my time has come to rise from
bloodstained ashes under an October moon,
the night breeze cooling off our coffee -
You held the railing
Staring into the darkness
I wish, I called sooner I said
with a half-smile I knew that was obvious
Lessers versions of me knew that was true -
like fractals in a broken mirror
like the white hot center of your cigarette
like the soft flesh exposed
I wish I called sooner.

don't text me
don't call
no snapchats at all
don't tweet me or tag pics
don't like **** or leave comments
don't ask questions or begin wanting
don't let them hear you wonder
don't let them hear what you wonder

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

glass shatters
and i wake up with black shackles
laughs cackles
spit and *****
the last battles - anyone of us want to fight
my stomach is in my throat
but i gotta keep what i have down
otherwise i might pass out - i lay down
don't make sound - because problems arise
when they're walking by
so dodge the eyes and pray for life -
well, no - i mean
pray for release - let's just lay in these sheets
that was what you said when you woke up the thirteenth
sun coming through the drapes and dust in the air
usually i'm not a fan so i won't tell if you don't but how i long for a breathe - of that air
but believe - thoughts like that are not fair -
i'm lost here - how it happened doesn't matter
but i had to ask you honey
do you wish it went different?

awake again always facing only blankness
throwing off the covers of her blanket statements
heart racing
I always imagined critics taking
my art seriously
- never like this though.

what happened to you?
we used to talk about
women in sundresses, panoramic views in
sunglasses smoking cigarettes with gold necklaces
now you looking at me - I'm wondering
when did this
splintered finger nailed on a skeleton come from?

there's no punch clock steam engine whistle
where I work
where I work
no one has to yell
out of anger, or spill
liquid glass across my skin
where I work
I worked to get there
and I work
to run away
as fast as possible

It bothers him
What they say
Think
How they
Show their emotions in their eyes
And mouth. The lies
They mouth, he wonders
When, no why.
Why me?
It bothers him
What they say
How they think
Or, fail to do so.

The memories I have of her
are vivid - I recall meals we shared
years ago, the flavor in my mouth
is richer now, than it was then
The wine, pouring from her mouth
Like honey, like chopping onions
in the morning, I still hear her
knife hitting the board with each crack -
and when I woke up late, she said goodnight
Memories I have of her are volatile -
Like a red canister of gasoline
on my porch on the fourth of July
while birds build nests
I slowly burn myself to the ground

*** i love this song!
- backing up the volume drops - ugh.
D - for drive, I rewind the track
S - sport mode, I never ran track
Skipped my exercises last night -
Binged on gluten.
Catatonic at a parallel universe.
Eyes glazed over, I barely comprehend
the plot, it's cool, this crowded room
voices over mine, I never know what to do.
I could clean. I could learn.
I could believe. I could earn.
Instead I relieve and I burn.
Because it seems, I have a date with an urn.
**** **** ****.
Outta My Way - if my boss calls
What am I to say?
I overslept? I felt sick
these are the cards I was dealt
I can't help this.
But this Toyota  couldn't go any slower
I swear!
Move your *** over before a new one I tear!
Sorry, grandma. I didn't mean to be such a cancer on society. I didn't see you there.
But the guy on the right side of me, holding up the *******, what irony.
He's not watching the road.

Blue eyes, Long hair -
Her lashes
Leave lashes -
On my skin
So yeah, it's worth the drive.

i want to take your breath away
i thought as i saw her smile, silence
and grass bending in the breeze
her eyes press together with patience
and readiness for 'the next moment
i want to take her breath away
squirming and bumping shoulders
her mouth cracks a smile so genuine
i almost freeze up stop but i know her already
i want take your breath away
as were talking holding hands on sidewalks
below reflective towers bellowing promises
but her voice is a dove on a sunday morning
as i'm looking through the screen porch
at a dim mist i realize
you took my breath away

where's the fun in giving a life without sin?
like how am i supposed to like you when
the air is still, (and i can't breathe)
the skies are stale (yeah and these)
eyes are filled with hatred tall sorrows and fear -
black tomorrows become numb no longer rare -
walk by the mirror
i don't recognize myself, but all they do is stare
i am sorry we didn't love each other at the same time
i'm sorry i always worried when you'd tell me it's fine
you're by my side down to ride and down to burn down the entire
city if we have too, this place was pretty when i had you -
but then you'd revealed a fury that's blind
reacting in a hurry, this mind, trust? no -
a mantra that's been supplied, leaves it all unfair
when i can't hide - under spotlight
asking myself - who am i - ?
who are you to let me down?
you let me down
you let me down


soundcloud.com/the_mikev/let-me-down/

I don't know what is going on -
Maybe it's the trap music.
That led to the twerking. No,
it's got to be Snap, the Google -
I see the ghosts of history around me -
Symbols of righteousness - hatred
mirrors facing mirrors - the voices -
I face the light in hopes of an answer -
I turn away and forget for I know one not come -
I breathe in the static -
I smile at the cameras -
Run.

