Awkwardly, I made my way to the back
To listen to the lonely performer
Pour his heart out over his guitar
And over the sounds of the crowd,
Too engrossed in their conversations
To enjoy the melodies unfolding.

With every transition they applauded
Politely showing their affection
And as the performer resumed strumming,
So did the chatter of the disinterested.

The lyrics were muttled, drowned out
By the inane banter surrounding the stage
But his fingers continued to dance nimbly
From one string to the next.

And for once I was happy
To not be the center of attention.

You can't spell enemy without me
Born with a rogue tongue
That speaks vendettas to sabotage the smile it hides behind
I tried to bite it but the lies shine between the cracks in my crooked teeth
So now I sit home alone where I can only lie to myself

Once in a while I send distress signals
Mainly to prove I still exist
But I dare not open the door
For fear my tongue will escape
And slither toward a kind ear
To tickle its fancy; whispering sweet nothings
Then choking it with white noise
I strike again

As the lonely cars disappear into the whispering fog
I am left alone with my thoughts

I cascade over indecision like a cataract
Listening to a chorus on the rocks

Sporadic, mindful of the jealous skeleton trees
Who inch toward my path of destruction
Wishing for a taste of fulfillment

Undaunted, I forge ahead
Rushing, gushing, crashing
Breaking my form to continue the journey
Arguing, editing, eroding

Finally deciding what path to take,
I mellow out and drift into
Calm waters

I thrash around in the undertow
Conveyored out to sea, fully aware I can save myself
By simply standing up
Instead, I stay in the ocean of lies and fuckyous
Struggling to keep my head above water

I like to think of myself as a strong swimmer
Captain of rhyme and reason
But here the waves deliver blows to my head
And the further from shore, the bleaker my future becomes

The safety line is broken, no going back
To the warm beach where we sat, jobless
And you wore my bracelets while the sun gave us life

The sun, who now taunts me from above
This disorienting, fluid prision
Never again will I watch those educated hands
Immerse themselves in the grains of sand overlooking calm water
All I have left is endless blue
And these spongelike lungs soaking it up

My weary muscles relax and I disappear over the horizon
Toward the red sunset

I feel
Like retiring to my bed
And lying there
Until spiders come
And cobweb me securely
To the wall I stare at

I feel
Like I’m typecast
As Pagliacci,
Recitar! Vesti la Giubba
Sung ad nauseam
Until a shepherd’s crook tugs me
Through the curtain

And it seems
I haven’t grown tired of losing
My footing while I reach for the summit

And I feel
Like there are only so many times
Someone can tourniquet their limbs
Before hesitantly clutching
To the handle of another departing car’s door

What forces a man to assume his role?
To take the long walk off a short pier
And enter into infamy?
A man needs a milieu
And a muse to share it

But most of all a man needs a reason
To send him careening into villainous games
Every man will promise her the world
But only I can deliver her reprieve
From a realm so horribly nice
Pure evil will always prevail
Over the corrupt good

Hand in iron fist we walk
We tiptoe between trip mines
And waltz amid mortar shells

After the smoke clears
I pull the trick candle stick
And together we mix chemicals
While the night's children clamor unseen

Two parts lust and a dash of charm
And hint of the dreams that keep you awake
Then I'll pull you up the staircase
That endlessly spirals upward
And while we overlook the crumbled city below
Maybe we'll have a conversation

The one who pulls the plugs from the dam
Never thinks about being swept off their feet
By the ensuing flood

Like a Hemmingway
I wish to shoot myself in the head
In the hopes that what comes out
Will fall on the page in just the right way
That she is left in awe
Of my scattered (splattered) thoughts

As though I were Van Gogh
I slash and sever my body
And offer it up to passersby
Who only offer indifferent glances
While I slowly bleed to death
Atop another blank canvas

And just like the great wordslingers
Luminaries who build empires from pen strokes
I will take the stage with my magnum opus
Only to crumble to dust in the light

I always think of you this time of the night
When the moon glares down on my linen tomb
And a part of me feels hollow

