i have two fists i
choose not to use i
have thumbs
finger tips
to
exist - i
have the power
to set flame to every object around me
i can drown entire cities courtesy of wrath
i can topple and
twist fellowships -
i
can
live forever
if I acknowledge it -
it
it's
all for the taking if you can reach it
my hands
so far away from me
i'm sorry

to be watched all day

i took everything
you said
literally - i took
your fiction for fact
as if
the sky were to fall I'd reach up
palms to push back to keep you
and i intact - but
fierce chills climb up my spine
when i hear her heart sink
our clock has struck midnight
as glass shatters across the floor -
the moon glows through windows
and this is a side of you
i have never seen before

i have a new tie
it's red and
i think you'd like it
my coffee
this morning
was burnt and
the milk was wrong
i thought of you
as i swallowed the grounds

in my heart
there's a problem
my stomach
and mind
have gotten
much stronger
mission control
agent of change
blue jays chirping
bring us home

they all told me that
actions speak louder than words
but as i got more confident i observed
that somehow actually got more reserved
like a formal verse was more normal? sure -
but let's explore the blurb
i'm speaking right now
the sort of world, where i wonder
do you hear my voice as noise, or me?
trying to get this off my chest
i lift to expose the things
that have frozen me, in dreams, of need -
infatuated with a better life, why
i am - gravitating towards the sun
and yes when the timing is right
i'll fly into the night and never return -
'cause all i see
are people killing people and
evils being refilled, and i don't see (this eye candy) -
why this gotta be the case
why you never wanna face
real reality without a base
without a vase, i'd rather push flowers
without a trace, watch the sour vanish within hours
taste the fast life, kiss of death
last night, almost wished for less
complexity - i mean, i need a breath.

u had a 'freckle'
u called a blemish
i had a scar
from a wound i couldn't remember
we held hands on swings at sunset -
i was seven
i saw the automobiles come
and go and we swung
and swayed
your hair, i still remember, today

she came into my life like a
flash grenade
watching moments of the
past just fade
in seconds, made me ask
myself why I
attract this pain, why it had to
happen this way
4am phone conversations i could
chat 'til eight
i could laugh until hate left my soul and couldn't find its way back
afraid, of this love. it terrifies me, electrifies me.

I wrote you two letters
Both I sent together -
One was a welcome as well as
a warning of the words to come -
I often said that writing about you
was the easiest thing for me.
Be it the bad times, or the good we shared
I always found a way to mesh the moment
with your feelings, like I forgot mine
on a dusty European coast when you said
You'd come back and the phone never rang.
I watched it for days
At dinner, at dawn - I still remember how
little the food tasted then

i write
poems
songs
stories
movies
history.

i'm outdoorsy in a sense
where i like to
drink
on patios
watch the people smile
tan animated hands and sunglasses
football friendship
i like people
on television
on telephones

i am forgiven
for the ways i have wasted
for days, i had been tasting
fruit from a tree i found
i am forgiven
for kissing her on the mouth
for days in rewind
Neptune, Neptune

Everyone dies alone.
When you close your eyes, for the last time
I want to be there, holding you hand
Knowing, you'll be happier after this
This unfamiliar blackness passes -
It's nothing you did, my love
This is by divine design -
Don't fear the air opening up a pathway
into voices familiar, colors unseen
and unspoken, and eyes that feel ecstasy
And when warm chills kiss your temples
and cool liquid wraps around your arms
When your legs go limp but heavy
and your heart is merely a memory?
I will love you, I will love you
I will love you like a city is noise
I will love you like the stars are static
I will love you, from so far away
with patience, and acceptance
And I will love you, with a damp teal
cloth patting against your forehead
I will love you, as the hospital bed
becomes a poem, and the poem becomes something more -
I will love you, I love you.

Building this nest egg
I'm walking on egg shells
Serving birds in
Parked cars in
Suffocation
Gasping for air
About to take flight
The moonlight my
Only friend
The moonlight I
study the Earth and the sky
This cool night of plaid
cotton candy sticky holding hands
sore teeth and puffy lips, bruised
by brain shaking accidents
of twisted metal and leaking gasoline -
We call it fate. After all.
You made it. Cracking
your back wooden like a rolled out ladder
from a balcony drenched in rolling smoke -
Family, one at a time.
Thoughts, one at a time. But -
I still don't know if I made it out -
I laugh as I cough but still, cough.