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 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

Sorry ***, spinning these plates, I haven't the time to eat out.

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.

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

that's not a color, she said.
hard plastic - a ruler against, my wrist i knew it when
i insisted - it was
something i swear -
there's a sting in the eyes every Monday
that makes me want to puke - i see
wide eyed and cushy cats tidy in white and blue
suits and ties, while guys in tie dye streak, down inside i
know the demand for be some in between -
me and my shrink it's something dark
he offered me a pill to make it stop
i don't know if it's my brain or my heart
i just want to make it stop -
i just want to make it stop -
i just want to make it stop -
i just want to make it stop -
i don't find myself a teacher
or a reader of the news, i don't
see - myself terrified by what is to come, no -
i don't see myself collapsing into ruins -
     i will catch the comet
and be immune to a sickness
i will run from the ashes
and rinse in the toxins
i will be a rock when i window is closed
i will be your fist when false flags have arose
i will be the neon, in the cold alleyway
and i will be the last sip of liquor
before they find us
and take you away

watch me saw her in half
but i saw half of her i wish i never had
pulled a rabid animal out of a hat
cards i can't face
dice i can't keep
coins ringing my head
i hear them say
heads or tails, no matter what
you lose
binary contradictions
wonder why nobody listens
just the reverb of your own voice
wishing you still had the option of conviction





https://soundcloud.com/the_mjv/mate-tricks

life at a screen
hyped by a dream
life at a screen
help - I might scream
if another second I'm sitting in this position

I didn't hear you call so
I didn't bother to wake
I didn't hear you knocking
I haven't heard your voice either
I don't know how much longer I can take -
Who am I to prevail?
What am I going to do?
What will I teach the world -
With all of the knowledge about you?

My stomach is a monster
My stomach
Lives a monster
It has fangs and venom
It can out run you
Out smart you
It will crush you as it melts your flesh -
My stomach
Has another plan.

My skin
Likes cold air -
My eyes
Enjoy the dead trees
The cars broken down
The man walking for gasoline -
You smoke in the cold
I drink in the darkness

It's a dandy lion
Being lured
towards light

my cross is my sword -
my cross
is on my back
two edges
- i cut myself once -
or twice, - my sword,
is my cross
my sword is my cross

i hallucinate like a starved sexpot
the lights bouncing brighter shades -
in this cold body, crossing your street
outside the walkway stumbling muttering
existential curse words, i  - curse words
for - never sounding like they promise
they will, coming from my mouth - i
have these habits you think are strange
but they - vapid on a cosmic scale - vanish, you
devoid of reflection, a vampire *******
the life, a tick in the morning dew grass you
imagine with pink sunlight and
the songs of birds chirping their affection

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 see hatred in lot's of eyes since the election date -
somehow convinced their opinions are making waves -
ego grows and we show new sides of self -
my problem is
almost every where i go i show up wicked late
like - why - do i
suffer this, wicked fate?
serving weight fist under handed - tricking fate -
or so i assumed - buying time
to spend it with you -

I knew it was over by how uninspired you were on your knees.
I knew our worlds were to crumble underneath our feet.
I knew there was a familiar hatred
Like on holidays when that one person
Does that thing
They always do
I think that's me sometimes when I walk out of rooms.
The shadows chatter about the light, I tell myself.
But after deeper analysis
I feel like a shadow
A mere cast of lack of reflection of an object I have no control over.
And I just dance in this wet candlelight.
Hoping, I come back to life.

love loss?
more like blood loss -
got my wings then
shoved shocked
like a
dove tossed
to be shot - out of the sky
pushed and pulled between the lies
yeah there's nothing left once the trust is gone
and honestly
after i have had the
opportunity
to think -
i don't know if it ever even existed.
for example:
i have been digging for existence
building majestic castles in the clouds
un-wishing past convictions
and asking for forgiveness now.
but how? and by whom?
and why is the dungeon i'm in - my room?
and every single day it doesn't improve?
it worsens -
when it's just money and breath i have to lose -
I'll open a window if I need some new air -
I'll break through a window if I need some new gear -
I'd do just about anything to give you, what's fair -
but I'll stop right there
because life's not fair
you might get trampled by a stampede at the renaissance fair
just after you went and paid your fare, to stand right here
and wait your turn.
I say no. I say no.
ok maybe, I have no control as of lately.

