Please
Let me sleep
Instead of memories
Playing like silent films
On the ceiling
Got the feeling you were
Always you
And therefore always the
One for me
Too early to say
And far too late
Undertaking such things
Only brings the day
Closer to me
And a lack of shutting eyes
And midnight dreams

Please
Let me keep
A inkling of sanity
Instead of constant
Thoughts of you
Like picture books
With few words
But every line memorized
And studied
Intricately
Not in fear of failure
Kind of in fear of failure
Mostly in fear of
Overthinking
Over loving
Overindulging in you
And to be doomed
To forever stare at ceilings

You can stand on both feet all you want to
But nothing changes till you run for your life
The actions amidst the want for consistency
Realizing change rarely comes without strife

You can look to the horizon to your heart’s content
But it’s only a dream unless you race for it
Dreams remain dreams when dreamers aren’t doers
The ground feels the beating feet of the jackrabbit

I want to get on the wrong train
Go nowhere and head north from there
Instead of staying still in drudgery
In monotony
Driving the same places that lack imagination
And leave my heart dry of inspiration

I want to look at a sea whose name escapes me
Yet I know that’s been calling me all my life
Bathe in the falling leaves of trees that say hello
That say they have been waiting a thousand years for me
Though their grounds have never kissed these feet

I want to get on the wrong train
Sample the rain upon my tongue
And taste the difference between unknown spaces and home
To be aware of my uniqueness and how insignificant it truly is
To breathe unfamiliar air

Let me gaze at unknown stars and see what dreams form
Cross bridges that have supported both hero and tyrant
Let me sing in tongues that write such words that convey universal hopes and fears
Put me on the wrong train and watch me go

With you I’m the least alone
That I have ever felt
And in my mind that’s something
If not anything else
I think I’m chasing something
And my feet hurt as they hit the ground
But with you I at least breathe and slow down

With you I’m the least alone
That I’ve ever dared to be
And I am more transparent
Than around anyone else, genuinely
And happiness it holds my hand
And I don’t feel threatened to let it go first
In fear it’ll leave me like I started but slightly worse

With you I am the least alone
And the least deceitful to myself
And though there are things sorely lacking
In my mental health
I am at least making strides
My legs shaky, but my own
And it hurts sometimes, but I’m learning to grow

With you I am the least alone
But I’m still a nervous wreck
And emotional state
That I pray I don’t project
And I’ll be here as long as I’m allotted
And I’ll consistently be working on me
Because I’ll always be a little bit lonely

But that’s me.

You left room to follow
Bitter tears to swallow
All your fear came
Cascading down
And you could not feel the ground

Heartbreak stood to greet you
Came close to defeat you
In a penny
In a pound
Your bruises don’t make a sound

It hurts to continue
Love blurry, out of view
How do you save
What can’t be found?
Wish I knew that right now

I cannot repair you
You’d never ask me to
I see bruises
Eyes tear bound
Yet you press on somehow

Darling, you are a song
Sorrowful, but so strong
I’ll whisper goodnight
Kiss your brow
And love the tearful clown

Dear you
Please do
Anything you
Feel you need to
Feel
Beautiful
Again

Lovely girl who
Outgrew
Those light up shoes
Grade school
You never
Stopped
Being

Dear Saturday,  I write to you from foreign lands
I'm in a Monday I'm not sure I understand
The day is shining, yet I am in misery
All these strange people seem to be yelling at me

Oh, dearest Saturday, your ways are now my own
You hold me close in bed and say I can stay home
The other the days just seem to get in the way
The only mutual friend I seem to have's Friday

Dear Friday, you introduced me to my love
Out and about we where, trying to rise above
Monday through Thursday called me friend, bit caused me strife
But you showed me the day that would improve my life

Dear Saturday,  the way you treat me oh, so well
Has shown me heaven in a week filled with hell
I will hang onto Monday only for so long
But I'll miss you more than ever simply when you're gone

You write your dreams
On paper ships
Set them on open ocean
Hoping they will find you

Remnants of hope
On your fingertips
As they grace your lips
Longing to remind you

Glimpses of miracles
Passed by young eyes
Young feet once walked on water
Now you sink like stones