Heart is as heavy as
Eyelids salivating for sleep
Salvation in closing
To just let go

i'm the odd man out
not ever the even dude in -
it's ******* cold out
wondering why i deserve this
almost slipped and fell into a mailbox -
i want to live on the beach
and drink the salt water -
i want to bask in the sunlight haze
of the streetlights illuminating a dark path
walked on by men
women, children - tiny spiders
that could **** you -

i read
and i write
i hear
and i talk
oh --
when will
the silence no
longer be static?
when will
the noise no longer
be static?

my pain is your pain
like sound - universal
a balancing act i dance
like a flame
like a saxophone
like a spring breeze
the air is blue
and cool

Why.
it's as close as it gets to me
that's why.
black circles in my eyes
under my eyes
in my blood
watching us all the time

Sunday mornings never meant much more to me than the day before work.

What kind of friend breaks in and lies?
[[[      Man, that ain't a friend
          that's just a guy who's trying
          to stay by your side while you're supplying
          a good time and -
          then he's onto bigger and better things ]]]
****. Sit for a second before I tie shoe strings
You trippin' if you don't listen to my new flings
See, I'm surprised you ain't - addicted to some syringe -
See - I too, tried being true and clean
but this addictive personality just went and ruined me
Had to come back twice as hard
Press the keys that write the Lord
I know that I'm likely more - bound for Hell
Close my eyes and hear a thousand yell
Skeletons ask for my good help - my good word,
is all I got - I wanna apologize, but I do not
knowing all along you decide, what you want

when you hear noise
i see static -
i didn't
think you'd be here
i said - that color looks nice on you
i - was just
leaving - i
wasn't just thinking
how cold my bones are
i didn't wonder how long we're
actually destined to last
i honestly don't want to know

You knew love could hurt
And you still went to work
Shaping a heart, a conversation piece
You knew what love was worth
Escaping the dark, finding patience and peace - in a place where everything else is grey - at best
You spent your life loving
And worst case scenario
You'll have been lying - but you won't know until you reach the cosmos
If you should have lost hope long ago

Anagram isn't defined by what it looks like -
Anagram sees
what all others miss
Anagram,
how do you manage this?

i said as glass sprayed my
flesh like a shaken coca-cola
i could taste blood
the night i met my Muse -
i tried to ignore you
for so long, but my gut bacteria
has other plans apparently

what.
what off Earth did you expect?
some courageous campaign of charisma
collecting chaos in a bottle?
we drank until our insides hurt.

Where we come from
I'm not so sure
When I was growing up
I was always left with a loss for words
Someone else
Writing my script
Someone else
Deciding I live
I say no.

i get annoyed
more often
than i'd like
to admit - i
try to control my
emotions but
sometimes i
want to quit -
sometimes i want
to say ***** this ****
and flip the table
drop the cards, tell them i'm able
to reach the stars
if i read these tea leaves hard
enough, long enough - i
know your mind wanders off -

My words can cut like daggers
My red yellow guts spilt like confetti
I was drinking party favors and
Knocked the glass half full over -
My hands tremble like the floor
as I walked up stairs back then
The weeds and the flowers bloomed together that summer -
The sun hot, cooking my skin
Like an egg on a stone
Like a fish out of water
Like a fist raised against the law -
That was the first time I knew -
We're all gonna die eventually

I stay up late
She sits on his face
I'm the only one to blame
She agrees
Hands and knees
Head and shoulders
Rinse me clean -
Sins, sins
I can't begin to explain
Ever since, then
Anything else seemed plain

i turned over the keys
nothing
dead battery dogsled **** break
writing my name into you with acid
melting
i'll stick with you, she said
bread and butter, she said

It's funny how
We can learn
To love what
We always told
Ourselves to hate
It's sad how
We can learn
To hate what
We always told
Ourselves to love

it's been 3 days
22 hours 5 minutes 43 seconds
and counting

I watch the people run
away but they tell me by
from my porch -
I have two
Questions for them -
They
Are deaf or rude
Or both
I -
Wonder if I look like that

sleep
Like I used
To - Wake
Up like I
Used to -
i don't -
Need
It
Anymore.

When I wrote you that poem
- it ******.
The more I read it, the more
I hated it.
The lines made my stomach twist
The words had me dizzy
The letters sharp to my vision
This isn't what I wanted to be.
I just wanted to write you a poem
Tell you my crazy feelings
Make you smile
But now I'm afraid.
The art is larger than us.

My grandfather was a drinker -
I think.
I mean. You gotta be
To be like 73
and fall asleep
Drunk
At a wedding
In the grass
At 10pm.
My grandmother had depression.
Manic depression.
There's a difference, you know
Look it up, what do I look like?
Google?
People forget about Google,
and I think Google prefers it that way.
Me too Google, me too.

