The clichés crawl in many lines, pouring
Out of my eyes and ears, and I think
Maybe out my nose, but I’m
Really not here enough to tell

You are speaking, then crying, and I
Can hear yelling too, so I know
That you’re clutching your
Head and pacing around and thinking too much

I do my best to keep the pointy things very
Far away and hidden so you will be
Safe, good, healthy, and stay alive for
Many more years, just because I told you to

Years ago in a parked car outside that
****** fast food restaurant I remember
You were screaming at me about something
That doesn’t mean anything anymore

Years ago I was lost and floating in numbers and
Lines that had to be parallel and you scooped
Me up and carried me away from
All the noise and frustration and chaos.

Many years ago I was little and you made me
Cry very much because you were lost also
Only now that I’m older I can see
You need someone to scoop you up.

Walking in the shadows of our youth
Such tall shadows
And how cold
We shiver and shudder and realize the truth
Such barren truth
And how cruel
How pointless it is to wander and stare
At the heavens
The merciless heavens
Who dominate all with a calm, steady glare
Oh the heavens
The merciless heavens
We lay claim to the sorrows that wander down here
The sorrows of being
The sorrows of age
We are granted a sight both foggy and clear
We see the end
And the end is near.

If I am fine
Then why I am here?
Strung up on
The line of my fear
Endless reasons
Not to breathe
I always endure
The pythons squeeze

If I am alright
Then why am I here?
Passed out on the
Broken pier
The pyre angels
Sing for me
Broken, sleeping
Sometimes they scream

Perhaps I am twisted
Though why am I kind?
You say I am poison
A poisonous mind
A toxic concoction
Some wretched possession
Foul smelling, rotten
An echoing question

I think I am faulty
A smoking explosion
Though carefully sculpted
By acid corroded
A tremulous wreck
Dancing on sand
Can’t gain my footing
I choke on the plan

Caged by it all
The tireless walls
Of the days so unbending
And the feeling that crawls
And the months so unending
And the silent eyes of dolls

Staring at it all
Abandoned shopping malls
With the windows all smashed in
And the shadows looming tall
And childhoods lost again
And the crying eyes of dolls

Broken by it all
Careful not to fall
Into the screams unbending
And the pain that crawls
And the nightmares so unending
And the bleeding eyes of dolls.

Completed, unfinished
Meeting, never met
Craving the simplest flame
The unrequited touch

Tender, a sampling
Vivacious
Do I know you?
I would like to
I would love to

Extinction is near
I can smell it
The death of the neatly
And inky curved letters
The excitement
Of receiving

One day, perhaps already
Electric transmission
Will monopolize
Gone will be
The crisp letter
Neatly folded, tantalizing
Faintly scented, terrifying

You and I
Always, on and on
Forever will exchange
The pieces of paper
Which to others
Mean nothing
Yet to us
Are the everything of eternity.