I demummify myself and slog to the sink
Then gaze to the mirror and stare death in the face
Sunken peepers and tallow skin
So is the front of a hopeless romantic

I think about galumphing to your window
And my body longs for fulfillment
I limp silently in the moonlight
Along barren, windswept streets
To gaze upon your somnolent being

With my silhouette etched behind the curtain
I see you wake and quake with fear
My knees tremble as I nervously moan
To let me in and eat your brain

Waltzing beneath the waves
I gawk and marvel at the creatures among my feet
Sadly, all the undersea festivities hardly
   distract from the importance of atmosphere

As my body exclaims for a reprieve
I think of how you told me not to hold my breath
And how you'd give me your heart if I gave you a reason

The blood rushes to my head
Turning my already blue face a deep purple
But there's no smoke on this water
Only smoldering debris from the bridge I burned
Before taking the plunge

These memories are much clearer through murky eyes
And everything floods back when surrounded by sea
Eyes as blue as the ocean capable of
Exuding tears just as briny

I use the last of my air to let out a sigh
Which is replied to by cold indifference
As my lungs provide a new home for the water seeping in
I contently sink to the bottom
And your apologetic plea is lost in the roar of the waves

I am a rock.
Solid and stoic.
I can sustain my will even in the strongest storms
And laugh at weaker things.

Yes, I am a rock.
And I am as dumb as one, too.
Rocks don’t have friends.
No one to share their feelings with.
Rocks sit alone, saying nothing
As I do so easily.

It’s a simple life, being a rock
No one need look after you
You can leave a rock for days, years, even decades
Gathering moss in a bold, unmoving sort of way
And when you return
That rock will be right where you left it
Unchanged,
Still a rock
Silent and strong.

My brain atrophies
And still I wait
As if someone will
Come carriage me off
The curvature of the planet
And bestow upon me gifts
I have no title to.

I walk between the aisles
Quietly admiring the mass of produce
Bared fruits eagerly poised
Waiting to drive home in the back seat
To be manipulated and munched
And hastily shoved into lunchboxes
While the coffee smugly percolates

But the engrossed bins prove
Too bountiful to harvest—
My appetite no longer yearns
For the gifts at its feet.
I swear not only did the price go up
But the loaf got smaller

That’s all dreams turn out to be
An amalgam of juxtapositions
So we stand on both sides of the river
While trying to swim against the current
And we know
It’s much too late to still be awake

When for whatever reason we stop talking
And it’s been hours since I last heard you
I start to get antsy and walk upstairs and back
As if I’m expecting someone to show up
But you never do because
You’re too far away and working and
I find beauty in the strangest things like
Wanting to see you again
But not knowing
Which room is yours and panicking
Because I don’t want to knock on the wrong door
So I’m running down the hall staring at the numbers
Trying to make some synapse connections
It’s like I’m a starving kid
Who keeps on checking an empty fridge
Expecting the scenery to change from the last open
Only it’s not a fridge, just my empty chest since
I have no need for a heart or lungs
Because my heart’s always broken and my breath always lost
And I’m still running circles on the staircase
Trying to remember which floor I need to be on
To be on the level
But I can’t understand how they go from twelve to fourteen
It’s as if the other floors muscled out the thirteenth
Because it was home to too many bad memories
And domestic disputes
Now my eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my head
And the corridors go on forever
But when my legs finally give out and I collapse on the floor
I will be sprawled out before your feet

I have my feelers out
maybe I'm just grasping at straws
Grasping at strands of blond hair
as you pull away from my embrace

I don't care if it hurts
I just want you

down on my level
feeling
how I feel

I grasp and I *****
Hands out, making my way through the dark.
I think I see light at the end of the tunnel

Oh, it's only you.

Sometimes I still catch myself
Driving down your street
Where I sit with the engine idling,
Contemplating losing my keys
Somewhere in your unmowed lawn
But i guess it's just a phase

I keep wanting to run into you
In places we used to go
So I can tell you off
But I'm afraid that in that moment
There would be no cardboard shield
To hide behind,
No couch cushion fortress to spout from
And I'd have to settle
With ignoring you instead

The truth is I hate you more than Katy Perry
Because you're catchier and
Her words are far less hypnotizing

So consider this my cease and desist
I just hope that when I pull the sheets from over my eyes
Your image will be gone

The wind washes sand from the lines in my face
As I stare toward the sunrise
Soon the ants will march along worn tracks
Never straying
Left, Right, Repeat.

