We all, at some point in our lives, come across those songs-with
The melodies that seem so bland,
The rhythms that we can't stand,
The lyrics that repeat themselves with no meaning attached,
The dynamics that are out to attack,

And then we come across those songs-with
The melodies we can't get out of our minds,
The rhythms that remind us to push forward at all times,
The lyrics that explain what we were unable to,
The dynamics that help to bring out how we're feeling inside,

Maybe the people we come across throughout our lives
affect us in these ways, too.
*jm

today i am a hole
i am a relapse of yesterday
and last year
I am not the light i've come to see
i am darkness
engulfing my heart
and turning it blue
so it can slowly freeze over
to bring me back
to times i thought
would never be seen again

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I can lay
right next to you
and never touch you

I can see you smile
from across the room
without kissing you

I can watch you
leave the room
and resist hugging you goodbye

But sometimes
when I'm next to you
you have to ask me to move away

Because for a few minutes
I let fantasy get confused with reality
and I lean against you during a movie

And it's so warm
your arm and mine, touching
for that minute I'm at peace

But when you ask
of course I make room
Because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable

And if you weren't my friend
I would probably try it
just once, to know what it would be like to kiss you

But ideally,
I'll get over this
and when I am, we'll still be friends

So in the meantime
I try not to think about kissing you
and I only hug you when I have reason to

What I'm saying is
I will do what I can
to keep myself sane and our friendship intact

But just know
that with every look I give
I wish I could give so much more.

She came first in a dream
when I was fifteen. Yes,
she was the fire of ecstasy and her first licks
set my world aflame.
She's a shape-shifter, sometimes
fair and sometimes dark,
but always naked
when she comes.
She often whispers secrets
in the molten, swollen nights.
She even shows me jungles
and raging torrents down
where tom toms throb.
But when the morning breaks,
and I'm alone,
I struggle to remember.
Accordingly, I search the cities,
the far off mists and mountains
and the subterranean rivers
every burning day.
So it won’t surprise you to know
that where I mostly go to find her now
is under the volcano,
the place of endless fire.
It's where us dreamers and those demons
dance with our desire.

Mike T Minehan

She shuts her eyes, an image comes
An image comes unbidden,
Pictures play inside her mind
Of things she's long kept hidden.
He shuts his eyes, no image comes
No visions plague his mind,
If our third eye true exists
Then his third eye is blind.

Memories haunt him  every night
They swamp him in her bed,
This movie runs twice nightly in
The cinema of him head.
No memories haunt his sleep at night
No conscience ****** his sleep,
Any thoughts of shame or guilt
He's long since buried deep.
˜
Her fears are always lurking
By day they dog her stride,
The only thing that gets her through
A dwindling sense of pride.
A cheery laughing joker
A smile e'er in place,
Before this day is over
He'll wear a different face.

With weary step and tired mind
She walks a busy street,
Across a press of shoppers
His and her eyes meet.
Each one knows the other
She falls at last to grief,
Her innocence was stolen
Before her stands the thief.

A friend puts arms around her
Takes her home to weep,
A sobbing revelation of
The terrors of her sleep.
Guilt at last has found him
His very soul is smote,
Shame bites deep within him
Its bile burns his throat.

This night will be quite different
Two roles will be reversed,
Talk and tears will cleanse her
Remorse will leave him cursed.
˜
She shuts her eyes, no image comes
For once she's free of fears,
Tonight her sleep is peaceful
The first in six long years.
He shuts his eyes, an image comes
An image comes unbidden,
Guilt invades his sleeping mind
No more to be kept hidden.

Each night I think I might write again,
and sometimes I even try,
but words never seem to want to come when forced,
and if forced they are often a lie.
I write when my mind forces me,
pushes me until the thoughts become words,
and feel that I will go mad if not written,
so that it must somehow be heard.
This is my quiet voice,
the one that I don’t often use,
it tells people the secrets of my true thoughts,
without the masks or the color hues.
My inner voice has many thoughts,
so many that writing them down makes my hands sore,
but write on and on I must,
or I feel insanity will unleash its evil core.
Mayhap I have already gone mad,
my hands not fast enough to save me,
maybe I only type these poems silently,
asking for a small grasp of insanity.
-NMY 20130613.014312