I long to feel
Yet my emotions remain stagment
Out of touch with whats real
Unable to piece together the fragments

To be free is to understand freedom
Transcend from the definition which it has become
For the only true freedom exists in one's mind
Away from language which materialism is bind

sometimes i cry for no reason at all
its like jumping off a bridge with the sole intention to fall
plumeting down as the darkness envelops my being
i close my eyes for a better view, unaware of what i'm seeing
drowning in my emotions, i forget how to breathe
for transcribing my feelings to words is like a verbal dry heave
yet still clinging to reason i desperately flail
afraid to involve my heart due to the risk i might fail
stuck in a shade of gray between black and white
trying to decipher wrong from what is known to be right
it is burnt in my brain that nothing is set in stone
i attach myself to no one, keeping company alone
aware the sanction in my head is the only place to find reality
i must detach from this cycle in order to become free

Expectations flood my lungs,
As I heave and gasp for breath
Beneath a shrouded cloak of
Proper etiquette and
"She doesn't have a mean bone in her body".
Flailing and shouting aren't options,
I'm not capable of that.
"*******" was a fluke,
I cant feel that way- not me, not here,
Between high standards and low tolerance levels.
You shouldn't have to explain yourself,
It's natural that I should understand.
Emotions are for the weak
And unpredictable. It's only natural,
If you're afraid.
Hold your breath and count to 10,
And hope what's gone is here again,
For the world is a place of mice and men,
Thrown deep inside the lions den.

I do not know you the way a morning glory knows the sunlight: dependent, wilted in its absence.
Nor do I know you the way a vowel knows its predecessor: dependent, indifferent to chance.
Still, I know you. The way a palm knows
Each singular line that runs down the twin fingers of its opposite, independent yet inseparable.
Parallel creases of experience, your hands rewrite language by their subtle movements—
Alluding to a oneness that scatters once it is spoken, a secret dialect that spreads from your fingertips into mine, sending signals up my outstretched arms.
Reflexively, I trace the outline of your presence. I do not know you apart from the way I know myself.
At times, I yearn for the indifferent dependency of the morning glory, the formulaic way a vowel flirts with the past. Yet this can not be. To know you is to
Become you (the contours of your fingerprint contains my very being). To know you is to love you entirely.
Lose my singularity, to take your hands and place them decidedly over my eyes, look out into
Eternity: the world filtered through your presence—our harmony—this is how I know you.

9/25/15

The bright light of the computer taunts me.
Is this what my writing has been reduced to?
Mindlessly cranking out poetry,
as words flow from my fingers onto the screen.
The perfect black lines dance together,
beckoning me forward towards this no man's land
of modern day literature.
The only thing that sets my writing apart
is a copyright sign, my name following.
My nervous scrawl can't be transcribed into cyberspace.

Life is a tiny black x on the calendar,
Wedged between play dates and rescheduled doctors appointments.
2:00 floods into 4:00, until the entire day lies crumpled at the foot of the bed,
Lifeless except for the coffee stain memories of yesterday.
Nothing happens here.
Self questions self, and we all sit criss cross apple sauce on the linoleum floor;
Is this what it means to be alive?
Red and blue parachute above our tiny shoulders,
Mixing with green, yellow, and orange wedges
The same as pizza or convenience store cheesecake.
Outside, noisy blurs of grey and black whir by
Full of passengers too preoccupied with routine to venture
Into the far off world of innocence
That softly plagues everything detached enough to feel it.
Covered in paintings of a reality that's missing all of it's fingers.
Nothing lives here- beyond the faint ripple
Of three o'clock snack time:
Rosy cheeks and small, stubby fingers concealed by apple sauce,
The preservative of youth, it slowly takes on the texture
Of dad's lung cancer-
Dying pigeons rest nostalgically upon city rooftops,
As strangers stop to admire their stagnant beauty,
Crying out acclaim for the regal presence of those
Who can bear to sit still amidst the chaos of an hour:
Cigarette and polyester feathered Madonnas of the modern world-
Installation art at its finest.
Face paint and spaghetti hair
Are only tangible until replaced with something a little closer to
Reality. The American dream sinks to the bottom of a hollow mason jar, as preservatives soak the bones
Of every tiny heart, alive enough to give out at the faintest malfunction.
Dilapidated, our heavy feet tread over spare Lego pieces,
The tiny rectangles push up against our translucent flesh-
Leaving abstract indentations of a city that never was.
Images of the earth projected upon tiny marble surfaces,
Fallen from a cardboard box that was once on isle five,
Impress upon the weary feet
Of strangers, running to throw up beneath the red, green, and yellow windows
Of a Target grocery store.
Nothing grows here, yet we eagerly pluck our wilted produce
From the clammy hands of a metal machine
Programmed one, two, three
To dilute our logic with an even mist of something
Almost like water, but with more promise.
Until, we can easily swallow the bitter pill that
Holds the secrets of the world.

Shrieking, all-in, nothingheldback laughter
Beats up against my skull,
Thudding, thudding.
Is this happiness observed?
Pools of wrinkles gather underneath
Squinted eyes,
Little silk kimonos crumpled at the foot of a bed.
Laugh lines fold and expand,
As if they are their own organisms,
Breathing in and out with the rhythm of life.

