I once told you, Miss,
that your poetry is so edgy
that I cut myself on it sometimes.
Well, I've been reading more
and I feel
at a loss for blood.

A wise man once said,
that what starves us carves us
and I have never been anywhere near you,
but I imagine holding you in my arms
would be either the worst or the best experience of my life.

You've got some jagged bits,
but I bet if you put your best part forward,
you could split a man's heart apart
in the best of ways.
Make him think of you for days after,
caught in the rapture of the pain you bring.

If I could capture a joke out of thin air,
I'd find you and give it to you,
just hoping that maybe it might possibly
make you smile.
'Cause ****.
It must be a supernova waiting to happen.
Only the death of stars could live up to such an event.

Your voice, it still does

reach me through these twisted halls

though I'm long since deaf.

Remember?
The beginning,
there was only darkness, right?

How could he?
He disturbed
a still void, vacuum of light.

Perverted
instigator.
Life was a weakness absent.

The bible.
Kama Sutra
for how to twist our soft minds.

I feel like going back to those days,
when I could feel and not fear it.
When I didn't know the world's ways
and I didn't yet need my fighting spirit.
When I could simply have a romance,
nothing complicated or categorized,
that would come up by happenstance
with no limits needing to be devised.

I miss those days, I could awaken
find another body next to mine,
and not even be mistaken
in thinking this won't be the only time.

I miss those days with a passion,
too often I feel like I'm crashin'
straight through the mud and the dirt
all the pain and the hurt.
I render my poems inert,
when I stare in the mirror,
see myself crying and dying,
insanity getting nearer.
I one day hope to rise from it all,
stand from the ash, proud and tall,
but I know that after I do
I'll eventually once again fall.

I miss those days
in more than a million ways.
Watching my eyes glaze over
thinking about days over
again.
I flow my heart into this pen
put my soul into what I write
now and then.
I know I'll be that happy once more,
I've got that joy kept in store,
for a future when I suture
this wounded pride and mind.
I've got a stride in mind,
for when I return.
See the surprise in their faces,
I bet they thought I would burn
up in the anger like butane.
I'm just too hard to contain
and I walk through cold rain,
thinking about once upon a time,
through sweat and grime,
You were mine, I was yours,
now it's vice versa.

A sound.
crr crrraa
Not unlike that of an egg hatching.
But there is no egg,
There is only my skin...
And it's cracking.

Slowly at first,
with no hurry or hesitance,
cracking.
My epidermis is no longer flesh,
it is a resin.
A coating made to contain.
To mask.
To shroud.
But the clouds upon the surface
are waning enough to almost
see inside.

I crack.
Emerges pure hatred,
A spirit of vengeance.
I am no longer human,
if indeed, I ever was.
I am not NOT me.
I am more me than ever.

In seeing your horror,
your fear at what I am,
I retreat back inside my shell.
Ready to visit upon you visions of hell
when next I crack.

I've found a spot in my pantry.
When I sit with my back
against the freezer,
the warmth of the AC
makes it feel like someone hugging me.

I don't know how I can relate this to all of you,
but you guys have really been pulling me through.
Yeah, you. The one reading this.
You're support, to me, is like water over scorched earth.
My hearth can be without fire, but your praise keeps me warm.
This is what I want to do with my life.
I want to make you smile
and if I know that I've done that
than I can find an extra mile within myself.
Thank you, my friends.
All 15 of you.
I know, I know...
Behind the keyboards and computer screens
you could easily be mexican jumping beans
that grew arms, legs and an appreciation for literature.
But it is always a treasure seeing someone leaving me
any small measure of their day
just to stop and say
"This poem didn't make me *****."
It means a lot, guys and girls.
I don't know if I'll ever be famous
like Shane Koyczan or Sarah Kay,
but if I just manage to get this far...
this is good enough for me.

I've been spending a lot of time awake lately
and while I've been spending this time
watching the clock...
It really makes me realize
that he is not in any kind of hurry.

