The boys body was deflated
Eyes sunken from late night adulthood
Age 10 never felt so 45
Posture of regret
Mind wondering why hunger always hurts
Why food never comes easy
Face frostbitten with anger
Hands trembling
Wanting someone to finally hold them
Callused they are
From days of playing father
As he walked into my classroom
This student displays a holographic smile
Hangs his coat on the hanger
Wonders what it feels like
To be left out to dry

Sank
Her hope
A moonlit nightmare
Collapsing
With all intentions
to never return

The phone call
Innocent vibrations
Crumbling a foundation
His name felt jagged in her universe
Solemnly swearing
In tongues of past

Diluting words
Sifted through expectations
She remembers his breathe
As a torch
Branding sadness
Across her lips

Our blood was laced with alcoholic excuses from bad fathers neither of us signed up for
We traced our lineage to find disadvantage for the hopeful
And in the end I found a brother
Who was more like my father
A missing backbone
Crutches to limp check his empathy
A hard lined depression drenched in self-loathing
The man much more a hollow cage
Leaking from his seams
Not wishing to get better
A ghost in the shadow of today's tomorrow
We are blood, my brother and father
And some days
Blood is the only thing we have in common

Lonely was anxious
Broken in her own dreams
Reaching out
Hoping for nothing more
Than companionship
Begging you to fall in
Grasped up your sinewed heart
Finding comfort in the walls of your chest

The moon spoke heavily in the sky
Drifting within time itself
Creating a comma upon gods plans
A pause of the hurry to get to the future
Hearts beating in unison
Gravity let go
Just long enough for
The world to freeze
To absorb the phenomenon
We call life

Words hang full of weight
Cement filling hollowed out bird bones
Represent this moment
When we started flying planes
To liberate the regret of our potential
Walking into brick walls
Excited because we broke ourselves first
We are always first in the afterlife

These painted billboards are holographic images
Of plea bargains we made with the devil.
In this case the devil looks like
A society with more money than love
More violence than conversations
Enough hatred to fuel an economy

I hate that we are taught as children
To be helplessly free
We are liberated
As long as we stay in our boundaries
Don't be black son
You must be a carbon copy
Of the white out in our past
Please don't stand up for anyone
But yourself

I took off...

As if I ever landed.

Like my landing gear actually deployed this time.

It was a crash.

A beautiful escape.

Directional disappearance into an oblivion of no regrets.

The smoke settled to reveal emergencies.

Love me like something tragic.

Stretch your arms across mountains to reach my heart so it will continue to palpitate.

I can't teach myself to feel the love you give me.

Let's have a show and tell.

Show me your love and I'll tell you all about how a universe of explanations won't relate how I feel.

We flew together.

In no specific direction.

But it was our exact path of destruction.

Destroying every falsified rumor ever fed to us in sippy cups made from our spilt past.

So we never really landed.

Let's never arrive.

Today is more than yesterday

Falling short of tomorrow

Right where it needs to be

Presently perched

On the high wire

Of being present

The stale ring left in my ear. Walls covering eyes and memories. White as snow, dull as a knife. The constant movement of this place is

unsettling. Comfort of the hurt and hurting. Bandage me up and break my spirits. Give me serenity in these broken moments. Hallways tunnel out of my sight.

That bed that too many people have been through. The pain that was felt, struggles, tears, blood and fluid. This place holds history.

The kind of history in that one book in the library. Furthest row from the door, tucked in a blanket of dust, top shelf. The book no one will read because of the way it makes you feel.

Helplessness and earthquakes.

Break trough this heart and tumble me wave. But I'll puff up my chest for you. I'll wear my steel chest plate. Arrows won't penetrate these reinforcements.

I ate my wheaties this morning. Prepared mentally and set out. I stepped through these doors only to be vulnerable, shot down, weak. Defenseless like a sloth. Grabbing my own arm for comfort, while falling too many stories down.

A Desolate attempt to show courage. I'll burrow back into my hole. The observed pain is too much. The false promises of health, fortitude and strength never taste so bitter.