Somewhere else, there is crying,
***** feet and bruises the color of wilted pansies.
Undisturbed, they vibrate to a different frequency,
An isolated rhythm.
A symphony of cornflower and charcoal,
They dance about in a sad song of neglect.
Far away from the loud, booming laughter.

Oh, sunken eyes and sullen brows,
How have you not yet changed the world?
Thunder your despair,
Push up against the merriness and chrisanthimum bliss.

I'm tired of being weighed down
By expectations
Built up by a world
In fear of condemnation
Free will is replaced
With the will to freely obey
Yeah it's a contradiction
But it keeps revolutions at bay
Cuz we're brought up craving structure
It's in our making
Sure we test our limits
With no intention of breaking
The bind
Which has a firm grasp on our mind
We fool ourselves into thinking
Society and structure can coincide
We'd rather live questioning
All that is around us
Afraid to jump and swim
Cuz our common sense might drown us
All we know is derived from what we hear
So how would we function if we cut off our ears
Afraid to listen to our own voices
Society tells us we can't hear
Our perception is hazy
We've gotten lazy
Why use our eyes
When we can listen to what we see
Aware it doesn't make sense
But neither does reality
We take the easy route
Leading straight to our demise
Slavery has resurfaced
We allowed it to rise
Feeding into it's foolish games
Now we're the ones in it's harmless chains
The burden on our backs
Bears our custom caskets
We faithfully await the day
That we can climb in and latch it
Sealing our fate
Our destruction has decided
It's past the date
So we sit back and try to compensate

There's a subtle discreetness in the way you say hello,
Your true feelings hidden beneath heavy formalities.
The overwhelming question of "what if", lingers in the air,
Cradling you within it's suffocating grasp.
Oh, my poor shackled bird, don't fight the fineness of failure.
Embrace every mistake and half spoken truth as your sole provider.
For life is too short to require commentary,
Time is too elusive for the formulation of perpetual game plans.
Don't waste your minutes in the routine of the expected,
Cast yourself unto the unknown, be swept away by the ambiguity of life.

Your bottom lip is quivering,
As if the moment is weighing down upon it.
Hold it in, darling.

Your hands are intertwined with your tattered sleeves,
As if the more you fidget, the less you will feel.
Hold it in, darling.

Your eyes are taking on that glassy look,
The one always followed with silent tears.
Hold it in, darling.

Your voice is beginning to waver,
As your words run into each other, fumbling out of your mouth.
Hold it in, darling.

Your gaze is fixed upon an insignificant crack on the wall,
As if staring at it long enough will give everything less meaning.
Hold it in, darling.

She's telling you that there are people who care for you, that you aren't alone,
As if they could ever truly understand.
Hold it in, darling.

She's asking you how you feel, she want's you to talk about it,
As if saying how you feel would make it any better, it won't.
Hold it in, darling.

Somewhere between the onesided conversation, some sort of closure was reached,
As if you even opened up in the first place.
Hold it in, darling.

Now you're all alone in the cold, small office, getting ready to leave.
As if you had been present in the first place.
Hold it in, darling.

Don't ever let them see you cry,
Save your tears for the middle of the night,
And until then,
Hold it in, darling.

Sanity and the cold wind brush against his skin
As gusts of common sense harshly dry out his eyes.
His feet, firmly placed on the edge of the cliff, flirt with frost bite.
Howling into the wilderness, his echo pauses
Before reeling back to taunt him and slap him across the face.
The animals are silent to his tortured wails,
To his lonely laments about being misunderstood.
They only hear the high octave of his echo,
And run for cover amidst the canopy of weary redwoods.
He pours his heart out on that ledge,
Unleashing his insecurities and regrets to the indifferent world.
As his echos come back and caress his red, restless face
His surroundings begin to dance and swirl together,
Creating a new kind of understanding,
A new form of exceptence,
Of peace.
His howl sounds out into nothingness,
Booming its vibrating echo between the trees and birds and streams.

Howl
The indifferent wind caresses his skin as reality fades into the distance,
Gradually, the frigid air becomes heavy and obvious in its presence.
His feet, firmly placed on the edge of the cliff, flirt with frostbite
And the idea of plummeting down into the soft unkown.
Howling into the impartial wilderness, his echo pauses
Before reeling back to slap him, as if to make sure he’s still alive-- still present.
The animals lay silent to his tortured wails,
To his lonely laments that carry an entire lifetime in a single, hollow ring.
The high octave of his echo loses its urgency in the redwood trees and jagged cliffs,
Frantically bouncing off canyon walls as if to wake up the slumbering forest.
His fragmented howls cut through the thick silence, only to fade out once again.
Lost to the obsolete language of the downy finch and blood red maple leaves.
He sounds his tortured cries to drown out the beating of his heart,
Unleashing his insecurities and regrets to the indifferent world.

