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

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.

Catch me

Catch me

I'm falling d
                    o
                     w
                       n

Don't know what life means
When you're not around.

I reach toward the heavens.
I want to tell you that you're everything, but
I can't finish this __.

Oh, what is life
When you're not around?
Don't know much,
Except, I'm falling down.

Catch me
Catch me
My wings are broken.
I don't expect anything,
But I was hopin'
That you could lend a hand.

I've been falling for sometime;
I just wanna land.

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.

What is humanity? Some languid thing floating through infinity.
Throwing confetti when Eagles fly.
Celebrate, celebrate before you die.
How is it no one sees the futility but me? Whoever reads this, know I am in dire straits. Humanity is lost on me, I share no human traits with you. Life is a misty dream undulating unto empty space.... I don't know my meaning, but I know my place.

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?

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'm only alone when I wake from my dreams.
The floor is quick sand.
I can barely stand;
I am trapped to my knees.
No kicking or screaming, please.
It facilitates demons entering me.

I'm only safe in my dreams.
I'm only safe in my dreams.

I'm only safe in my dreams.
Stuck in a world where nothing is what it seems.
Keep your electric eye on me,
I'll show you something real,
But only so briefly.
I made memories as a barfly
Floating through the sky-
It was all underneath me.
The dream doesn't last;
It is forever fleeting.

But I'm only safe in my dreams.
I'm only safe in my dreams.

One day
I shall dream
Forever.
There is
No better
Dream.
Days blend
Into night
Night blends into eternity
The stars
the eyes
Are one
Some are
Dead
Already
Time hasn't
Passed enough
For you to realize
Life
And
Death
Blend
As one
Itis
Tragedy
Itis
Fun
Thereisnoendonlycontinuum
Continue on.
What's in you
Is strong.
"I know
Nobody
Knows
Where it comes
And where
It goes......
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on."

It's ok to hurt sometimes.
Happy people run from their pain, then break like waves on a Cliffside-
I don't break.
I hurt, sometimes.
That is all.
The sun can't always shine, nor darkness last. It is the ever changing tide of life, it is rising to my feet, and it doesn't hurt, it doesn't always hurt most times.

I trace wild horses with my fingers;
Running,
Running in the dead of night.
Running from sunlight.
We were cursed to think up freedom
And not understand what it means.
The message is too many things.
Running-
From what?
Wonderful is the midnight dark
There is life,
There is the spark.
The perfect man is up
Looking in trashcans for food
To survive.
We live all this time
Just to die
One day.
So many years dedicated to
One day.
I'll find it out
Some day-
The way
Is too high
My thoughts, base.
Listen to the drums
Feel the bass in your bones.
Life is reflections and vibrations
A mind trying to make sense
Of imaginary stimuli
That's why I stare
At the stars in your eyes
Wondering
What the horses
Are running from

I have California dreams,
But also
Texas sensibilities.

I've nary a use for dreams.
Stifled memories and obscenities
Created by a tortured mind.
The real world
With it's dangerous and deceitful
Seems more kind.
Nothing left to find.
They continue to sell us the dream of the universe.
"New adventures"
It's like new love same lame heart.
Somewhere along the way
We've lost our art.
What use is a dream
When reality has become absurd

It's disheartening to see sparks that once caught your eye slowly flicker away and die. I think on how long I carried the flame. Has it been long?
How many people have looked into my eyes and saw the fire waning? Now the smoking ashes of a once memory flutter in the wind like butterflies in migration. Where do they go? I don't know nor do I care anymore...

This thing I do with my hands
Is not art,
Though some may see it's tragic beauty.
Like whispers on a mountain range
I write
Estranged from perception.
It is not for you.
Somewhere deep inside
Remnants of my soul cling to life.
Unrepentant breaths,
Suffering humble deaths.
Cuts across my skin
Just to release endorphins.
Pain no longer suffices.
Numbness has taken a hold of me
The mellow glow of a yellow niceness.
Freedom only in death.
Used up four lives
How many have I left?
My soul cries,
"Not quite yet.
Just write it out.
Ride it out."