If your strength didn't prove so much this would be long over. Over and out. Under the blanket of clouds and relief. You care too much. You proved your worth with a heart of diamonds. Home is a moveable fortress. One I'll never step in again.

The rain falls, in the form of letters and drenches my life story into the garden soil beneath your feet. Flourishing roots that are not visible to the naked eye. These roots lay in my chest. Filled with dictionaries in languages I have attempted to remember over the years.

The water drizzled into my stem.
A moment I'll never forget. a moment of growth. That I peeled back the curtains of all the soil hiding my best ability to stand tall. My knees straightened up and let the blood come back to the atom bomb I hold my chest.

Spouting my arms open wide. The letters melting off my fingertips and I to this solem piece of paper. Spelling out words of life that started from the root of my being.

Reproducing a cycle of seasons. Seasons of grown and seasons of molting. Each and every year I find myself to have a new skin. One different from the last.

This is how I know I am still growing. When I sprout I refuse to grow into something already present. I will magnify myself into something rare. Never before have I seen it.

I refuse to let the soil of these seasons determine my biology. I will photosynthesize to remember that I need to soak in the moment. That today I will grow and not stand still.

Laying straight across my bed with images painted of you charges the waves in my head.
Hair flown through the air capsules occupying space across your shoulders.

The way your face glows like snow on Christmas morning.
Giving my spine flowing shivers of elation and angst.
Formations created by muscles fibers, causing a earthquake in knee joints with a simple smile.

Never seen a softer jaw line fill my imagination so often.
Under flowing gorgeous hair your shoulders sit curved and forward like a anxious cat ready to pounce at the way I can't breathe when we catch eyes.
Moving down your body your flesh draws my attention to complete obliterating originality.

I know you love math so maybe you could understand, that there Is not an answer for every equation.
Like how when you take the square root of beauty, divide it by a curve, and rethink the small of your back you get knees that shake with giddy.

This doesn't quite make sense anymore because my thoughts become paralyzed at the possibility of you actively playing the violin strings between my ability to feel. I want to listen to the orchestra of your body every moment of my awaken state.

It plays love. It screams in the face of didn't think I had a chance to catch my heart from running off into the sunset. Let's run away together. That way I can learn every part of you deeper than this simple poem I'm writing.

Let me be the batteries to your sun
A force warm enough to lift you out of bed
With a smiling heart

Time is wrinkled hands of a father
Reminding me that there is still more to do here
Time has not run on empty
Smiles lifting pages of the history channel
Time has seasoned us into working machines
Grinding geared up perspective
Time will not forget this body
Each tick a reminder of phenomenal
Time asks one thing of us
Do not waste a single moment
Because that may be all you have

I have reached my hand threw our spaces
Over 2000 miles exhausted
Wishing you would grab hold
You clenched my throat
Choking out the words I want to tell you
Words along the lines of
Please don't surrender
Stop walking around like it is Monday everyday
Like your mind has made up its decision
and your existence is pulling the covers over today
You can borrow my heart for now
Anything to make you feel warm on days the sun gets unplugged
You were meant for more than this
More than a post it note heart and feeble arteries
In 7 days we will both remember why you can't give up
Like a sign god put up in our yard during elections
Begging for another few years to stick around
Our days are numbered my brother
Stop crossing out the days before they happen

Losing your mother at 22
Realizing she was more to you than yourself
The only saving grace
Excusing itself from dinner early
Forgetting to push in their chair
An empty spot yet to be filled

Maybe death feels like this
Forever without you
The light refusing to enter darkness
A slip of too many tangles
Staring into too much of nowhere
Still wishing you were here

Talking without purpose
Has become company
We fill the air with empty syllables
A complicated language
Created by intelligent minds
Volcano ash tossed into the sky
Substance is a fleeting dream
Left in airwaves
Too far away to reach

A Ball of flame stuck above the spinning overpopulated ball of mineral.
Thanks.
This is a letter of appreciation to you.
To show the abilities you possess.
To your boring appearance.
To gas, from me or you.
To orbital seasons.

A letter of the heat you have allowed for my skin to absorb.
The heat that tells ice to run free.
The heat allowing the helpless to survive.
The heat giving power to a solar panel in a 3rd world country.
The heat taken for granted and cursed after a forest fire.
In denial that you are simply allowing a rebuilding of nations.