So many paper ships
Cast off to sea
With hope in their creases
As soles stay dry

Alone

Hand keys
To my heart
What a start
To another fatal
Chapter
After
The utter shatter
And the picking up again
Love’s abusive
Friend
Sadist archer
With fiery arrows
And a gate I can’t defend
Keys missing
This may be my
End
Before I’m even beginning
Key tucked safely
In your hands
And my stupid mind
Thinks I’m winning
Final inning
And I’m coming
Up
Short
No retort
Here I am again
The ubb
And dubb
Of a key
Made of me
I’m in love
I’m lacking
I pierce
Shattering
Smattering together
The same chorus
Forever
In offering of lovers
Like livers
That keep growing
Back
Back to the rock
And in offering
I lack
Maybe it’s me
But in order
To be free
I must offer my key

Heartbreaking and entering

Let me borrow your ear
I need to clear
This up for a minute
By far
Everybody is scarred
But no one wants to hear it
They wanna believe
A spirit can be wise
And pure
Unweathered
When in actuality
You and me
Barely keep it together

I’m a fretter
I’m anxious
Brimmed cup of anxiety
And it took a lot of patience
And mistake
To create me
And I come in different shapes
And colors
A variety
To the point I have to wonder
If I compose society?

Do you feel it
The heartbreak
Due to the overwhelming pressure
A feather
Dancing on an flame
Trying to pull it together
I better be better
Cause a better better is coming
Across my way
And I am less than adequate
A bruised peach
They will not taste

A waste
A want
As we all lay ever starvin’
I’m pulling punches
‘Cause of time crunches
I’m reminiscent of Marvin
In the way
That each day
I wonder exactly what is going on
And something something else
I’m too stressed to remember the song

Dear lover
Dear dreamer
Dear whoever you are
Love beyond the frayed bonds
And see all of us
Scarred
I hope you love with love to spare
And that you spare some for me
Stop looking to be perfect
Because you’ll be very
Very
Very
Lonely

Solemnly and silent
In subtleties she calls to me
Falling into my heart caverns
And running through my veins
Through my body
And where I am she’s close to me
Exuding watercolor dreams
Like a painter reacquainting me
With once greyish reality
And every morn, I hear her sing
In voice that constructs melody
As if to say to newest sun
To shine ever still
All subconsciously
And I would follow lyrically
Each instruction as they ring
Like notes in my mind harboring
This subtle, silent calls to me

Crying out
Drown me now
Submerged
In pool upon pool
Of my own stress
Clear
Each drop
Translucent loneliness
Submerged down
Within the
Thought
That I might always
Be here
Oh dear
Call to make sure
Each
Day’s
Okay
I smile so wide it pushes you away
Irony in the lonely
Never fades
Lying here
And here
I
Stay
Drowning once again

Brittle old bones sing
Past there beds
In long ago buried fields
Overgrown in green
By
Voices of those
Who
Will them to existence
Persistently invoking departed souls
Within long ago written verses
That have not lost their luster
But echo on the voices
Of ones who will join such silence
But live on through a song
Persistent in their hearts
And so the bones will sing
With voices not their own
Far past eternal beds
In fields where they stay

Run swiftly said the wolf and the winter will not fall
Howl long and deep and you shall not hear it's call
Keep an ear to the wind and your gaze never flinching
And the coming snow will never greet your coat

The grass will stay lush and the ground never freeze
The sky will stay blue and the birds in the trees
Your belly full and your legs steadfast and strong
Run swiftly to where winter won't follow

So on I ran with the wind at my side
My feet a blur and my eyes filled with pride
And yet the faster I flew, the colder I became
'till winter came and swallowed me whole

I see you
And there you stand
Woman of grace
Of passion
Of eloquent wonder
Lady composed
Of softest dream
And biting reality
Who flows and encompasses
Like water
But consumes
Like fire
And shines bright
Creating the closest thing
We
As lessers in the grander
Have to seeing stars
And tears fall from my eyes
In the hearing
And the knowing
As your hand meets
Mine
That you aren’t made
For me
What cruelty is this
That such a
Gift
Such a
Wonder
Such gold in the midst
Of a mountain of treasure
Can never know
What sweet things
Owning such can bring?
And like that
God brings
A humble man to his knees
Lovely
Beyond me
Beyond my grasp
Lovely
Ever fervent
In fury or in solace
Lovely
Ever natural
Yet otherworldly
LOVELY
Ever present
That burns in my mind
Not for me

