Your skin is salty, sweet
Your whisper          (“follow my lead……..”)
   sends a shiver
      down to my soul
Your hair plays waves like roaring rogues
   when the sun is setting
      and the moon is letting
      the stars take the first shift
There’s no need to be selfish
      when love has come around

And some days I’m like the beach
   beaten by the actions of the fleeting.
Footprints of their thoughtless actions
   bruise my timid tongue
But my love, you bring the tide
   at the end of the day
   washing away the remains
      of the countless,
                   careless,
                  calloused
                   travelers
      with the kiss of your breeze
      with the motion of your waves

I’ve been told tides occur between any two massive bodies.
They are the result of the differences in gravitational attraction.
See,
   the force of gravity varies
      with the distance of separation
Knowing this,
   my love,
      I’ll  never turn my back on you.
Just come closer,
                       closer,
                            closer
Let’s bring the coast to its knees tonight.
Soft whispers,
   soft fingers,
      soft tempers.

         I want to navigate across your seas
         Chart every quiver, every tease
         My favorite places, love,
             are the ones no one can see…

  …uncover your eyes darling
                                        &
                                 show me your infinite

I wake up to the sound
        of empty halls
        ’cause your not here
The phone’s not ringing like it used to.

I know that you’re not coming home.

I found myself
        sitting on your empty bed.
I swear I heard your voice inside my head.

...

Then I felt the darkness come
        and cover my heart…

                                        the day the truth grew up.

I see the things I’ve done
        with a different point of view
        because of you.
And I’m not saying that I’m thankful.
                                        In fact...
        I’m mad as hell
        because you’re not coming home.

I’ve spent the day estranged
Wishing for a brighter day
The clouds were lined with silver
And the sun was gleaming over the river
But the moments I skipped over
We’re the chances I left smoldering
And if silence was the captain
Then my tongue was her right hand
And I left us both apart
And blamed the wind for my faulty sails

So without words I sold my soul
I stole a goal just to stay cold
In the heat of this mid-spring afternoon
I spent blaming myself for this lack of you

I dream in shapes, not sounds,
That bleed together to shed the ground
Of any shadows I left around
My mistakes are making waves
But I won’t leave the drag of the undertow

So, today, I made mistakes
And blamed the way the earth could quake.
Instead of seeking out the calm,
I built a storm and blamed the rain.

There are many things that I fall short on
And not getting up seems to be what haunts me.

I am grateful for the sunset
So I can start again anew

Sometimes I speak
   with a certainty
   conceived by a pain
   that has all but deserted me.

And some nights there’s shame,
   and deservedly so…
   an unbearable weight,
   unnerving and cold…

And I,
   I’m feel flawed
   (but I know I’m not broken)
   I’m feeling down
   (but determined to rise again)

I’m feeling flawed…

               …but I’m not.

I’m done being careless.
I’m through with the reckless
   decisions I’ve made
   and the victim I’ve played.

I’ll rise
   +from the ashes
       of the bridges I’ve burned.
   +up through rain clouds
       never to return here again.

I’ll let the rain cover my tracks.
If I can’t find my way,
   I can never come back here again.

I’m feeling flawed…

               …but I’m not.

Oh my captor, my sweet captor,
        can I ask for just one favor?
Can I have what’s left
        of the mangled mess that’s me?
I’d like to share my bare bones
        and the holes that bare my soul
        to the one that keeps me...

                                        ... closest to her home.

I can swear that I will return
        if you set me free
        to see her
But I can’t promise I’ll come back to you
        with everything in place
        and put back together.

I heard you were bleeding for the coast
        when you were dreaming of my ghost,
        I’ve always wondered where it goes
        when you’re the one that’s in control.

See, I’m not sure what I believe
        at times...
                                        ... are we angels or just seeds?

        Are we stars or are we...

                                        ... vessels lost at sea?

I have longed for clarity. I crave acknowledgement for things I have perceived. But the window to my soul is heavy and the drapes are all but weightless.

Have you ever had a dream of being pertinent in the digital age? Of course you have. We all have. That’s why we type our thoughts with hopes of siezing the infinite sea of screen-gazers and capturing their approval. We are the bloggers of the digital era. We are the hopeless romantics of the world wide web.

I have spent years writing songs, writing poems, standing on stages pleading for acceptance. Then came the internet with its promise of the fabled audience of true understanding. I began spending my time contemplating just what the masses wanted from me and I was unstoppable. I stopped interacting with people and started reconditioning myself to be exactly what everyone else would want me to be. The only problem, I didn’t know everyone. I didn’t know very many people at all. But I was convinced I was on the right track.

I started changing myself internally to fit what I presumed was the star behind the keyboard. I was becoming an introvert. “This is different,” I would tell myself. “I’m just finding out who I really am.” I played right into the hand of all the hype and made my way down a spiral to a life of depression and low self-esteem. I poured my heart out every day in a set of words strewn along in an artistic manner but no one was noticing. No one was commending me on my insight or my talents, no one was thanking me for being the voice they didn’t have. Where was I going wrong?

Then the world got connected. Facebook, twitter, cell phones, smart phones, Pinterest, narcissism found a new outlet. But I was here first! I was above these things! I don’t use hashtags, I use a pound key after entering my password. I don’t use emoji, I use punctuation marks. I was a founding father of a world that had long since faded out. And like all founding fathers, I was lost in the annals of history.

