You were a beat
Pumping rythym always
put you on your feet

You were the big Dean
A man of virtuous sin
and grandfather's raspberry gin

Now you're too tired
to even see the end

Complacency
Black patent smiles
paired with
               business        ties
   Empty rooms
and cat fur coats
a sinful angel.

Why so somber saturn suns?
    Sleep so numb

Complacency
or the inert force of facing your fears
You lost all your big brass hair
searching for the apparition of a heart        thats
                                                                     never there.

Blue like the jazz in your finger tips
                 the kind of somber tune that lingers on your breath
Like smoke stuck in the over grown hairs falling out of your ears
      and the 5 o'clock shadow thats grown from black to grey
              over these past few      
                   years.

There was velvet on that monarchs back
         she was drinking irish whiskey          and had a hollowed out voice
The past is gone
Except for on your tongue
Dancing in your mouth
from the top of your spine
to the root of your brain

The future is in your sheets
I'll leave you alone
I'll let you sleep
But you know I'll sit at the foot of your bed
Just to see you wake
         With diamonds in my eyes
                     and blue     jazz          in                   my                               blood.

Why has love become so obsolete?
She asked as the forest floor pierced her feet
Broken homes and collar bones
Never known

A lush land burned by empty beings
To build fire escapes
And something attached called homes
Boxes and rows of superficial success
And fraudulent faces

Your chances are 50/50
maybe less
so why should I be a part of this mess?

I'm a waste
(More or less just breathing space)
Florescent bulb
Midnight pulp
Synchronized sinking
And one brain gulp

Our time is short, sweet,
And something bitter in between
Scratched glasses
And a baby soft sixteen

Don't tell me how
   let me discover
   let me live with juvenessance
   and purity.
But then when the time comes
   I will have to experience
   I will be stained with the
       imperfections of the human hand...
                                                                      crushed.
Even then you must let me get *****
                                  let me feel pain.
                                  let me sit on the shore of vastness
                                  and let me contemplate what put me here.
Without suffering we have no reason to fight.
We have no drive for peace.
So let me be born
                        and born again
and let me search over
                                 and over again

                        until I become the one you cannot search for.

Perfection.
A sun my wax wings won't reach.
                How?
Struggle and pain and all gain.
                Now?
Ok.
         Find my body washed up on the beach.

This is not a poem.
This is my dedication to a man who touched my soul and gave me the gift of the most valuable knowlege I have ever gained in school.
I do not know how to explain Mr. Fowler in a paragraph and I feel as though any representation of him in just one small paragraph would be inadequate.  However I will do my best to share with you how he impacted my life my ninth grade year.  Ninth grade is a major transition year for everyone.  New people, new school, and still a little bit of that middle school juvenescence.  I was no exception to such awkwardness (as much as I'd like to believe I was) and Mr. Fowler inspired me even on the first day.  He had a passion for biology and even more than that he had a passion for dispensing his knowledge (as well as his own meandering thoughts) to his students.  He expressed his love for his work to us often; mostly just sprinkling it over his enthusiasm for a lab or whatever we were doing that day.  I may not have had an ideally left-brain thought process as you would wish for an honor biology student and yes I did struggle but Mr. Fowler would not have ever left me behind.  However he did not only touch my life academically.  For three weeks at the beginning of my second semester in high school I was absent due to depression, cutting, and bulimia.  My mind was at war with me and I told my parents I needed help.  They checked me into a rehabilitation center for the next three weeks. While out of school North Springs was not easy to get in touch with. In fact they didn't even answer my mothers calls to get my work until I was finishing the program and coming into school the next day.  Due to my school's lack of organization and incompetence I was three weeks behind and kept falling further and further.  I was supposed to be put on a plan by my school to make my recovery less stressful and to help me catch up.  That did not happen either.  My school didn't even count my absences excused despite the hospital notes… Two months passed and I was even more behind and growing more fearful that I would have to repeat second semester until I went to Coach Cushman and Mr. Fowler.  Mr. Fowler offered me support and I will never ever forget how kind he was too me.  He told me we all have health problems but that doesn't mean we can't move forward it just takes a little confidence and work.  He let me come talk to me whenever and gave me passes to stay after class.  He has a beautiful mind and a caring heart, and although it was severely hard for me to reach the level of understanding of the material that I had missed not only in biology but in every other subject I passed.  I cannot express my gratitude towards him for I may not be a tenth grader this year without his help and patience.  My condolences go to his family as well as the family he has with the North Springs staff.  I would also like to say that though Mr. Fowler may not be with us in a physical realm he is still here with us in spirit and one of the many lessons I believe should be taken away from his time with us is that you should love your work.  If you do not live for what you do, you are simply doing the wrong thing.

Your heart ticked like
               an open time    
                        bomb
Beneath my swollen finger tips.
                I gazed into  
                        your star filled
face and smiled.

I couldn't help it  
           Your body was singing beneath my grasp
                       and your heart beat shook mine
We're in tune
         In time
            you said.
I'll believe you
                                       Until the record starts to skip

How simple would it be if I were a tree?
My only worry would be growing
And bathe in sunlight one should see
How simple would it be if I were a tree

Tall and beautiful; aesthetically bright
For who sees trees and sticks their nose in the air?
Who shouts at the top of their lungs
"How awful! God did not want that there!"

