everyone is doing it
I used to do it
is it the key?
is that what they were looking for?
it seems too shallow, to do something
     if you don't believe in it
     if you don't know
     if you only do it to please others
the passion
where has it gone?
was it ever here?
     I think it was was, at one time
     but did it come first, manifesting itself in the activity
     or did the activity awaken something within
          unshielding a hidden flame

is it selling yourself to pretend to love something you don't?

White drops on a colored wall
The mark of a distracted painter
blights or beauty marks on the celestial canvas?

a soreness behind the eyes
eyelashes are made of metal
heavy metals
clack clack
blink
the metals attract each other
top and bottom
my eyelids are not strong enough
just give in
to the weight

suede stains in the rain
naked feet sing in the mud
heat freezes a moment in time

cast in dirt
the mold of a singing foot

receipts
spelling
a magical moment

it is all coming loose
descending
hair falls from its tie
escaping
the smells permeate the air
scratching the lungs

A gum wrapper

something is missing
     a heart
     a child?
     a child looking for
          comfort, safety

NONE FOR YOU
     broken, till death?

will there always be emptiness?

Last night
A touch, the fingertips on the hair
A hand on the waist, as you step around me
A glance,
     Were you too forward?
How can I communicate
How can I reveal my feelings
     1) If they could hurt one of those closest to me
     2) If I’m afraid that letting them out will lead to
                a. Hurt
                b. More self-destruction
                c. More cries for help
Did you know that an indicator for vulnerability to binge eating disorder
Is  being afraid to feel your feelings?

How can I feel my feelings
If the only thing life has taught me about feelings is that
     1) They lead to hurt
     2) They place you under the control of another, the one who knows your true feelings and can
                a. Twist
                b. Pull
                c. Shape your feelings into knifes that tear you apart
                    Or should I say carve me apart?
                    Carving away the sections of my heart
                    The neurological connections between my heart and my brain
                    Making my heart hollow
                    Severing the connection between my heart and my brain
Feelings have only brought me pain

Evolution has taught humans to avoid things that bring them pain
How can I have the power to overcome the sum of all the interactions of my ancestors?

the magic
the writing
grows difficult

the wrinkles
growing old
or unwanted?

Don't worry
life will change
you will grow to accept it
but the change
what makes the change?

I need to know
the waiting, the decay, the atrophy
smiling hurts because the muscles have atrophied

can feeling atrophy?

Young children
want trophies
how is this for atrophy?
all this pain
contained inside
nice and shiny
everybody gets some
all you have to do is participate
or not
     in life
     on teams

just breathe
     they say it helps
my breathe says they lie
     it hurts
the muscles have atrophied

A tear
A flash flood on the skin
The skin
     At first overwhelmed by the surplus of liquid
     everything in sight drowns
the ground
     soaks up the liquid
     contains the flood
     nourishes the earth beneath
the skin cells
the follicles
all nourished by the pain welling from the eyes
"warning, warning
Flash flood
All residents must stay inside their homes"
The dust and day’s wear on the face
No where to go
Homeless
Swept away by the current
     The flood
Did you know, a tear is a cry for help?
Funny how those two words fit together
Tear, cry
The evolution of language can reveal things, a different mind set
But can the truth be found in words?

The words didn’t save the residents of the skin
Their homes, constructed of dirt, of pollen, of sweat
Are swept away in the current
     The flash flood
    The Katrina of my face

What use is a cry for help if there is no one to answer it

All I wanted to do was dance
now I am faced with a squeaky keyboard

All I wanted to do was dance
but how can particles in a tube of toothpaste dance?

All I wanted to do was dance
Alone.

Unwanted contact from all angles.
Beer rained down from the sky, but it was refreshing in our hot tube of toothpaste

Who smokes in a mosh pit?
Who are you.

PS sorry to the man who's hat I tried to steal
But seriously, why would you ever wear a hat to a dance party if you didn't want it to get stolen

Didn't you know that a hat is like a drunk-nip to a drunk person?
Who are you ?

All I wanted to do was dance
and jump up and down and fist pump the night away

But then the night became cold
My only options were to shiver the night away or drink the cold away

Didn't you ever wonder how people survive in Russia?

So I was no longer cold
But that was not the first part

But was it the worst part?

Touch.
Oh, you.
You're a silly verb.