It's all a little bit blurry.
Something about a girl and
an idea.
An idea wrapped in symbolism,
Cloaked in metaphors,
all chains and locked doors.

I've been spending hours draped over furniture
like a coat being thrown away after a long day.
I can empathize with the way
a dog barks up a storm when his master comes home
Because I missed you.
Maybe not in the way that allows me to feel happy when you're back
but you're as much a part of me
as diabetes is to heart attacks.

I wish you would go and just stay gone.
Get hung up somewhere and just never return.
But it took me only this long to learn
that youre never going away.
I issue restraining orders every single day
but you'll still be tapping in my window by morning.

And I'll open the window
And take you in my arms and kiss you.
I'll say "Welcome back, Depression.
I sure did miss you."

We are not judged by how we die,
but how we choose to live
and I don't quite know why
but I feel just about ten seconds shy
of becoming a hero.
I feel like Nero, fiddling
while I watch my passions burn.
With no stones left to turn,
I find myself taking the time it takes
to leave myself alone.
With a heart encased in stone,
I watch angels give their wings away
for a moment of staying on the ground
and I see cacophonies jeer, shout and cheer
without ever making a sound.

It's not blood,
it's rose petals,
dripping into my sink.

How could you?
I hate you.
Please never leave me.

When the very ground beneath me cracks
and my brittle sword lies broken
then I will ask that no quarter be drawn
andwhen the victor next sees the dawn,
no words of regret are spoken.

When I approach the pearly gates
treading upon the clouds above,
I will not weep for you nor I,
for I know the code we both live by
and the cruel gods that we both love.

When the victor has met his demise
and meets his victim in the next world,
let us let the past be the past
and not allow our anger to last
for you cannot shake hands when your fist is curled.

You make me want to take up skydiving...

Because I
                  want
                             to
                                      learn
                                                   how
                                                                to
                                                                  f
                                                                   a
                                                                     l
                                                                       l
                                                                        for you

When did
your love for me
become a
*disappearing act?

I let the mountains teach me how to not be moved.

I let the stream teach me to flow undeterred.

I let the embers teach me how to fight the dark,

and I let the wind teach me how to be heard.

Another day.
Another day where I walk these same old halls,
these same stone walls, like it's  all that I've ever known,
where I am forced to live in skin that I've long since outgrown.
I hear the buzzing, the jeering,
the oppressive white noise bouncing off lockers
through the corridors till' they reach my ears and I...
know that I'm stuck here.
Between a rock and a system that thinks itself so big
that it can encompass my entire world,
that holds me tightly in it's curled fist,
that will insist on justice only when it suits them.

I see these people, my supposed peers,
walking these halls just like me,
clawing for some semblance of individuality,
chasing their dreams which will always be just
one more exam away until Graduation Day.
When we're unleashed upon this wide old world
like a nest of bees and it's about here when we realize how...
small we are.
This world has been spinning,
ticking and tocking while I've been on this tightrope walking,
this fine line between success and failure.
I've been given countless examples of what not to be
but I look on some of these examples of people and they're free.
Just like we all, in sense, should be.
Sure, they may have missed the bar
but who says that this is how tall you have to be to ride the wind?
And if it's because they didn't try then maybe they are where they should be.

I've seen the dregs of this society,
the lowest, the junk yard clutter
that this world churns out like processed butter
and it always makes me wonder how they got to where they are,
is it just a coincidence that most ones from the projects makes it too far?
I feel like I'm playing someone else's game,
like I'm being made to dance on strings,
like all these million little things that are supposedly special
about us don't mean **** if you can't cram that into a school bus
and cash them in for a good mark.
And the stark reality is that we're stuck here.
Between a... rock and a harsh set of ideals
where self-esteem is measured in percentages.
This antiquated, dusty arcade cabinet
where a high score is what your life depends on.

So if I seem weary, now you know why.
I'm sure we're all a little tired of being as marionettes
to implied but never uttered threats.
We might not all be able to express this anger.
But some of us do it better than me or anyone else.
What of those that lock themselves in like a security deposit
and hang themselves up like coats in their closet?
We mark these messages written in the blood of innocents
as the acts of desperate teens,
we never truly sit down and ask ourselves what all this means.
We're trapped.
Let us go.

