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

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

We're not all the stuff of legends and fairy tales. We do try sometimes but we more often then not are doomed to fail, because being held to a standard that you're better than human is a hard burden to bear.

We don't all have the natural dramatic flair that makes us fare just that much better on the stage - But whether or not we will ever be like Aladdin, we rub every lamp just in case.

In the face of overwhelming improbality, we still find a way to get ourselves to say 'Maybe this time, it'll be different. Maybe the innocent will not suffer and maybe this time they'll catch the bad guy'.

Who am I to dream? Who am I to make more out of something than what would first seem? Every one of these stitches and seams that run across our bodies like patchwork, every scar from every time we've gone to far or raised the bar, they are ours to wear with pride.
Just because something has been denied to you is no reason not to seek it again, but this twicefold. I may not be Rumplestiltskin but I'm going to keep trying to turn this straw to gold - because the dreams that come to us are ours to hold. Ours to clutch to our chest lest they grow cold.

It is because of these mistakes that we are where we are. When you fail, if you can re-trail what you did wrong all the way back to core of the problem, then you've got experience to store away until next time. I only learned to rhyme like I do through the impromptu misteps that we are all going to go through. And you will learn to be better.

Every, single, letter that goes into writing one of these little soliloquies has to come out like a summer breeze or they should not be put down. You can't squeeze your brain like a grape hoping that pure wine is going to come out. Inspiration comes from the funniest places and I guess you could say that you've been inspirin' me but there is still fire in me to temper the metal.

And I know I'm not going to get a medal for this, otherwise I'd probably do it more often. But each and every one of you needs to know that it is only through challenge and adversity that we grow into these monoliths we hope we one day become. If you can manage to stay strong, live long and keep is simple your whole life through... who knows? - Maybe they'll write the next fairy tales about you.

Santa murdered Christmas,
by excluding the Christ
and only caring about the Mass
of how much one can get.

No-one gives a **** about Christ anymore.
Myself included,
but I didn't need a perverted holiday
for that to be a thing.

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...

Dear Shane,

I do not worship celebrities.
I see them as humans doing their craft
and it might seem daft
but I have to sometimes remind myself your a human.
That your just like me. That you
put your pants on one leg a time.
When I first met you, Shane,
I didn't say much.
I made a fool of myself really,
What I said was "You're awesome."
What I wanted to say was "You saved my life."
I have no sob stories to offer,
I've lived through plenty
but this isn't about me.
You killed monotony.
You put my fears to rest
with a glass of milk and a bedtime story.
You made everything seem doable.
You practically sweat tragedy,
with the life you've had.
But you remind me to take the time
to take the time.
You are the message in the bottle
to a man shipwrecked.
If I am a castle, then you are my architect.
You're just a man,
but the hubris of believing that it only takes a man
to turn speaking into an art form,
has to be part of some god's plan.

You got me into this hobby,
mostly because I enjoy it
but also because you make art with such ease.
You can make words resemble a breeze
and then a squall in the same moment.
Even if that was all,
you'd still be above amazing.
"If I knew you better than I know,
I'd know that fast isn't the way to go,
so how about this?"
When I do my own poetry,
I have to separate it from yours
because your words are closer to my heart
Than my own.
People tell me I remind them of you.
I've never been more gracious of a compliment.
I've spent so long trying to sing a swan song
worth anything more than anything at all,
just so I could try to hold a candle
to the wall upon which your name is written
in the hall of the greatest poets.

I could speak forever at this rate,
but I'll close with this.
You have changed me
infinitely for the better.
If you ever get this letter,
I don't expect you to read it right away.
I just want you to have it,
so my words will be with you
as yours have been with me.

Break me completely!

My shards will still cut your hands,

trying to fix me.

Fish would not be caught
if they could keep their mouths shut.
Same deal with people.

You use my greatest fears
as slings, rocks and arrows
meant to draw not blood, but tears
hitting the earth like meteors.
You bend and twist my limbs
in a figurative way.
You train my hopes like a dog,
telling them to stay
and you never come back for them.
You stockpile sharpened words
and hails of insults.