Another day.
Things are OK.
I'm still waiting
For my moment-
Any moment.
The fire
Has dimmed.
Smoke billows
Toward the sky.
I breathe,
But I'm barely even alive.
What's the point of fighting?

The world is invisible.
My brain can't comprehend what we're doing here.
"Fight you idiot!" That's what the voice inside my head yells.
Poe asks, "Can you no longer hear the bells?"
I can't....
It's all a low buzz now:
Cars honking for me to go,
The songs on the radio.

I am mist
Dissipating in the wind,
But it is OK
It's just another day.

What we
Are,
We shall never
Be.
We are programmed
For the stars-
Programed to the
Sea.

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?

Spend too much time in my mind
Still not getting ahead
Lately I've been feeling the urge to cry
Not really knowing why
Maybe it's a well of emotions
I thought had run dry
Don't understand it but I try try try
Tyrannically
I'll make you love me
My words don't taste like they used to
Bittersweet
The day my dreams and memories meet
Maybe I'll find
Meaning in the secrets I so carefully keep

Don't force your thoughts onto my words.
Don't know if you're not sure.
What I mean and what I say
Are not the same-

A tragedy
I know...

I could like you forever
Or love you
Every now and then.
Emotions
I haven't much use for them.
The ghost memories of a once heart
Guide my hand
Across this surface-
And I feel,
I feel

Betrayed

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

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

Oh, oh,
I've been runnin from
You.
Runnin From
Your love.
Trying to keep my head above
Your flooded heart.
I've been picked apart
By scholars and scientists.
None of them know how I exist-
How I survive,
But I'm still alive
Runnin
From you.

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.

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

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.

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

Floating through space,
An endless eternity.
A forgotten face,
Do you even remember me?
Cold and alone, but not scared.
I was born
To choke on air.
Reality is just a word devised
To constrain the mind.
I exist, not here,
Outside of time.
Wake up!
Wake up!
I tell myself.
Wake up!
Wake up!
There must be something else.....

Our  skin is
                   Bats
blindly
        fluttering in the night.

The melancholy
Settling
          on our bones
Is an old man
Spending
                    $100
At a ******'s
In exchange for
Some pretty girl's
                                 attention.

Our heroes
              are Silver plated
But
               Cast in clay.

What is there

Left
          To say?
Life has conned us all

            As dried leaves
Scorched

                    Under sun rays
Fall

Without dancing in the wind.

We were meant to
  
               Glide up
In the sky,

While stars look upon us
    
                           And cry.

You say you're ready to end it all, things are too much to handle
Meanwhile I sit in a bathtub full of water blade to my skin.
I know you want something, some show of emotion-
Anything for God's sake!
How hard could it be?
But I am not strong, though I feign it.
I don't know a thing, though I claim it.
You search for an impetus to stay.
All I can clearly say is, "There is none."
Its devastating, that much I know.
But what am I to do when all I've been through has extinguished the light I once possessed? Somehow light shines through my words, sometimes
But it's just muscle memory at this point.
What can anyone do for you?

What can anybody do for any of us.....

This person sitting next to you tells you their life story- you listen so as to not be rude.
They go on about their plans
For the future; every one has plans.
And you scream, "It's all so redundant!"
You go on to say "what we want can never be achieved in this mortal form."
Try explaining a rocketship to a sloth.
Your dreams are too big to even make sense
So everyone thinks your crazy,
But they are insane.
"We're already dead, can't you see?" You tell them.
"Our dying breath lasts over 50 years.
Exploring our cell doesn't mean we are free. Don't you want to be more than a tax attorney?"
You plead, hoping somebody can offer some sense- anything, a nod of acceptance. All you're met with is silence and bewildered eyes.
You break down and cry at this feeling of lonliness.

But really
You say nothing.
You just sit there
Listening so as to not seem rude.

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.