...not for me

So I hope lovely
For lovely’s sake

Singing lyrics she forgot that she forgot
Staring at a ceiling as if answers were written there
Working hard for something that just can’t be bought
Wondering in the midst of sunshine if it will rain again

Gazing into her eyes makes me a cosmonauts
A black void of mystery littered with stars of hope
She whispers something sweet and then abruptly stops
Sunny showers while indoors on a weekend

Whistle these lessons
In a chord progression
Reminiscent of birds
That felt spring on their wings

I have heard tales
Of enraptured ship sails
That follow horizons
Of which mortal men sing

Let memories flash
Like the waves that often crash
Make me passenger, captain
In the sea of my mind

Let me look skyward
To hear the whist’ling bird
That escaped to spring
To leave winterland behind

There are many ways to hold her
Sometimes conventional is off
You see, hands have hurt before
I’m sure they’ll hurt again
She needs a different kind of love

You found this supernatural creature
Life’s defining “cherry on top”
She’s a rare find to be adored
For her both mind and heart must bend
To find a different kind of love

Have you asked what a kiss translates to?
Which words you’ve said have penetrated?
Gestures bring something to the table
Share in the happiness and bad
To find her prescribed dose of love

So many things to learn that are new
So many more ways love is translated
Find her dialect if you’re able
To appreciate, to awe, to add
New ways to different kinds of love

In this lone
Construct of bone
Within the make of me
Hides things that I
Cannot deny
Where marrow used to be

Over this frame
Lies sheets of veins
Screaming a name ears can’t hear, that mouth won’t speak
That drives me
To insanity
As she’s just beyond my reach

And flaw’ed skin
That’s blanketed
These concrete truths to stop their bleeding
Bleeds nonetheless
In pained excess
Wanting to know what it’s needing

Callused hands
On a beaten man
With insides coming outside in truth
So much doubt
To filter out
In the finding of you

Honey
Lady so golden
Sweet to my cracked lips
Nature’s gift so unscathed

Angel
Divinely incomparable
Life in its purest
Beauty unsurpassed

Sweetheart
From my head to fingertips
Pumping in purpose
Unceasing, even still

Darling
Lovely holding my hands
Dream walking in reality
Unending in your tapestry

I saw flowers in her hair
As if from there they’d grown
Daisies formed into a crown
Upon the head of Rose

And Rose was what they called her
Though Violet her true name
With daffodils in her hands
Freshly dripping with summer rain

She smelled of bloomed gardenias
Like a sunflower, she looked to the light
A lily amongst thistles and weeds
Lips of pink and skin of white

She was the rarest of them all
But a wildflower in heart and soul
Able to grown in the midst of weeds
Blooming, striving, gold

She lifted up a thousand eyes
Which followed her like spotlight
Like thirsting telescopes tracing shooting star
Longing to be filled with natural wonder
What spells befell such eyes
Each piece studied of an impeccable work
And each stare the knowing of a Creator
As each breath and move she made was testament

I feel the quilt for the seams
Fingerprints in the dream
And I see you beside me
Hand in mine
And I remember the little things

Memories falling as if leaves
As fall turns into spring
Please slow for just a moment
Hand in mine
As I reminisce passing little things

Your voice was never mine in morning
You were a bird of later light
And you would smile
Each day
Each day
To say that you’re alright

You needed your coffee
To satiate your internal plight
As hungriness
Would sway
Would sway
Your mood ‘till your first bite

The crunch of butter covered toast
Your taste of the egg whites
You chose the yolks
To stay
To stay
Your breakfast at its height

You’d smile and say good morning
And there you were, my perfect wife
We’d go outside
Parkways
Beach days
Or an afternoon hike

It’s been a month and you’ve gone now
I dream of you at night
I think of you
Always
Always
As tears I consistently fight

