“Mom!”
The creaks of the old metal bed frame pierce in the silent night from across the house.

“Mom!”
Footsteps on the hard wooden floor slowly making their way to my room.

“Yes darling?”
A shadow emerges into my doorway.

“I had a bad dream.”
The light flicks on and my eyes close tight.
A new weight set upon my twin sized bed,
the bad dreams release from my mind in my six year old body.
A warm hand grabs the back of my head and arms around my body.

“Theres nothing to be scared about, ***, no monsters in your room.” She checks underneath my bed.

A kiss upon my forehead and a rapid change to darkness,
I lay there with my eyes wide open hoping not to get this dream once more.


I hope I’m not the only one who this has happened to before.

When falling off your bike was the most unimaginable pain, but a band-aid seemed so magical.

What ***** about a split family is not being there for the other parent.
my biggest regret in life is not seeing my mom and sister enough.
But ****** mom these dreams are coming back and the only thing I can yell for at night is for the monsters in my head to go back to underneath my mattress where they belong and to leave me the hell alone.

I hate the quiet.
I hate not hearing dad watch Fox News in the living room because that meant you were in the bedroom.
I accept the fact that you and dad are never getting back together,
But I can’t find a day where I wouldn’t **** to come home to both parents and my sister at the dinner table.

Talking about how ******* the education system is,
How corrupted our government is,
I don’t even care anymore.

Mom my nightmares are coming back,
I look out the window and ask the moon for advice
and I can hear it talking I just cant unscramble the words in my mind,
when all it’s trying to tell me,
is there are no monsters,
you’re going to be fine.

I am sick of writing sad poems.
I want to write a happy poem.
My only problem is,
I don’t know how to.

I mean,
if I were funny it would be one thing,
but my humor consists of bad puns knock knock jokes.
Knock knocking on the inside of my brain wanting to push a smile onto your faces but the only look I get back is confusion because I can never seem to get my tongue to work in times of...
In times when a belly laugh would come from their abdomen and satisfy my hunger for becoming a comical genius.

Heres a joke for you.

Knock Knock.

“Who’s there?”

Orange

“Orange who?”

Knock knock.

“Who’s there?”

Orange

“Orange who?”



Orange you glad I didn’t finish my joke?
I keep my tongue dormant so the punchline doesn’t come out wrong,
to save myself from the embarrassment of being an idiot.
I’ll laugh it off,
but n my head I hear myself say.
“Max, what the hell was that?”
Listen, brain, I know I’m not funny,

I get my humor from either my dad or the internet,
and even then,
Tuna fish and pianos,
Oranges, apples, any kind of fruit really,
couldn’t even save me.

Three men walk into a bar.
I don’t know how they didn’t see it but that isn’t my problem,
my problem is that I am not funny, or a cool pal to hang out with.
In all honesty,
I’m pretty much a stick in the mud that wears hoodie sweatshirts every day.

So the next time I come knock knocking,
I advise you to shut the door.

When I was a little kid,
I was afraid of Santa.
Of course I believed in him, what kid wouldn’t.
I guess I just thought it was creepy that some old man would break into my house
and leave me gifts underneath a tree.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the gifts.
I just always thought it was weird that Santa had the same handwriting as my mom...
Or we had the same wrapping paper as Santa...

Now that I am older,
I realize that Christmas isn’t always a good time.
Sure,
We get the chocolate and the food,
We get to see and talk to family we haven’t seen in ages,

But we’ve lost loved ones,
Families have been split,
Christmas just doesn’t have that same magic anymore,
or the feeling in your stomach when you wake up on christmas morning.
Pointing out gifts under the tree like constellations in the sky
The mystery in whats inside the paper baffles our small minds,
until the gift is in my hands,
The magic just isn’t there.

Frankly,
I would do anything to have that feeling I had on Christmas morning when I was younger.
Not a worry in the world.
All of the toys were awesome,
and I didn’t really have to get gifts for anyone else,
Of course I miss Christmas the way it used to be,
Except getting up at like 5am, I’m pretty sick of that.

Christmas with only two guys in the house is pretty interesting now.
Our nights are usually spent eating chicken wings and listening to loud Rock ‘n Roll,
But with how things are now without the magic,
I wouldn’t want it any other way.