I carry you with me,
Woven
In between
The frayed
Ends of my oversized
Sweater,
And the
Hollow pauses
Of conversation
Saved for thoughts
Too sacred
To be revealed.
I carry you outside of me,
Like the thin layer
Of frost
That dances lightly
Before collapsing onto the
Ancient windows of
My two door Oldsmobile.
I carry you above me,
Your presence as big as the
Wide open sky,
Yet also as unattainable.
Reaching above,
My fingers stretch out to grasp
You, but instead
Are met with the vacant
Feeling of air
Drifting between my
Clammy palms.
I carry you beneath me,
Supporting my
Staggering steps
As I drag my heavy feet across the
Uneven ground.
I carry you with me.
                                                                                   MB.

You make me want to write poetry
Not the sappy sentimental type
Dripping with cliche metaphors
Oozing with prefabricated references of love
No, your presence is much more subtle
Your influence upon my words is obscure
Yet it lingers in the empty spaces
Dancing between the lines
Which separate my tangled thoughts
The poems which you inspire
Have no periods
For to associate you with an ending point
Would be as if telling a circle where to stop
For this reason, the poems you inspire
Have yet to be transcribed onto paper
Endlessly flowing throughout the canals of my mind
Yearning to be unleashed to the world
I selfishly hold back
Unable to attach a significant ending
To the overpowering significance of your presence

I heard a knocking in my mind
Against the cedar door,
Beating, beating as if to find
Something worth looking for.

And as the rhythm proceeded,
The sounds faded into the wind.
It was gone before I believed it,
Yet it stole something within.

I heard the footsteps tread away,
A soft and steady pace,
The shadows cast a murky grey
Upon the would-be face.

Dragging a prisoner's remains
Though no one left the room
For the bounty came from within the brain
And all it's splendid gloom.

I know how you feel
At 4am when everything should be
Quiet; eyes closed,
Breath steady at an even pace,
Keeping pace with the subtle rhythm
Of your pulsing heart.
Nothing stirs, here,
Besides your afflicted mind,
A testament to all the
Late night infomercials
And dimly lit gas station windows:
Dutifully droning on
Amidst the sleepy silhouette
Of normalcy and a good eight hour rest.
There's no use fooling yourself,
Closing your eyes and heavily counting off
Sheep, in a vain attempt to assimilate
Something like sleep-
There's no point trying, here,
When a sliver of sky outside your window
Starts to turn a subtle shade lighter
Than 2am darkness.
Being alone is never as poignant
As when you're woken up in the middle
Of the night,
Surrounded by dark space
And stagnant memories, impartial
To the emptiness of a moment.
I know how you feel,
Restlessly turning your body
To face the wall,
Adjusting your lumpy feather pillow,
Peeling off your socks:
Routine can cure the coldest hearts,
But sleep will always elude it.
Stuck within your impetuous rituals,
Solitude seeps in
Through your open eyelids;
4am drips into 5am,
And before you know it,
Everything is gone.

My eyelids fall heavy upon my vacant eyes,
The dull pulsing of the harsh, artificial light
Throbs and shrugs up against my temples,
Running down onto the creases beneath my brow.
Last nights dreams lay stagnant beneath
My troubled mind- like lukewarm coffee,
The cream beginning to lump and curdle together.
I'm destined for this kind of solitude, I think.
My mind races and whirls off course,
Speeding straight past the acute turn,
Destructively hurdling into a thick pool of
Yesterday. Is this how it feels to be alive?
A stale taste of tap water and broccoli slowly
Rises up into my lungs, creating a subtle
Discomfort, too faint to be washed away by water.
I can feel the uneven rise and fall of my hollow chest,
As if it is set off balance by the absence of my red,
Pulsing heart. Something is off here.
Gradually, my body surrenders to the ruthless
Shadows of my conflicted soul.
Sinking in to the starch white sheets, all that is
Collapses into misplaced yeast and water daydreams
That only come out at night.

I wanna warn you in advance
Escape while you have the chance
What you see in me
Is only what you want to perceive
So here let me hit you with reality
Get out before its too late
I don't wanna have to demonstrate
How I'll devour you whole
Make you question your soul
Yeah I can be deep
But it comes with a toll
You think you can understand me
Your out of your mind
Don't get ****** in
Or else you'll become bind
To the notion that I'm someone else
Who you want me to be
Only exists in yourself
Love is merely a fallacy
Thread together by lies
Losing yourself to compromise
I hate who I am
So I hate you for loving me
No matter what I do
You'll never see
Which feeds into my disdain
You try to understand me in vain
Cash in your cards
While you can
Forfeit
I can tell you now
I'm not worth it
It's not too late
You can still quit
This twisted game
I'm the worst opponent
My interest lingers only a moment
You and everyone else are just the same
With love on your arrow
You shoot and miss
I distorted your aim
Its not your fault
You have me to blame
With all my insecurities there's no room for you
My past clutters my future
This warning is long overdue
So don't hold your breath
for" I love you"
No matter how many shootings stars
It'll never be true
Until I meet my match
Which will destroy me
Like I've destroyed you

