How about this,
Take the knives from your back
The razors from your wrists
The needles from your arms
The pain and suffering in your heart
And the doubt in your mind
Drop them all in this bucket
Toss them into that abandoned well,
And come over to this side
Cross the line separating dark and light
Wicked and angelic
Rough violence and gentle caresses
Step over and join us
If we can offer nothing else,
We can offer ourselves.
Friends, lovers, comrades,
Formerly tortured souls like yourself
It isn't perfect over here, but it's better
We'd escort you over, walk with you
But we've already crossed that line
And once you cross the line,
Only your voice can cross back
Only your voice will want to.

I was concerned
When friends told me
'Love is blind'

Well, why was I
One to worry?
For what they said in church

They taught to me
'God is love'
I paid attention in math

See, if God is love
and love is blind
then God is blind

Now it makes sense
For so much to pass
Why good don't last

And to why we're flawed
It's clear as glass
For God blinds us all

This weekend at another heavy metal show
Your existence had been many times doubted
But there your were, as solid and sharp
As the black spot in my chest
Your tall grandeur and dark rimmed eyes
The yellow stain between your middle & pointer finger
Your eyes flicked towards my face,
A tiny smirk was yours to gain
I'd seen that look before a million times
I used to even miss it
Laugh and sling your arm around another friend
I turned away and tugged my collar
High against my cheekbones
Stepping out into the cold,
The thumping said goodbye
In another time, another place,
I'm glad we're not together

We sipped boulder rock from refrigerators doors
and watched the heavens hand out food stamps with IBM logos.
“ode to Mehmet” we sang, and licked the Mossberg—
fixating on the blue collar philosophy that lived in our empty wallets.

Trash cans filled with water bottles stared at us to find our essence—
the one we had lost while being fed quintessential American idioms
in state-of-the-art classrooms sponsored by slaves and Popol Vuh blood.

Six million years of human existence trivialized down to a single sentence—
* Man loved God, man wrote, man conquered God, and now man loves science* —
scribbled on SmartBoards afforded by fire burning from Prometheus’ female liver.

Trees sing with oxygen no more for the sake of making paper,
and eyes soak in the words on paper for the sake of making paper.
Trees make the avenue but the future holds an Avenue of no trees—
… for in the land of the free, anything but freedom ain’t free.

She makes the sand,
the sand seep away.
Little locket on her chest,
with her steps a gentle sway.
Though her eyes cast
a tender gaze,
her fiery heart sets the sky ablaze.

Dry rain and dry puddles,
never will she stop.
'Til she stumbles to her knees,
the dusty ground, fiercely hot.
She cries out in pain
and laughs through tears,
a withered smile
of withered years.

She sees me.

Her faces relaxes,
her lungs give out,
her limbs betray her
and with one final strain she says:
*I can't hate.

Nothing I could
ever write would
capture the way
you make me feel
when you're not even trying.

I know someone who finds solace in ballet shoes
                A boy who strums his secrets to guitar strings
Someone that spends his waking moments with glazed red eyes
             As if facing this world cold turkey
                       Isn’t even an option.

For boys whose fingertips shake
                Like the burning end of a cigarette
And girls whose smiles resemble
Car crashes waiting to happen
A cacophony of shattered noises
             And those of us who feel guilty for the
                     mere act
                           Inhaling air
                        And exhaling poison
So we spend lifetimes holding our breaths

   Until we burn our lungs out trying
            To warm our hearts
            With something other than the fire
           That burns out in a smoky haze

Until our eyes become rivers,
flowing oceans
That cry out a thousand melted glaciers

Our tongues speak ruined languages
We read everything backwards
Curse in Latin
Make oaths in Russian
So whatever we say sounds beautiful.

So that our hands wont have to learn permanence,
affection
consolation.