When I was little,
if I were scared,
I would crawl into my mothers bed to fall asleep,
to feel safe.

Now,
The monsters in my closet and under my bed come lay with me as the monster in my mind makes them feel the need to be safe.
Silently the monster takes control of my darkened room,
The wind applauding every dark thought that my mind generates and pulses through my veins

A chill slithers down my spine although I’m sweating,
I kick my legs and roll around,
like a wrestling match,
my body versus my mind
I wonder who will win.

A sadness overcome by
A simple thought of a bright light.
The slight imagination of an illuminated orb
How much i’ve missed a smile.

A remembrance of what used to be clenches my muscles
until my heart commands my body to stop what I’m doing and breathe.
Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be dangerous.
Being alone with my thoughts on a good day can sometimes be worse than my thoughts when I’m sad.

Tears of joy turn to glass bullets as both are a beautiful thing but still painful,
the glass bullets shatter into my brain and cause my to spiral downwards,
into a locked vault of memories of gut laughter and family game night.
the light to the game closet has long since burnt out,
hasn’t been touched in years.

I remember a time when family game night was a chore for us,
now I would do anything to have that again.
the four of us laughing our ***** off until bedtime,
mom saying “Jon, let them stay up a little longer.”
It kills me now that we don’t have that.

I miss the times where we would pile in the car and go to my sister’s piano recitals.
I hated them when I was younger, I thought they were boring.
listening to a few kids pluck away on a grand piano for hours on end just wasn’t exciting.
But if you listen carefully,
you hear that now,
I am plucking away at a piano. Motivation from something that I dreaded.
I loved listening to her play,
my sister.
Absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant and bring like the light in the game closet but like I said all lights burn out and stop working but all you do is wish that you can flip the switch and the room illuminates with the sound of a perfectly performed tune.

After every time she finished a piece, I swear my dad would say,
“you know, you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.”
After a while, it got old. But ever since I haven’t heard it.
His mouth stay closed like the game closet door and his tongue stay dormant like the burnt out light in the closet

Is it true that the mercury in the light bulbs can burn skin?
Burnt out and never to work again but mercury can still burn through your palm and seep into your veins and make your blood cells dormant and burnt out.
Or possibly just your mind.

Pianos to burnt out light bulbs and tears to glass bullets,
an alliance is formed.
A piano extinguishes tears, but glass bullets shatter the bulb.

Volcanoes erupt on both sides of my skull
Simultaneously spewing out lava,
it creates permanent craters in the mountainside created by flesh and bone,
It burns like a hot fire,
But it actually has meaning this time.
A watery clear lava erupting from my eyes causes more damage to my mind than pompeii,
wiping out villages of whatever self confidence I had left,
leaving only the scraps and ashes for me to work with until the next eruption,
at this point,
I don’t even bother building the villages back up.
They create more obstacles that I don’t have the patience for,
but it’s not like they were much to begin with.

While villages are ruined an empire gains their power.
An evil kingdom of what used to be a happy go lucky teenager,
now filled with depressed thoughts and hateful words only used upon himself,
who’s only skills are to talk others out of suicide where sometimes he doesn’t know what to do with his own self.
Trapped inside of a sad kingdom lives one happy soldier who wants to break out but isn’t strong enough to break down the walls and reveal the dark secrets to the world,
I think what he is missing is someone to understand him,
Join his rebellion against the sad army,
And defeat the war on depression.

A cold autumns night.
Trains and coyotes whine in the midst of dead silence.
Thoughts strewn about like leaves on the front lawn,
Dead and soon to be weathered away into thin air,

Happy thoughts weathered away in the wind,
gone with the breeze goes the last shred of sanity I had left.
Back to bullying and prejudice,
where the word “gay” gets slung around to anyone who likes to dress different.
Who does the school play instead of the football team,
who didn’t get the nerves to talk to the girl he likes because he knew she wont even listen,
but he’s tranquilized by her poison and that poison is the look she gave him in class today.