Empty asphalt parking meter,
Suburban drop out,
Accidental, half baked,
She-really-didn't-mean-to-
Love story of the empty
Alleyways and crowded
Cross streets, full of sober promises
And five day old
Chewing gum
Wadded up and discarded
On the faded, cement floor.
Blood pulsating
Through fifteen dollar
Cheap leather combat boots.
The almost cold, October air
Wheezes through halfway parted
Lips and abstract fleece jackets,
Stained by yesterday
And the subtle scent of pizza sauce
Evaporated grease and
Paper thin
Apologies.
Nothing grows here,
As worn out tires skid to a stop
In front of fluorescent bank signs,
Illuminating the way
To a safe ride home
Along with a three dollar waiting fee.
Heavy upon our translucent veins,
The world pushes down onto
Our vulnerable skin:
Hold your breath,
And one-two-three,
You won't even know what hit you.
Pulsating rhythms of life
Of something like Vicodin,
But with a stronger kick-
Bloodshot,
Our eyes dart back and
Forth, until eventually they lose track
Of everything alive enough to feel it.
Vibrant shades of yellow and red,
Lose their faces within
The fogged glass of the department store
Refrigerator. Who is there
To see the transparency of
The off-brand seven up
And diet doctor pepper?
Momma, I have shied away  
From life:
A coward too preoccupied with
Monday.
Death and damsels
Pull at my indifferent coat strings,
Until all I hear is the muffled sigh
Of yesterday
And that of the tomorrow
I will never see.
Oh, twisted fate,
Don't fail me now:
Palms up, I mindlessly surrender:
Who I was
For who I will never be,
Amen to amen,
Crammed up against the scratched,
Metal lining of a transit bus
Between the middle and end
Of a crowded route-
Nothing breathes here:
Hold your seconds until
Reality pushes up and
You can heave in the polluted
Scent of half past five
And missed doctor appointments.
Neck arched back,
Life flows down my esophagus
In the vessel
Of a Benadryl
And vitamin C. It's all the same
When you've bottled up your
Emotions, and sold them for
A pretty price
To anyone poor enough to buy
Them. Leaving you with a penchant
For emptiness, and a stomach full
Of vacant ambition
Sealed to the brim by an
Extended hand, not quite close enough
To feel it.
Bang, bang,
The sound of closure haunts my every move,
Driving me closer to my final hour
And away from the one before it.
I'm no longer with you:
Practiced, proposed, rehearsed and perfected.
Life after death is an encore-
A standing ovation,
So loud
That it drowns out reality.

Youth has lost it's sweet seduction,
Yellow lemon heads have grown hard and sticky,
No longer resting upon our eager tongues,
But instead gathering lint in forgotten pockets.
Dreams of astronauts and ballerinas
Only exist in dated children's books
And hospital emergency rooms.
There isn't room for foolishness anymore,
Not here. Not now.
Childhood has shrunken into a tiny ball
That would fit perfectly into the hands
Of anyone brave enough to grasp it.
Yet, instead it has rolled off into a corner somewhere,
Out of the reach of subway tickets and smart phones and deli sandwiches and fake leather boots.
Sitting there, stagnant and unnoticed, it festers in the disregarded possibility that is life.
We all grow up and forget this,
We fall into the routine of tooth paste and parking meters and 160 character love notes,
We forget about the astronaut and the ballerina and the president who all once lived inside us,
We shut them away in our minds and starve them,
Only giving in to their innocent requests in the dark of the night,
Where time and responsibility dance hand in hand in blissful oblivion.
Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

I'm not depressed
I just lack what society coins
Common sense
I live life in all 3 tenses
Because the past
Is the blueprint of my fences
That reign the present in
And I might as well live in the future
In case it never does begin
For sanity is not measured by statistics
The majority's vote does not determine what's realistic
For selfishly we work as a whole
Only as convenience
To reach our own goals
The size of our ambitions
Define the status of our positions
Although this would never reach admission
Independence gains ground by submission
Failure is measured by how well we cope
With the reality of our situations
And the absence of hope
Success however
Is measured by distance
Between the final outcome
And our feeble existence
As we try to conquer life
We digress from our true motives
Doing whatever it takes
To prove ourselves devoted
The ballots were never cast
Yet we take pride that we voted
For the notion that our drive
Is all that's keeping us alive
Is hidden in our conscience
Cuz we don't need it to survive
Life is constant, set in stone
Yet we are continuously changing
Spinning towards the unknown
Oblivious
Until we're all alone
With the thoughts in our minds
Releasing the binds
Which tie us to the perception
Built up by deception
That we begin living the moment we are born
When instead we don't awaken till we win the war
For you can not understand a revolution until you are free
Yet you can not be free till you have a revolution

Waiting for a reason
To define my motives
Searching for the cause
Which has driven me devoted
For I have the definition
Of something beyond my comprehension
Outside my realm of recognition
I can taste the tension
Building up between
What it is and what it seems
Relying on what can be seen
To reflect sightless dreams
I long to be awoken
From the trance of confusion
As I try to hear the unspoken
Call out to an illusion
Parallel to the light
The moon reflects off the sun
The darkness curtains the night
As the two work as one
So still I dream on
With my conclusion on my lips
Yet unable to separate daydreams
I create an internal eclipse

I paint a picture of my face
And hide it every day,
For darkness holds a subtle grace,
Where only the fallen lay.

My mind retreats beneath the veil
Of etiquette and blush
Too far away to sound their wail,
My thoughts fall dead and hushed.

I almost lost my grasp, today,
Amidst the daily act,
For to forget the mask would give away
Something too hidden to retract.

