Even the idea was worthy of a fight
and all too much preparation.
We dolled ourselves up for alienation,
even though the faces present
were so familiar and etched into memory.

Who are you Mr.Cool?
If that is your real name.
Whiskey breath and filterless smokes
only impresses the girls in the movies,
with scripts written by clueless men
like you, who can't supply injury
so they bring only insult.

You are a secretary bird,
a mime, and the copycat kid.
Trying to be a bad boy and hide
amongst the spoiled brats you claim.

Keep on burrowing and severing ties,
ravishing resources leads to ruin.

You say you've heard rumors?
Well, I've heard facts.
I've seen facts!

Your parasitic disguise will crumble
under the weight of your genuinely selfish persona.
While the company I keep will only know
the side you wished to reveal
in front of all the pretty boys and girls.

My uncle slit a man's throat with a box cutter in my childhood home and didn't apologize.
Sitting in a circle filled with crack smoke and stale beer breath.
This is a shining example of what I've lived with
and the lengths I've had to go to escape the thing people call "destiny".

Thievery, lies, pressure, and violence
has been calling my name for the longest.
But I know the voice too well to be taunted.  

Words are my freedom and words are my piece of mind.
There is not a single substitute.
Whether poem, prose, or paragraph,
This is the only calling I've ever had.

I've lived with a hoarder, addicts, senility, and ignorance
in a variety of different combinations and forms.
At times, power, water, freedom, money, necessities, have all been an unachievable thing to me.
Lost to the vile goals of those folk I love.
I am the only one who sees the beauty in the fragile and odd.
The others see only a mess on a paper, and move their eyes to the nearest glowing box.

My father drowned when I was six.
My grandfather followed soon after.
My mother felt the stab of this and caved so many times.
I witnessed and shared the burden of her pain and grief.
My grandmother forgot everything she ever loved or knew, and short after passed as well.
Pets and possessions,
friends and followers.
All gone with a drastic breeze.
I am the one with the vision, but I am trapped in a shell of a city,
covered with that wretched stink of refined soy.

Will I be able to unburden the world from myself?
You all give me such great courage and allow me to share the beauty as I see it.
You all have such great skill with symbols and it makes me feel like home isn't far.
I want this. I want this.

If I keep breathing like the rest of the world
I feel I may miss the sound of the world's heartbeat.
But my death would not bring a solution for the ones I love.
Only a warrant for more death.
I need this. I need this.

With my words, I conjure up hell.
And hell brings with it the familiar.
Run little kitties, run.
The Doubling House and The Sequential Church will not hold forever.
My havens are temporary, but the craters are forever.
I will struggle till the pain becomes all I am
and I buckle under the weight of what I shouldn't have taken
from the mighty Atlas.

I do this for me.
I do this for you.

trudging through mud waist-deep
these lungs are billows of smog and
these hands are brittle claws
world-breaker, I am fate unseen
through the clearest of lenses,
and the most acute of baubles
simple phrases caught in raw
and searing throats
with these ideas, my brain molds
an even more bothersome equation

With my words, I conjure up Hell, and Hell takes the form of the familiar. This shell will double, and double, and double. Prototype for the archetype am I. She, the murk, will permeate; hive mind motherhood.

In every realm of myself--
I doubt.
Voice-clouds congregate
And roar in the sky-space
of my mind.

Searing, jagged, electric
My mind’s words cut—
light
but not illumination.
I am,
Myself,
the tempest.

The wind gusts
Unsure of where she belongs.
The sonorous maelstrom
Beats back any of your love-words.
I remain alone
And it is autumn in my mind.

Change storms in
Unforgiving
And unquiet.
I am,
Myself,
The tempest.