There he stands.
He stands where the crows refuse to land
and the tumbleweed tumble around.
Where green is a foreign concept to the flora
that rises from the ashen ground
and the whole field has the atmosphere of a dead place,
forgotten by time.
He stands like a scarecrow that has outgrown it's post
Where most would fall, he stands tall,
like a lamp post, that provides no light at all.
His expression is aloof, but not in an oblivious way.
As if to say that his stoic-ness portrays a tortured wisdom
that makes his knowledge look more alike
to a ball and chain than a virtue or asset.
His composure is limp as if the glue that bands him together
is weeping away and the heavens push down upon him
with both hands.

His palms are loose, his shoulders are sails that he no longer flies.
His hair hangs loose and grey, framing dead and bloodshot eyes.
His jaw hangs but his lips remain tightly knit,
never to part and split their seams
lest you learn anything at all from him.
He has no jouyous thing to share with you.
No pleasant memories that he would care
to cast upon the wall like the beam of a film reel.
The insights he has to teach the world are ones
that would be massly rejected out of repulsion or denial.
You gain nothing from letting this man, most vile,
teach you about the world or society or anything likewise.
You lose something instead.
You lose the peace of mind that you take for granted
as you go about your daily grind.
You lose your ignorance, but only by using it
as the altar upon which to sacrifice your bliss.
He learned much and he certainly learned this.
He eventually started to learn about the things that matter
and by consequence he learned that in credence with them,
his life was a lie by comparison.
He learned that if we are woven by the spinners of the comos
than we will al be found threadbare.
And so, by lack of care, he pas payed the toll.
Filling the spaces of his mind,
and emptying the contents of his soul.

He is the Hollow Man.
He stands far from us in his distant field
knowing well that such a mind
is a much more dangerous weapon to wield.
If you see him whilst on your way,
at least trust me when I say,
that you do yourself a service by staying
far, far away.

Change.
Less like the turtle that peeks out of it's shell
and more like the orchid blossoming for the first time.
With little rhyme or reason,
the unwatched season will pass you by if you let it.
The fortune unfavoured or the sunset unsavoured,
they will pass well over the horizon
if you refuse to give them your attention.

So it is,
so it will always be
and so we see that every opportunity
that is given to us from the hands
of God... or whatever...
is a lesson that we must learn the first time
lest we have to learn again.
Nine times out of ten, what you want
is not just going to strut up and knock on your front door one day...
but on that one time where the stars align
in your favour and you are given the chance to shine,
you have to make. that. count.
If you can focus every bit of talent you have
and crush it down into the size of the head of a pin,
then that's many times better than spreading it out even.
Men live and die under the eye of criticism
and if you can rally yourself to what you want to do
and what you believe in...
Then you can make it through.
I'm not in the habit of making promises,
but I can assure you that there is not many thing in this life
that you can't overcome if you try your very hardest
and someone who will do their best 100% of the time
is worth their weight in stardust.

There was a time when I would've fenced down a giant,
but at the same time was facing a tyrant
when it came to my own emotions.
It was all false notions that it was too hard or too painful,
when instead of blinking the tears away
and etching a smile on my face,
I kept thinking that there was more to a problem with one solution.
You've got to try.
You've got to deny that there is anything
that can stare you down or tear you down,
you've got to plant your feet to the ground
and sound every alarm.
Because you are not giving up.
Not again.
Not this time.

There are times when the pain is too much.
There are times when we would do anything for a way out.
When we would drown ourselves
in the middle of a drought just so we
wouldn't have to be thirsty again.
We sometimes have to remind ourselves
that we are not alone.
Not yet.