The eyes I wear were  crafted
By eager, destructive hands,
Determined to mold a plastic
To withstand my soul's demands.

You know me not, my sorry friend,
And hidden I shall stay,
For to open up would bring an end
To the most beautiful facade.

My audience calls out the plot,
As I readily obey,
As my feet drag blood across the stage,
They lament their accolades.

I'm hidden here, despite the light
That bears upon my face
Only to find solace in the night
Obscured by a perverted grace.

I plucked a splinter from my heart
As the past began to leak-
Before clumping up against the sore
And trickling down my feet.

I exhaled the bitter, salty air,
And coughed and heaved my loss
For my lungs could only hold their share
As long as I paid the cost.

I cornered you with words, tonight,
And wailed out against the moon-
While anger poured from every noun
Falling dormant upon my tomb.

You thought I mixed it up, somehow,
Between the trembling blame,
As you coiled up upon the sound
That harshly sang your name.

I burried up my bitter soul
Beneath some shards of glass,
And planted a new world right there,
Atop a hidden past.

I crossed my t's, and said my alms
To your sweet and sickly lord.
I held my voice from trembling,
So my distress would not be heard.

I washed my wounds with holiness
Drained from the city streets,
Cleansing myself of all that feels,
For acceptance comes as defeat.

I sat there in the dark, that night,
As I painted out my life
Upon the shores of an indifferent sea,
Unscarred by wisdom's knife.

Oh, do you see the butterfly
That's shriveled against the pane
Of a dusty, concealed windowsill-
Never to see light again.

I saw a dying light go out
And vanish with the wind
As my mind flooded with empty doubt
For fear of ne'er seeing it again.

I felt a gentle hand reach forward
Wrapping around my throat
While my arms still flailed and pushed out toward
The shore- as my body rose to float.

The bell did toll a solemn boom
That silent, shrouded night-
I laid my head upon my tomb,
Relinquishing my sight.

How sweet the silhouette of death
Upon the vacant sky
Encompassing my heavy breath
As I heave a final sigh.

can you hear me
underneath all the
mud caked up
against your
ears? strings hang
limply from your
mask as it
pushes out
casting a shadow
over your hollow
eyes. something
died here
i think. i can
smell it in your silence
does it hurt
to sit there and feel
nothing? decadence
decays faster
than modesty
when all your sentiment
is pasted and glued
between postcards
and pastures
on the heavy pages
of photo albums
empty
other than pictures.
how long has it
been now?
how many minutes
hours
forced responses
and isle seats
has it taken
for you to
realize that nothing
grows here?

It's not falling in love that scares me,
It's the falling out of it.
You know, the feeling that creeps up on you,
Like a tear in nyolon stockings, or an old knit sweater.
Not a big obnoxious ****, but a tiny run that eventually dismantles the entire garment,
Leaving it forlorn and impossible to wear.
Tossed aside in an old wastebasket, only to be taken out for reminicing.
We're destined for that kind of falling apart, I think.
I know it isn't fair, but it's inevitable,
And the more we try to avoid it,
The longer we pretend it doesn't exist,
The harsher it becomes, catching us off guard.
Slowly infesting the shadows of our doubts,
Until it takes over, leaving us naked
Face to face with the unwraveling truth:
Nothing that lasts is beautiful,
And nothing that's beautiful lasts.
For, every time "I love you" is uttered,
The fabric between us wears a little thinner,
Exposing our flesh to the unforgiving coldness of leaving.
Making us vulnerable in the worst kind of way.

I've never felt so cold as when you taught me how to feel-
As each stagnant second pushes
The great pulsating vibrato of life
Further and further into
Yesterday,
Until nothing is left but memories
And stale tap water in a ceramic coffee cup:
The trembling scale by which we measure happiness
That is only felt after it becomes a memory.
Who determines the expiration date
Of emotion?
Your warm pulsating skin
And the hottest month in August
Can only be felt in photo albums
And subtle murmurs only heard
Past 3am.
I never meant to get this caught up
In life-
Breathing in the bitter reality
Of fragmented testimonies
Warning me of what's to come
And fragility of time.
Selfishly I **** the marrow out of
Every fleeting moment,
Scattering the bones across the graveyard of my unrequited mind-
A self proclaimed martyr of suffering
And good intentions.
The confinement of my sordid thoughts,
Condenses reality,
Into the tangible.
Freedom is only felt
In the aftermath of an earthquake-
Crumbled barriers now bear remnants of security.
Is this how it is to feel?
The nerves in my finger tips
Are hot and trembling, as I trace the
Faded outline of something too real
To ever be strained out into the world
Of the living.
Time and time again, I remind myself
Of the ineptitude of anything
That isn't born
Within the sacred hours of
Insomnia.
A distorted image scatters across my empty mind,
Casting shadows on the times where
Nothing mattered beyond the moment.
Life breathes in and out
To the rhythm of the broken record
That we relentlessly cram
Into our vacant hearts,
As if trying to drown out the hollow drone
Of the love
Manufactured in Sunday night sitcoms and materialized on Broadway.
Simple actors, we betray our inner wishes,
And sell them in the form of words
To a greedy audience, yearning to be reassured
That they aren't the only ones who mistake pain for something
Pure.
Time and time again,
I repeat my cynical mantra
Through the motion of my feet upon the ground;
Because, history repeats himself
Until emotion can no longer tread
The freezing waters of existence,
Leaving nothing but a trace of
Something that we foolishly lament with the names of a lover,
And drape with the revealing veil of time-
Mistaken for the truth,
And worshiped at the alter of God.

