Do I blame it on you?
Do I blame it on him?
Do I blame it on myself?

Do I blame the alcohol,
or the flavor of his lips?
Do they taste better than mine?
Was my beard to thick?
Were my hands too rough?

I’m holding on tight to the past
That I knew wouldn’t last
While you’re pulled to the future
By his hands on your back.

Do you know what it’s like?
Stand on the beach,
And watch as one of our children
Gets pulled out to sea
By the fatal, and invisible undertow.

I wish I could tell you
That I’m no longer afraid of failure.
The truth is,

I’m more afraid of it now than I was.
Those years ago.
The only difference is,
I’ve got nothing left.
No one looking up to me,
Or counting on me.

Or loving me.
The future is empty
The past: A story
My future is bleak
While the past is a dream.

You’ve got your fingers
Firmly wrapped around my heart.
Your nails tore their way
Into my chest,
And just waited for us to fall apart.

I think it’s about time
You took your hands out of my chest.
I think it’s about time
You stop haunting me,
I just need some rest.

I lit the candle
The light to guide us.
Keep us on the path
In the dark.

But you blew out the candle
The light fled
And I lost the path.
I didn’t realize

I had already lost you.

What was it like,
Holding my heart in your fingers?

Was it warm?
Was it cold?

Did you notice the way it would skip a beat
Every time I saw you?
Do you feel it still?

Is it still there?

"What do you think it’s like,
Up there in the clouds?”
The sailor, tying off the ropes,
Asked me, one fall,
As the sun fell below the horizon.

What’s it like, Captain?
Does heaven exist?

Is it all the priests promised?

Are you happy?
Are you alright?

I ask you now, if you can hear,

Because like the great story

An angel fell

And if they’re right,
You will rise.

As the black fades to blue,
I feel my bones begin to ache for you.
Begging for that touch,
Begging for your love.

The sun rises on an ocean
And a *******

Writing to a ghost.

The stars are hidden from me tonight.
Clouds overtake the sky,
And the compass that is my heart
Cannot find it’s way home.

I can see you
Trembling with fear.
But you’re not even close
To the tempest you revere
Or did revere.

Is this not what you expected?

The sea has it’s own furious ways,
Of making you realize your mistakes.

I wanted us to bury the hatchet,

But instead you buried the match.

If I go back home
What will I find?
A happy family?
Children with both

A mother and father?
Is it better that way?

Will it help me handle this all?

Or will it make me worse?

My compass is broken,
It cannot tell me where to travel.

I cannot rely on it this time.

I feel like I’m paralyzed,
Unable to push myself in any direction.
For fear of what I’ll find.

For the last ten years
I’ve defined myself
By who I am
In relation to you.

And to you,
I’m just another *******.

Do you remember the nights spent together?
Do you remember anything before him?

The visions flash through my mind.
I cannot forget them.
They’re permanently burnt there.
I cannot stop think of you.

And how it all fell apart.
And how I fell apart.
I cannot see myself any differently, now.

My mind has been filled
With voices, and the faces of a woman
Who tried burned a man at the stake,
And so he went on a voyage.

Looking back, I can see that our future
Was doomed from the start.
I can see the waves that were destined to crash
I didn’t know I was resting on the crest.

I’ve written it all down,
I’ve spilled the ink across the page
I’ve spilled every thought
That crossed my mind
All these years I’ve been out at sea.

I ask you, whoever finds these.

Read them. Learn from them
That’s all I ask.
Learn from my mistakes.
Do not become me.

There’s no need to **** yourself
Out on the ocean blue.
There’s no need to harbor those feelings
Let them sail away,
Instead of you.

Alone I’ll die,
Your name imprinted on my soul
And memories of how it all went wrong
Burned forever into my mind.

I was never ready to be a captain.
I was only waiting for the end, like the coward I am.
My family was always better without me.
You were a better father,
Than I could’ve been.

And darling,

You were always better without me.
Oh, Great, Blue, Deep.
I’m ready to make
My final retreat.

Goodbye.

