We suffer the wounds of the dead without knowing.
Until, finally,
It is our turn to die.
We create the scars
The future is haunted by-
Architects of our own disdain.
Cycles cannot be tamed
Only broken.
Humanity has never changed.
Evolution means
Molding into something greater
Than what was.
I dare not refer to myself
By the name
The dead bequeathed to me.
I no longer am.
I can only become.

Fickle memories
Trickle
Down the pickled grooves
Of the brain.

Truth, over time,
Becomes distorted,
But the feelings remain.

The mind decays
And the heart remembers
The warmth of sun rays-
How violently they kiss the skin.
"Did I put on sunscreen today??"

A moment frozen in time
Plays in an endless loop
In my medulla, but its just a feeling;
I cant quite recall the actual scene it alludes to.

I've become exposed nerve-
Reacting only to touch,
I no longer seem to remember much.

I dont even know what I should know.

Oh..

There it is.

Blindness:
A courtesy to myself
To not be crushed
By gravity.

In these times,
Caring is not impossible,
But heroic.

But *******,
I am only

Mortal.

Have I become a vestige of memory?
Are words the only thing keeping me....

Alive?

I fear death; both literal and metaphorical.

These letters trickle from my veins-
Crimson rain
To let you know
I'm still up there
Pouring my all
Into whatever container
You need filled.

I am not dead.....

Still

No me entiendes
Simplemente por que no quieres
Hacer el esfuerzo.
es culpa de nadien-
No queremeos amor
Sin retorno;
Lo entiendo,
Pero sin Valor,
Tal vez
Es justo
Que nunca
Ganamos
Nada.

"Would you follow me
Willfully
To your own destruction?"

Yes
Yes
Yes,
I love
Burning
In the flames
Of flawed
Love

Where have you gone?
Have you absconded
To somewhere better.
I'm accustomed to loneliness,
But I still hate feeling lonely.
I fester in memories
That keep me an invalid
To love.
If I didn't think you're touch could save me
I'd leave you alone,
But I am prone
To romantic ideas
That have no basis in reality.

My past creations are revelations
Of the beauty I once possessed.
My mind deserves its rest.
My best
Is distant memory
That I can reflect on
Happily.

People idolize butterflies
For their beauty,
But curse their fragility.

Being human
Is wanting to contain
That which is better off
Free;

The essence we so desperately

Desire.

Writing.
Fighting
Demons that should've
Let me rot years ago.
I take my breaths;
Inhale deep and slow.
I consume the world around me,
But never grow-
Stultified caterpillar
With nowhere to go.
I know
There is more to this.
Whatever this is.
But until
My eyes are allowed
See salvation;
You can find me here.

Life doesn't seem
As difficult
As people make it out
To be.

All you have to do is:

Keep breathing...

Keep breathing...

The sublime times
We would climb
Hills
Just to sled down
On trashcan lids.

We were kids
And we were poor,
But we never wanted anything
More;
Just more time to continue the fun.

I seep those memories in my sleep.
I miss when dreams
Were within arms reach.
All we yearned for was the presence of each other.
I was your friend.
You were my brother.

Depression
                         Is like
A mountain

That you alone must peak
Just
        
            To climb back down again.

I hear your voice speak.

                                               It says
I don't have to do this

But I do.
But I do.

I'm slipping
                       On the rocks.
Wishing
For some rest,
But I keep pushing
To the top

Just

          To climb back down again.
I don't have to do this,

But I do.
But I do.

I extend
                 My hands
To the sky.
Its so blue and out of reach.

I get closer
                      Every time,
But I have to say goodbye.

I have to climb back down the mountain.

I'll be back up again soon, I know....

I know I don't have to climb back down the mountain,

But I do

I do

I do.

I long for your voice.