But all he hopes for is someone to give a **** about him.
For someone who will actually be there and care about him.
Life savers surround people with compassion and care,
but the preserver is just hung up to dry when his eyes are wet from dragging others out of the sea.

a boy whose never had a good thing to say about his own skin but a million things to say about anyone else’s.
He gets lost sometimes too and manages to find his way home,
like a blind puppy in the woods,
scared and alone in a scary dark world,
he walks and walks until he’s not bumping into trees any more and he feels the soft grass underneath his feet.
Only to find out he is walking into a trap dug by his own thoughts that capture him and drag him underneath the soil,
with the reaper dumping shovel load by shovel load of sand on top of him saying “Don’t worry, you’re home now”.

He cries with the trains and the coyotes on the cold autumn night.
Alone in the woods by himself with nothing but his thoughts,
a weapon of mass destruction to his own mind, and he doesn’t even know it.

Underneath crumbling castles lays a kingdom of broken glass and broken souls. A kingdom declaring war with an empire disguised as a village. The kingdoms loss has grown since their initial declaration, after the loss of 3000 townsmen, women and children. At war across the blue and the white there is no shortage of red. No shortage of shed tears. No shortage of lost limbs and lost families not knowing what to do because the plague has taken their husbands and wives and ****** them into a war that was only supposed to last a month. 12 years later, the plague has spread and our patience spread thin and we have an urge to be the worlds kings and sentence those who don't agree with the crown to death. The kings changing over the years and the throne passed along. But we won't forget those princes and princesses who never got saved from the towers.

Driving down a small country road.
The year is 1946,
Brand new truck,
fresh off the line.
A warmth embraces my hand,
My fingers intertwine with hers.
A spiderweb of emotions and flesh.
Golden engagement ring rubs against my knuckle.
The newscaster on the radio telling us about another day without a glimpse of humidity.
She turns the radio down to where the muffled voices are barely audible.
"I love you." She says, observing me from the passenger's seat.
I look ahead at the road still.
"I love you, too." It took me a second to think about her French accent.
Desiree, her name.  
Flew over to America after Paris was bombed by the Germans.
I was the only person who took her for who she really is,
Wonderful.

Bombshells are strewn about,
Thames Riverside, England, 1943.
My leather war boots are poorly placed on top of a landmine.

Hospital beds are more comforting than a mothers hug.
"Sargent Jack, you're going home." The nurse says.
Off I went, that night I was sent back to Missouri.
I bought myself a new truck.
A 1946 ford.
Fresh off the line.
A warmth embraces my hand.
I look down,
Memories are slipping between my fingertips like blood from an open wound,
the wound being my mind,
not my head,
my mind.
Thoughts strewn about like bombshells.
Disorganized,
Written off,
Buried and left on the battlefield,
the corpse of my sanity awaits for nothing.
I'll never make it back.

How many tears does is take to make a river?

It takes a lifetime of depression and desperation for someone to give a ****.
It takes a broken home and broken hearts and broken spirits.
It takes a teenager years to get over their parents divorce.
A manmade canyon in the ground of the tears of broken kids and
Despair.

How much blood does it take to start a forest fire?

It takes blades upon blades being dragged against pale skin.
It takes the bandaids used to patch the severed hearts from bleeding.
It takes the whites of eyes turning to red from the cries of help but all you get is ignored.
It takes pain.
Irritation.
Anger.

How much skin does it take to cover a desert?
It takes the skins of buried kids who have laid to rest under 6 feet of soil.
It takes the skins you were born with and cut off because you don’t like the way it looks.
Cell on cell of skin. Every grain of sand in the desert is different like the swirls on our fingertips.

How much breath does it take to start a breeze?
You huff, and puff, and blow this place down but the only thing thats crumbling is your hopes and dreams.

Mother nature doesn’t comfort us at all.
She created the elements of life and death and sadness.
Just in disguise from our own minds.
A trick.
We fell for it.

“Lord help us remember that freedom isn’t free.” -Anonymous

Ready
Aim
Fire

End of the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln dedicates a day to remember those brave men who have fallen on the field of battle in a pool of their own blood.
For their country.

Ready
Aim
Fire

World War 1.
Soldiers come home in body bags
Or without their own legs.
Arms.
Or eyes.
Men come home with stories they’ll never tell or ever want to think about.
Most men stay where they have fallen.

Ready
Aim
Fire

December 7th, 1941
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor killing well over 2,400 soldiers.