Without these writings
My legacy is that of a drunkard
These scrawlings just prove
That I’m ******* who can’t let go. And there’s not enough time in the day
To prove otherwise.
I’ll leave before I get the chance
To make it right by you.

I used to think
That I was too broken to be fixed.
That someone had taken the simple pieces
Of machinery
That reside in my chest

And bent the metal
And broke the cogs.
But it turns out
This is just who I am.
A drunkard with a pen.

Light passes through
The translucent curtains
Fill the room
Splash against my face
Wake me up
From the unending nightmare
Like I knew you always could
My love.

Before you,
I always felt that I was sick
That I wasn’t quite right
Like a storm within
That needed to be quelled.


And when I first grabbed your hand
I felt okay
For the first time in my life.


And now that the ocean
Has swallowed me
I understand
How medicine and poison
Can be the same thing.

I’ve tried to keep the enemies away
With words sharp enough
To slit a throat,
To ****, or at least delay
The inevitable.

But I think I missed.
I couldn’t tell the difference
Between an enemy
And a friend.

How many times
Will I find a new way
To say the same thing;

I am not worth the pain.

I tried.
I swear I tried.
And I always loved you.
Like the earth loves the sun.
And I tried to gaze upon your grace
But instead I lost my sight.
I lost sight of what was important.

I lost sight of you.
And I’m regaining my sight.
Oh, I’m back.
And you will see me soon.

I thought I saw your face in the water
So I jumped in to find you.
I cannot hold my breath any longer.
Please don’t make me try.

Just show yourself.

I don’t mind being haunted
But did it have to be you?
Your voice, so sweet.

It almost makes me forget
The things you’re saying to me.

It almost makes me forget
Why I tied these cinder blocks to my feet
And jumped into the river.

I suppose I just was too eager,
Too ready to end the pain.

But people aren’t novocaine
I should’ve known better than this.

You were poison in the well
But I was dying of thirst.
Even a slow death was okay
If it meant I got to spend it with you.

She spoke in storms,
Telling stories about places
That never existed
Except in her head.

She was a hurricane, just waiting to happen.
And I was too eager,
To explore the ruins of her mind.

Oh, what a smile she had,
Light up a room.
Illuminate my heart.
I wish I could see it that way again
I wish I could see it
Anywhere but my nightmares.

I miss the way it used to be
I can still see the places on the floor
Where you stepped,
In my mind.
I keep writing,
My catharsis.
But every piece
Turns into a letter
To you.
You were heaven.
You were the smell of freshly cut grass
And the taste of an ice cold lemonade.

I was just the poison in the wine.
The cancer, never benign.

Did the flame give up?
I’ve been spending years trying to find it.
But I guess it’s my fault
For believing it would make it
Through the storm.

When I came back,
You were a flood
And I wasn’t sure what to say.

I thought I could open the floodgates
But I just ended up drowning in the pain.

As the rain begins to fall,
And the waves begin to crash
Against the front of my ship.
I resign myself to my cabin
The small bed has but one sheet
And in the corner of the room, in the shelves
Sits a bottle full of ***.

Or at least it was full at some point.
I pour a glass

And then another.
And another.

The only way to fend off the cold
On this stormy night.

Since you do not know,
Let me teach you.
Take your hands
Wrap them around my throat
Now squeeze.
Do not look into my eyes.
Just keep at it.
Do not let go and start again later.
Finish the job.

I remember the way that you laid.
On your side, smiling at me.
I remember the way that you laughed.
Suddenly, an uproar of joy, quickly ending.
I remember the way that you breathed.
Deeply. Fully. Taking in everything I had to offer.

I remember the way that you left.
On your side, smiling at him,
Suddenly, quickly ending,
Taking everything I had.
And giving it to him.

Oh, Love.
I don’t believe there’s a heart in my chest.
And you say you disagree.
But, have you noticed how I breathe in,
All the things that shouldn’t be.
I know where this leads,
I’m headed straight for a watery grave.

Eventually it’ll just be
The Devil,

And me.

You are the phantom
Burned into the images in my mind.
You are the twisted, torn up pages
That I tear out of journals
When the words just aren’t quite right.