I sleep inside our bedroom
I still whisper to you “Sleep tight”
You went in your sleep
No pain
No pain
After fighting with all your might

Your voice was never mine in morning
But you were my sun, so bright
And I find I miss
Your grace
Your face
Amidst the morning light

So you say you’ve fallen out of love?
Can I follow you?
So long you’ve been all I can think of
It’s so hard not to do
Tell me if your lips of cherry red
Are stained from biting at my heart
You do so well in the pull away
Masterful in the art to part

So you say you’ve fallen out of love?
Can you show me how?
Often I find hope rising in my mind
And tears falling down
Do you see the agony in it?
Are you so selfish you won’t teach?
Love has been an ever present goal
And you’ve pulled it out of reach

So you say you’ve forgotten how to love?
Preach to me your unknown pains
I am a disciple, faithful, but shunned
Whose given much with little gain
Fragment of your heart under lock and key
Mine openly offered in my hands
Tell how you cauterized such pains
Help me understand

So here I am alone and still on love
Top of the peak
Feelings I have yet to make sense of
No words left to speak
And in the silence I then understand
That look echoed in your soul
How you fell so quickly out of love with me
Because of a love you can’t let go

What of these chains within this thing called love?
Will we ever be free?
Someday will some foolish heart come to break
And ask the same of me?
Is there such thing as truly falling out of love?
Or are you hanging there?
Forever holding out for who you’re thinking of
And running out of air

There’s gotta be something wrong with me
Where I fail to begin to see
Where you left and what’s in front of me
And how to keep walking when you’re gone
Pray, God, how do I go on?
I don’t want to go on
When kiss and hands held are shelved
Right next to my self-respect
View of me and you in kissing booths
That my mind cruelly projects
As I watch in horror
At things that keep saying goodbye
And yet they stay
And get their way
In my dismay, oh Lord, I cry
How do I go on?
Silence, darkness, no reply
Silence, darkness, no reply
Silence screaming thoughts, I try
Thoughts of only cloudy skies
No reply
You have dialed an incorrect number
Please hang up and try again
So we may test the other ways
Your faith in love can bend
I’m broken
As I found out 7 minutes ago the line was cut
The killer’s in the house, dear sir
I let her in, but now it’s shut
No hope for me in misery
I’m standing here, yet gone
These constants scenes in front of me
How do I go on?

Shortness of breath
How fitting
As the socially deaf start in the bidding
Of a mind
Of a heart
And soul
Of a billion
See me in my frustration
See the color of my skin
How is the least of these
The most important of all?
I hear the anguish of breaking glass
Broken spirits
They call
Losing hope as a burning world
Scares me half to death
Empathize
Because who will you run to
When you’re the oppressed?
Silence in respect
Join me as I raise my fist
(Beat)
Hands up
I surrender
Tears fall, this may be it
Will I be missed?
USA
Born and raised
Living grenade
Shaken, beaten, and stirred
And when I explode
Anarchist?
Terrorist?
That’s absurd
I am a product of a machine
That grinds me into dust
You may be in the same gear
Don’t ignore it
Discuss
My brothers
My sisters
It is clear
Blood is red
How are we so divided
With the same thoughts in our heads?
Let scars remind of the pain
Wash the anger from your hands
Ceasefire, be at peace
Don’t make new cuts
Understand
Wrongs do not right
Our message must be clear
A crowd must scream in unison
For them to properly hear
Demand
And march on
Open eyes to the plea
Change must be made
Pick it up from it’s knees
Help me, help you
Help us
Who’s next?
Clearly see
We all slowly suffocate
When one of us cannot breathe

I can’t breathe...