At once so innocent,
but so easily are the bullets loaded, turning a word into a gun

Can you show us on the doll what happened?

Layers of grape, shifting in the breeze
frames of view, frames of reference - constantly changing
to be floating among the shifting layers, shifting slides of the presentation of a golden moment
to be fruit suspended in jello, looking out, seeing the world from the inside, through a golden lens

each shift revealing new layers, new perspectives

constant motion
leaves spreading, increasing their surface area
gathering all the sun that they can
the sun, turning leaves translucent
morphing into grapes

Waves -
glide towards the shore so gracefully
only to trip and crash headfirst onto the sand,
much to their embarrassment

floating on a plane of champagne
adrift
longing for those I hold so dear
the best way to cope
the music fills my ears, the drink fills my brain, the couch envelopes my form
unfathomable happiness, joy
close to bursting at the seems

it's amazing that I can still type
so fast the keyboard might catch on fire
how to deal with the sudden separation, the alacrity of the surgeon's deft slice,
friends separated
yet only temporarily, until the surgeon stitches them back together
another year at school

how to deal
the lightbulbs searing images into my eyebulbs

I now inhabit the plane of oblivion, I finally understand

A wonderful flowing mess of wind, hair, and face. The face, swirling away amongst the clouds. Like water, it evaporates into the atmosphere, only to be rained down again upon the world. Beautiful face particles, hydrating the plants and animals and splashing upon the rocks. Face bubbles. But are they small individual particles, each a different color, a different shade of the face? Or are they all the colors of the face swirled into one? Swirl upon swirl. The plants and animals will take in these particles, growing with them, nourished by them, reflecting them in their own visages. Immortal? or inorganic?

Behind the eyes
staring? waking?
what arises?
I can't see back there! I have a blind spot
It is easy to see once removed,
the eyes will turn around
peer back into the sockets
there it is.

what what is it really?
a creature? a stain?

How to personify sadness
Alone, but not lonely?
Lonely, but not alone?
Lonely and Alone?

the connotations, the denotations

words
our expression, yet our captor
confining us to our expressions
tangled up in the clichés, the expressions, the common, the banal

how to escape

The leaves, flittering like birds, birds that have been attached, captured, leashes of fishing line around their neck, allowed to float in the breeze, tasting the freedom. The taste rolls off their tongues, down the back of their throats. It tastes like more. But there is not more to have. Tethered in groups to their branches, swaying, holding the branches up like balloons. They bring such pleasure to those watching them, watching at the zoo of nature. Occasionally, these visitors will throw a crumb, a disturbance in the air, sending a breeze to them, scattering the birds, only to regroup momentarily as they are ****** back by their leashes.

(Yet only the flitteringest of leaves are birds. The needles, poised like popcorn of green starch, stick out from their branches, frozen after their explosion into the air, paralyzed at their first breath.)

A tear,
it leaks
a ghost tear
does it have a soul?
     no - says science
science is appealing
it promises answers
what if it runs out?

so many questions

they will consume all
     the answers
then what will be left?

Go outside
smell the smells
travel back to real life
back to that place where you
     think
     analyze
     conclude
     assume
     learn
     evaluate
     re-evaluate

too much thinking

just let it go
     childhood traumas
     (is that word too strong?)
     who is to judge
     when there is no judge
     a free for all
     but all is only two
     the laws of the jungle
Why? should we have to experience this?
What made you think that was a good idea?

Hand cramps, writing too fast
the thin seal has been broken
now it all comes out
     unleashed
     but it's not an animal
     but it's lover has no fetish
     how did the leash get there, in the first place?

too many thoughts
what is deep enough                                                           ­                         what is too shallow
what is too deep
          too analytical
     getting trapped, caught, pushing against the net

a train of thought

     lost
  
     regained

how do we know?
how do we learn
how do we live
       mistakes,
            but they come with regret
     books,
            but they lack experience
     stories

a beautiful escape,
but is that all? Their only substance?
A drug? - rise above
     they transport us, alter our perception of reality
     recreational
     procrastination
     a time killer
so violate
being trapped again,
     escaped from the brain
     but trapped by its thoughts
what is crazy?
can I draw on myself?