I wish you would hear me when I say I've been thinking about you.
It's not enough, you say:
Your name glaring from my cellphone screen
As it writhes with the vibration of the bottomless void of empty phone calls.
I can't pick up the phone,
But I hope you can find solace that I've been thinking about you.
Star crossed lovers lament their first person plot lines until they intersect.
Between unanswered text messages and disregarded voicemails,
Juliet heaves her shoulders in between scenes
And Romeo checks his emails;
But still my mind remains undisturbed
And thinking about you.
It's not the same, you cry:
That I hide my presence,
Yet I wish you could feel the quivering waves my thoughts send out
As they bounce upon the heavy walls of your being,
Yes I know I've been away,
But I'm thinking about you:
A mantra echoed in my mind until it becomes second nature, heaving in and out in unison with my chest.

Pain is beauty:
The thick, swollen red line
Runs jagged between my hip-bones
To right beneath my belly button:
Peeking out from under my
Drawstring pants
As my figure wavers
In the fogged bathroom mirror reflection:

Beauty masks pain.
I focus on a freckle above my midriff
While my stomach heaves in and out-
A testament that I'm still Here.

Life is concealment
Of all the run ins with death
That we are too humble to
Praise
With the same unabashed glory
That we attribute to the very
God- whose own son's hands
Were marred with the scars
Of a self righteousness
That isn't felt in hospital recovery rooms.

Sensations are transitory-
Leaving subtle marks upon our fragile
Bodies,
A reminder
That death can never be beaten;

I trace my fingers across
The rigged Scar- but I don't feel
Anything-
I don't feel the missing faulty pieces
Of my body,
Carefully extracted like a childhood
Game of Operation:
They didn't belong there, anymore.

Beauty has fallen
(Down from the right hand of god)
Into the arms of modern medicine,
Adorned with sickly sweet lilies
And medals of honor
Pinned upon the breast
Of anyone tragic enough
To experience
Life
Without the security
Of a timely exit.

I am whole because my experiences
Are hidden beneath a functioning
Exterior:
My marred flesh burns against
The heavy fabric draped over
Last summer.

Experience is merely a fallacy
For survival:
My raised skin outlines
A tragedy too human
To pray about over the dinner table.

How can one measure happiness?
Today's youth fades into tomorrow's yesterday,
As age wears its weary toll upon
The cherub faced nation that cried at it's mother's breast
And asked for the world in technicolor.

The sun slinks his ambivalent profile across the unforgiving sky,
As we pace face down against the grain of time,
Counting seconds until they spill over,
Lapping up against our freshly polished shoes and quivering ankles,
And drown out the dying magic
Of the coming hour.

Day after day, we are aware of nothing,
Moved forward by the simple urge to live,
Created by motion pictures and life insurance billboard advertisements.
Is this what it means to be alive?

Years pass, and we pursue the same ancient questions,
That have disrupted our conscience
And held us accountable
For millenniums.
Yet, we are still no closer to an answer to our empty prayers.

Afraid of the unknown, we peel the face off God,
And disguise him in languages and fables
That embody an entire civilization
And the fear that turns it's wheels.

Life is the flat side of a butter knife-
Relentlessly turned upwards, upon a
Battered cedar coffee table. His muffled
Silver skin glistens amidst the two week
Old newspaper and hardened crumbs of
Sourdough toast, catching the reflection
Of his  weary hosts, as loud voices and silence
Rapidly bounce off the walls and onto his
Credit card-thin body:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Purposeless, he waits for someone to rescue him-
Pick him up from his five foot grave
Covered in peeling wood and sentimental scratches,
And slowly slide his cold, frame across the counter-
Anything to remind him of his relevance.
As the rusty butter knife lays, abandoned,
So life carries on- oblivious to his melancholy
Wails that fall dormant to the loud, blaring stereo,
And shifting feet that tread so softly
As to keep the monster from waking from her slumber.
Thus, the routine drones on and on,
To the soundtrack of 2am infomercials
Claiming indestructible silverware sets:
Oh, but they have yet to enter the finite world of Father Time.
As he sets his place at the table, wearily awaiting what's to come,
The butter knife exhales hope, and suffocates in an air of subtle indifference,
Claiming his stake as a hollow prop, within an afflicted stage.

Only in utter darkness is one able to fathom light
Only in utmost despair can one comprehend happiness
So alas I live in a dark dreary room
With the shades drawn, creating a dismal air
Encompassing all I have both loved and despised
Creating the prefect backdrop to illuminate light

Reality has spun its web,
Beneath the indifferent moon,
And as the ocean tides sigh and ebb,
It catches life- too soon.

Time has cast her heavy net
Upon the vacant skies
Begging dawn to ne'er forget
The sunsets slow demise.

