I haven’t written you a love song,
not from any lack of romance
for you color my skies with your eyes
and your lips flood my mind with irrational thoughts.
I often write of made up lullabies shared over nights we haven’t had,
or some imaginary girl falling for this made up guy,
that doesn’t sound anything like you or me.
I don’t know what stills my lips
when trying to write of the night skies we’ve shared,
for they are the most beautiful ones I’ve seen.
I think it may be because,
even if I wrote with the most complex and beautiful language
it would never do you, or the days we spent
watching movies in the back of my truck, any justice.
Our love is messy and incomprehensible
mainly because I still can’t translate what I feel
when your hands brush against mine, gently yet with excitement,
as if there were magnets in them that just had to connect with mine.
It’s not poetic, it’s cheesy, and messy,
but it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.
So please take this convoluted attempt to work out my feelings,
as your love song, my confusing, jumbled, and truthful ode to you,
the muse to all the fantasies I write.

I wish I had known that holding onto this anger so tightly would make it take root.
Others would talk of joy being a seed that sprouted in time of oppression and indecency,
Yet I have found this to apply to all.
What you plant will grow.
What you feed will take root,
And anger, like a ****, will choke all else out.
A little seed, tossed by the wayside, without purpose, or design, has grown to swallow my mind.
Choking off sustenance from my joy, peace, and love.
It made me feel better for a time, it truly did.
It seemed dignified and eased the pain.
So I didn't get rid of it.
What you plant will grow.

There was something about the way she would close her eyes when listening to a song she liked.
It was as if she was creating a world behind her eyelids, moving along with the lilting lullabies she enjoyed so much.
When her eyes would eventually flutter open, she would try to hide it, but I would see a flash of sadness.
I was lost in her ethereal nature. Her fingers that danced through blades of grass that only she could see.
Weaving her way through shadowy trees planted in wide reaching glades.
Splashing through puddles like they were oceans and she, the storm, stirring tempests within them.
A queen, was she, crowned with clouds dictating orders to imaginary soldiers,
to save the inhabitants of the land.
Though her eyes were always seeing beautiful things, mine were only graced with her, and that was more than enough.

She was quiet
as if thinking of her favorite story, or song
yet I, knowing them all
knew that this couldn’t be the reason
for her sudden silence.
My heart beat quickens
her eyebrows arch,
and I remember the day we met
in the back table of the coffee shop she loved.
I said hello, and she said “why?
Where could this go?"
She said “we could talk.”
“you could buy me a cup of what you may suppose
would be my favorite coffee.
Probably some darker roast
with some mixture of cream
highlighting the coffee’s floral notes.
I would pretend to like it
though you would later find I only drink tea.
We would leave, and I would give you my number
because I’m awkward, and by the look of things,
we would talk about our wants, our desires, and dreams,
and stay here way too late, I would get more coffee
to complete my act,
and by the end of the night you would probably have swept me off my feet.
We could go on a hundred more date,
and find that we love each other.
We may last a couple more months, or years,
but we would end up here.
Me sitting with nothing to say,
and you too sad to move on.”
I said, putting down the coffee I had bought for her,
“well the first part sounded good.”
As her mouth draws into a line, I fear we may have reached the end.
My heartbeat races, knowing from the beginning how this would go.
She would say “this isn’t working anymore, this thing we’ve tricked
ourselves to believe was going somewhere.”
and I will try to capture everything, the look of her hair, the gleam in her eyes
to maybe save my memories from the coming crash.
She begins to talk with hesitance in her voice,
something that I haven’t heard there many times before.
“I know I made a promise, at the beginning of this thing,
I know you pressed on hoping for the best,
and I know I may have eventually led you to believe
that we had beat the odds, or at least my dim look at them.
You know I’m a mess, a cynic, and even a ****, but you stayed
and kept hoping.
Maybe it’s contagious because I have found myself hoping too.
Hoping my predictions were wrong,
and I think, looking at you,
looking at us, I have never wanted to be wrong more in my entire life."