#blacktuesday #PartOfAColoredPeople #icantbreathe2020 #BLM #BlackLivesMatter #peacefulprotest #MarchOn

My brain is a middle school notebook
Every day I write your name inside
With random sketches the cover holds in
For emotions I can’t easily hide

My heart is a jelly pen
A schoolyard craze, of that there’s no doubt
It pins my last name to you in my middle school notebook
And as costly as it is, I pray it won’t run out

Mattress no longer on my back
I’m on this high again
Your eyes form a dream
From which I chose not to defend

Oh my love
My personal cut
Of homebroken ******

Here we go again
A heart in the race
Hoping to reach the end

Colors swirl around my head
And they sing your sweet testaments
Swirling within liquor like lies
To your sobering truth

Flowing through veins
Sapped of passion
Synapses on overdrive

I look into your eyes
And the skies pull me
Dangling me between heaven and misery

Dripping a sweet soliloquy
From my lips at the sight of you
Here in a purgatory of hope made for myself
Marvelous in its hues

Drugged on the memory
The melody
Praying out of looming loneliness

Here I stand again
Heart on my sleeve
I believe

Here we go again

How
    You
  Fail
Me
So

With words of shattered diamonds
So precious
But are as sand to deserts

    How
They
         Pierce
   My
Sole

Causing me to slow my pace
To stop
A race I am now sure to lose

          I’m
In
    Your
            Control

A simple play thing of no consequence
A grain of sand
Amidst a desert of a trillion billion lies

Some
Day
    I’ll
       Let
           Go

Someday I’ll find me in all of this
I’ve been filled
With ignorance

Diamonds mean little to a heart dying
Of thirst

I wish you could hear the shaking of these bones
To know how brave I am with you, yet scared when I’m alone
My ****** Snacks have all run out and there’s no motivation
Praying my legs keep me up and that there’s no escalation

My mind is the one that drives such thoughts into my head
Suffering from choices that might conclude in accompanying the dead
Fear is all that drives my consistent anxiety
And I long for you, for what I fear is me

View the scenery
The lesser of attractions
Beyond the lights
The stars
And in the vast, the blackness

The backdrop endlessly
Speaking to ears
Not hearing
I feel you out in space
I think of you so clearly

Prayers float from my mouth
Answered, forwarded to voicemail
My ceiling holds spaces
Atoms form me
And my jail

It’s electricity
That makes chemicals in me
The forms the lonely
Forms the empty
Filled with the scenery

I wish for a dreadful thing
Every night
Wonderful though it may be
My pillow by my side
Emulating you laying next to me

Spaces between compose words
Flicked outside by
Movements of my tongue
I dwell in loneliness
And I pray I’m not the only one

Do you feel lonely?
Beyond your street
These scenic stars?
I pray you long for me
In crowded room, still alone you are

I feel this
Aching too
A rowboat in an endless sea
I look in the black
And pray you’re as lonely as me

You should feel as lonely as me...
... tell me she’s as lonely as me

Selfishness fill the darkness
Lines between concrete seas

Help me believe she’s as lonely as me...

I know these thoughts
They arise
Like moons
Eclipsing light of day
I whisper wicked things
Coated in prayers that float away

These eyes
Dare not close
In case miracles start
In front of me
Maybe my wounded heart injures
But I pray you search till you find me

Eternity is brief, love
We have not a moment
To waste
Two hearts scattered in blackness
Leaking words that float to space

I beg forgiveness
I know my folly
I’ve took too long
No map in darkness
Hope dwindles, but I search on

These words divisive
Selfish as they float
Never to be
Retrieved
I pray you’re lonely
And that you search impatiently

I pray you’re lonely
And ever alone, you ache for me...

There is a match
A rage in me
Held in rooms of kerosene
And time itself
Will decide
Who in flame
Will burn

Are you sand?
I ask myself
Are
You
Sand?
I ask
As you run through
My hands
Understand
I love you
Boulder or lesser
I just happen
Not to be
The best guesser

Are you sand?
Burned to clarity?
Do
You
See
Beyond
What they
And even I
Perceive you to
Be?
Just be
Sand shifts
So elegantly
Overlooked
Though vast
Ground
But
Weathering

You
Are
Sand
To me
Do you count
Every
    Single
De-
       Scend-
-ing
Second with me
I lose track
In the
Warmth of you
Ever living
Till
I’m
Sand
Too

We are sand
Ground
Mountain
Traces
Independent
Wrapped embraces
Found in crevices
Of
Places
That we
Unknowingly
Found
Ever
Changing
Yet
Always
On the ground
Only valued
When
We
Are
From shore
To shore
But never far

I know what you are...