Oh, fallen stars, don't fail me now
Your glow outlives your light.
Bear no sweat upon your brow,
For your death  is lost at night.

The sweetest eulogy does sound
Against the hollow space
That pushes the moon round and round,
Casting shadows 'cross my face.

Silence
Hurts my ears
My thoughts alone
Are what I fear
My minds constantly racing
Pacing
Off of my thoughts
Trapped in my head
No way out
For it exists within
My very soul
Encompassing me whole
As I listen I pay the toll
The noise around me
Seems to be muted
Substituted
With my thoughts
I try to speak up
But I'm lost in the silence
the chaos continues
In a peaceful violence
Alone in my mind
I begin to find
Freedom thrives
Inside
As I listen to the silence
I begin to feel
The sound waves rush through me
Intertwine with my senses
Allowing me to let down my defenses

Fear not, my friend, I've rescued you
And set you atop a stone,
Where you can sit and watch the world-
Ah, isn't it lovely all alone?

Don't weep, my child, for you are here
Against your wordly wishes,
But, sometimes what we think is best
Lands us broken and in ditches.

It's better here, above it all,
Look down upon the world-
Clench the day between your fist,
Watch it ooze out of your fingers, curled.

It's easier when you don't think,
For thought has dipped his feet
Into the muddied wishing well
That overflows with deceit.

Oh, fallen angel, does it hurt?
To wash off your bloodied palms,
And stretch your hands out to the sky,
A most perverted kind of alms.

You're safer here, on ground so high
That to look down is enough,
For if you were to take a leap,
Your faith would turn to dust.

Losing you is like waking up on your 18th birthday,
And feeling no different than the day before,
Yet knowing that something inside you is taking its course.
Week after week, gradually you become older,
In a way that can't be measured by years.
You mark out your calendar as if keeping record will stop time from driving you mad.
Birthday dinners, doctors appointments, and important obligations
Peak out from under black scribbles and abstract musings.
Moving on is when the page is full and blotted,
And it's time to move to February.
We're fated for that kind of closure, I think.
The past months aren't any less real or poignant now that they've been pushed aside,
But they can't affect me like they once did.
Missed lunch dates and last minute schedule revisions
Don't mean anything less than when they were happening,
But their significance was left, crumpled and blacked out on the face of January.
Stuck in the distant space where past months vanish.
Holding on is when you accidentally write 2012
Instead of 2013, and have to quickly distort the two
Into a three, before anyone has time to notice.
There's no sentiment attached, instead it's a testament of broken routine
And nothing more.
That's how losing you feels.
There's no wilted rose or breaking waves
To symbolize a heartache that's no longer here,
Those sentiments of emotion left along with you
And the cold, indifferent agenda of January.
I tried to fight it off as long as I could,
By pushing you into a corner of my mind,
Almost impossible escape,
Holding fast to the memories we share,
Convincing myself it wasn't over,
That there was still hope,
That I still cared.
I was never afraid of moving on,
Or losing you,
No, I knew that would be inevitable,
Beautiful, almost.
Instead, it was no longer caring that scared me:
My capability to shut off all emotion,
With the switch of a button,
Obliterate all of what we had.
It's too late now, even these words fall flat
Against my self made wall
Of gentle indifference and time.
Soon February will fade to march,
Leaving January buried deeper beneath the fabric of closure.

Love stems from the moment
In which words are no longer of use
When expressing the most poetic of feelings
Is done so with a sense of poetry that does not need to be written down
Ah, I want to feel the emotions run through my veins
Spurting out into the world
Yet not chained to paper and ink
I want the compulsion to write it all down
Yet the intimacy to refrain
For no words are worthy of portraying such a passion
This is love in it's rawest form
Stripped of all the conventional formalities
Which weigh it down

Its hard to sleep when my minds constantly racing
As if there's a conclusion that its desperately chasing
In and out of an intricate maze
Obscured by my emotions foggy haze
So in the night I lay submerged in my thoughts
The one time of the day when I want to be lost

alone in the depths of my minds chaotic commotion
trapped in the relm of my ever changing emotion
trying to make sense of my hopeless devotion
instead i turn, holding my gaze to the ocean

caressing the shore, the waves pull me in
unleashing, unlocking something deep within
teasing and taunting daring me to begin
for life is a game i can never win

the lull of the waves whisper softly in my ear
silently beckoning me to surrender my fear
awakening my senses, pulling me near
as i look out to the ocean my perception becomes clear

I'm afraid of love
There I said it
Now that its over I can pretty much forget it
Go on with my life
It hasn't bothered me before
Ignore the nagging pain reminding me there's more
More to life
Yeah its hard to comprehend
Especially when I live in a world of pretend
Twisting words in my head
If they can't break they'll bend
Words are nothing without being defined
So then what is it that makes love divine?

The rough caress of memories is too much,
Too stale,
To obvious
For your name,
Your scent,
Your causal way of existing.
Lines dedicated to you,
Eulogies dedicated to you,
Tombstones and sentimental quotes
Etched on bare, mournful flesh
All dedicated to you-
They aren't real enough,
Honest enough,
Cruel enough,
Beautiful enough
For reality,
For your existence.