I am spaced out, distant, bored.
The teacher is running on and on,
while I am lost in some other world
tracing storylines of heroes, kings,
princesses, knights, jesters, and queens.
Writing romance beyond any I could ever wish for myself.
My pen is running across the paper,
writing down my thoughts and figures,
hoping it may somehow make it more real,
like if I poured enough of myself into these scratchings
they may leap from the page into the air
and bring my narrative to life.
I would not go as far as to call myself a writer, a poet, a dreamer,
but I do write and I do dream, and I put more of my emotion on a page
than I do into anybody or anything.
I lose myself to worlds, in which I only visit,
yet they are more home to me than any I know.
I come to with the ringing of a bell, and find that I had spent
the past hour staring at this beautiful girl,
ethereal and wrapped in light from the barred over windows,
long blonde hair, brown eyes, and earphones perched in her ears.
Thinking I may still be daydreaming, I blink a few times and time starts to still.
She smiles bashfully, knowing I had realized my mistake, and gathers her things.
Leaving me to think, maybe the story I’m living isn’t that bad,
and perhaps dreams are even better when they are real.

It was in the way she looked at me.
A tenderness I hadn’t seen,
That made me wish that we
were the only ones to see these stars
and dream these dreams.
I watched her walk down the aisle
with a bouquet of rain, dandelions, and beautiful things.
We were kids, yet we held our dreams in our hands
hoping to grasp tightly to them as long as we could,
yet loosely enough for them to take flight
carrying us by their kite-strings.
Dreams made of cotton and twine.
Trying to put together a masterpiece
one piece at a time.
It was in the way she looked at me
that made me see,
I would do anything to build a life
and tie together dreams
to make something beautiful
for her to see.

I have been a hero to some
A villain to others.
I am woven throughout many stories.
I am sometimes the voice of reason,
Other times the voice of regret.
I have played a part in victories
As well as quite a few defeats.
Sometimes I lose myself in the unintentional damage I have done,
And try to dig myself out with the damage done to me, but it always falters.
I think the problem is
I am quick to forgive those who harm me
But can't forgive myself for what I've done to them.

The air of brotherhood once flowed so freely between us.
Midnight hours coming with no notice and little care.
Silences that stretched through the night,
A conversation which spoke the most profound sentiments of fellowship.
Though you may quickly wish away those days,
Or rather read them with regret.
I am not so quick to vilify the part you’ve played in this story.
Though the blood between us has froze,
and though the pain you have caused is insurmountable,
I will not make you a villain, like you have made me.

She was in the space between here and there.
You see, I try to jump from point a to point b, without a thought to the steps in between.
I found the search for meaning in the journey to be futile,
Yet that is where I found her.
She sat at a coffee shop, sipping on tea,
While reading the eyes of the shadows moving through these spaces,
Familiar haunts like me, unrealized silhouettes,
Without gravity in the moment, yet promising authenticity in a day that was as fantastical as they were.
Eyes were drawn to her,
the way that she filled up the room,
the only physical thing, in this group of ghosts, shadows
those betrayed by promise and hope
and hoping the world would pay them back
for the loan, and a poor one at that
a miserable job for a dilapidated home
doorways they won’t grace but for those sacred few hours
food for kids who don’t see enough of them as is
Now don’t get me wrong, I did see it
I saw it in her fingers,
that tired fiddling as if her hands couldn’t stop moving
in fear that they couldn’t get started again
In the way her mouth sat, trying to smile
but still heavy as if unspoken words were weighing them down.
Her eyes stared as though she was so alone in this alien world.
She lived in the in-between, and that is were I found her.
For a fleeting moment I wanted to stop.
To slow down and hear her story.
This mystic individual of substance in an immaterial world,
But my feet wouldn’t stop, my hands wouldn’t stop moving.
I had forgotten how to slow down and I found myself orbiting her
as a tiny comet would get caught in the gravity of some celestial sphere.
I was merely a ghost, a common haunt,
Passing through this physical space for merely a moment.

If life fit in a line, it would be a horrible poem.
Not that it’s too messy, for some of the best poetry speak of tragedy as romance or vice versa, and I have never heard of a greater mess.
Nor that it is too scattered, for some of the best narratives lie in the tales of drug-addled minds.
The poet must fictionalize life and love to make it readable, and even then I am often uninterested in reading it.

I wish that joy etched it's name into my bones, the way despair does.
Happiness is flighty and wisp-like,
While sorrow sinks and clings to hope until it erodes it all away.
Exuberance doesn't follow one around for more than a day, a season, a minute, yet depression can stalk it's prey for a lifetime.
My main thought is that, if joy is so good, why does it leave so quickly, and if despair is so bad why do I cling to it so tightly.