a hand cramp

a meditation
looking through the trash
empty
     fullness
how can this be?
the feelings are leaving now
, you can say goodbye

how to survive
when you are unsure
yet sure that certainty is the key

"Friendships" crumbling
not like a cookie crumbles
although it was that obvious from the beginning
relationships began in haste
     grasping
     searching
     latching on
     we are no longer alone! so ti must work forever (right?)
will end in haste
tasting what you thought you had
     no, it was not a cookie
     more of a clump of dirt, actually
     something you wanted to try, once
     wondering how it would taste
     then spitting it out, crunching the crumbly clump of dirt
it was so predictable
what is shielding your eyes?
keeping you from seeing the truth, the future
even now, you refuse to see
you keep forcing the pieces
     no matter how hard you try, the dirt will always crumble
          will always taste gritty, unpleasant, wrong
     the dirt will always crumble
just let it be
accept it
it will not work
you are only hastily pushing the dirt together
one more week
one more month
but the dirt will turn to dust
just like your "friendship"

so freeing,
yet so uncertain

will they look back,
will I look back
and judge

delivering the death sentence
condemning the past

how could you be so naive
so immature
so oblivious

the images
the scenes
stencilled, scratched into the surfaces
will they always be there
will they always make me
        twist and squirm and turn

so dramatic
is this real (or is this just fantasy)
which perceptions are true
and which are just percieved

the time
it draws closer
the magic
will it stay?

how to contain the magic in a moment

the last receipt

Fingers tapping on a keyboard
Tendons clacking up and down
Marching towards oblivion

a tear leaks out
a tear in the fabric

why?

passing the nights away
floating
drifting
soon
an anchor
hold me down
a rope on the ankle
bobbing, adrift,
but able to return

a common point
an equilibrium

yes
the change

will it come soon?
will it happen?
should I work towards it?
will it work towards itself?
I have an identity

but I'm afraid to share it

it is the time for change
the time to
        discover yourself
so many questions

Such style
Your clothing speaks - loudly
Serving the function of your voice
Your eyes avoid others, like a game, darting away, while your vocal chords silent

How is one whose clothes speaks so strongly, so shy?

A piercing pink
is it potable?
electric shouting screaming pink
racing through the system
filling all the veins, the arteries, the capillaries
a soft pink glowing
through the skin
pulsing with the heart
a network of pink
skittering across the skin
what do we put in our bodies?

Air under the wings as we rush upwards, peeking out our windows
Molten metal winks and calls for us from below
Calling to be mined…excavated…or is that just our human nature?

A poem called confusion
one day I will write it
I will have accepted that life is confusion
there will always be more questions than answers
     some answers will dress in the guise of truth
     once undressed they will be exposed - not as lies, but un-truth
I will be at peace with the nonsensical, the random
I will be at peace with the confusion

When I go back and read them...
     (will I ever read them?)
or are they there - an insurance,
     a memento of the past - a souvenir, a memory
     condemned forever to paper
     a prisoner
          behind the lines
          the bars
          within the boredom
          the monotony

What does it mean to be interesting?
Is it:  to be captured in the thoughts of another, their mind giving a projection of your self a life of its own  ?
(Yet how can they know
A projection is just that – a façade, a portrayal)
Only one aspect of a three dimensional object
How can they know what it is really like to be an interesting person?

What does it mean to be boring?
Is it: to have given up on yourself? to be afraid to show yourself, for fear, for shame, for any negative emotion?
(Yet you must know, it is these imperfections, these inconsistencies that fascinate)
Humans love a puzzle

the words are in me
they want to come out

the music,
it disturbs

agitated, afraid
if I let them loose
if I let them come out

they will know

will they judge?
they will be afraid
they are unaware
they think it's all innocence

little do they know
there has been suffering
so much suffering
there has been struggling
so much struggling

will it continue?
does happiness only come from oblivion?
sorry, I meant from innocence.

They might scare you
I wouldn't want that to happen
I'm not scared
But you will be
     changed forever
perception. squeezed, stretched
can you understand?
I don't believe you

a childhood dream                                                                   they say
more like an idea they stole, manipulated,                           I say
     imposed their ideas onto

there were no childhood dreams
only ideas, encourage by imagination,
free from conventions of society,
but learning
     slowly
     oh so slowly
     change
     forced upon,

But isn't this just life?
     how humans evolved?
     social creatures
     society must cooperate
     there must be customs
     we will teach the young
     make them copies
It is the only way
Asleep
Empty
Dry