There are times when I bet my soul on three lies told.
And even though I won,
I was payed back in fool's gold.
We grow up never thinking that 'up' means old.
We are not alone
and our paths have been walked before.
What is left in store for us
as we ride this tour bus to hell
is the burnt-out car frames of those
who didn't do quite as well

Father Time continues to soldier ever forth
and sometimes what we want is south
and what we need is north.
But I'm telling you that if you think
that you are the first, you are not.
You came from the smallest dot and now
you are a monument to those who came before.
You are a masterpiece created beyond compare,
built in the image of those who's blood you share.
Those who care in a way no one else ever will.

So next time you are in pain, remember,
you are not a waste.
You are an imprint left by two people
that will one day longer be here.
As the seasons change, realize,
there will soon be a year when
our fathers will die.
When we will be made to walk on our own
without knowing why.

So when the ground starts to eat at you,
pulling you down with a force so strong
that you don't even try to fight it,
let your monuments stand and know that they are not alone.
Because we all must return to the earth,
in one form or another.
So honor them while you still have them,
be they your Father
or your Mother.

Your eyes say everything that you're too embarrassed to say.
They tell me that today is nothing but a fleeting moment
and that every second spent thinking but not acting
will tally up to a waste of time until we have nothing left.
That every tick-tock of the clock
makes up the lock that shackles all the things we could be
we could be in love, you and me.

And this isn't the first time I've felt myself falling
without my consent, but you've made a dent
in my heart where you hit me.
I won't flee from the truth,
I've had other lovers in the past.
But right now my heart is beating so fast
and it crosses itself when it swears that this
feels like first love.
That each breath I breathe is taken by your beauty
and every time you kiss me it leaves stars behind my eyelids.

Your gaze roots me to the spot
when you look at me the way you do.
You say everything without making a sound
and I fall right through what I had believed to be the ground
but was just keeping me from falling for you.
And I gotta say it one more time,
I'm falling for you.
I hope I never hit the ground.
Never have to hear missed opportunities
resound through the air,
I don't give a care if it'll hurt me in the end.
The end is far ahead and we're right here,
don't doubt me, love me instead.
Come here, I'll hold you in my arms and
make you believe I'm never letting you go.
So even though I will eventually, it won't be because I wanted to.

If I ever have wanted to go slowly in my life,
it would be now because I want time to stand still for us.
I don't normally go slow and I know that we shouldn't now
because we both know we don't have forever.
I don't want a wake-up call because
I don't want to be awakened from the freefall
that is this bliss - I've been waiting for this
ever since I landed last and
I'm letting the past be past me,
so I can enjoy that I've found the needle in the haystack at last.
Turns out it's always in the last place you look.

Maybe they've been there all along.
Maybe you'll be wrong about who it is
the first couple of times but when you are right,
you know it and let me tell you, I was right when I saw you.
I never made the decision to fall in love with you,
assuming thats what this is,
but you never should make the decision.
Love should fall upon you like a hail of arrows.
Because when push comes to shove I realize that it was
never my choice to begin with.

When I look at you
and I do that a lot ,
I'm always trying to paint your picture in my mind.
I can do this pretty well normally, but for you,
I don't stop at just one.
I paint your picture a hundred times because
I never want to forget you.
I want to be the glue that holds you together
when **** gets tough,
I want to be the wind in your sails
when the seas get rough
and I want to be there to act,
when words aren't enough.

So here we are, falling together.
Who knows when we'll hit the ground
but until then let's just let gravity do it's work and..
see how this goes.

I can see you here. I can see your chest rise and fall when you breath,
but you comprise of all the things that I associate with heaven.
You keep me up at night well past eleven
thinking that in a perfect world you might see me the way I see you.
I've chased your idea through fields and mountain passes,
pursued your thought down Lonely Street and Solitary Avenue.
I have realized that in this world, sometimes
the only reason people run away, is because they want someone to follow.
But I hope that if you ever felt like running,
that your final destination would be my open arms
because they've been outstretched so long that
people are starting to use them to hang clothes on.

I walk about this world with my heart on my sleeve and because of that
I've sometimes accidentally left in in the washing machine.
That's not to say that I don't sometimes feel like the crooked house
resting itself on the newer one.
Sometimes we all just need to lean-to.
You must understand that when I say 'love',
I mean you.