A letter created because of the light you provide my fingers.
Light that refuses close quarters with darkness.
Light providing rays of D to flow into happiness of flesh.
Light showing beauty on the faces of those on this bruised up earth.
Light giving life to all forms.

But,
What about that time you gave me false promises?? The sunrise dissipated by clouds and loneliness. Or how about when you burnt my skin. I remember that vividly. Lobstered up walking like a robot. I know the feeling because of the skin on my body told me so. I see straight through you, go pick on someone your own size. There's an entire universe out there waiting for your powerful engulf. ******* and up instead of down.

Or maybe you can turn off. We can pollute the ozone, block your outrageous rays, and slaughter the heat you produce. Then maybe we can live somewhere where feelings don't melt so easy.

Things that I am finally going to probably end up telling myself one day:

#1 you don't need permission to be happy

#2 read number 1 once more

#3 heart break is much less than suicide

#4 glass can take millions of years to decompose, so stop insisting for grabbing  another. So many busted ***** fingers have already bridged that gap. No need to lose another stupid boy to drowning

#5 family can sometimes only be defined by genetics. Not saying I don't love my family, it's just some days it's hard to tell

#6 when you grow up, jon, be a man

#7 still have no idea how the last one works

#8 show up

#9 still searching for something to reach for. The sun has been too **** hot and I think I need a drink

If I gave every part of myself

I wouldn't have anything else to offer you

If I take every part of you

I will water your roots daily

If I throw my deepest love into the air

Then raindrops of forgiveness will engulf us

If I weave our love into puddles

They will rise and fall upon us on another day

I have decided to give up eating shotguns
Instead i have allowed myself to consume glass land mines
Now I realize this is not a positive thing
But at least one is socially acceptable

Defining depression and alcoholism can be difficult

One is told to **** it up and get better
Everyone knows life can't be that hard
Please don't share your issues here and now I am too busy
Continue chewing on shotgun shells
Convincing yourself things are improving
Shot shot shot
A conscious barrel bottle battle
Everyday

One is swallowed in crowds of too many happy people
Everyone knows life is better after a drink
Please display your guts all over the bar floor
We know you'll forget by tomorrow
Continue tipping your chin to empty prayer halls
Convincing yourself things are improving
Shot shot shot
A conscious disillusion of distraction
Everyday

So I'm sitting here, meditating
Focusing on the present
Assuring myself I'm breathing
Each slow inhale
Forcing life into a body less deserving
I tell myself I must fill myself with life
So a bottle appears
It empties into my lungs


So now I'm sitting here, meditating
Focusing on the drowning
Assuring myself I'm not breathing
Each slow inhale
I tell myself this will mask the pain
So the end appears
It's fills my head

Lets name her Lynn for short.

A girl with gorgeous hair. A place for wind to look beautiful. Without this girl wind is something invisible. She gives form to the breeze. The same breeze that carries her voice. One voice told so many I love yous and a few secrets I can’t speak of.

She had a heart of a locomotive. Traveling the world infectiously spreading joy into the ears open enough to hear her step upon the doorstep. Steaming up and spreading precious moments spoken from non other than the movement of her frame. A train off track and causing chaotic freedom to something that can’t be held down.

This girl I am speaking of has eyes of the future. When used they can’t tell you of the broken glass of the past but of the future possibilities she will be giving to you. The moments of forever, happiness, and pure elation. Those same eyes are the ones with a history. I want to be her historian. I want to study every date of her life to know every moment of triumph and every fall. I want to study her bones to see the indents made from the people who have experienced her grace. I will tell you everything about her. Writing a book about the times she stole my words. There will be books of blank pages if that were true.

Lynn has a way to put a definition to personal warming. Warming hearts and melting pasts. Giving light to those who are lost. Bring in the cold, lost, and fragile to place them somewhere of meaning. A way of true refinement. I can now see from the times were once dark. This girl has an infinity for endlessness. I have never seen something so completely, infinite.

