we are young
and we maybe don't
fully know what
we are doing
or what we even are
But none of that matters
because If I know one thing
It's that I have always enjoyed
the time spent together
even if we went 2 hours without talking
I would never give those 2 hours back
I just want to say that I like you
and you don't have to like me back
Lord knows it's hard
but even if you hate me
or if I just didn't mean anything
I will be fine knowing
that I will always have
That one shared moment

It's such a beautiful relationship
like birds cleaning crocodile teeth
feeding on what didn't make it to the stomach
these words rely on me
A vessel
and hopefully they don't
act like hermit *****
because without them
I would just be a ***
who drinks and smokes too much
But as long as I have the ability
to manipulate the world around me
in the chaotic rush
of my infinite mental expanses
and nooks and crannies
I can give them life
like a midwife
I bring them into the world
and name them poems
or stories
so that they might live forever
burned in the retinas of strangers
or etched on the wood of my desk
I hope we will always
need each other

Sunglasses hide me from the hurtful rays
and like a bandit mask conceal my identity
pull the bill of the cap down
until I look like a sleepwalking hobo
and though I'm a regular recognizable face
at that corporate coffee castle
nobody knows my name
Because If I keep them at a distance
then I don't feel as bad
when I do horrible things to them
in my writings
I keep myself anonymous
so that they can show me
their true selves
because nobody expects to be observed
by a sleepwalking hobo

there were always people staying with us
in that house
it was a real dump
too many transitory tourists
and drug induced lack of motivation
but there is Jake's girlfriend
frail and weak
like a *****
although she was mostly clean
she drank every now and then
but she was just sick
and she left
once Jake went to take the infinite sleep

And Martin never had trouble
bringing stray women back to the house
for days at a time
before he got bored
and went on to another
tossing the previous to the side
without a second thought
I stopped even trying to remember their names
those poor broken souls
like most girls who Martin coaxed into a world of loathing
frustrated self-destructive details
of a life headed no where

And Mia stayed for a while
a friend of mine
whose vices were klonopin, ***, and music
but she was far too smart
got out of there before the walls closed in
there was Sarah
just looking for truth
and love
but she never loved herself
and it was hard to love a pill head
who paraded her womanhood
to all of the drug dealers around town

There was Chris, smoking like a chimney
never sleeping
always running from his boyhood
we had to ask him to leave
when we found him
sailing the seas of golden brown

But these people
weren't built for this life
they are too easily destroyed by the ugliness
they haven't yet learned
how to shape them
into forms which are far more acceptable
so they flee in terror
from the glass house
their marks are marks of their impermanence

something special seems to happen
when the sun goes down
when  the street people come out to play
drinking in the moonlight with greed
I got new DVD's at a good price
I can hook you up man
I feel most estranged
and most comfortable
when the sun is down
fill up my cup
give me a drink
and i can write you poem
after poem after poem
I can give you introspective insights
and parts of me
which only exist between certain hours
with a cat's eye
and a devilish grin
you sing me off
into another, stranger land

I watched you silently from my place amid the masses
As you sat alone on stage

Around you stood the empty chairs
Still awaiting instruments and bodies
But you didn’t seem to notice

Slowly drawing the bow across the strings
While fingers danced seemingly unaided

I sketched you then in my mind so that I might always remember the way your brow was furrowed
Hair astray in the fashion most expected by a being that has not slept in as many days as artists of unheard merit are apt to do

I traced the joints of your fingers curled around the dark wooden handle almost, but never touching the off white fabric that stretched between one point and the other

In my mind I found I could only liken you and your appearance to that of others I had only read of
All fictional of course

Here a wayward detective long since run down but never out sank his sorrows in a bottle while his mind fractured but still brilliant carried on

But then there were so many others that also came to mind, each tugging at the corners of my imagination with passionate desperation
Attempting in the only way they knew to be the sole capture of my attention

In this corner I found a journalist well traveled as he was versed, with the quality beseeching that of a gentleman hidden under two days worth of growth

But perhaps your likeness might be more suited to the air of a more scientific mind, secret genius cultivating cures for every kind of illness while still trapped in the depths of madness

I sat and watched as you played unnoticed for what seemed to me just a moment but was far more then that as my mind turned over the possibility of all the people you could have been

But when asked softly why didn’t I rise from my unnoticed place and put to rest my chaotic thoughts by moving close to speak to you if only for a moment

I resisted

What could I say to let them understand the path my mind had run
How I was unwilling to leave my seat, held there by this slight fear

That if I dared to find my voice, to rise and cross the space between the seats… to draw close enough that you might see me
All that I had imagined you to be would be crushed or somehow dulled by the harsh light of reality

You might not be a gentleman, suave and smooth with charm or reflect even a bit the madness of a scientist whose sanity has long since gone…
You might be so far from the truth that I’d never write this poem

So I sat silently in my place amid the masses

Watching you draw your bow across the strings while your fingers danced unaided