Cracked China cup
At a chipped table
Stained cloth dressing
Do you still see
Beautiful
Tell me now
As broken candles
Burn
        On
Down
Broken things
See broken things
And cracks hide
Truth
I see you
This crack’ed thing
And I see you
Beautiful
Lovely you
Cracked
But not outdone
They try to
Break you
Take you
Because you’re the only
One
A cracked cup
That runneth over
But
Can still hold your
Own
Oh precious
How you’ve grown
Setting a place that
You deserve
I pray that
You are filled
Cracks only
Show
When you can’t
Hold

But I’d gladly hold
You

Fragile porcelain case
Holding 5000 feelings
All screaming at the same
Volume
Head on the ceiling
Heart sometimes at your feet
Pick up again
Pick up again
And try hard
Don’t you always seem
To be at that same
Difficulty?
You think as you always do
“Maybe it’s me”
Brain consistent
And people?

Well... they’re people..

How do you compose yourself
In the midst of
Constant cracking?
Who’s your emotional backing?
Do they stick around
Or do the chorus
Of
5000
Scare them away?
Oh dear
Here
Are
Tears again today
Porcelain sheen
It fades
Blemishes show and
You are revealed
You are you
And the worst part of you
Is the part you hold
In a heart
That is
Picked up again
Picked up again
Dust on the ground
Pick it off
Pick it off

Lest it get on your soul
Seemingly less bold
Or maybe just seemingly less

Porcelain vase
Meat suitcase
Confines of a heart
Picked up again
Picked up again
As feelings trickle out
Spilling 5000 songs at once
Recycled
Never lost
And always
Seemingly
...losing

Dear, there are tears again
Where are your friends?
Are they chipped too?

As I am...
...here for you

Fragments of frozen rain
The falling snow
Graces your nose
Graces windowpanes
And there you are
As if pictures framed
A piece of scripture
So I know your God breathe’d
So in summer I feel your glow
Your warmth
The heat at 10 degrees
And you just try to push on
Which is so special to me
And you don’t belong to me
Yet you warm my soul, you see
Chicken soup to the malady
Of winter days
I’d wish you to stay always

Knowing you have to leave...
...you don’t belong to me

Faded glory
Prayers on slim fit jeans
Foreign to victory
Leading to second story pleas

Can you hear her?
Despairing with whispered screams
But tears don’t answer
The many questions they bring

Faded glory
$20 when on sale
See the story
Of the strongest of the frail

Can you see her?
Wishes to fly, though she barely crawls
There’s a glimmer
Prevailing amidst the falls

Faded glory
Well worn and stretched to fit
Constant weathering
Pushing on till something rips

Can you feel her?
Is there a choir that recognizes her song?
Are you a singer?
Are your jeans ripped but still on?

I hear almost silent whisp’rings
Hist’ry
Tells me you’ll soon be gone
I promise not to cry o’er unspilled drinks
I think
It may be time to move on
This is selfish self protection
Prevention
From pains once felt before
I’ll take my heart from your grasp
Safer that
It just stay on the floor

First pleas
Unsaid
Red eyes
Dry riverbeds
Here lies
Happiness
Buried six feet deep in regrets

Seconds pass
Out of time
Speak now
I’ve tried
Spelled out
Words repeat
Words first said as you fade to sleep

Dreamer
I call to you
Thrice more
Beyond veiled view
Same hour
Twelfth night
When fate took you from my life

Questions
Madness drives
To forefronts
Darkness arrives
Forever more
Your deathly dance
Unchained from mortal coil and my hands

Dark night
Fifth on same day
Answer me
In my dismay
Where she
Still alive
Would she stand to be my wife?