Everyday I live with this girl in my chest. She has built a home there. One of structure. Fortified and permanent. And each day this heart grows with the constant fulfillment it finds from its new owner. A new forever has been written on my spine. This forever will be one spent with you through each and every moment found in my brain. A moment of now and forever more. The last moment before you fall asleep. That moment when you have your best thought of the day but your body is too tired to write it down. I want to live in your thoughts. Because from here you are living in my heart.

Transcribe these words into the soft pallet your sky
I want to rewrite your history
Exchanging my presence into every lonely moment you ever experienced

Remember me as a part of the past, present, and future

Melt my everything over the bad dreams you had
Of men who didn't know how to fill the space between your ears
Reassuring you my mother raised me to jigsaw my way into your thoughts

Remember me as a part of the past, present, and future

Create a log history of every time you thought of me
Yet didn't know how to say my name yet
For I have not been blessed with your presence yet

Remember me as a part of the past, present, and future

Plug my name into the blank spots
The one's where your husbands name will go
Plan your wedding with my image in your mind

We are no past, present, and future

Let me be a historian
Memorizing every inch of your life
Loving each event.
Loving you wholly.

Sometimes I want to learn new languages
Until I realize
I barely have a grasp on English

As the volume settles in this confined cube of a classroom
I lay one sheet of paper on each desk
I tell my students to prepare them for a test
I tell myself they don't need another test
I do it anyway

Now I want you each to answer with precision
Give me your mind and stave the heart for now
Allow your finger tips to work in ways they have not been taught yet
Do this correct
The way they are going to expect

In the top right corner please write your:
Name
Date
Eating disorder
Depression
ADHD
Food insecurity
Anxiety
Family issues
Lack of sleep

Now leave them there and focus
There is no room for those here
Not in a classroom
And not in a test like this
Human does not belong right now

This test determines too much
To show that you are not enough

So good luck on this test
When you are finished
Sign with your everything
And hope for the best

Loneliness is a leaf

leaving a tree

never to return again

Yet,

Freedom is a leaf

leaving a tree

never to return again

He fell from his crucifixion

Pure in his scars

Mountained on his sternum

From the moments

Words were trapped

Behind the dam of his cave

So he continued silent

In sacrifice for her happiness

When I left I lost letters. I felt like a broken type writer attempting to speak our past in tongues removed.

Fumbling frequencies across a country too nice. Wondering about a miracle  I could never speak. Throwing tantrums with broken teeth from Everytime I've beat myself for speaking out of turn.

Write me again. A new book pressed into the ridges of your open heart. I want to be written in hieroglyphics. Take a moment and decipher the importance of things we have not spoke. Bleeding hearts dripping ink of memories we made in bedrooms.

The bed looked like octopus ink. Dark and shadowy full of the waste of our day. Making me feel alive again in the moment our eyes collided.

Can someone choke me
And remind me how to breathe

Today plunges

Into yesterday

Therefore politely

Remind us

To explore

These words

For they

Will impact

Our future

The revolution in his chest was sleeping the day she showed up

By the time this revolution marched, she was no where to be found.

We tell this story of heartbreaks and loneliness

Without realizing it is our job to ignite the revolution

No longer will we depend upon someone else's spark plug

That vibration you feel. It's like tuning forks ringing through your elbow begging of you for something more. Get me off. Slide me right. Let me see the dirt under your fingernail and maybe I can see the moments of our past. It was scratched up and forgotten about. But for now just answer me. Now. Give me release. I know you don't know who I am. Although I give you promise that I could be your everything. There are 829571 different people I could be. Open your heart and let me in. I'll warm your fire. I'll tickle your pickle. I'll, sell you a get away cruise to the bahas for the small price of your identity. Maybe I'll be you. Sitting behind a desk, waiting to exist in every position you wanted to fill. Society needs you. Like we need you to fill spots many others can fill. You are replaceable. Calling center one O one, let me make you believe you're an individual. Because to me, I have always needed another stud on my heels. Another piece of gum to fill the space between my heart and lungs. Breathing is harder than felling. Feeling is harder than playing dead. When I am dead I still hear phones ring. You're here. With me. Let's do a 3 way call. Maybe we can convince someone we are something better than bones in a bag. Deeper than fossils in poor neighborhoods. Let's make a power plant out of our facts. They are energy, existing in temperature Change within our friction. I'll rub this heart raw until I can calculate who you are. Come inside. Let me change you. I'll show you everything more than a social perspective. I'll show you passion. Release. Let me be your rebellion. I need a cause to start a fire.