I tower above them, a monolith
Of days passed
Ready to reveal
The universal truths bequeathed to me

I am Lazarus
Sent back to life like a runt fish
For I still have growing to do
And a message to deliver

Now I stand at the mouth
Of a well-beaten path
Ready to walk against the current
Evoking double-takes from passersby
Knowing that the world needs a slap in the face
To knock the dirt off
And reveal the simple beauty underneath

I fractured every mirror
Trying to climb into another world
Where my heart breaks you instead
And

When I’m out bowling
Every pin I knock down is a girl
Who too, will some day hurt my feelings
I always bowl a perfect game
Still

I wish for nuclear war because
There would be no traffic,
No bills in the mail,
And I could lay in bed with you all day
But instead

My house has burned down
And I lost everything, again
Each time feels better than the last
Now

I reset the pins
And I wish

How lucky I must be
To have been born when I was
The middle of autumn,
A score ago
To have grown up as I did
Playing with stick swords
And scraping with villains only imagined
To have been fighting for love
Before the term was defined

How lucky
That I didn’t grow up decades ago
Before you were so much
Or even had such
A thought
I was blessed I didn’t develop ideas
Only to rust sleepily in a corner
While you gasped for your first breath

And how fortunate
That in this so-called tragedy
I was not cast as Yorick, the foolish
To think I was already dead

How lucky I must be
To have grown up so fast
To be mature enough to be burdened
By your memory
How serendipitous, auspicious
That I have the strength
To bear the weight
When you could not

How lucky I must be
To be able
To live
With a shadow over my head
And “love” written on my wrist

I'm starting to think that in my endless quest for attention
Instead of chasing after slammed doors & second chances
My time would be better spent with those who stuck around.

But this may just be the euphoric recall
of a man addicted to heartbreak
so much that he keeps going back to
the same abusive dealer,
the same dealer of abuse
in the hopes that the rush
of his first love being ripped away
will come flooding back

And sometimes I think
I'd be better off famous
Because people would be paid
to love me
And all those who scorned me before would
come bearing gifts at my feet
and I would shun them,
and they would thank me
for my precious time.

'Cause that's all it comes down to,
How much time you have & who to spend it with
Time is the world's currency;
It's priceless.
And when I finally prove my worth
-When I'm finally worth your time-
Will you finally spend it on me?

This is not how I planned to spend my evening.
All I end up feeling is the equivalent of being punched in the face for two hours straight.
And at the end of the day, that’s not something I want to do.
Yet here I am, sitting here with a big, stupid grin on my face.
And all you give me is one word answers
And eventually silence.
Music to my ears.

My hand twitches on the edge of the table
Because all I want to do is upturn the already stale dinner
And scream while you pull noodles off that over worn dress.
But instead I just stare
And grin politely
While you silently slurp your soup
And leer once in a while.
I have no appetite.

Later, you’ll refuse to take off your jacket
As you press your hips towards mine
And my mind will drift to thoughts of the schoolyard
When I used to run from trailing girls
Afraid of imaginary diseases and unaware of real ones
All the while you’ll keep your arms at your sides
And my whispers of adoration go unanswered, or unheard

The lobes of my brain
Scrape together anxiously
Loud enough for you to hear
Two floors up and six doors down

I keep you awake with pacing footsteps
Tracing orbits around splintered guitar necks
And ***** socks

I look out the window and see...
Nothing

Maybe the window's broken
Or isn't loading properly

Where are the mountains?
I could have sworn they were just here
Quietly watching us waste away

Maybe I didn't give them enough attention
So they left.

Or maybe I grew too big for the usual scenery
And left to fill my head with nonsense

This mess
Needs to be
                     sorted out
Before I get stuck in this rut