The world is ending
According to people who've never known struggle.
People who've never had to drink rain water out of a puddle
Those who never had to muffle their breathing while hiding under floor boards
As murderers muddle their nature to execute evil accords.
The most protected demographic
Becomes befuddled at the thought
"Safety isn't promised

I've been lauded as
"Pretty decent"
I've been celebrated
As "A Cool Guy"
I can chop mountains
In half with my fist.
A voodoo child,
I have never missed
My mark.
My story arc
Has only begun.
The highest peaks
Are only distractions
I want more than
This earth can give.
More
More
More

The shiver down my spine
Is a ghost touch
From your tender fingers
Tracing the essence of my being.
Signs of the times
Told me our love was fleeting,
But I did not heed 'em-
The future is always too far away to be feared.

Well,
It's here,
And I didn't prepare like I should've-

Paralyzed by some inescapable sense
Of Now...

I still think of the time we spent together
It seemed so endless.
The finitude of the moment
Made our love taste sweet.
The misfortune was-
It only tasted so
once the moment
Was complete.

I was never supposed to have lived this long,
Yet here I am-
At an age where I need to redefine success;
Genuinely attempting happiness.
The ills of this world are too easily undressed, I must confess.
And I think it's because the beauty we possess
is...

Bombarded by the present,
I miss days under my ****** Tunes blanket
Eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch on Sunday
Watching reruns of VH1's I love the 80s.
We seem to always idealize the past.
The good in us is forever,
Evil never lasts.
I wonder about the future
And if I'd reminisce about the now.
What foggy gratitude could I have created about our situations?
All I know is, I was struggling those Sundays underneath my blanket,
But I still miss those days.
In some weird way,
I know I'm going to miss today too.

History is changing before our very eyes.
Every moment has its sides.
Only time decides
Who or what is right.
I've seen it time and time again.
And I don't much care for societies
Or ideologies
Or causes,
But I do support humans' right
To be human.

That's all we are-
Be kind to yourselves

There is something about distance
That makes you yell for what you've been missing,
And something about closeness
That forces you to seek silence.
I see your image
Behind closed eyelids,
Only to open them
And be met with
Mirages.
If you were truly here,
I would turn over,
My back to yours,
And find comfort
That I could take you for granted

There are names
In history
I wish I could see:
Don Rickles, Maya Angelou, Charles Bukowski (to name a few)
They speak to me
Through time
With the art they left behind
The interviews, the words,
I cling to
They are jolts to my nerves
Twitching life into my soul
Ultimately
That is what I want to be
To someone
A spark telling you to keep going

You are beauty incarnate,
******* magical,
Don't let anybody tell you different
Not even yourself

I don't like spoken word
Find it absurd.
Don't like coming up with phrases that coerce you to listen.
Don't like to force attention.
It should be natural,
Like tornados uprooting trees.
And this is not me standing preaching poetry: love, beauty, nature, loss.
It's me ******* that we accept the ends but not the cost.

I stare at this drink we so ravenously imbibe
-take a sip-
In its reflection I can see myself alive.
I've just the right amount of pride.
No fear, no need to hide.

Now and only now
If you were to take my hand for a moment
I could lead you to a land
Where we won't belong,
But in time we would own it.

I live in the moment
Between sighs
and the half-lies
people spew.
As they prepare to convince themselves
What they believe is true.

I seem to be secure
With what I know.
How am I so sure?
I'm not quite sure.

I'm a mix of Lil Ugly Mane
And Maya Angelou.
Don't know how to reconcile the two.
Lately, I've been working on my attitude,
But I still don't give a ****-
Still don't give a ****.

My life is a mixture of luck
And bad circumstance.
I know the words to my favorite songs,
But have forgotten how to dance.
There's something my heart longs for,
But when it is gotten
It never lasts.

I shine on like a crazy diamond
Lost in a hazy umbrage.
How do I express myself with words
When I know not where to find them?
The dilemma sends me into fits of rage.

The soul is too much
to measure,
I shine,
Just bright enough
To be considered
Treasure.