How simple would it be if I were a tree

acid stains you
like the thousands of neighbors you never really knew
acid changes you
like when the window panes climb to the sky
and you never really figure out why
acid stains you

we held hands in our rubber-shared-handstands
but you never really thought through your plans
the mountains would become the sun
and we could warm our guns
we would never know
how much we'd really changed

we were puzzles in layers of nothing
but it's all got to be for something
we were tired but we never really slept
dreaming with our eyes open
wishing not to forget

the candles and kaleidoscope hopes
time lapsed trees and stars on boulevard
halls of breath and crazy drug popes
i don't really know it's all dope

we were emaciated; ruined  
much like the twisted silence at the foot of your bed
a hollow battle field where our hearts would lay
and in nooks of tangled legs and distraught blankets
our secrets would hide

then at night fall they would dissapate
into the cage we called a home,
to poison the atmosphere already swollen
with ambigious thoughts and supressed dreams
  
we wait for rain
and we wait for the sun
but never reach into the atmosphere

so like our secrets we lay dormant
in our monotonous routines
and our open eyed sleep

I was your Saturn sun
I was your darkness won
I was a murdered dove
I was your hated love
I was strong but weak
and I never needed that peak
I tore into your attic
I crushed your velvet pops
I was your addiction
Then your time stopped
I held onto your cracked breath
I held onto your pain
I held onto your sacred touch
I dove into your frozen rain
Every kiss was magic
All the lust was the same
I miss your ****** face
I miss your lullabies

So until I see your swollen heart
I'll love your grave stone
Like I did from the start

I miss when we were trees
All we knew was growing to the sun
And God was in my shoe box
When he gave me a shower
In purple pagan rocks
Coiled seasons were never
Created by a big bang
Rapid sings like vapid
With TV waves in brains
Colors smell like black and white
Greyscale is just your head
(Melted membrane to the third)
Why did our lips still taste like living pine
That's what I was waiting for
Our completely open sign.

The toasty warm water
Synthetic nature, fluid in my veins
It almost felt like christmas
With jalapeños on top
It almost felt like the night
Your dying heart stopped
Wheezing beats poured in
And you washed your hands
Never ever to touch that needle again
But if only you had taken the chills
And the tired pain
You wouldn't be on this path
Of winter rain

Depression sinks like a ******* stain

the universe is one room, one pocket of energy
and it's expanded void
just like life is made of two cells,
star dust, and waves of orange and pink
and a sickening red
burning into sun like grapefruit
oxidized and covered in incense
skin only stays smoke
torn by time and time because it's torn
useless is the same
sometimes I feel real, but I usually see out of myself not through my eyes
it's almost
like my blood isn't in balance with gravity
sometimes it pushes up against my skin, expands too fast for force,
towards the stars
which is where we all start
and all start to end.

Because your hair smells like incense.
Because your body is just a cage for your mind.
For your spirit.
Because when you are broken, you know you have clay.
Because you think in poetry and pictures.
Because you know just over that mountain there is life.
Because you are you and you know exactly who that is.
You are beautiful.
And don’t let anyone tell you that just because your hair smells like incense…
Don’t let them say you can’t be the beauty over every mountain.
in every tree,
under it’s bark,
overflowing in it’s existence.
You are that beauty.

"I understand that your skin was soft and this is how it was supposed to be
but I'm still sorry" he waded silently through the crushed velvet waves
This made me think of all the skeleton keys
and the flowers just inside my walls, things buried too deep
I thought about how I wanted those things to stay hidden
Probably until my late 20's when I'll look back on my teenage years
And see every mistake in brightest light I can
And the corners of my mouth would feel warm, I'd smile.
"I take responsibility for what I've done... For what we've done.
I don't hate you, but I don't think we should really have any sort of relationship.  Just because I've accepted what happened doesn't mean
I don't feel my heart sink when I think about it, and it's been
What, two years? I don't know when that's going to change... or even if it will."
I replied struggling through quicksand that was far too familiar, but for some reason completely different this time.
He understood why I wanted things this way
We parted with a few simple words wishing each other the best.
And that was all.
But oh how badly I wanted things to change.

It's that moment that's going to stick with you
That moment where you honestly think your life is about to end
As you clutch the blue corduroy fabric on your couch
And scream out in pain
Your body is screaming back at you just as violently
"How could you do this to me?"
Your stomach is gnawing through your skin
You know you need to eat but the thought of it just
Forces stomach acids into your throat
You swallow and try to clutch the couch harder
You try to get a better grip on reality
But this is it
It's scary because you've already lost everything except for your physical being
And now life and death is melting into that couch
"You
        Are
               Dying."

Then,
At that moment,
You decide to run.

I guess it starts as a flame
Burning,
Bursting with energy
Melting the wax
Deterioating skin cells
Sick cells
Emotion and mind
It makes you stupid
Makes you insane
Makes you love
Makes you black, white, and a sickening red
And when the symptoms of infection start showing
When the blisters start oozing
And when the pain is unbearable
Put out the flame
Let your wax return to a solid state
But I warn you
Love leaves deformities
Leaves loving deformities
Puckered lines that are painfully friendly and painful reminders.