You never answered. No voicemail. Only left with extreme wonder of something extraordinary mystery. Wonder of the possible greatness we could have been if you would have picked up the phone.

Sincerely,  

Unknown number

I am the poem she has not written down yet

If I die tomorrow and am no longer present
When my life no longer reruns on bad television channels
Please read my words to the ears of your children
To the moments of the future I will not experience
Even if the only words your ever read are
I love you. I love you all so much

For some odd reason I have always prided myself in my taste in music. That I could get lost in a new band I discovered. That maybe I can catch smooth riffs or ***** drum lines. This got me thinking, you remind me a lot of music. The way when you blink your eye lashes reminds me of the eloquent strings of a cello getting played in a 4 strong quartet in front of busy lives that never took the time to stop and listen. Your voice reminds me of the universal noise that everyone hears that moment you pick up a shell and put it to your ear. Not a single person can explain how an ocean can fit into a shell, but somehow the sound makes you forget the impossibility. The sound turns you into a kid and softens the sense of gravity in your knees. Your walk in a dope baseline hip hopping up and down my iris. Playing a steady rhythm I will spend each and everyday memorizing. Or the skin on your body. Shining like a fresh sheet of music. I can't read music. The different signs and symbols will always keep me in awe. That something so complicated and beautiful can fit onto a single sheet of paper. I take pride in getting to experience your music. I will put you on repeat. You are the most played track on my iPod.

Home has transformed into a relic of forgotten memories.
A destination no linger desired.
As I stuff my existence into stiched bags.
Home has become where I will place myself next.

You never want want to listen anymore. I couldn't tell  you everything I never knew you wanted to hear. Things about moments I wished I could burn under a magnifying glass. These were not ants. These were regrets. Lions in dens that couldn't remember to breath. laid down sulking over memories of feeling alive, licking their paws waiting for the world to spin fast enough that a gazelle might stumble in silly and dizzy. There are days I still don't see straight. Broken cave roof tops drizzled full of saliva from every time I didn't open my mouth to tell you the debts of heartbeats I owe you.  The days split in half like a curtain before a bad play that no one came to see. Self loathing is a term we avoid in these parts. A town full of mirrors hoping to find the reflection I want to see. You are so beautiful. There was a moment of silence. I spoke. You weren't there. You never will be. Pillows full of feathers that hold every word you spoke in that bed. A memory that has been on repeat in my head. Every time my head hits the pillow I hear your voice. It's almost like the cold side of the pillow. Shivers chime down my spine with eccentric rhythms. Speak into my breathe. I've been dreaming.

A Ball of flame stuck above the spinning overpopulated ball of mineral.
Thanks.
This is a letter of appreciation to you.
To show the abilities you possess.
To your boring appearance.
To gas, from me or you.
To orbital seasons.

A letter of the heat you have allowed for my skin to absorb.
The heat that tells ice to run free.
The heat allowing the helpless to survive.
The heat giving power to a solar panel in a 3rd world country.
The heat taken for granted and cursed after a forest fire.
In denial that you are simply allowing a rebuilding of nations.

A letter created because of the light you provide my fingers.
Light that refuses close quarters with darkness.
Light providing rays of D to flow into happiness of flesh.
Light showing beauty on the faces of those on this bruised up earth.
Light giving life to all forms.

But,
What about that time you gave me false promises?? The sunrise dissipated by clouds and loneliness. Or how about when you burnt my skin. I remember that vividly. Lobstered up walking like a robot. I know the feeling because of the skin on my body told me so. I see straight through you, go pick on someone your own size. There's an entire universe out there waiting for your powerful engulf. ******* and up instead of down.

Or maybe you can turn off. We can pollute the ozone, block your outrageous rays, and slaughter the heat you produce. Then maybe we can live somewhere where feelings don't melt so easy.

