If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
  And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Dear Lover,

you are my first
I followed you with fragile feet
I touched you with innocent hands of  infants
finally able to control my own muscles
everything has lead to you
breathing has lead to you
seeing color has lead me to you
I remember your dark hair
and something inside of me sinks
like a ship with a thousand souls
awaiting their death
somewhere in that bottomless pit of beauty and destruction
somewhere deep in those waters awaits my last sign of hope
something of a tragedy and meanings lost as to why I want
nothing more than to be with you
and something inside me now wishes nothing more
but to be swallowed by this dark and endless ocean
of your reluctant love and dimmed fire
something inside of me begs to be in that darkness
so that I may not know another day of suffering
I walk throughout my day invisibly bleeding
gushing red on every sidewalk
I am ashamed to walk into places where people
are happy, and stain their surroundings with my
invisible affliction
only those who know can see it
but I cant see them
I cant see anything because I am subdued completely
immersed in my catastrophic realm of a deep agony
your heart is a vast desert
and I am completely lost within it
and this famine and drought is killing me
I am starving
my skin sags, I can barely open my eyes
and I am growing into something far beyond emotionally weak
in one second if you tell me to go
I will exit this world that I have thrown myself into by will
and will never twitch at the thought of you again
I will exile myself from here never leaving a trace of my soul
behind

sincerely , Lover 1







Dear, Lover

I understand that you are tiered with me
and I am sorry that I make you bleed
but keep in mind that your invisible red
showers like a waterfall unto me
remember that I warned you about my senseless ways
about my chained spirit flying free
about my deranged childhood and my broken hands
I warned you about my shattered eyes and my wasted lands
I cant help but wither away like pedals falling off a rose
in the height of spring
when you bring yourself close to me
when you smile that simple smile
I can die in your simplicity
I can die in your beauty
I can live in your eyes
and Im sure you know that more than once
it is plenty of times because of the portraits of you hung in my head
I fall apart like an ancient wind and cry
Im sure you know many times I asked myself why
why life must I be in this displaced manner
of a starved love and barren core
for there would be nothing more satisfying
then enjoying the ocean and things like autumn and the red leaves with you
do you not that think I am hurting too
you saw how my skin grew bright when you were next to me
you felt me from the inside of me
I let you hold me like a mother would hold her child
even if it was for a second I let you give that love to me
and it hurt more than anything I can ever bring myself to write about
or put into words
I was not meant for this life
as much as I want to be
I was simply not made for this love
my heart shatters and blows like glass
only things of nature can burn how I burn
we have been through this before, I try to stay away from you
but when something sits in front of you, so undeniable it is hard to learn
it has taken me quite sometime to say this
but apart of me has refused to stay with me
and will forever stay with you
a part of me has loved you more than it loved me
and I cant take that back, it is out of my hands
you say my heart is a desert
if I could generate a spring for you to enter naked
simple and at ease I would
but the only spring I have are those which
flow through my eyes and upon my chest
Im sorry
Goodbye

sincerely, Lover 2

Revelling in your
disfunctionality
Your interesting
complexity
And the one thing
You are proud of
is that you have
nothing to be proud of
And the one thing
that you value
Is that you value
nothing

I was immortal once,
believe me, you, I was
invincible.
And back when I was immortal
I used and play hopscotch on the clouds
high above New York City Traffic
and laugh every time I caught myself
on the edge.

I used to play hide and seek
with the truth

I'd hide in the bedroom closet
of this muse
and be there when
she’d come home after a long day's inspiration.
I’d watch her undress
searching her naked self in the mirror
like something was missing
but she never did find it.
I think she knew I was there
yeah, she knew.

I used to race with shooting stars
I won once
but I cheated
so it doesn’t count.

I used to dance with The Moon all night
she moved my waters
and I took her virginity.
Ours was a love of necessity.

I kissed The Sun.
She blushed
and The Moon got jealous.

Then I met God,
the most beautiful of all my conquests.
I knew no one else would quite match up to her.
She and I made man together.
It was parenthood that tore us apart.

Yeah, I was immortal once
but now,  
now I’m just waiting to die
like everybody else.

The sun recedes into the horizon.
The moon shines an incandescent sliver.
The stars flicker, briefly.

Oh, so briefly do they flicker.
Eternal beacons existing to remind us of our own insignificance.
Out there, somewhere, is something else;
out there, somewhere, is something new.
Something new in this world composed so wholly
of odds and ends
of what-have-yous...
what-ifs, so many what-ifs.
So many what-ifs.

There is a life to be lived
where the mornings aren't so painful,
and the nights aren't so meaningless.
A life where I try to smile
and I actually smile.
Where holding a hand
or kissing a collarbone
are gestures worth the risk.
Ripe with legitimacy
will I fall in love again.

Beautiful words to be written.
Beautiful women to fall in love with.
Beautiful this and beautiful that
and beautiful everything in between.

So when the stars appear
and try to convince me of my own nothingness,
I shall fly past those nets,
quietly telling Orion
that this is my life

and I do not deserve to feel this way.

