You want me to be Brutal                                     You want me to be Brutal

or do you want me to blunt.                                or do you want me to be blunt.

Disregard your feelings.                                        Realize your feelings.

Let me crush your soul.                                        Let me find your heart.

I'll show you the real me, once again.                I’ll show you the fake me, once again.

I just want to hurt you.                                         I just want to care for you.

Do you enjoy my truths?                                     Do you enjoy my lies?

I would speak truths upon truths for spite.      I would speak lies upon lies for love.

I'd share this poem.                                              I'd share this poem.

To break your spirit.                                             To embrace your spirit.

The truths only breaks you.                                The lies only breaks me.

I could never speak them.                                    I could always speak them.

I would fall to pieces.                                           I would fall to pieces.

I would like the many all to know
that I am all ready to go
no I do not mean to my death
I do not want to take my final breath

I am ready to fall to my slumber
I wonder when it'll be my number
before my rest I'd like to say that I am not upset
I have done all I can do, I call it my best

I will see where my tidings have gone
all I can say is that we did have a great bond
maybe you have seen, so I will give you time
perhaps you have not thought it threw; you are mine

I care oh so much, but I accept my world
it may not be clear, it truly is all swirled
the truth will always find me soon
and to be honest I know it will bring my doom

I would like the many all to know
that if I had to, I can let her go
No I do not mean from my love
I will take that final breath after one last shove

feeling can sometimes be too much, tickling your brain with thought.
It taps taps my fingertips black and blue.
thank you, for
Bringing me into the magic
of living through the portal of a story,
of sweet ***** smoke,
of hollow veins,
of dark things.

The places inbetween the space
of life and love and God,
I know it too.

We are brutally beautiful
We are
The soft red glow of a nuclear sunset
Pooling like blood
From wounds
Like that one time I cut my forearms open

Oh so that’s what a heartbeat looks like

It is sign language after a fist fight
When I’m so angry I can’t speak
So with my hands I tell you
No one should talk to you that way

It is the assbackwards way we allow ourselves to heal

For instance
When I had cancer
My parents took me to church when they could
Asked people to pray for me
And I thought drinking holy water might help me

It only made me sick
And I spent three days in the hospital

This life is *****
It is ugly

We are ugly
Like
Crime scene photos of bathtub suicides
Shortcutting life
And still getting into heaven

How after so many years
Just to make things interesting
Peter takes bribes now

And we are beautiful
Brutally beautiful
Endearing in our passion
Because it’s just a little too conscious to be animal
But we try

It is shotgunning a dove
And the rain of feathers
Even when damp with blood they are still soft

I wanna hold you tightly
You coarse cut angel
Your jagged edges rub
But neither of us wants to fall asleep alone

We will never be perfect
But we were supposed to be

Remember that
When your ugly rears its head
Like a mental mirror showing you only the things you notice about yourself
Know
nobody sees you the way you see yourself

Just remember
To smile more
And laugh when things are funny
Make love when you can

These things are good for you
Balance out the brutal
Because you

Are brutally beautiful

Your lips tasted like smoke
From the buildings you watched burn
While standing dead center

Our bodies are practiced in the art of collapsing

A collapse to make harder
Make stronger

There is this company called life gem
That can turn your ashes into diamonds

We have diamond potential

Welcome to the church of falling apart
The church constructed from the things tempers make
Built from all the rubble collected from every collapse

It’s where we pray
In tears
Red eye gritted teeth frustration
Pray like a seizure sometimes
How I buckle at the backbone
Bulging out my belly
To show you
There’s still beauty inside

If you’ll forgive me
You can take it

10 years is a long time to love someone
Especially for it all to stop in an instant

I know we both prayed for the love to come back
And if these walls could talk they’d be suicidal for some paint thinner
Wanting to forget as badly as we do

And I am sorry seven ways til Sunday
Just seven days til Sunday
Seven chances not to **** up
Before I have to beg forgiveness again

I wanna pick up the pieces
Like broken glass
And make a disco ball
So I can dance small miracles
In a body designed to break

You know
If I had a typewriter big enough to run myself through
I rewrite the rough drafts god never finished
I’d put the psalms back in my voice box
I’d pray calmly

Despite what you might think
There are still ways to be broken and saved

This church isn’t firewood yet

So let’s sing a savage hallelujah
Know that forgiveness is the only way not to be bitter

Then we can collapse heavily into this bed we’ve made

Know we can always remake it in the morning

Welcome to the church of falling apart
With you at the top
Bangin’ away in the bell tower
Finding ways to drown out the cries
Like morphine

Just above your head
There is a slow fire working its way down
So everyone can exit safely
If they want to

We can make angels in the ashes
Like we do in the snow
And then we can rebuild

Every day as the sun rose
the sand sparkled like broken glass and salt

The ocean saw how the sand sparkled
and collapsed on top of it
A steady hush and hiss with every attempt
No one ever wondered why the ocean sounded like that
Like a fatigued Darth Vader

The ocean was sick
The ocean felt lonely
It is hard to have a body that big
to ever feel full

One day people came to swim
They did not swim like the animals did
The animals swam naturally
No one ever notices the way their own blood
pumps inside their veins
so much that they are happy being alive

The people splashed awkward
Stood sometimes letting their toes
graze the sea floor
This made the sea happy
But the people who were not of the sea
grew tired
and started for the sand

The sea became upset that they were leaving
and created a wave so big
it pulled the people back inside of it
A crash that sounded like lung cancer
A heave skipping the heart a beat
One that begs for any kind of breath

The ocean felt the people splashing hard
Fighting for land
It felt good

Eventually
They slowed
Gave up
And drowned

The ocean was lonely again

It calmly wheezed
at the shiny sand

Summer stands in shadows, silent.
She has reasons
Here in Autumn's dark-ning chill,
Here at the cleaving of the Seasons...
Some harvest in; some still to go
Before the staying cold,
Before the piling snow.

Chill in the air; hesitation in the breath...
Footsteps pounding on the hardening street,
A steaming sprite an opened door escapes.
Everywhere a tucking in, a tucking up,
A nervous shrug, a cautious smile denies
Winter's coming blast of cold.

Scent of wood smoke
Flares the nostrils
Evokes childhood rites,
Calls stragglers to the burning leaves.

Between the Author
And the Reader,
The Text lies waiting.

The Author,
Only partially aware
Of All Intents and Purposes
In spite of careful diction,
Forms a multi-messaged bolt
To drive full meaning
Home.

The Text,
Scripted in language,
Printed on paper,
Inked in pixels,
Floated in air,
Carries meaning
in a leaking bucket
Denoting and Connoting
Implications only.

The Reader,
Seeking something
Not even realized,
Comes partially engaged,
Intent to dabble
Or to glean
Or find some thought
On which to meditate.

Somehow in this tenuous state
Between mortal thinkers,
Ideas cross synaptic bridges -
Through the air and light,
Tempered by time,
Culture-cured,
Enriched by vocabulary,
Electrically ignited...
Combustion!