In the end there was no depth
No talk of life in whithering flowers
Or "I can't stand to be without you"
Only ambiguous dialogue
And love lost in nights spent alone
I melted onto your skin like wax
Scarring your memories of me
Into a malavolent **** that lies on your left wrist
But blood is not something I can handle.
Not when I've seen that blood in a hundred different ways
Pushing and pulling me in and out of what's natural and not.
Because in the end there was no we
Just a you
And a me.

I dove into him
Broke the surface of your ocean to feel
Ice cold lust
Crashed into your rock hard arms
And slid down your rough terrain
It took me years for my glaciers to reach the lake
To melt into your soft summer waters
To melt beneath your surface.

For some reason tonight I feel depressed
like there is a dark nebula forming inside of me.
I know that sounds stupid,
but it's how I picture it in my lungs,
asphyxiating me from inside,
melting my solid structure,
then gently pressing me into the earth,
and the whole time my heart is beating,
                                                        ­  beating,
                                                      ­      beating,
                                                  ­            until it just comes to a slow halt.
And I wonder what it's like to die alone?

This is to the moments that will be
but never were.
To the skyscraper dreams that stand up above us all
just to remind us that we really are small,
that even when the world stands before us it's you who makes it fall,
and mostly that you can't save it all.
This is for the waves of good,
not for the infinity of bad.
For the dreams that our nations youth once had
For the rubber bands
and my little heart strands that snap the same,
and the possibility that we can capture the moment when life is most clear.
Stay strong and carry on because you aren't the blame.

I killed you but I never touched your soul
I never drilled that hole
I never even wanted to take that kind of toll
You came to me
You made us one, two, three
And then I was out
We were through
And I never meant to bring this all to you.
Time was up
You were done
And I,
Myself,
Handed you the gun.

Eloquence lost in the wind
Dissipated like smoke
Trickling down your chin
My eyes roll back into my head
The burning builds throughout my body
And I'd rather be dead

You know,
That live fast die young *******.
That's me.

Bent, ready to break,
Or just ready to snap
You clean up so well
No one knows your act
But I know your smirk
I've seen your teeth
I've felt the blade

I just never knew
Nothing would change

You're carved thin
and I'm built round
You're everything I wish to be
and I'm everything I wish I wasn't
You're not rough and
You're smooth but not slippery
When I just fluctuate between the three
and I hate that I can't match the way your pen spills onto your paper
and how your feet fit so perfectly when mine are either too big or too small
When I get sick
You do too
but people actually care.
When we speak I feel an inadequacy that is too familiar
I love you
It's just hard to be static
No...
It's just hard to be beautiful.

I was dead all along
Predisposed to be a waste of wheezing breaths
I am the **** of the earth
Growing from ***** roots
I will always be the mutt,
the *******,
the runt.
Never will I reach heaven,
And never will I be at the top;
The cream of the crop.
I was born this way.
I am an addict.

Reality is not set in stone
Life
Life isn't real
Here
Here is life
He said
"Life can't be fake because the only thing you will ever consistently have until the day you die is the life you lead."
But it's scary not to know if I feel
If i see
If i touch, taste, smell
What's actually there
What if I can't see the blue
or the cold can't be felt
What if this isn't reality because reality
Is a dream when I was little
Those dreams that stayed with me when I was awake.

Void
Without any contents; empty.
Falling asleep feeling under my skin
Subsistence
The state or fact or existing.
Or nothing at all

Fraudulence
That seems so real
Like the feeling on my finger tips
Brushing water on your cheek

Smile lines
Thick from fake
Please have my heart to take

To live or to die
To do what's natural
What's right and what's wrong
What's ******* and what's not.

A sense of self worth
Something I can't gain or lose
Something that's just gray
Not black or white

Folded gently in the thickness of the wall
Polar emotions surely will mark my fall
Until life is nothing, nothing at all

You're my bones
Taking up your heavy stones
Can't possibly give me muscle loans
But you're still my bones

Finding time too fast
Crash, rebuild, and crash
Build up and trash

You're always in love
But what do you think it's made of?

Lost in hands locked
Tightly coiled around my finger tip
Bent and broken
For something my lips should slip

Round and round
For better or worse feelings lost within
Numb and aching
Surely you won't let this fluorescent light win

Glasses for night
As your mind would fail to grow
Lost in love
And your name I don't even know

Back
Behind these yellow walls
Behind every unspoken fall
Here I am back, behind these walls.

And nine times out of ten
We're all the same

I can see my heart beat in my eyes
And I can hear the little girl’s cries
Even where the little girl lies
I can see my heart beat in my eyes
I can see the blood in the grass
Even though our love is the mass
Partly because I let him pass
And I can see the blood in the grass
I can feel your pain
Never known any gain
Yet never known any strain
Still I can feel your pain
Is the world its true
Still only blue?

We are thin
Blood drawn in
Give us fate
We will wait

Time will tell
Tell us well
Change for me
Soon you'll see

Locked up dead
We are red