Oh what do you do
When you’re the one
Who made the river flood?

What do you do
When you’re the one
Who brought pain to so many?
I cannot go back.

I found your pipe tonight,
Searching for my lost words.
It fell out of your coat pocket,
I remember watching you pack the tobacco in
Just moments before you left us all.

I hope you know what you did for me.
Taking me in.
Giving me a home on your ship.

I hope you know how grateful I was
That you sat out here,
Packing your pipe
As I broke down and cried

And I still remember
How you put your hand on my shoulder
And cried with me.

Oh those long nights,
Spent with the wind in our face
And the sun hiding from us
I remember the laughs that we shared
I remember the wisdom that you gave me.
I remember how on those nights
Where the pain was too much
I tried to hide my face
For I was ashamed to feel.

I was supposed to be better.

Wasn’t that the point of this?

At least that’s how I felt,
When I had you to lean back on.
When I had my captain at my side.

Filling my head with how to be wise.
But you’re not here anymore.
Your voice is fading from my mind.

I was supposed to start feeling okay, soon.
I was supposed to let go of you.
Wasn’t that the point of this?

Or did I have much more sinister plans?

With a head full of memories
And a glass full of ***
I sit down alone
And visions of you start to run
Through my head.

“Death is not evil,” a voice echoes through my head,
“It is a promise that cannot be broken,” it continues.

“You cannot stop me.”

The voice carries on into the night.

And what then? She asks me,
But I think she suspects
That it falls on deaf ears.
But I am silent, to reflect.

And so she asks again.
“And what then?
What will you do when there is nothing else to lose?
What will you do when you push away every single person who loves you?”
I down the last of my drink and get up to leave before sternly asserting the only thing that I know is true anymore.
“I’ll finish the job.”
I close the door and leave.

As I age,
I begin to realize
My own mortality.
And I realize,
I do not care.

I think it’s November
But I can never quite remember
All I know is that my bones
Are tired of praising an empty throne
And the light that’s never known
Will never illuminate my home.

Please tell me where I went wrong.

Her words made flowers grow
From organs hard as stone.

Oh, dear, I am no one.
I am a ship on the horizon.
You will see me for but a moment,
And as quickly as you noticed me
You will forget you ever saw me.

I don’t believe you.

Shadows are but ghosts.
But you are a soul.
And I know how the sun
Drives people like us away.

That does not make you a nobody.

I know you bloom in the night
But that does not mean
That you are gone at the sight of the sun.

What do you love?
Who do you love?
Why are you here?

Why waste your time
Talking to a drunkard
Without a home?

Why waste your time
With a *******
Who will die alone?

My soul is anything but beautiful, dear.
It is tattered and it is torn.
It is the crumpled up piece of paper that you toss in the fire
To keep yourself warm for another night.

You wish to be the sea?
Or do you wish to be the approaching storm?

But the real question is
Does it matter what you wish?

Our wishes are rarely our reality.
Our wishes are the roses
Of gardens full of weeds
Reality is the pesticide
So haphazardly sprayed.

Storm or Sea

Why me?

There are a million better people
And better writers
And better speakers
And better lovers
And better souls

Than I.

“You can be a real ******* sometimes, you know that?”
Her voice rings in my ears
Like bells on Sunday mornings.
I just wish she would say something new.

But she won’t.

Because I don’t ever do anything new.

The door slams behind her.
The bottle goes up.
The alcohol goes down
And another bottle hits the wall.
I call out softly, to the ghost of her presence,

“I’m always a real *******.”
Another bottle goes up.

I don’t know how to fix
What it is that I’ve done.
Just give me a sign.

Let me know it’s okay.
Or that it’s not.
Just tell me something.

I watched you
As your world fell apart.
I saw your ocean eyes
Fade to grey.

How did it feel?
Did it feel like you were burning?
Did it feel like fire?
Dude it feel like you were drowning?

Did you feel the weight of ******
Crush you and suffocate you?

If I had to guess
You didn’t feel anything at all.

I wish this ******* would go away.
But we all know that it comes in waves.

My tastes have been shifting
Changing, ever growing.

Mostly away from you.