I'm not to blame for
Something you lost -
I'm not to blame for
When we bump into each other
I
was just passing by
your new apartment
on foot barefoot
at midnight
alone.
This is my new thing now.
You could know something about that.
But you left -
What else would I be?
Obviously not 'keeping it together'
obviously distraught
I gotta be kidding you, you say.
Yeah.

Let's go for a drive
And just talk awhile
I know this area so well
But none of it makes me smile
I'm over the signs
And the restraunts too
I'm under the lights
And the darkness too

doesn't anybody even look at the sky lately?

like there's nothing between
me and this screen
- nothing.
no purpose
no moment of wit
no urgent revisions of loyal commitment -
just forget it -
- in this odd object is the origin
and the horizon
- by the time you noticed
it was already over
overwhelmed
unenthusiastic
i guess when you've been through hell
you're okay just making it to the mattress -

      but maybe you don't know.
      maybe it's not so bad.
      maybe we can get together
      and share the laughs we used to have ----

- nah.
   she said.
i got things going on
   she said.
plus it's already been so long
we might as well keep going strong -
   she said.
jeez, i mean, i guess i agree.
but look at it like this
- we already have everything we'd need.
- it could be worse, you could fall out of a tree -
- plus it's already beginning to seem, not so bad.

      don't ask me why we relapse on a kiss of the past
      when there's a smorgasbord of other organs to explore?
      sure, we could share all the laughs we used to have
      and who knows, worst of all, we could make even more -

too deep and been here before
and i didn't wanna come back
i knew she'd be on the fence
i sat in the same awkward position
going through awful images and thoughts of vengeances
exacted, exactly - I wish we could say why
so no wonder we haven't the time
to eye the sky and imagine lives
where we're happy and calm and by each other sides
no wonder we didn't do this
or find the moment to do that
and we make excuses like
"i wish time didn't move so fast."

You're the worst.
You're the worst.
You're the worst.
You're the worst.
Yet.

What's one day in the grand scheme?
mistakes branding bland dreams
realities - future and past halves of me
split personalities
splitting these arteries
the artist in me
scavenging what I can
to understand, why smile
wasting time
tasting wine
erasing mind
until basically blind -
OTC's won't assist this OCD
thinking of insanity, no it won't be me
I refuse, to let this fuse
run out of room - I say, Let it burn.


https://soundcloud.com/the_mjv/ogcjm


.

the stars and the static are the same
where pink clouds peel back like flesh
your frail fingers around my neck
there's a certain chaos in those eyes -
her dress up against my exposed waist
the stars and the static are the same
where blood rains for a thousand years
and the ashes of our ancestors blind our future -
I kissed her with the last breath I had

it's her and her dogs
going for a walk, - the phone
hasn't rang, so why not?
they bark
she smiles
they snarl
she retracts the leash
But they're free.
Dancing without smoking.
A ballet of confusion.
Wave to the neighbors!
With a styrofoam cup she's holding
She's holding the leash,
She barks,
They dart back,
She smiles behind big sunglasses.
It's just her dogs and her
going on a walk.

I said - what?!
I can earn much cash
as long as
I serve enough ads?
maybe...
Food & Drink ? (please.)
   *" and who would think
   the Hive would lie?
       Besides -
   You and I both know we're better off than the next guy
   You know, the left side type to return from work and gets high? " *
I tend to the bars to ascend into stars
probably end up on Mars by the time I end this verse -
'cause life's too short not to fight this war
   So worry free? Never me.
I liked when words
get the recipe - stirred
must be, -
why I'm the latest scoop
must be, -
when I didn't post up on the greatest stoop
See - it let me be free, - unnerved
instead of
splurging at every urge occurring and I'm worried
so of course I'm surging with venom,
one man's poison and is another man's medicine
but every moment you're in is blurring with desire and sin and
Emergency - Insurgency
Insurance schemes - and murderous fiends
swerving from being purged of their devilish ways
and I thought I was just at the rebellious age
but this is the rebellious age, where selfishness gets paid
Personally? I don't know if I'll never make it well...
probably wake up naked in the bottom of a well
for the words I wrote and just
walk up to gates of hell
ugh... let me re-explain myself....