What can calm the wind?
Who am I without the wind?
Despite the clouds, I fear drought
I fear wind
I fear drought
I fear
I am,
Myself,
The tempest
I fear

I always seem to go through stages of sadness
One situation leads to multiple crashes
Splashes of disasters
Walls closing in
No air
Too far to swim
I know they never last
But always come back
They take hold of my life
And tonight
I shut the world out
Forgive me for what I may blurt out
I can say I'm not happy
That my life is ******
I can take what I've learned
And grow from it, I am sure
I don't really know what else to say
My feelings are spinning today
Hit fast forward
Don't need a replay
I need to get away
To a place
That appreciates who I am
My friends all know me as the brave one
What's so brave about telling the world you're the gay one
My family doesn't understand me
I can never make them happy
We barley agree on what to eat for dinner
Let alone whether I have the right to marry
I feel very alone
Have lots of friends by my side
But sometimes I don't want to be alive
I'll throw my phone at the wall
Contemplate who I am
If you saw inside me maybe you'd understand
But until then
I'll express myself the best way I know how
And for now
I'll stare at my ceiling
Until I fall fast asleep and dream about a perfect place for you and me
My alarm will go off
I will be alive
No suicide
I'll just prioritize
Until I am finally happy

I figured it out. Why I  love you so much and why I hate myself for it. I really am disgusted at how I let you treat me. Last time we broke up it cut me deep, I didn't get over you for a long time. I cried myself to sleep for well over 2 months. You ripped my heart out and left me empty. True, I moved along to other things, other people, but you were always there. You were hiding in the hole where my heart used to be. You put me through hell and then just when I was getting used to being without you, you decide that you want to see me again. You get close to me, you let me kiss you, you kiss me back and pretend that it means something  to you. You let me start loving you again and for a while things are good, you tell me that the world makes sense now and things feel right. ****, I just can't resist those beautiful lies, so I believe you and I let my guard down. Bad idea, just when I get brave enough to trust you with things I can't tell anyone else you run away. You can't be with someone so far away. I'm too damaged, you can't fix me so why waste anymore time on me. So you stop caring altogether. I accept that you won't be mine, I try to be just your friend but, every time I talk to you you act like I'm keeping you from so much more important things. So I stop talking. I think of you and sit silent. And that's when it happens. . . inspiration. I write. And that's why I can love you and hate you at the same time. I hate you because of what you put me through, and I love you because what you put me through gives me the insight to create. You're my muse. Anything I've ever created that was worth being created was inspired by you. So, I'm going to keep loving, you'll never be able to stop that. And when I write my first play/novel/book of poetry I'll make sure to send you the very first copy, make sure you read the dedication, "To my beloved muse, thank you for shattering my heart and letting what was inside of me out"

Spread the word , the Machine is coming. A circus of steel springs and combustion all grinding to the drums. Watch them waiting, every color, every clan; all wanting to be part of the system as it begins with a roar like a turbo charged engine they rush the door.

Inside, heads swim in a new found sea, unconscious are the dancing sparks and gay revelers in their glitter coated world. Limbs pumping, pounding pistons running full blast through the night. Up creaking stairs into the radiator, cooling chamber, thick green haze passes over innumerable points of light; oxygen restriction. Drums persist pouring down white rain on melting minds. Thrilling, rushing euphoric rhythms flow like wine from fine crystal. Speak and you will not be heard, listen and you will hear no voice, for the machine stops for no one until morn.

Wasting away in the exhaust of a comatose state are some, eyes open seeing new worlds in clarity are others, while a select few crawl through Hell blinded by visions of terror. Still the electric pulses have yet to slow, numb to the deafening watts as they are now winding their way to the surface of a sleeping city. Whimsical youths will lay until afternoon, their internal timing chains hours slow, yet only eight rounds of the gauge have passed. The beating motion is still lingering as weary heads fall upon waiting pillows, headlight eyes switch off near six am. The last sounds fade for these who now dream anew, yet still worshipers of the dance rage against the coming of the light, would they be consumed in the warehouse flames before they saw the dawn?

Spread the word the machine was here and they called it the Rave.