The other night you said
    You could never love like this again
    Your stare piercing each vessel
    As it squired uncomfortably
    Underneath my skin

    Everybody knows
    Just exactly what it is I did
    There’s no holds barred, now
    and I plan to go down with my sin

    She holds her breath
    Praying she doesn’t see her again
    It’s own sick form of torment
    To the transgressor and the transgressed
    Every time a car rolls by
    “Has she come to take you, is the time here yet?”
    For her it isn’t if, it’s when

    I gave away what was not mine to squander
    and You’ll call me a liar, worse yet
    but For every shred
    Of evidence I left
    I too left the key for your vengeance

    and I hope you’ll wield your weapon wisely
    For this shot,
    Its the last one I’ve got

    So I ram the rod down the shaft
    Compressing the powder
    Lick my fingers clean
    Of the filth I’ve wallowed in
    I’d shed a tear, but what’s left is a monster
    The girl I was, she won’t come back to haunt you
    She’s given up too much hope for that

You get what you payed for
and You take what’s yours
You don’t bother asking anyone
Who they are anymore
You just hum your song along
Until you get to the gate
Then you show the attendant
Your intention to go only one way

She says,
“It’s a ride you can’t get off,
and It curves around the bend
Where she takes you,
She’ll decide,
Right there and right then”

So what you mean to say
In so many words
Is that I’m powerless?

Nonetheless,
You get what you payed for
and You know you can’t complain
This box here contains
Only the sentiments you can’t
Find a way to blame

So you pull ‘em out
and Look them over
Until the hurts gone away
Even though it seems impossible
Today

A list of lost poetry

Lies on my bed stand

and An archive of memories

Rests in your hand tonight

Another sob story

To another break up song

Another solitary cigarette

To another, “I knew better all along”

So, rather than the ladder

I’ll minimalize farther yet

Until I can’t believe in anything

and I manage to forget



She skipped the song

and Got right along to her favourite verse

She said she practiced, but forgot to rehearse

She says, “I hope I’ll be up to par, tonight”

She looked so fragile against my skin

My favourite probably was

The time when I

Believed the lie

What a pleasure it was to succumb

What a pleasure it was to feel alive

What a pleasure it is to say

I forgot to say good bye

She said it’s a control thing

Something that looks grim in the right kind of light

and I’m an eye sore to the onlooker

I guess I never worried much about that



Somewhere between wish I may

and Wish I might

Somewhere between

The fire

and The flame

Somewhere in between everything

I forgot to feel anything at all

I was never what you hoped I would be

but You have to admit, I did try

I tried everyday to give you something to believe

but I understand that some things

Just aren’t up to me

Some things you have no choice

but To sweep underneath

and The floor’s starting to lose shape

Under the weight of things



She knew the horizon, it wouldn’t change anything

We run from our geographical locations

Thinking that our region will change

Our core being

Created in God’s image, we are foolish creatures by nature

We ride on hope that’s never been validated by anything

We dig our fingers into the sand and revel in our pipe dreams

She’s praying against all odds that her rod

Isn’t the one that gets struck by lightening

“I’m not ready,” she said

“How can I let go,

When I don’t even know where I’ve been?”



At the end of the night

She lit a cigarette

She watched her smoke

Billow into the sky

She tucked her laces into her shoes

and Brushed off her jeans

She picked her keys up off the ground

Then she leaned in, and kissed me good night

“This’ll be her last winter”
My father says in a
Soft sort of way
The same words I’ve heard him say
Countless times before
He always had an understanding
Of life and death
and A quiet acceptance of both

As we drove the road sides
Were littered with bodies and snow
Corpses waiting until spring
To decompose

He’ll never worry again
About being the last one left
The people mill about as if
Nothing’s changed at all
but He can’t stop looking at
The place where she used to sit
and It hasn’t quite sunk in yet
That she’s gone, forever
He’ll never see her again
She’s never coming back
and He can’t shake the feeling that
He no longer belongs in this place
He can’t move on and he
Can’t go home
Because she is dead
She is dead and he’s
He is the one that remains

This was her last winter and she
Nearly made it through
He holds his tea between his fingers
and Looks at me as he whispers,
“This’ll be my last, too.”