My generations at a hold up
Force fed lies by society
We're never gonna grow up
Preoccupied with what we need
We subconsciously become devoured by greed
Insecurity is at the bottom of consumption
"You need __ to succeed"
We're the last of a dying breed
Materialistic makeup
Our genetics have mutated
We're no longer able to wake up
From the nightmare we've created
Identification has taken a new definition
You are what you posess
Unaware the latest trend is only repetition
Sheltered by our ignorant need
Progress is our main goal
Yet we're unsure of how to proceed
So instead we proclaim our need for change
While spending the last of our common sense
On a fee to enter this stage
Which acts as our cage
Locking us into society's game
It's the final act
Our last chance to fame

If love can't be put into words
Then why is "I love you" constantly heard
All it does is chain the emotion down
Flooding it with language
Making it drown
As it plummets deeper
We try to revive it
Self inflicting scars
Just to say we survived it
Wearing our hearts on our sleeve
We long to belive
Afraid to admit deceit
Unaware of the inevitable defeat
Which accompanies the empty words
That are said just to be heard
So proclaim your best notion
Of your hopeless devotion
As your words drag you down
To the depths of the ocean
By exploiting love
You've diluted the meaning
Locked it away
In a realm of dreaming
Forever stuck within our mind
Broken off from language
That's where it's bind
So the phrase "I love you" holds it's ground
Reducing it's self to a meaningless sound

Missing you is like a tornado in Kansas
Tumultuously whirling past barren grass lawns,
Shattering the glass windows of old, forgotten
Convenience stores and local barber shops,
Twisting and teasing the warm, summer air
Until it finally gains momentum enough
To come tumbling down upon unsuspecting
Rosemary bushes and rusty metal fences,
While I'm sitting here,
Trying to make sense of how I'm supposed to feel about it all,
On a beach somewhere between Monterey and San Francisco.
It isn't that you don't exist, or that you aren't occurring,
Destructively whirling your mixed intentions
Across the pavement
That once gave way to my strange, unrestricted heart.
It's not that I don't care about you,
Or that I don't notice
When you make your presence all but unnoticeable,
But, maybe I don't see you anymore.
You're sentiment can't reach me here.
The harsh tornado winds aren't quite strong enough
To blow across my indifferent face
All the way from Kansas.

I fell asleep beneath a cape
Of thick, porcelain mist-
And let my soul sink into the ground,
As darkness did persist.
I heard a demon cry to god,
Begging his precious grace
To wash away the rotten ash
Crucified upon his face.
The air was cloaked with righteousness,
It seeped into the pores
Of pagan trees and shrubbery:
Cast out of heaven's doors.
I curled my knees up to my chest,
And wrapped my arms round close,
As cold, damp air embraced my skin,
Invoking the Holy Ghost.
                                                                                   MB.

In order to move on you must let go
Free from your past, find the courage to grow
Harness your strength, don't be afraid to fly
Your broken wings will heal as you reach for the sky
Metamorphosis of the mind
Break through the cocoon by which your bind

Midnight was made for broken hearts,
For lying awake with the lights off,
And retracing memories that never happened.
It's easier to love when you're alone.

Midnight was made for the broken hearts,
For whispering forgotten promises,
As if uttering them will drain them of their potency.
It's easier to love when you're alone.

Growing up never comes when you expect it:
It's when you realize that the suicide note under your mattress
Probably has a few too many commas where semicolons should be,
And a little too much emphasis on the last four years of your life-
Missed due dates, flunked exams, and friendships that were supposed to be forever.
It's when you figure out that the boy you spent your freshman year of college worrying about
Never even knew the name of your favorite book,
Or anything else that really mattered.
It isn't something you can predict, or prepare for-
It isn't a sudden shift of priorities that all of a sudden appear
Somewhere in your subconscious, making it a lot easier to get up at 9am for a statistics class
That you're inevitably going to fail.
It isn't anything you do that will change, but rather
A shift inside of you that slowly shakes your entire being.
Youth is only beautiful until it's corrupted,
By the sultry hands of time, beckoning you forward when all you ever wanted to do was hide.
It slowly seeps down into the darkest corners of your mind,
Swallowing up all that innocent ambition
Flung upon you in the fifth grade by a board of indifferent teachers
Who decided to deem you gifted, introducing you to a world of knowledge
Too fascinating to mingle with the uncertainty of responsibility.
There's something frightening about growing old,
Maybe it's because you spent one too many hours of your childhood
Pretending to be someone else- caught up in a storybook world
Full of daydreams and simplicity, too one dimensional for reality.
It's not that it goes away all of a sudden: all the premature doubt
And impulsive wishes of death, or something like it.
But rather, it takes a different form-
That which was once a big red ball full of passionate emotions,
Has deflated, leaving you with only a faint residue of what you used to feel.
Maybe, you got your wish after all- something had to die, you know,
In order for you to carry on without losing your mind.
It's a sad paradox, this sequence of living,
As intuition slowly deteriorates, and common sense
Slinks in, in its premeditated, yet lackluster manner,
And before you know it, you're not a kid anymore.
Peter Pan flew the coop years ago, but Neverland still remains,
A testimony to all the lost childhoods of the ones
Too eager to lay their stake in the land of milk and honey.