June 6th
1944
American boats touch the soil of Normandy Beaches.
73,000 pairs of American boots run along the trenches.
Most of them never leave.

Ready
Aim
Fire

1950 to 1953
Americans were shot at and killed in Korea.
Hidden in the bushes,
Korea only battled with ambushes.

Ready
Aim
Fire
A conflict in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975.
“Do not shoot unless shot upon.”
One of the bloodiest wars American’s have seen.
Men came home to be welcomed as villains
To be littered on and verbally **** upon.
Many men committed suicide.

Ready
Aim
Fire

September 11, 2001
Hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center’s and the Pentagon.
War has broken out against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other armed rebels.
War is out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A shot in the dark for those men and women who get shot in the dark,
Peacefully in their sleep.
By men they have trained.
Vehicles blow up and lives are taken every day.

Ready
Aim
Fire

During an average day in 2013
22 war veterans commit suicide.
Every day.

Thank you.

Ready
Aim
Fire

this is a shout out to the kids who haven’t cracked a smile since last summer.
To the kids who’s wrists turned to cutting boards
and stomachs intentionally went empty.

This is the anthem for saturday nights spent on the couch just asking yourself “why”
For hours spent thinking that it’s your fault your parents split and theres nothing you can do.

For the kids who drag a blade across their wrist and carve grand canyons into their wrists although its still not the same.

A song for the kids who crack their knuckles as a distraction from the glares they get from across the classroom in fifth period science.

A harmony to the kids who are trying so hard to fit in but cant seem to get the hold of the right words to stick on their tongue so instead the wrong words slip out of their mouthes and roll into a ball of embarrassment.

A five star dinner served to his four friends which left him three years later and two years later he was just one kid by himself fending off the monsters we call classmates all alone.

Another sleeping pill for the boy who prays with his eyes shut but cant sleep because his eyes have already been closed for hours.

A brace for the broken and the weak as the week drags on to the point where every word that ends in the letter y makes you want to pull your hair out.

A poem dedicated to the kids who cant fend for themselves in the jungle.
Its a hard existence.
But we can make it through.

Leftovers from a red hot feast
My heart turns gray with ash.
As smoke clouds infect my lungs and flow into my blood stream
Soon enough I was destined for suffocation from within

Volcanoes spit ash out into the atmosphere
I inhale ash and exhale happiness
Gone with every breath goes every smile I have thought of.
Disappearing with every breath my motivation flies into the atmosphere and burns up into ash.

A crackle and a pop and a slow burning fire in the brick fireplace.
Heating homes the old fashioned way,
I am ****** into a vortex to the sky where I can fully appreciate life.
Where the sun smiles down on all of the boys and girls and makes ashes glow with embers just wishing for life once more.
But after all, all stars burn out.

A forest fire rips through northern Montana.
Smoke filling the air while ash fills the heart full of burned memories and homes
Part of what once was life turns into the most innocent of monsters.

A volcano erupts in Pompeii.
A city paved in ash I am lost.
A family buried in an unmarked tomb
that they once called home.

Writing on the walls suggests propaganda existed since time has.
A man wrapped in a lambs wool tunic and a one inch coating of ash
Lays his head in a museum.

After all,
Ashes, Ashes.
We all fall down.

I love you like a funny joke.
I'm smiling because i just remembered your punchline but  I always seem to forget it.

I love you like an artist loves his first painting.
Although there are flaws, they are what makes the painting unique.

I love you like my favorite band.
I know every word to your songs and and desperately want to talk to you but I never get the chance since you’re touring in bigger cities.

I love you like a kindi-gardener’s fresh box of crayons.
Rarely touched and taken well care of.
But eventually lost and broken and smashed

I hate you like a sheet on the clothesline in the middle of a hurricane.
Being ripped from my line and drifting off away from you while you’re safe and sound.

I love you like a heroine addict loves his dealer.
Enough said.

I love you like a tree loves the rain.
Soaking up every drop of you that’s given.

I love you like a book worth reading over and over again.
Wanting to memorize your every feature like I could never see you again.

I hate you like a broken down car on the highway.
Stalled out, I was replaced before I had a chance to be fixed.