You used to be what I called friend,
but I was always aware of your simplicity.
Perhaps it was how explicitly
you framed desire and hatred
in the same portrait.
You made sub-cultures fit into your own identity
and always found a way
to make me feel unwanted.

You were a ****** friend,
but the way you brought about the end
like a hammer crushing the skull
of the decades I have left to live,
THAT,
I'm not sure I can forgive.
But when I wake up tomorrow,
and I look into the mirror,
I will not see your face staring back
but you always will.

And for this reason I still find it in myself
to feel pity for you.
The same pity I feel
for those short of food and clean water
because for every time
you put my dreams to the slaughter
you put another notch in your belt.
The same one that keeps you fastened to your hate.
You'll be padlocked there until you find the key,
hidden in your own humanity.
To win against hate,
you have to not want to participate in it.
When it comes to mine,
it's still there,
but everyday it grows dimmer.
Not dim as in, you,
but less strong.

So this is our swan song.
You asked me to write you a poem
and after today,
I just couldn't say no.

I've been teaching people
how to be poets.
Now, even to me,
this sounds like canned *******.
But I believe that there is more to it.
It sounds so elitist to think
that you were just born with poetry
in your heart and mind.
That it could ever be so hard to find
inner meaning where there is none.
Even love is an illusion
the same way color never existed
outside the eye,
your beauty never existed
outside my heart.

Now before I start,
let me go back to square one.
I find it hard to believe that someone
can't be something just because... they aren't.
Poetry, like all art, is a skill
and like all art, you don't need to be good.
No-one is judging your art
unless you ask them to
and if it ends up in front of their face,
you've asked.
It's a skill, you get better and worse,
good days and bad days,
but some people just need to realize
what poetry really, really is.

It's not about rhyming, or even sounding good.
It's about meaning.
What's the deal with this flower?
This flower is art.
It's a piece of chlorophyll, who cares?
Because the flower is beautiful.
What makes the flower beautiful?
Because I choose to believe that this flower is more
than what my eye percieves.
Boy, this art **** sounds like
a bunch of crap.
*It really is.

I do not know what the future holds
any more than any other man,
but if I can somehow picture
that you will be with me,
your hand in mine...
Then who the **** cares about crystal *****
and tarot cards?

You are my stability.
My steady footing.
while you are here,
all else fades into the background.
Your voice,
makes all else white noise,
and your touch
melts all false pretenses.

When you leave, I will be destroyed,
but I will never forget
or forgive
myself for letting you go.

Time and time again
I have raised a hand
or a fist, or a blade,
to destroy this thing I love
and all the things I've made.

Perhaps it is this skin,
that encompasses me
like an unwanted lover,
that makes me see these flaws
in one thing or another.

It is most likely me,
not you or they,
who created this unholy rage
that has made me hate this art
and set fire, not pen, to the page.

The foolish churls
and putrid youths
who plague and prowl these hallways
who abuse this sacred art and leave it
lost among the daily craze.

While I may applaud your work
and hand out digital hearts,
there are others amongst the crowd
who pervert the most basic concept
in any way that they are allowed.

I swear to the eternal void,
to the primeval seas of blackness,
to all that will ever last
that if this kind of beauty can be ruined,
then we all should die, quick and fast.

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.

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!

There is just something I want you to know.
We knew that we would never be great,
we would never feel fire in our heart
when we congregate
in the libraries and alleyways.
We have lost our edge,
our static charge, our blaze,
and it beyond us recover it.

We were amazing at something
that the world had no patience for,
so in those moments when we shone
the world chose to ignore.
Now we have lost our flair,
we will never have another encore...
Because we were spectacular at something
and it has rotted away
like so many of our hopes
and aspirations
and this tired procrastination
has gotten us nowhere.

We made a world, for every and anyone
who chose to share it with us...
but it has drained away
from the land and sea,
now us tired artists
must join reality.

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.

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.

