I will live and die a man,
and that much I know is true.
But when the word is through,
will it say the same for you?

Because the message is clear,
if at times somewhat condescending,
that life matters more than it's ending.
It's purpose doesn't lay in it's rending.

And if honor isn't the purpose,
for which you struggle through this world,
how will you know when you become unfurled?
All this talk has my ******* toes all curled.

Love is not the answer,
but I believe it is a cause,
And when we stop to contemplate the flaws,
we are given to moments of real pause.

Because it's almost over,
and I stand before the hands of time.
You will kneel before, as I arise,
and stare in awe from your house of lies.

You went upstairs to go to bed,
but you never came back.
Or rather you didn't come back
under you own power.

It was MEs, stretchers,
and tear stained sunrises we never
saw from the kitchen floor
where we wept.

The arrangements were made,
open casket confessions and so little else.
You were ashes by the days end.
No mantel piece resting place.

Because it's not fair.
Because nothing ever is.
Because you were so young,
because we weren't ready.

Because your love was so vast
that it would light up the room.
Because you taught us to close our hands
and catch starlight in between our fingers.

There is a hole in my soul.
An error in my morning light.
I can still smell the tea.
How you loved strong tea...

"Black as the night and
sweet as a stolen kiss."

Memories of your made up language,
the one so few of us knew fluently,
will always dance in my brain.
To think, I failed Spanish.

When, days later, we opened the microwave
to find your cup of tea,
the one you left out every night,
you were such a fan of strong tea...

How are we supposed to go on?
Where will the hand be that is meant to guide?
I had never cried over tea.
I had never cried over much of anything.

Imagine my surprise,
my sweetest mentor,
my treasured care giver,
when my shoulders began to shake.

When the last bell chimes.
Sordid tales in locked journals,
kept in places all too familiar.
There will be light to balance
the steady rain.

Chained to burning pyres,
echoes of long ago nights of fire.
Sing the song that you learned
from the dead.

Leave through the hidden door,
push out against the giants,
barely kept at bay,
because dreams are such fragile things.

But in your moment of greatest need,
when the dark surrounds you,
when crimson falls from the skies,
you may find the trick.

Spread your arms,
wide as you can,
tip forward against the wind,
and fly.

Scream with me, into the dark.
Match my pitch with your high arc.
And hear the sound of us, bare, stark.
Listen to it, feel it in you, the very human spark.

Wasted time, reversed rhetoric and given pause.
From the steep climb, we can look down on our flaw.
The very thing we never counted on, the err in this design.
The bitter notes of our old song,  it's love, it's divine.

Dig through the tainted wrecks.
Feel through your bones the context
of man made heart string reflex.
And ask me, soft as feathers, "What's next."

Can you feel us slip and fall?
The pit asks and we heed the call.
Does you stomach lurch and twist?
The fear is how you know you exist.

We may never know what we'll land upon,
but trust me, it's always darkest before dawn.
You have to understand, that though our era is bygone,
I refuse to become another man's pawn.

Reach inside you, my love, for the very human spark.
We will face down the ****** dark,
I the dreamer and you my skylark.
Forever, this night, will be our mark.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

We're moving, so much faster.
Push the stop, let us off,
condescend if you must. Go, scoff.
We're moving toward disaster.

This wasn't the plan, not the one I made.
I wasn't looking for love...
I'm so ******* sick of...
This is so little, this is so done. So staid.

Faster now. Faster.
Tick. Tick. Tick.

I don't want to see the finish line.
I want life, sweet and long.
This feels right, and that's so wrong.
It's okay. It's just *******... It's fine.

                         But speak soft words against the moonlight.
                         Because it's dark as pitch, and I'm your knight.
                         But when it falls, as it must, as it will, as it always does
                         And, sweet pea, I can see the end, but I can't save you because...

Tick. Tick. Tick.

These are the hours of my life.
Watch as they fly away, gone is the day,
when I held you and watch us sway.
Ring upon your finger. My little wife.

Tick. Tick. Tick.
Faster, ever faster.

And now, around the next bend,
Where our children will play,
and laugh away the lazy day,
Tell me you can't see the end.

From every drop
springs just a little more.
An urgent pounding
against the bedroom door.
Because it's out with
the pilot light,
it's in with the
same old fight,
and it's back to work,
the same old way.
Every ******* day.

You say you believe
that love is the answer.
I don't know,
but hate is a cancer.
And it's miles and miles
to beat my retreat.
Some days it's  ******* the sound
of my own heartbeat.

I'm not another hack,
building out but holding back.
I live in the here in now, or so I say,
until the noise starts.
Rent's late.
Time to pay.
Every ******* day.

I would love, you must believe me,
to see peace.
I would love to lay my head down
and finally get sleep.
But there's work to be done,
there's hours and hours,
and so little ******* sun.
But if you stay with me,
hold hands and live with chance,
I might feel like I can be free.

But the knocking never goes.
We're not some dead beats,
though heaven only knows.
I'm spent from all my mediocre feats.
I can't find my bed and lay,
because the noise doesn't go away.
Every ******* day.

Pages float from the empty window
to the busy city streets.
Pages of our diary, the one we kept
so the ******* world wouldn't see.

But wipe your tears, smile with your whole soul.
You see, it's the freedom of the act
that we have to cherish, that we have to embrace.
Look past the shame of our secret story,
and find the beauty we've now shared.

You see, it's our lives on display for those people.
It's our words and our days and our ways,
and it's out there, and it touches people.
We have made the world aware of our lives,
and in so doing, they have found a part of
who they are, who they wish they could be.

In every person, holding one of those pages,
there is a little bit of you, a little bit of me.
There's so much beauty in that, can't you see?