We sat there not knowing why or how. Though there was consciousness written on the signs in our hands, our hearts were devoid of the words. It had been too long. We had wept too much. Though we still bled, as all do, we didn’t bleed red, for red was human and we had transcended… descended… such a state.
No one had won. All had lost. We paid such a price to what needed to be done that everyone was left with such a human debt, a word that had come to define this day to day existence. Debt, we had spent all we had, borrowed from each other and now here we sit. Our cries remained unheard. We canaries in the mine shouted until we ran out of breath, and though we now lie dead, the miners are still digging up their riches remaining deaf to our cries.
Know that we tried. When the collapse comes, know that we screamed our loudest. Bled until there was none.

He died knowing how beautiful the stars are
Yet without the tongue to form the words
He died watching the beauty of a spring storm
Yet without the hands to paint them
He died hearing a young woman speaking prose
To the man who held her terribly close
Yet he was without the mind to put it to strings
To place it in the bells of the brass horns
He died with a broken heart
Though never held by anyone
He was without the voice to sing it out
As a wailing shout and have others call it honest
You see the fatal crime was not a mundane life lived to death
But rather death laying on a man ever since he was a sickly kid

It is not known from where a reaper comes
But perhaps it is from an artist, dead, before he ever lived

Who is a poet?
What is poetry?
Does it bleed from the mouths
Of those oppressed by tyranny
Does it stick to the lips of lovers
Like freshly ripe strawberries
Does it lie in the lines of the workman's hands
Like the dirt of the freshly tilled land
Does it exist in the hearts of man
To be struck out, serenaded, or wizened
Does it seep from our fingertips
As a sap that heals our aching bones
When humanity is the illness
And suffering the symptom
Poetry is
The desperately sought after medicine

As if the stars were falling
And I, a speck of the skies
Feared for my minuscule life
I can't think for those who once held me up
Have let go
The ties I thought were so strong
Have decomposed
And I am falling like a meteor
Being tossed from its celestial home
And I am bracing for impact

I'm sorry the clouds no longer spell your name
That the wind doesn't sing
An inspired symphony
That only we know is about you
I'm sorry that the spring
No longer blooms
Only to be graced by visions of you
That the grass no longer makes room
For your mid afternoon wanderings
Nor holds your form for hours after you move
I'm sorry that my touch can no longer perceive
The dreams behind your light blue eyes
And that I can no longer differentiate
Blonde hair from your once spectacular gold
But above all else
I'm sorry that though the storm hit us both
It was I who let go

I'll remember your absence
For its the only thing you left
The empty seat next to me
The oddly cold feeling on my chest
The missing cups of cold tea
With only a tad left
Placed mindlessly
In the midst of beautiful thoughtful revelries
When your fingers left indentions in your dress
Indentions in the grass where you slept
As if they were just as hesitant
To see you leave
That they held your shape just to remember you were there
I'll remember your absence
For its the only thing you left

Oh how the dark has closed around me
There was a time in which I would breathe it in
Let it flood my nose and drown my lips
Yet I have grown to hate the taste
It once was so sweet
Though it loomed like death it was as sweet as love
Now as the night has taken me as its own
I look in distaste at the cup that I hold
The coffee that I once held dear
Has long ago gotten cold

I watch, the way in which you move
Seemingly floating through a crowded room
With space lying in the pupils of your eyes
Yet you remain present
Ensuring that all you see and all who see you
Know the true gratitude, that saturates your lips
I look at you and see a moon
Reflecting the essence of stars
Into this stifling room
I rest with my arms in my lap and my hands on my chin
Attempting to close myself off from the pressure of people
Pressing on my consciousness as if in an attempt
To suffocate it
And I know that you feel the same
Or perhaps only similarly
The point being, you are as aware of this lack of space as I am
Yet as it is causing me to clench my teeth
To want to recede into a point of singularity
In which I can avoid encroaching on anybody
You expand,
You fill the space with your breath
Forcing others to recognize who you are
You're magnificent in the way a force of nature is
So unknowable that all we can do is observe
How truly wonderfully odd you are

I have not the propensity for pride
For all possible paths I have taken, away from my God
All forbidden fruit I have tasted
With the requirement set I have fallen short time and time again
So now that I stand by his grace alone
May I not cast out those who falter where I once was
Rather show them the path laid out for me
To stand where I am today.