I live life
Tragically
With people claiming
To know me
Know me
Now.
My,
How much I've grown-
Bet I'd still die lonely
Like Klaus Nomi.
Isolate yourself
Don't rush
To hold me
Hold me
Now.
My,
How long I've known
My destiny-
Fate,
Come show me
Show me now.
Will the world
With their collective brow
Claim
To know me
Know me
Now?

Been dreaming about Porsches and pornstars
All while holding my wife
Lovingly in my arms.
And I know it's a malady
To want more
When I have more than I need.
I find it difficult to come to terms with this reality.
I use to never have dreams
Now it seems,
It's all I have

Do you, by chance,
Know of romance?
Far too long I've had
A dalliance
With self-deprecation.
I was so sure I didn't deserve love,
Or a hug,
Or a sympathetic look.
Only recently have I learned what my past had taken-
Silenced a heart to keep it from breaking.
It's been yearning to awaken.

Do you, by chance, know of romance?
Not what movies feed you, or what novels mislead you into believing-
that there are happy endings.
Do you know how to wake up,
And as your eyes are still adjusting,
Not see demons in your reflection?
Do you know how to center yourself when life is spinning you in all directions?

Do you, by chance,
Know of the hardest romance-
Loving yourself?

It is our lot
To tabulate
This formula before us.

The sin lies
in thinking
We all have the same puzzle
To solve.

Dear reader,
Though we come from the same source,
The forces that guide us are quite dissimilar.

I assure you I have none of your pieces.
Understand me,
And you may know what peace is.

Our worries, endless as they may be,
Aren't shared,
And that's quite alright.
That's quite alright.

Has been around for millennia.
We are fruit
Falling from the branches
Of a tree.
A tree we could never truly understand.
We fall
To give others
Another chance.
Some are carried away
By the wind
Or finches,
Or insects.
But most of us fall.
And most won't grow
Into a life giving tree.
Maybe you;
Definitely not me.
But that is the game.
As I see the ground approaching
At terminal velocity-
I'm just happy that I got to play.

A mayonnaise man
Tells me
I need to spice up my life.

He can see the boredom in my eyes.
He thinks
Something new
Will awake me from my slumber.
But he does not know
I wish to kiss thunder.
I want to feel my atoms burning.
I want to be crushed by the gravity
Of some distant planet.

"I think I'm going to take up writing." I tell him.

He smiles and says, "Yeah you should write a book or something."
He walks off.

And I am his hope-
This mayonnaise man
With all his plans
And systems
And routines.

He sees the chaos in my eyes
And knows,
Even that isn't good enough for me.

I won't let you down.

Am just
A whisper in the wind-
A gentle reminder of
A dying love.
Above our skyscraper egos
Are worlds still unknown.
Ask for entrance
And you will be shut out forever.
All you have to do is listen;
Audible ghosts scream to us from
Beyond the cosmos.
Bifurcated banshees (our ancestors)
Beg to become whole within us.
Between you and I,
Civilization has reached its peak.
Countless eons of evolution have
Cultivated us writing, madly scrawling
Ciphers to make sense of nonsensical

Existence.
But
I,
Am just a whisper in the wind.
Slowly losing my ability to continue on.
It's all up to you now.

Scrolling through newsfeed
I read
Emmitt Till's historical marker
Had to be made bulletproof
and weigh 500 lbs so as to not be removed.
In some states,
Courts fight for Confederate statues
To stand tall.
There's a tragedy somewhere in it all
I'm sure,
But I don't know what to do about it.

I have California dreams,
But also
Texas sensibilities.

Hopelesseley lost,
In a weak daze
From inconsequential week days
That have no bearing on a future I am not promised.
I pretend to be-
I pretend I am
Alive,
But if I could behave eternally,
Nobody would ever know of me.