I love you like a sunset in the summer.
Indescribable, speechless except for the word “gorgeous”

I love you like star gazing.
Watching to find something and call it my own.
But I haven’t discovered anything yet.

I love you like pancakes on a sunday morning.

I love you like chocolate

I love you like nature.

I love you.

1)
A simple gesture of happiness.

2)
A substance more fake than plastic.

3)
A reason why love is so abundant.

4)
A reason why people believe.
A force stronger than any words.
A swift move into a land to drift off and watch as glistening teeth and a perfect smile pull you into a breeze past reality.

5)
I wish I could always see your smile.

Smiles.

Goodnight.
Sleep well.
I love you so much.
See you in the morning.

The house quiet and dark.
We break from our hug and walk to our rooms quietly.
The only sounds are my footsteps and the news going in Dads room.
Just another night.

Earlier that day,
I saw you cry.
I saw your upper lip shake like the ground when mountains fall over.
I saw tears rush down your face and into riverbeds and onto your lap.
I watch you turn the other way so I don’t see you as weak.

The man I have known to be the heatless ******* is the person who needs heart the most.
He needs my heart.
His daughters heart.
His girlfriends heart.
His heart is an endless pit of pain and guilt
but he keeps a firm smile on his face.

He breaks down like the rest of us.
He gets depressed too.
Hell, with what he is going through I don’t know what I would do.

But this man goes to bed every night hoping to see his daughters beautiful face
Hear his sons voice over the acoustic guitar
and the ******* chickadee’s waking him up at 6:30 every morning.

He goes to bed in tears.
Worried,
His daughter’s depression has gotten worse.
His son feels.. abandoned.
His girlfriend overwhelmed.

His heart is black from the ashes of bombs being dropped on him almost every day.
His hands red from slapping destiny in the face and taking his own road in life.
His wedding ring that he still wears because he knows how much it means.

His son,
Worries constantly about him.
He worries that for once more his happiness will be stripped from him like white paint on an old wall.
Painted over and over and stripped only to get a new coat of paint.
The walls are getting tired of this ******* and just want to be left alone.

He worries that one day he won’t be the same.
He worries that sickness will drive him over the wall and into a land he doesn’t want to see.
His father is a strong man.
But he sees the worst things that could happen.
He is breaking down.

Father goes to bed but stays awake throughout the night
Hoping that she hasn’t left him.
Hoping that she isn’t sick.
Hoping that his son is happier than ever.
Happy that he gets to see his daughter.

Truth is,
His son idolizes his father.
He is a true hero.
A decorated veteran in the war called life
and his battle wounds are crippling.
But ****** his feet still work and he can still walk.
He has the biggest heart imaginable,
his son worries about his father.

Goodnight.
Sleep well.
I love you so much.
See you in the morning.

I see blue sky.
I see the most perfect clouds.
I see birds chirping
I glance towards your eyes again to get another glimpse of the heavens but you’ve already walked away.

Your hair swaying as you walk like trees in a windstorm. My breath pushing them since you took my breath when you took away my loveless mind and replaced my breath with jealousy and temptation to talk to you when I don’t have the ***** to say hello.

Your smile brings tears to the glass eyes you had me get from the first time I sacrificed my sight to lay my eyes on you. Your mind like lava, burning everything in its path but slows down just enough to let you slip past without harm but wrecks everything else you care about.

Your perfume brings scent to my nostrils that I never want to forget. I can’t even describe it but I know that it’s you whenever I can smell it.  

Your laugh is enough to bring Zeus down from the heavens just to witness how cute you are. You hate your laugh, you really do. But when I hear your laugh I can’t help but smile because even your flaws are perfect and draw me back.

I see the ocean.
I see the white caps splashing down over my mind and pulling me through the tide.
Not a life guard in sight but I know there is hope somewhere in your eyes.

I don’t think you’re real but you’re too tan to be a roman statue.
Your heartbeat would shatter the marble instantly,
But could cut diamonds with a single beat.

I gain my breath back as you lie down to sleep.
I gain my conscience back when you close your eyes.
I listen for the ocean I see whenever I see your eyes
But all I hear is the silence of my heart beating to see you again.