Sycophant
To demons now
Here I plead
Hear my vow
Disaster struck
Her voice I know
This pain in me only grows

Heaven now
At my back
Seventh cry
Into the black
Driving words
In my mind
Wond’ring how she left me behind

8:00
On the hour
When hands turned cold
When life turned sour
Thoughts careen
Into the fade
Twelfth night bereft of the day

Knees, you bleed
Heart is torn
My love, a corpse
With child, unborn
Words I read
Pure sacrilege
In hopes to breed words from the dead

Both hands dig in
Fingers trembling still
Hear my plea
Unsacred will
If she would speak
These words to me
Maybe I could finally sleep

All attempts failed
No price to much
Gouge out these eyes
Hands go untouched
One this wicked month
Short of a dozen years
I drive myself to bring you here

Oh Twelfth Night
What terror you bring
As words arise
From Hell’s opening
The inferno rains
Words burned in my head
“With this wedding ring, I thee wed”

I looked for you
Amongst the pale and grey
As I saw you fading away
Melting
Into the concrete
Falling to defeat

So I bent a knee
Inaudible prayers for you
Then unlaced my walking shoes
Time
I placed into your cup
Hoping it would be enough

No plan to stop the tears
Inelegant, no grace
Shirt wet where you buried your face
Grief
I lost you in your pale and grey
But I know I’ll find you again in a smile

We’ll speak and measure
Only the amount you need
Contemplating long walks and sore feet
Rising
Don your shoes, pick you up
As you did for me miles before

Shallow streams
Echo in chambers of fallen dreams
In bittersweet visions she
Comes to me
Memories
That come in eves and carry me

Sail away
Rising, the tides scream that things don’t change
Simple complexities
Seem so strange
Still they stay
While she, pristine, is there but out of range

It was a parting word
And a kiss on the cheek
That proceeded
To teach
That sometime we
Are only what we are right now
And not what we’re growing to be
And not what we’re capable of being
And never what we intend to be
And she was
Is, and always will be
Sorrowfully more to me
I’m basking in the misery
Of her effervescent glow
One that I’ll know but never truly know
I tell her I love her
And she tells me to go home
I’d say it’s the final blow
But I know better
I’ll be the faithful knight
And act as if I’m all put together
Because of all I’ve weathered
Because deep down I’m fettered
Holding the key that’s binding me
In hopes I’ll be freed by her
And it’s never that easy
I say how I feel
And cover it with something cheesy
To mask the bold taste
And what I intended it to be
Because I know she’d easily let go of me
Reaching for the next crevice on this cliff
As the rocks move earnestly
And maybe I should leave
And I tell myself I could leave
And I know that I have to leave
But every time she says she needs me
I believe

My words echo
And float in the night
Till I’m not sure they’re mine
And there you stand
Apart from me
Each syllable slowing time

It’s a crap shoot
Because I’m far too proud
To claim words birthed from me
But to my surprise
I look at you
And I repeat

“Please don’t leave”

I’m a train wreck
Lack social grace
And a whirlwind of doubt
Why you stayed
So long in my arms
I can’t figure out

You are beautiful
I’ve said it before
I could stand to say it more
But you’ve come to this
And the fact are clear
Your hand’s at the door

So the walls break down
And the rivers run
My pride is all but drowned
My legs are weak
Buckling under me
Knees and tears hit the ground

I am not this man
And this is not the time
I know it hard to believe
But my love for you
Transcends my vanity
So stolen words form a plea

“Don’t leave...”

I am passionate
And it scares some
But it scare me most of all
I make my plans
Like a foolish man
And watch them as they fall

There’s not much here
I’m too much sometimes
Prices of passion through and through
I don’t act like this
For just anyone
But it pours out for you

Look me in the eye
I see what you see
Too much way too fast
You dictate to me
To speak my truths
As these moments may be our last

And my sword is words
And my shield my art
Vocation I so easily weave
But choking back tears
Floating words then fall
Etched in my heart

“Don’t leave me... please...”

Please.

My head is filled to the brim
Packed brainstems
Maybe that’s why I take you straight to heart
Truths whispered and held in cupped hands
Like butterflies, then released
See where they land and the clarity they impart
You words are vast galaxies
Mystical, colorful imagery
Like melted crayons pouring from the fount of your mouth
Dripping into molds making wax elephants
Heavy words trumpeting sentiments
That I may never ever truly figure out
Eyes that speak paragraphs upon chapters upon volumes
Upon libraries
And I am only a syllable in the commentary
Fill the empty crevices of a heart once on fire
Long since expired
And give this charred thing new life, incendiary
Make this full mind empty every bit but you
Clear the queue
So I might feast on more than these offerings of crumbs
Minds will always be filled and filling
And full
But the the choice of what’s ingested is the rule of thumb