Our hearts.
They match in our chest.
4 runways.
Palpitations.

Our minds.
Found behind those beautiful eyes.
A reason to think.
About you.

Our mouths.
Speaking love.
Across too many miles apart.
Loosing sound.

Our hands.
Filled with nerves.
Numb to the wind,
of tomorrow.

Our hearts.
Ripped out of our chest.
Dripping with forgiveness.
Wash over me.

Head first dive bomb.
Absent lights.
I see your tread away from here.
Footsteps full of water.
Evaporate your insecurities.
Exit through the windchill in your spine.
You will find fingerprints.
Laid upon the insides of your eye lids.
Left there to remind us that we are real.
That those fingers have imprinted hearts.
Dusted mine off already.
Please don't give in to what society told you.
You're more than that.
Drift into excellence.
It's where you belong.
Full of extraordinary and singing.
Your voice.
It tickles my mind.
The way I hear you sooth the broken in me.
To think you were broken.
You have mended the most jagged.
So straighten up.
Belt out your heart.
You already awoke mine.

I am on a floating vessel and I'm drowning
In a sea of far too loud cries with horn disguises
Begging for an audience to listen to their bravado chest pumped up sililoques
This is the too loud neighbor
The wishing well spell of more wishes falling in an echo chamber
Now is too much and forever enough
We will bend the fabrics of history
Gladly begging our children to swallow our smog
And praise us for our ignorance
One day giving us the proper burial ground in carbon laced clouds
Knowing we were just too much

She spoke in tongues
Riddling of temptation
Exhaling reasons to slip into darkness
Fingertips blood red with deception
Lips moist of lies
Eyes screaming for love
When I asked her heart for the truth
She showed me confetti
A celebration of being broken
We lay there defeated
Absorbing in reasons to be fixed
Dawn left us breathless
And alone
For another night passed
Without words shared
Our lives
A parallel understanding
Inside broken hearts

Own you.
Own things.
Own spaces.
Own desperation.
Exhale. Release.
Pick it up again.
Pick your actions.
Pick the way you say
The way you care is so fragile.
Don't diminished the experience.
Know you place.
Back right, second to last row.
The place where eye contact is a rarity.
Tucked in on comfort and limitation.
Give half *** is all that is asked of here.
Pressure is minimum.
Exemplary is less than effort here.
What are the expectations?
Inhale, move, live in a space.
Space is what you make it.
Classrooms, ballrooms, fields.
Own you.
Own presence.
Own breathe.
Own time.
It's of the essence.
Drop worthless.
Drop loneliness.
Drop perceptions.
Expectations catch you.
Trap door spider.
The shifty silhouette in the corner of the room.
Applying societal pressure on your jugular.
Snap the twig blocking your airway.
Rebel against the flow.
A river of that and this.
White water never felt so sharp.
Leather skin never fails in a rodeo.
Cowboy up.
Own you.
Own identity.
Own pure.
Own reality.
Head high. Heart strong.
Finish up.
Finish through.
Finish what you started.

Shall you never let your god hold you hostage
As your god shall hold you gently like your mother
May your god never frighten you
Your god shall comfort you in times of despair
Do not let your god speak for you
This god gave you a purposeful tongue
Never force this god upon yourself
All your god wants is to be understood
Love kindly of yourself
Find your god in simple accidents
Not in burned books

And some days
I am nothing more
Than a refusal to be
Another poorly written suicide note

Hidden away in cabins far away.

Secrets never known by that day.

Desperately discovering passageways.

Dusty paths full of haze.

Ever filled veins of constant liquids.

Fill me up. Behind the curtains.

Ship me to a new destination.

A place of wonderment.

Pulverize my intentions into thin air.

Let me purify this heart of mine.

Cleaning up all the dusty particles I left.

I will become new.

A full and complete set of working parts.

Using these to experience this moment I keep passing.

Ripping the curtains of veiled ignorance.

Open enough for my heart to see.  

Operating on redefined schedules under new management.

The oil patch slips I nailed down were quickly navigated.

My heart let it sink in.

The possibility of a home that would never change.