Burning of eyes as I just awoke
My room pitch black
The warmth of my bed makes me want to stay forever
But excitement boils over my five year old mind
as I remember it is Christmas morning

My feet turn to ice as I stick them out of the blanket
The floor making them stick.
I lift up my feet and gallop to my sisters room.
Boom, boom, boom,
My heels make contact with the hardwood floor

I grab the golden **** to my sisters room
I push quietly but fast
The door makes a slight squeak
I sprint to her bedside.
“WAKE UP CAMILLE IT’S CHRISTMAS!” I yell in the middle of her room.
At that point, I didn’t care about waking my parents up.

She sits right up with a smile on her face
And flings the blankets beside her legs as she puts her feet to the ground.
We race down the hallway
Dogs nails tapping on the floor as they follow us to the living room
The big, dusty, gross purple couch is the barrier between
me and the present I have been dreaming about for this entire year,
A new bike.
I run around the couch to see the chrome shining in the moonlight
The tires casting a shadow over the small area rug.
Stockings on the back of the big leather chair,
which instantly drew our attention.

We tear open the stockings and compare the new trinkets we got.
Cardboard, tin wrapping, and chocolate wrappers flying everywhere.
We were smiling so much I swear we could hear them.

Parents come out to see us grinning beside the heater as we tear apart our favorite toy for the day.
We gather around the living room like it was superbowl sunday and the tree is our
flatscreen.
The blue and silver and red and green collage of corny wrapping paper,
the giant boxes wrapped tightly and perfectly.

Dad is beside the tree, deciding which present we can open, and lightly tossing it to us.
We catch is as carefully as we could, set it on our laps and wait for our turn to unwrap.

As thank you’s are thrown around like baseballs at a little league practice
I patiently glance at my mom, and get the nod that I can unwrap.
This square box is staring eye to eye with me and I get the jitters as I unwrap it.
The red paper finally off, I open the box with ease.

What I found was the coolest thing ever, thats all I remember.

But now, that box is filled with my happiness.
My memories.
Never has an empty box held so much.
It has the family dinners,
The camp outs and bon fires.
The laughs that come from the belly while playing games around the table.
The piano lessons for hours
And those coloring books that were more sacred than the bible.

But for now, the box is closed for the time being.
Sitting upon a shelf in my closet, waiting for the right time to be opened again.

The greatest gift I have ever received is the memories of home.
What home is to me is all inside that box.

Dads cooking on the table,
Moms questions about our day at school,
Camille talking about her math homework.

Now it’s just two lonely guys sitting at a table
discussing how ****** the economy is,
girls,
that one time when he tried to give me “the talk”
But he doesn’t need to, I go to public school after all.

What I am trying to say is, I miss those family dinners more than anything.
I miss the nights we would spend outside gazing at the stars
Pointing out the constellations in the sky and making up our own.

I look for those constellations all the time.
I once found a rose, and I named it Camille.
Dad never knew why I named it that, since shes my sister.
I named the constellation of the rose Camille because
Well, she has the rosy cheeks and the lovely smile.
But she sure as hell has her thorns.

A family dinner now is three people instead of four,
I say bedroom with a plural,

But this family, although gone through hell and back,
We live together in between different walls, roads, and doors.
But most of all, we live behind our present, and live in the past.

I want to end this by saying, Christmas brings new memories and my favorite time of the year,
because then my family exists.
I started to open presents slower and slower,
and hugging tighter and tighter.
And loving more and more.
I love you, Mom, Dad, Camille.
I really do, even when you think I don’t,
I love you guys, and I always will.

The stars are our secret admirers until the sun disappears below the horizon. The moon glows brightly, mocking me because the sun is no longer protecting me. As the moon laughs down, and crickets compose the songs of the night, the stars watch from above making sure that nothing will happen to me. I peer outside my window beside my bed into the open field, I see the grass swaying back and forth as if they were slowly dancing to the ballet of the sweet summer nights. The trees creating a darker dark then when your eyes are shut tight to hide from the monsters inside your mind. Once again the sun peeks its way up above the skyline and provides another dismal day, with the stars silently watching from above, but I know that they speak louder words than anyone.