It was written before it was stone, my friend
She tells me a thousand reasons why her tides turn as they do
Each one of them knotting up
Before she ties the noose
She says it’s nothing personal
To disregard anything that was misconstrued
but Wasn’t it you, my darlin’?
I think it was you

I saw her again, late last night
She was wearing a ball gown and was
Sporting her converse tennis shoes
I caught a glimpse of her
As she kneeled down before him
That’s the hard thing about her
She’s a lie, but you can’t know that
Until you know her
and If you’ve known her, you’ll know
That there is no use
It’s a repetitive cycle that just
Begs to be true

When they put it on the stone
They put it on the cross
They made molds to make shapes
To accommodate
For what was lost
They found that what they’d hoped for
Was just a mask, a mirage
So they made up their own story to tell the masses
and On the next Sabbath, slaughtered the cause

and I suspect they took their time sewing shut the valves of your heart

and I don’t know what to do
You always ask me
Like I pay attention to the news
You’re surprised each time
I can’t tell you the truth
But you know what I am, don’t you honey
You’ve got my number, and you’ve got a plan
and I hope you don’t take me down with it
I hope you don’t take me down in it

The street lights, they don’t need a guide
To show them how, to show them out of
The dark night, the street lights
Don’t mind if you mind’s swollen
and Your heart is left open like a
Gaping wound, the street lights
They’ll keep you company tonight

In that moment, I became afraid
There was a disassociative effect
There you were, on the bed
and Then here I was, on the floor
Pulling at my skin
and I glanced at the window pane
Hoping the snow would lift my spirits
Instead I saw shards of glass
In my fists, going at it
I can’t even trust my mind anymore
It used to be my safe haven
Suddenly everything I came here for is
Out of sight, out of vision
and You’ve left your sword
and Abandoned your mission

You walked me home
You came and got me
I didn’t think you’d come, or anybody
I didn’t care,
I never expected anyone to come anyway
I mean that in the plainest way
We are conditioned in circumstance
Nothing else

Some of us fair better than others
and You’ll either survive, or you won’t
It’s the natural order, the law of evolution
We’ll **** out the defective genes,
and Enhance the most
We live in a society that insists
You stand on your own
but We live in a world
With a collective mindset
Who do we trust,
Our roots, or society as a whole?

and In the meantime we’ll try
We’ll do our best
Not to feel alone

I think you better get yourself
Some medical attention
You might have to call an ambulance kid
It could be serious
but I know how serious
Serious gets
and Right now this mess we got here,
This ain’t nothin’
I’m not gonna even
Worry myself about it

When I left I took
All my stuff with me
I took your heart, as it was bleeding
I got in my car, and
As I was leaving
I saw you standing in the window
You were crying, I shut my eyes
Slipped into reverse
Couldn’t help but glance in the mirror
and There you were, still standing
I saw the woman in the day room
Behind mountains of boxes
I knew you’d never leave, in that moment
That I’d return to a silhouette
Still crying, and
I’ve loved you in a way that a monster cannot feel
I don’t understand it, but I had to go
It was one of those moments when
Everything you’ve learned goes out the window
and That queer sensation, that lump in my throat
I didn’t know what it was until something willed me
To return home, you can’t identify
What you don’t know

In plain language
I don’t know how I’ll find a way
To forgive myself, but you
Keep trudging, you keep
Moving forward, because you
Don’t know what else to do
With yourself, because you can’t
Go home, this is your home,
but You are candescent
and Until the light returns to her heart
You will stand in the backdrop of it

When I saw that the black had permeated
Every last vein, nail, and hair
and That it finally stopped to rest
Deep inside me, somewhere
I pulled out my best knife
and I rolled up my sleeves
Without thinking, I tore open the skin
and What I found wasn’t regret, but relief

I watched as one by one
They milled about and then out of the room
They stopped to peer inside the box
Before they left, they each caught
A glimpse of the beast that
Loomed underneath
No one dared to touch the thing
The oddity that had become me

So I guess they wouldn’t have known
I was harmless back then
I wasn’t a monster yet
I guess it doesn’t matter now
Like everything else, it’s water under the bridge

It was November in Houston
I remember because the leaves
Were crunching under my feet
and The air had this stagnant, hot feeling
but The breeze was cool
and Soothing to me
Just cool enough for long sleeves

She lived just up the street
I had a place to park my car and put my things
She was a piece of work, to put it lightly
Better it be her than me

I was a monster back then
but I didn’t know it yet
Sometimes ignorance
Has a kinder effect

Amazing the things that stick to us as we grow
Things burrowed so deep that we don’t even know

She wanted so badly
To believe that she loved me
That what we had was
Something of meaning
She took me to a psychic,
A palm reader
In hopes she could fix things
Instead I did coke in their picturesque bathroom
and Met you in the car after my fix

Thinking about it now makes me sick
but Like you always say,
“It is what it is”
That was a decade ago
Almost a lifetime
Another person ago
A different time in my life

I’ve closed the door
and In my mind
I’ve left the mirror girl behind
I watched her face pale
As she stepped back into the mist
Then she slipped into the darkness,
Irretrievable

and The part that wants to drive
This whole mess into the canyon
Drew great satisfaction
From my demise
Her eyes faded to black
and It seemed almost familiar
I can almost put my finger on it
I guess either way, though
I’d prefer the ladder