Sometimes  -
I wish I could Photoshop my life  
Instead of snapchatting every lonely birthday cake,
covered in dried wax because when I went to make a wish -
I didn’t know where to start.
A new camera?
A shiny bright white microwave?
World peace? A hand to hold without
someone else pointing fingers at me?
By the time I was ready to blow,
the static had already had us -
Like a volcano sinking into the ocean
I wanted more than anything to burst new land -
but I fizzled -
Sometimes I want to meet someone off Tinder
Right here and right now
plan to have *** and fall in love.
Sometimes I think that the only people who marginalize us
is ourselves - like when
You and I broke up, it felt like the galaxy started to get pulled in the wrong direction
Like - some alien black matter wanted whatever piece of light I had left,
and I almost let go. But if almost’s and black holes
were the same, I wouldn’t still be here.
Something balanced out.
And then ironically, I saw you at a gas station
Pulled over. You said you’d been missing me.
That’s when I saw the mathematics of the environment.
Binaries that gave way to greater purpose.
A reason to rhyme, I’d found it.
Completely astounded, I allowed it,
to take over every shred of second I had left on this clump of dirt.
Isn’t it amazing -
That some days, weeks even
I’ll wake up, in a daze, weak, not notice a bottle of water
on a table, or desk - and there are days
I will go without water, head ringing before bed
And I’m wondering why, water is gathering dust
my will to continue with you going dry - wondering why
wondering why it went down like it did
why, you were so caught on by something your mother said years ago.
For ****'s sake, had she been high?
Or at least tripping over her own ego -  we will never know.
But that’s something I see every day.
People who smile, to get a smile
To smile, and I just smile back

I rode a horse
and I built the pyramids -
and I sweat under suns,
and I hid in shadows in fear of it -
I've touched grass, lush
in pathways in bloom -
I've exhaled the hatred, a fist raised
against neighbor, and brushed
my teeth with shattered glass, learning
to become someone new -
I see the stars, the chances I exist
more than a witness -
I am more than a witness -
I am more than a witness watching
a comet fall across the purple-green summer sky -

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

You can't shut me out forever.
I yammered
cooking dinner steam in my eyes
it already smells spoiled, but we feast.*

our love is like a potted plant
I brought home one night -
poisons coursing in my veins -
I plucked a pretty flower from the Earth
and raised it to the sky
I bought fertilizer and dirt
and forgot about the sun shine -
I let flowers turn yellow and wilt
I let spiders make homes in your hair -

plenty of fish in the sea?
who ******* cares when your
heart sank into a shark tank -
we part ways and
I get sharp pains
in some dark days
for a guy light years - ahead
of the hard faced, ******, instead
of times we carved names, with stone
blaming your anger
on my tone
but my home
is on the road, I bet

work they say
when I'm at
work
writing poems
when I should
hush
please don't tell anyone
except everyone
accept everyone
poets florists carpenters painters plumbers clowns kings
the exiled
breath their warm woes waiting
the day the sun rises on their shoulders.

who'd of thought
pulling her chair out
would have me
pulling my hair out?
friends say it's
nothing to be embarrassed about
we all have our unfair spouts
of bad luck or streaks, but
i swear they just do it to **** with me
what - maybe you don't understand
the damage done when things got out of hand
abandoned out of greed
and stranded out to sea
i refuse to float in hopes of finding the land that i need
to eat to breathe please
i'm used to being exposed to those losing clarity


*https://soundcloud.com/the_mjv/open-books

I can see you through this heavenly body
Eternal static to me
is death and life to you
A spec of light
An ocean with depths completely untouched by human skin
My heart beats with anticipation
Sweat beading and tear falling
Hands shaking and thoughts racing
I'd tell you I'm sorry
I'd tell you I didn't know my strength
I'd beg for forgiveness for
exploiting your weaknesses
like a glass bottle broken into a children's sandpit, like a design so flawed
You lived with it.
I can't live with this.