I refuse to continue existing
without beauty and purpose
in the marrow of my fragile bones.

You think you're so charming with your six-string but I've got some news,
and that's that that six-string is old news.
When you gonna pick up that new electronic beat and let the drums pulse heat into your cold eyes,
littering the shoreline with every bit of negative commentary necessary to make the moment much less than romantic.
Jump into panic, oh alone you're so alone and though I sympathize I won't fall for those lies;
you're just a kid with a crayon trying to sell the Mona Lisa.
Dragging me down into new friction against a new addiction I never wanted,
dust litters my clean floor and I can hear you back  there ****-talking the shore as if your racing heart never wanted more.
Racing blurred burnt out on lines speeding past fluttering eyelids so quick, the storm inside the flashbulb can't even stop us.
The quickness inside our pounding hearts won't slow, the blood won't thicken no matter how hard you wish it.
Crushing candy into cotton in public bathroom stalls under careful fingertips, I wish so hard you never happened to me but what would I have done otherwise?
I suppose your trying to **** me evens out owing you my life and though I sympathize, I won't fall for your lies;
you're really just a kid with a crayon trying to sell me the Mona Lisa.
Brother, I've touched paint in my lifetime, I've swirled fine horsehair brushes across an open mind,
and I can tell you your rhetoric is no masterpiece.
Alone alone empty empty
addict, addict
No matter how hard I look at you I can't see you without your lover, how hard she makes you sweat, how she makes you gasp for breath,
in, out, in out.
I can see you leaning hard against those walls,
push kid, it'll never budge an inch.
If my observations count for anything, knowing you doesn't count for anything,
seeing you suffer under ghosts and grime won't make you smile,
no matter how many times I tell you no.
I'll watch you breathe superman until you can leap buildings;
but I won't be watching when you come back down.

I could tell you how to think.
I could repeat the words
of Old Masters to try to sound profound
and aloof with some sort of higher knowledge than you.
I might recount the pain of a child starving,
trying to get your heart to bleed, or race
to flutter, fly or fall. I could try
to compose my thoughts on paper, but even
from lips to ears their meaning is lost
so on paper they would have even less power.
I could try to change your life. The way you think
about an apple blossom or how you speak
with luring words to a potential mate.
I could weave you a story to keep you on the edge of your seat
or mind; in your lovers arms, or all alone.
I could try to detach myself,
attempting omnipotence compared to you.
Even trying to speak to you through words would
be an empty effort, though.
For who wants to listen to a stranger
and have them tell you how to think
how to breathe and let loose;
dance to the rhythm of life setting your mind on a new beat?
Who will read these words and be affected?
Would it help then, if I made myself known?
If we were related, or entangled or embraced
would these words be more than words to you?
Would you listen if I told you why the sky was blue
or your eyes were gray or why the world turns
in a specific rhythmic patterned way?
I could try to tame the storm of English to tame the storm of your mind.
I could attempt to write a world for you:
an escape
or a solitude. I could write my heart on paper for you.
Open it up: it’s secrets and it’s thump-thump reasoning.
I could convince you it beat for you and only you, but really
it is just science.
I could tell you how to be happy, but happy is relative.
I could try to describe the feeling I get when I am not alone,
the breath of another mingled with mine,
but experiences are experienced individually and I am not in your mind.
I cannot think the way you do nor affect people the way you can.
You may be a pilot bringing people across the globe into each other’s arms;
or an artist painting the portrait of a dying girl;
or an engineer building bridges between hearts.
But I am a poet, and all I have are words.
But who will listen to a stranger?
What would it take for these words to be more than words to you?
I do not know for I am no philosopher or doctor. I don’t know
who you are or how you work, so trying to convince you
that I am all-knowing
is pointless and painful. So many of us suffer because of that vain effort.
I could try to write you a companion but the comfort we each desire
is unique.
Your dreams are not my dreams, and my dreams perhaps,
would not make sense to you.
My happiness is not yours. Nor is my favorite flavor ice-cream
yours. If I were to write you the feeling I get from smelling daisies
it might mean nothing to you
because it is not in your vocabulary, or doesn’t bring you my peace.
I could write my breath and it’s puff-puffing from running
but then I’d have to detail how the oxygen works it’s way into my lungs.
I could say that he is my oxygen, but what does he mean to you?
I could tell you not to be scared of the dark, but
darkness, too, is relative. For inside a lit room at night,
the window is stark in contrast. But stand outside for awhile,
and your eyes will adjust like getting used to the pain if it is incessant
and everlasting.
And who wants to listen to a stranger?
Who wants to know the inside of my mind when they have their own
to figure out? The maze of synapses that only make sense to you
and to me they are indeed a maze.
I could tell you that when I see rain I think of cobblestone streets in London,
but who, besides me, would connect those things?
And who wants to listen to a stranger?
The only thing I may attempt is to bring myself closer to you
through words.
Because they are all I have
and with them, I can tell you anything.