Rain drops fall, only because the clouds are crying. As the stars comfort the clouds from high above, the sun shines bright once more, ceasing the rain and creating life. I watch on as the soil goes from the deepest brown to a light color as the water flows to the underworld to quench the thirst of the demons.  Underneath my feet, the grass clings  to the ground for dear life as wind takes a stroll through the valley. Sun sets, stars rise, Moon shines and depression awakens from the rest he had during the day.

In the silence of my room, the door closed and the lights off, with just enough light to see outlines of the darkened walls, I see the shadows of my happiness disappear into the closet for another time. I struggle to lean forward and grasp it, but I cannot move. I am tied down, with hands upon my shoulders like depression has all of its strength against me to keep me in the warmth of my bed, saying it would be for the best.

Through the night, all I heard was a voice saying that I have gotten what I deserved, Over an over again that rang through my skull and bounced back through my ears so I was forced to hear it over and over again. I close my eyes tighter and tighter to escape what I am hearing, but my body consumes my thoughts and my eyes spring open. Tears form and roll down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them, I just lie there and realize that they have won. The tears have conquered my will power and I am weakened. I pray for the daylight to come, and force my eyes to close and fall into a sleep that will be cut short by the rise of the sun and the bedtime of the devil.
I glance towards the sun, the bluebird sky shows hope for me to fly away someday into freedom. I look towards the closet and motion for my happiness to come out for a little bit, at least enough for me to get through today. I put on fresh pants, and a nicely washed shirt, comb my hair and smile into the mirror. I am smiling but all I see are are 32 white lies and lips spread open. I walk outside and the sun becomes dimmer, as if he is mad I gave half the day to last night. I take a step onto the lawn and lie down, and watch the sky hoping to see the stars so I can thank them for bringing today to me.

We have to pull together.
Why is every word that comes out of anyones mouth start a war?
A war against words and our guns are our very own tongues.
Artillery is just another word for vocabulary.

If we keep acting the way we are
Earth is no longer a community.
It’s soon to be a rock floating in the middle of space
With a bunch of ****** human beings
Fighting over the most worthless things.

Its like, a fly on a lake.
It still has a pulse but it cant fricking move.
It still spins but it doesn’t fricking think.
It still makes ripples, but does it affect the current?

It’s like the Joker had a bad day and managed to end up at a sad clown convention.

We meant something at one point, but then just joined along.
Earth will live on forever,
and so will humans.
But will human kind stay?

Its just another pine tree in a logging operation.
Soon enough we will be consumed by products and machines
and we will amount to nothing.

We will be consumed by the the sharp teeth of the saws
and eaten alive limb by limb
by the community that is our own people
and don’t try to tell me that “its not that bad”
Because it is.
We tell a white lie to live past the darkness hoping it would spread a little bit of light.

We have to collaborate. Humans and giants have to get along because who else would we turn to when the light bulbs keep burning out and the ceilings get higher and higher

Humans are made to be the same.
Thats why there is a plural at the end.
Because we are all humans and not animals like we have been acting.
Grow a pair of nuts and confront your problems and not just ***** and moan about it and literally start a war of the words.

I once asked my little 4 year old cousin,
“What do you want to be when you are older?”
Astronaut, he says.
“Because I want to shoot for the stars.”

If you think about it,
A 4 year old has more of a grasp on life than most of the people around.
To think that 4 year old kids are optimistic because they don’t know how to be pessimistic.

I still can’t believe that one day,
this innocent little boy
will realize the true hell that is reality.

One day we we outside in his yard playing with his tonka trucks.
And the whole time he was saying that he wants to grow up
and use actual trucks.
Drive the big bow dump trucks.

I agreed with him, saying I do too.
But I was thinking to myself,
that I shouldn’t quite tell him to cherish his little years yet.
Let it sink in for a little bit.
His little four year old mind
will soon enough be corrupted by society and judgments.

Some day, he will see how growing up feels.
Having to deal with the prejudice and how mean people are.
Like, back off this is how I  live my life.
Not me living your life,
I don’t live to please you.

My life is not your business.
What are you to think something about me when you don’t know the half of it?
If you had a single grasp on how things go,
you would realize judgements are for criminals and their sentences
and not me and how I speak my sentences.

Dear Luke,
I wish that someday things will change.
Dear Luke,
Never change who you are, no matter who tells you.
Dear Luke.