Sorrow touches my lips
As I exhale
An agonizing sigh.
Slumped over in a chair
Eager to go nowhere.
And I feel alone
Because I am.... I think.
And Descartes has been dead for some time now, but his thoughts live on amongst scholars claiming to know something of the world.
Meanwhile, I know nothing. Why does the sun keep coming up? Where do the dead go? Does time speed forward, or march on slow?
My back tires. I change posture, lean back.
I am alone, but these faces are not to blame. How do we communicate when I know not their name?

There's
Some things
Even the greatest
Poet
Can not
Write

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.

Like a moth, I seek flames to ignite matchstick eyes.
I fear kodokushi.
I fear failure.
But most of all, I fear the way traffic moves so slowly towards nowhere.
The trivial things I wish I could escape but can not.
And I know the answers to questions no one has asked...
It is not enough.
I just want to crumple into my self
Like a spider dying.
Becasue I fear everything life has to offer,
And death holds all the promise.
I stifle a few tears
Just to write
Afraid to be exposed by the light
For I am just....

The world perpetually turns.
The Phoenix eternally burns.
Somewhere beneath the embers
Is a memory nobody remembers.
The smell of cleaning chemicals
Fills my nostrils,
But getting the stains out seems impossible.
God gives us only what we can handle,
But my suspension is shot,
So any little bump is a lot.
The air is getting warmer.
The air is getting thinner.
I struggle to breathe, there's no salvation for a born sinner.
The world turns perpetually.
The Phoenix burns eternally.
I am not so lucky.

I had a dream of a face or a place-
I can't quite remember.
You were there, or maybe....
Not.
It was an aluminum haze,
An emerald craze.
The days don't seem too real anymore,
But honestly,
They never did.
I had a dream
The first in.... I can't remember.
It was warm, soothing;
Everywhere, but never moving.
But now I soar to lands dripping with diamonds
And the dream,
The dream gets farther and farther
Out of reach.

To walk through the fire unscathed
Is not ideal
For it means you are too used to the burn-
And no one likes their steak well-done

I feel ***** when I go out in public.
Like a mangy dog everyone tries to avoid.
I don't want to cause problems, but people treat me so.
I stay to myself, someone walks up and asks what's my deal.
"I have none." I say.
They walk away, hate brooding in their eyes.
What gods have I angered to deserve such a fate.
My head hangs low as I look for scraps, to be left alone, that would be a blessing.
On a side note, writing seems to be losing its magic. Things I could not bear seem to be piling on. My escape is gone, and I fear I'm being backed into a corner, and eventually I'm going to have to fight back, only to reinforce people's image of me.

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

In my head is a universe that no one knows. A love that can't be shown with acts or words. I'm burning on stars
"Solo....
Inhale, in hell there's heaven."
'Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'
I swim in pools of endless seas
That no one sees.
Any advice is bad advice to me,
And so I fly
"Solo"
Amongst the cumulus;
In God I trust,
But he won't save all of us.
"Inhale, in hell there's heaven."
Don't know where I'm headed.
The world is upside down-
My boots are leaded
I can't fall up...
I **** it all up.
I'm so low
And I don't know where I'm headin'
Life is on borrowed credit
I want to bash my head in-
No one seems to know why
Because I roll solo,
You can't know....
"It's hell on Earth and the city's on fire.
Inhale, in hell there's heaven."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Not sure
                   When it happened.
When I lost passion.
Maybe,
                 Like all things,
It fades with time.

The process of moving a pen
Across a page doesn't feel the same.
Words don't carry weight,
But still they pull me down
As I drown in a pool of non-existence.
And I say "non-existence" because if you exist in a state other than your full potential, does it even really count?

All the failures of past generations and their endless frustrations; can you not feel them mount?

All the questions I can't ask out loud
So I write them down,
But what do I do when anxieties abound
And the smell of fresh ink doesn't sedate me like it used to?

When life gets too much
And you need to escape the clutch
Of reality, where does one recuse to?

Gentle words
                          Move me
Amongst
              Fellow Gentiles
Who weren't promised
                A thing.

What's psalms do I sing

               Now?

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

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

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?

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.