They say, your palms tell stories
With flesh as pages and indentions as the vocabulary
Yet I wonder where I lie in the palm of your hand
Am I that scar you got when you were six
Trying to cut your handprint out of colorful pages
Or that callous you have from caring for your garden
And always holding onto things, and people, far too tight
Now that I think of it your hand is a reflection of who you are
I love how it tells a story with every line
How it speaks of your beauty with every imperfection
But most importantly, I love how it fits perfectly into mine.

Words are the seeds of rebellion
A simple sentence may imprint a design of unrest
On the minds of the oppressed
And when watered by the unending tears
Of the motherless child
Of the widow or widower
These seeds spring eternal as weeds in the gardens of the oppressors
How quickly these starving plants grow
In the perceived beauty of the truly demented souls
Of those who used the corpses of the tormented as the topsoil
For their design of a utopia
The weeds of unrest will rise in the minds of those who have lost all
In a sacrifice for the comfort of those who walk above them
They will choke the oxygen
From the society
Who survives off of them
Those who carry the world on their backs
Words are the seeds of rebellion
And they are those who will stand
When these perverted gardens fall around them

The smoke of the ashes darkens my already ebony lungs
A black that knows no bounds has settled on the desolate ground
Being what caused this plague in the first place
The sunrise no longer has meaning
With no hope for the day to come
For today will be the same as all preceding ones
So I sit
And I write
Because that is what I do
Yet I no longer write of beauty nor love
For both have been stifled by the oppression of such a complete eradication
Of all the things I once admired
The things that lined the pages of all my pieces
So as I sit and watch the smoke rise from my cup
Seeing others walk by enticed
By whatever is on their devices
I put down my pen and close my book
For there is no longer anything to write or romanticize
To admire
If there is no longer anyone to look

Where will you lie if you are right
In the ground with all those who have died
Those who's names are inscribed in the marble above
Their acts may be printed in some book
Or their love may be remembered by those who held their hearts
Remembered by yellowing love letters
Scribed by shaking hands
But if you are right it is worthless
Though knowledge may comfort us in our death
You will receive no solace in being correct
For you won't exist
Your mind won't be there to comprehend
The justified emotions of being right
But what if you're wrong
What if the discarded message of salvation
Was more essential than you could have ever known
What if there is a father who will weep
Knowing that you threw away his grasping hand
And rather chose to harshly descend
In a sorrow so deep and unknown that our earthly minds can't comprehend it
So if you're right there is nothing
No consequence
But if you're wrong

Hope has thrived in the veins of sinful men
For you have willed it to be so
A population which had spit in your face
And turned away
Time and time again
Oh, how the mighty fall to the hand of corruption
Decomposition befalls their morals
Yet you lived
Though clothed in humility
Was king over all
And never did your head fall to temptation
Planting that seed of hope
That we can find salvation
In your steadfast love
For on that cross wasn't a pillar of prideful strength
Standing against the corruption of humanity
But rather a ladder to transcend damnation
And ascend past tyranny
The tyranny of men who remain in their lustful ways
Yet salvation remains outstretched to them
And there lies the foundation of hope
That though you lived in a condemned world
You didn't come to condemn the world.

When the world thins
And my senses become hollow
I can still define the lines of your fingertips
When colors dull
And light slowly bends
I can still find the soft hues of your warm auburn eyes
When my breath runs away
And I can't slow the beating in my chest
The sight of you is where I find my rest
Oh how the way you look at me stills my heart
And though my mind may still scream
And my aimless anxiety may steal reason from me
I can endure knowing the clarity you bring

Oh how the cursed ground
Opens before me
Ready to swallow the sins
By which my hands are bound
Though it is in my trespasses I hide
It is by Christ's salvation I am found
So though my flesh will perish
And return to the soil from which it came
My soul will live on
In the name which has claimed it as its own
Though flesh will join flesh
In that gaping pit
It is the breath of life which will transcend

Oh how stars fall
Or rather not
For though it may seem
As if these celestial bodies
Could become dislodged from their places in our sky's
Rather what we see is fiery dust
Flying through our hopeful minds
Being glorified as these magnificent beings
So the things we place our wishes on
Though we think they are permanent fixtures of infinite strength
Thinking as if those shooting stars will fly forever
They are instead greatly brief in their existence
What we see is the end
Of their long flight across space
So perhaps it is a good picture of a dream
Living a far flung life
Until it reaches reality
And what may seem
As a streak across the sky
Is really it's descent to the ground