Wonder-filled

You feel you are a stack of mortar and brick
I see you as a sailing ship
So funny how these things contradict
You think you’re still, I say you’re still moving

Shift with me, but standing against the waves
You’re not one for the newest craze
Traditional as you innovate
You and your wonderful “you-ness”

See each time you rise and fall
Ship to sea, not stagnant wall
Consistently moving, never to be stalled
Till your destination is reached

And until you sail again

You are absolutely the most gorgeous
Modest
Goddess on two feet
Those ambitious
Wished
Auditioned, failed
Had to sign a non-compete
You exemplify amplified
Undeniable
Realism till I’m knocked right off my feet
And meeting you leaves me
Tongue tied
Buy and refund vowels
Because I can barely speak

You are Artemis and Athena
Sometimes meaner
You’ve both the brain
And brawn to back it
Not many times do sights
So right
Prove worthy of me
Being flabbergasted
Mere mortal men’s minds cave in
Bend
And bow at your intricacies
And you blush, turning crimson
Glimpse
As humbleness rushes to your cheeks

You may not feel the heat
But I know the stakes
Grade A
You are prime to me
Prepared, unshared
With utmost care
Rare
And it’s the only time I’ll compare you to meat
I’ll avert my eyes as you rise
Ascend
A gentleman for eternity
Because love was fantasy
Fallacy
Utter blasphemy
Till you made a believer of me

Ode to those lovely heartbreakers
That bore into my chest and pull out my heart
To smear upon blank canvases
And birth these works of art

The sweetest intentions with bitter aftertastes
That weigh heavy so that words are pushed forth
Not questioning beautiful gold coated wrappings
But they in turn making me question my worth

Ode to those lovely heartbreakers
Their brilliance, their wonder, their tragedy
Who are deserving of words beyond words beyond worlds
And rushing tides of passionate misery

To taste would me both blessing and curse
To know, to attain, but to lose
But is the chance better than the rejection, the hurt
Is the question, but the answer hard to choose

Ode to the lovely heartbreakers
Whose names are etched on my heart, how it bleeds
Open sores that give birth through pain and loss
And unintentionally shaping parts of me

The saying goes that crime rarely pays
And I say love is therein it’s counterpart
So comes past charges of loving each and every one
And so the sentence comes: beautiful art

What is in your nature?
For what cause do you bleed?
The lights flicker on and off
You smile amidst the scoffs
Darling, you are so hard to read

I’ve got questions for your creator
You continue to perplex me
You’re the moon amidst the dawn
How are you here and so far gone?
I do not know how to proceed

Something is hidden in the inseam
I see the thorns upon the rose
The coolness amidst the heat
The beauty only hides the beast
The more I learn, the less I know

My dear, what is in your nature?
Where do you choose to stand and fall?
I am coaxed and yet afraid
Take so much pleasure in the pain
Complexities within your call

Oh loveliness inside the tempest
Oh endless pit in which I dive
I choose to venture to the depth
Though it may be till death
It’s makes me aware I’m alive

Girl
No, better than girl
Better than playground crushes
Summertime blushes
Fleeting rushes
And cheeks, those flushes
Not girl
But woman
Etched in notebooks
Eyes that look
Through soul
Grace visions
Pinpoint precision
Woman
In technicolor
Live
Electric, but wireless
In 4320p
High dynamic range
And legs for days
I see you
Cinematic
And wild in you ways
Like watching for the
First time a nature
Documentary
And knowing the lion is king
But the lioness, the hunter
Not cub I seek
But grown
Wonderful
Dangerous
Vivacious
Passionate

Woman
In technicolor
A world not her own
But give it time
As she toils
And breaks
And creates
And tries
And amazes
And blazes
And screams
And relaxes
And I stand in wonder
Under the weight
The awe
Of her
Woman
In technicolor
In worlds lost to the black and white
Of conformity
And distortion
The contortion of which
Make her seem small
But she not
At
All
She is technicolor
Made for IMAX screens
And this boy
Hoping to prove to be
Man’s
Dreams