If we are all done crying now,
if we can borrow the courage to keep our sorrow
waiting just until tomorrow,
than we can survive this day alone.
If we can atone for every sin that we didn't commit
than we can permit the past to finally pass
and let the grass we stand on grow up from between our toes
because we know where we stand now.
And forget the who, what, why and how
because we are where we are
and where we are is the place we need to be.
So if you see another idea, don't give up yet.
You'd better ride and chase that b** into the sunset!

Is it just a loose porch board
that creaks just outside my door?
Is it just the howling wind
that creaks outside and nothing more?

Can I trust these sweat-soaked sheets
to keep a midnight prowler at bay?
Can I trust my frozen feet
to safely carry me away?

Is my room, cloaked in gloom,
inhabited by solely me?
Light, I assume, would only exhume
the tenants of my dirtless tomb.

I shall not be prey, I then decide,
I shall not fall to just any beast!
I'm not a feast... not their's at least...
The worms... perhaps, but them I don't mind.

"You're not getting me!" I scream,
I grab the the gun and run to the shed.
I turn and bolt the door and my hands
shake as I load an ounce of lead.

"I'm not yours to have!" I cry
My vision now becoming blurred
click
"It is I who shall have the final word!"

Throughout an empty forest, a single shot is heard.

Once upon a time, a man once said aloud for all to hear:
"There is no need for poetry."
Once upon a time, he was right.
When the darkest nights fall upon us
like a barrage of arrows
we would rather just survive.
We strive to one day have a future
where there is no doubt, but
until that last creative ember in our souls is
snuffed out, we will have a need for poetry.

Because what are these words if not
just scrap paper floating on the breeze?
What is this idea if not
just one seed among a million trees?
What is this level of depth
when measured to the deepest seas?
We live in a society where wit is defined
by how well you can put someone down...
A society where smiles/frowns,
whichever it is, they are just masks.
Hiding who we truly are.
Each one of us is a star,
some brighter than others,
but each of us beautiful and powerful in our own right
and in spite of our differences.

On many a night
I would have extinguished my own flame
just to be able to name myself a martyr.
A martyr who died fighting his demons
and whether or not I will ever win,
I'll always be aware of it's futility.
But, you see, it's never like I ever had false visions
of putting this to rest.
It never was a battle between 'good' and 'bad'...
only shades of better or worse.

And yet we would stuff our one hope
against this darkness into a funeral hearse
and wave it on it's way.
With not even a hint of dismay,
I ask you all,
is there any need for poetry?

Up here, I feel like I can open up my soul to you.
Show you who I really am.
Through each word and pause
I have encurred the awes of people
I never thought could appreciate me.
So let us let this tragedy unfold.
Who knows what the future could hold...
or what it could let go.

You aren't the first to walk these roads.
These lonely, gravel trails  covered in broken glass and nails.
Every time a rickety car breaks down and fails
it leaves it's wreck along the side of highway,
just watching the traffic pass them by.
They are monuments to every effort we have made and given up on.
They are why you MUST try.

Whether you live in a town or a city,
there are going to be some pretty ****** moments in life.
It takes a lot of strife to get a small amount of satisfaction
but the chain reaction
of doubts and down 'n' outs
is drowned out by the radio static and
I don't mean to sound dramatic but
I understand.

I just want you to know
you're not going to go on your own this time.
Every moment spent crying is time that could better spent trying.
If I told you I don't have these moments,
well, I'd be lying.
Because I've felt the color drain from my face
as I try to remember the last place I left my courage
because it's not at arm's reach this time.
Sneers and eyerolls draw spirals around me
like I'm at ground zero of an M.C Escher painting.

I can rephrase suffering so many ways.
But at this pace, I still can't outrun my own thoughts.
I find my courage at last
but there is no sticking place to ***** it to,
so I just say "***** it."
I can't say I knew it would end this way,
but if all this poem comes down to
is a whiny teenager trying to be edgy
than I guess I...