Well, this is what it has come to. Writing to appease my creativity on a ghost town of a blog I have only to pour my heart out on when the time feels right. When I feel the need to pretend someone is listening. I am the narcissist too stubborn to knock on the door and ask for help. I am the hushed whisper that never leaves the lungs of the starving artist. I am living and dying in the digital age.

There is a glow that flows from the street lights along the corridors we collapsed when the scene had changed and the stars were filling in all the empty space up above

You and I, we started painting this the day we wrote our names in hopes we could leave a trail of ink to lead us to one another.

From the park bench in the center of a blink-and-miss town to this fantastical, flooded, fantasy of a city, l've memorized every note that built up to the crashing crescendo of every wave along these cobble stone sidewalks with sparkling marble markers making moonlit memorials of the steps I'll always cherish when I recall the moments we found the present giving way for our beautiful future.

Look around, love. The infinite is all encompassing and it's all for me and you.

She looks to the bedside for some piece of mind tonight
‘Cause the other side is freezing cold
Yet another sign
I’ve fallen short of what you had in mind

She cries,
I know that you love me enough to stay
But do you love me, could you love me, enough to stay away

And these street signs, they are all screaming out your name
As I drive faster to outrun the trail of guilt and shame
And I
I cross the city skyline off this rearview
Just to place the blame on anyone else’s name

She still cries,
I know that you love me enough to stay
But do you love me, could you love me, enough to stay away

And I’ve been searching for a genie at the bottom of every bottle

Silence screams as I push down on the throttle,

I swear he owes me one last wish
And this bottle, it has run dry
I’m cussing out constellations in the midnight sky
I hate to have to wonder why

I lie
I know that I love you

But could I love you, do I love you
Enough to stay away

I listen to these poets during my morning coffee.
I’m just looking for that line, that sentiment, that metaphor that reminds me that everything I’m doing is not for you. That everything I am doing is selfishly for me, but in a high-rise sort of way. That way where every breath I take leads to a canvas where WE paint the most beautiful blueprint family portraits of skyscrapers. 5 generations of beating the odds.

And with the paintbrush being passed between us, I swear this love is just like following numbers.
Those things never turn out like the picture perfect display, but don’t they?

Of course a camera, a carbon-copy printout with a gloss stretched over, could never capture the beauty of the journey, of the struggle, of the joy. It only displays the end of the line, matter of fact, “if you do it like we want you to, you’ll be framing what WE have planned, stepping in our giant shoe print on the moon.”
But my darling and I, we don’t need to call things perfect, we don’t have to ALWAYS earn it. Sometimes love just is.

And when the unicorn calls for Orange#11, maybe we’ll come to realize that unicorn would look better with Periwinkle. Better yet, maybe that unicorn has an insufficient amount of glitter so we stray from the “been-there-done-that” and put a little sparkle in a place where they said love is just a copy-and-paste type of case.

I don’t have the experience she most likely needs and I catch my jaw clenching from time to time when the numbers called for perfection and we stepped aside in order to let the lesson of drying paint catch our attention.

We walk down different paths, in different locations, in different times…sometimes. But my darling, she sings with her mind and it gets me going every time. I’ve got the starter paint kit of metaphors and similes that spin around in my head so free. She has the numbers and where-to-starts and matter-of-fact goal charts.

Together we make this portrait ours. Not some manufactured case of “I do, You do, We’re through.” We may have started in a box, but after a few seasons of forget-me-nots, we’ve grown to be a Dali, blended in originality and perseverance. The brushstrokes of van Gogh mixed with the tenacity of Madeline Dukes.

So it’s clear to me the cover picture of the standard love is only a metaphor for when it all has come together. They could never capture OUR journey. Together WE change the endgame, all the while, I’m working to change her name.

Take me west
Take me to my home
Take me to the mountains of San Diego
Teach me hymns to lull the demons
Teach me psalms of the days of old

Sometimes, when the weather changes tune
… the stars taste of nostalgia

And sometimes I think about you too

Seasons change the dress code
This is a sea of weathered hearts and captives
The glass above the hopeful,
… the shelter from the storm
… is the reason for the latest sunrise
The boulevard has been abandoned
I’m praying now you’ll be the ring I won’t forget to wear

Let’s keep this origami dream alive
These midnight eyes have grown accustomed to the way we live

Just maybe, when the storm has come to an end
… we will take up arms again

And sometimes when the weather changes paths
I hope, someday, you’ll find your own way back

And sometimes
+ I’ve found my house of blue
+ I cannot taste the rain
+ I think about you too when the weather chases bloom

This house was not a home when we got here
And I’m well aware that I have kept this void from filling
See,
    I’ve been devouring your spark since day one
And I’m not sure I can tell you what I’ve done

I don’t have a conscience left to council
Remorse was just a phase that had worn itself through

I’m no exception, I am the reason for the rule

I’ve been keeping to myself for selfish reasons
These walls,
    they don’t build themselves these days
And I’ve dolled them up with color for comfort
I’m just another excuse away from where I say I want to be

I ask innocent questions to keep this facade from the light of day
I’ve sang every hymn I can think to keep my demons at bay

You see it’s never bad enough to walk away
But it’s never good enough to want to stay

I am the reason for the rule