I like the way her
hair ends up clinging
to everything.
I like the burn before the change
in color. I like when
you call and I let it ring
Twice. I like looking at the sky
and asking it questions.

it's a high you never came down from
its a painting you forgot about
it's a childhood friend you forgot about
it's knowing why, but not knowing when

i was holding her
hand thinking, our
love is like filling a balloon it
gets bigger
and brighter - with every
breath - it wants to
embrace the sun
our love wants to fly
my love, your hands
they're ice cold -
i know, she whispered -
i know
i was thinking
about her hands
holding
a pen
holding a gun
holding a bagel
holding onto life

you listen to their problems
their virtues their vice
there you are to listen, true
through blue skies turning grey into night
you, so shiny and white
you, who turned a blind eye to the life
chaotic and neutral -
mumbling men who still can't decide which side is right
tall mirrors of carnival colors
and daggers dance in the music -
dreams you never knew of any other
just painted faces of confusion,
visions violent will strike
when you least
expect, expect
allowing feelings to project
when you least expect it
you'll be projected, from that driver's seat

We trace events on timelines we create -
Milestones like tombstones, we
pay tribute to a life no longer
A shift in perspective
Another mode of existence
I reach out to others
and they hear me

whispering and quivering
is how i wish to spend my Sunday
afternoon as i wake
i curse the clock and tomorrow
but your breath on my neck washes away the sorrow
until next time
close your eyes

just keep talking someone
will nod eventually -
maybe, maybe maybe not

Friday nights aren't what they used to be, kiddo -
My mom says, I'm like where's the ice cream?
She sighs. I laugh.
She tries, to grasp
How time, passes so fast
As I climb, into her lap -
Monday mornings aren't the same, dad says -
Getting up, bones and bed
They crack and bend, they crack and bend
I'm getting dressed, fighting not wanting
to brush my teeth -
Dad says, come on man
You don't want to end up like me

I was ahead of my time, back then
Now my stomach is a knot
I'll never untie
And these memories, and thoughts
I can't rewind, not because I never learned
But because why would I want too?

i miss what it's like
giving the kiss of death
stealing the bread of life
i long for the days
we'd write songs in the shade
light bongs in a haze
the wind in her hair
just last week, there
in my arms you seemed
so at peace.

I would still love you
if my heart stopped beating
and I would still love you
if you told me you'd be leaving
I would still love you
if you dreamt of another
And I would still love you
if you told me it wasn't, working
See, maybe that's what's wrong with me
Maybe the doctors are right
It's a brain disease, OCD
I watch you free, through a window
Only I can see - I can see
a future where we embrace arms
share a place in Manhattan Beach
and make love by the water
I'd still love you
if I only had a tent
I'd still love you
No matter where we went
I'd still love you
if my hair went grey
And I'll still love you
Until my dying day -
I'm a star, or so I'm told
A person who's mind is much more old,
Than this skins tells, I've been through hell
And I'm still fighting for this
I'm living in the past
But looking forwards -
You told me, you'd still love me
If I changed genders -
I think that's something
I'll always remember -
Because I'll still love you
No matter what you are
I'll still love you
No matter your skin your hair
Your gender your art
I'll still love you

she used to tell me I was poison
to everyone but to her
I was medicine
we met in sin
six drinks in
she used to tell me I was perfect
with red cheeks
I was an open book
she used to call to say goodnight
and call to say I'm poison
and used to call to cry and tell me she's sick
she used to call
she used to call
now the phone doesn't move
I'm poison

I do stuff
I pet dogs
Smile at babies
Make cash deposits
I work
I hear voices and I talk
to voices -
My voice, isn't me, it
isn't as deep, it's
As if the ideas - I think
are universal
Some cosmic case I cracked
has me a prisoner -
people say, it's a small world -
and I agree.

Lately - I'm up too late...
And they say
     early to bed early to rise
But almost every night
     I can't silence my mind -
Filled with
What if's, and why not's
And how did's, and who got's - ?
It's a rattle in the bones -
It's a cold draft above your bed -
It's the spider you never **** -
It's the music inside your head -
I'm not usually one to go places
Or start fights - I don't usually cook at home
And I'm afraid of sharp knives -
I don't call my friends as often I probably could -
And I don't tell myself I'm as awesome as I am as often as I should -
Cut down, last tree standing
No sound -
There's no sound in the darkness -