite forever and always.

I wont talk of heaven or forces of God,
For those I don't claim to see.
But, what I know and tried to show
Above all and underneath the in-between
This is not a request as much as a need.
I wish I could hate to say this but please
Learn to,

Leave Me Be

Our words often create a barrier
Weather mis-communication or dialect of the carrier
We are often mistaken in our strive to be understood
And our attempts to erase preconceived ideas often do us no good

But language has a Jackal side
One of divine intent and clarity
One we take a little pride
When we are understood quite sincerely

A bridge over mote is our words
We let others in with every noun and every verb

For how we think and how we speak, is a narrator to how we act
And unlike words on paper, words once spoken we can never fully take back  

Our language is a weapon but more discreet than not
Because the barbs of our words catch every idea and every thought

Verbal homicide leads to dismantle and disgrace
It’s the instigator of hate crimes, discrimination and slavery of a race

Language is a lover, the reconstruction of your ruins
Language is the difference between being animal and barley human

“Barley Human” -JP

Fill her empty spaces
With picket signs
That chant of her beauty.

-JP

So what happens
If the world ends
And I still
Can't let you go?

"World Ends" -JP

Celebrity
Bit by bit and break by break
Pain has become the celebrity
Of my heart

“Celebrity” -JP

Counting the reasons I fell for you
Watching reasons fray
Even if every reason was true
Then they all left me broken in two
And you left me broken just the same

Call the crimes of your magic
That got the best of me
It all looks better from the outside
The posts and pictures we hide behind
Because blind love is the best way to believe

"Loving You Blind" -JP

You are everything I've ever wanted
And
Everything I've ever needed
In human form
My heart runs fast at the sound of the syllables in your name

-JP

I could use a dose of gray
A little pepper of gloom
The heavy rain of a thousand skies
Or the four corners of a windowless room
I could use a dab of dark
An intriquite weaving of color
Steal a shade of black
And coerce it into another
I could use the oceans darkest hours
Or the deepest regrets of the night
I would love to meet blues sinister side
Or the pigment of Lizzy’s flower
As if gray in every shade were the only primary color
I could use some heavy rain
“Heavy Rain” -JP

The Billowing
Risk
Is my second language
It's my
Native tongue

"Billowing Risk" -JP

I hate you when you're here
But miss you like mad
When you're not around

-JP

The knife dripped with her husbands blood.

His phone buzzed on the bed side table.

She’s next, the wife thought to herself.

I was born
                    out of ritual

Cultivated
                                           in an abundance

Of sacred experience

"Ritual" -JP

It's not the mere sound of a persons laugh,
Rather it's what or whom they are laughing at
That defines who they are

"The Sound of a Laugh" -JP

Exhausted
Trying constantly
To shed all those days
That have long since passed  

"Passed Days" -JP

Don't tolerate anyone
Who is too blind to recognize
Your true value

-JP