It is difficult to feel yourself burning when your hands have always been too close to the flames

Ecclesiastes speaks my soul.
All that I know
Had already been known.
What purpose is my toil
If I am destined to return to soil
And give rise to another who is the same as me?
Wisdom brings no peace-
Ignorance, no clarity;
Where then does felicity reside?
Oh! The irony of curiosity
Knowing **** well
It brings only more strife...
Why God
WHY
is life?

I am the blood of a million failures
Whose only success
Was making the next.
A jellyfish floating by
Hoping to catch what nourishment I can with my tendril soul.
I am not whole,
I was broken from the start.
And I do not know
Where the swallows go when they are not resting upon my window.
Perhaps some place higher than I ever had the ability to imagine.

I speak as though you are familiar, but we lost each other long before our formation. At this point, words are too much information when all anyone wants is to feel.
I feel for you,
But introductions and conclusions always were my weakness,
So I'll float on
Forever

Forever


Forever



Forever

Bottle of sake in hand,
Looking for a way to make the momentary pause before oblivion last.
At the end of it all
No one will remember
The war
The love
The joy
The pain.
I sit
Longing to understand the song the cosmos sings,
But barley understanding my own heartbeat.
The trouble is
Trouble is the only peace we know-
We are,
We were,
Moments
Just moments
In infinity

If my face
           Reflected
My inner scars

                         People
Would give me

                                              A wider
                                                             berth

How does one muster the courage
To continue on
When dying
Is the natural thing to do?

Why step lightly?
Why proclaim politely
The thunder cracking in your bones?
Fear- you'd do good to leave it well enough alone.
Misery is the river of the world
Now
Row row row
Up a stream you already know,
Or jump overboard
And make a big enough splash
To drown out the low drum;
The consecrated, numb voice
Singing in your ears,
"Why?"

My attention span
Is such.....

Tumbling Out of no where
From some indescribable source

With the force of a million babies
Squeezing your finger

Where do we find the strength
To continue
When there is war
Thievery
Taxes
Broken hearts
Lies
A 9 to 5
Religion

Life is enough
To make one want death
Yet still
We draw breath

And we find comfort in the smallest of things
Music
Hope
Love
Movies
Poetry
Games
Virtue

Had we known
The veil was so thin
Would we still have worn it
Like a cape

I think we would've
Because IT comes

From somewhere

Whatever IT is

The longer I live
The less I feel I should.
This is not my space.
I drink
To run.
Wish I could run
Away.
I run in place.
My thoughts like spider eggs
Thrive in the darkness-
My heart like sunflowers
Craves the light.
How does one stop this
Asymmetry
Without a violent fight?

The longer I look
The harder it gets to see
Any meaning.
The longer I write
The less it works
To dull my bleeding.

Does anyone have a fix?

I no longer look for greatness
Among men or the stars.
I clang my head, endlessly, across these bars.
I like the ringing sound they make,
Like church bells-
A wedding cake.
My family gathered round,
No longer hurting.
The tiny dreams that keep me awake,
For in sleep,
I am undeserving.
But sleep I must-
There is greatness in ash and dust.
No soliloquies,
No platitudes,
No profound prose.
Simply death
And cosmic truth.

Water drop
Longing return to the ocean
You can move mountains- erosion

It simply takes time

I am a blood diamond
Beautiful to see,
But rife with pain and agony

Looked upon by dead elk eyes
Sold by treachery and pretty lies

"I came from the dirt
Made the cut and blew"

To shine
A light
I never knew

Poetry is a dull flame to a dark ignorance.
I sing and you dance.
Don't ask what the words mean-
They are a screeching silence
Echoing the musings of a breathless life.
Something you don't understand, but resonates within you regardless.
You sing, by chance I may sway with the beat. I won't dance for my poetry is incomplete. And I can analyze the purity of your eyes, but there is no fun in dispelling lies.
My heart is wonderous art that bears no meaning except to whomever created it.
Nonsensical
Yet relatable-
A sharp darkness
To a blinding flash