The broken
and the odd
seem to cross my paths more than most.
For each and every riposte
that I deliver past the ever advancing guard
of Fate,
there is a blow that slips through my vigil
and hits me square upon the heart.
Each of these damaged souls is a part of my
grand design.
I find happiness in giving them love
and acceptance they've never known.
I find their problems to me mine
and their tears shed from my own ducts.

I do no see myself as superior to these people.
I see myself as in the position to good,
because under the hood we are still human
and there is no denying someone that.
There will always be an exchange of hats
now and again,
when it is realized that there is
nothing wrong with this
is when anger turns to peace
and sadness to bliss.

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.

If you could promise me one thing,
it would be that you'd never change.
No matter how many ways I rearrange
these meager words,
they will always find a way to spell out
"I love you"
And that's beautiful.
But we do not worship beauty anymore,
we bend our knee to concepts such as
violence and objectification
in a culture that paradoxically forbids it,
for every vulture picking the bones of something
that once was amazing,
there is a man getting fat off lies
and grazing.
This is for every child who will die this year,
who will take it upon themselves to make a message
that people will choose not to hear.

This entire atmosphere is clouded from the fumes
coming out of the hallways and classrooms,
where each flower blooms
only to close it's petals up again in shame.
Where each name called is meant to stand for
horrors and destitution
and our prostitution for convenience
will always shift the blame.
This is for every bully that got pushed back,
for every attack returned
and good night's sleep earned.

This is for you,
or anyone like you,
who has ever had to feel the shock value
summing up to totals we could never coalesce
and I will not digress from this topic.
It has burned holes in our armor,
into our good judgements and mind
where our credit cards will be declined
because we didn't take charge.
Problems like these will only enlarge,
we will never be happy,
until we deal with this.

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.

Your voice, it still does

reach me through these twisted halls

though I'm long since deaf.

I've been alive for twenty years
but now that doesn't seem so long,
for now it's clear the end is near
in death I must be strong.

No, it doesn't seem so long ago
that we walked hand-in-hand in the snow
yet with steel in my hands I left to fight in foreign lands
the lands where my blood now flows

I fought with valor, like a true warrior
with blood and iron to give.
When I looked up at the sky, I was too scared to die
but right now, I'm too frightened to live

I promised you I would return
assured you that you were my own.
Now I lay in the mud and I'm covered in blood
and I know now that you'll be alone.

I had everything I'd ever need
but I lacked the wisdom to see,
here comes the breath that shall herald my death
this "glory" is now worthless to me.

I'm sorry for this, my love.
I wish I could go back to before.
May no more young men meet early ends
at the hands of the siren named War.

Just let these feelings
sit inside
and subside
let the tried and true
come to you
through the two
rules of this life
One
there is no rival
for love
Two
there is no love
if you can't face it
embrace it
UPPER CASE IT
because if you can't
give it
than prepare to live
a life
of receiving but not having
and traipse the edge of the knife
sort of like
a tightrope act
walked until cracked
in half complete
on cold concrete
with no one to say
goodbye to.

No-one would even remember you.
Love is the lens we see ourselves through
and it will all, one day, come into focus.
None of this 'meet and greet' hocus pocus,
life is an encounter
that you step up our back down to
but if you can come up,
then you will not go back down, you
are ten seconds of sunshine
in a night where no-one can find
anything,
you are the something,
you are the exception
we connect ourselves by strings
like hearts made of tin
there will be lonely days
when the path ahead
splays out like
a million highways.
But you can be a moonbeam
by which everything that would seem
impassable,
insurmountable
like boot set in dirt
so hard it takes up root
all these things
become moot
when held to your radiance
because there are gradients
in all life's creatures
but the greatest teachers
ever summoned to our side
will be our reflection
in the pond
do not abscond from this sight
you will die...

if you do not fight.



Alright?

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.

She used to stand on the tips of her toes so she could kiss my cheek.

I've cherished these memories through and through and while there is no digital proof that our love ever existed, I remember that September with an indespensible fondness.

But I feel these memories fading away. Slipping through my fingers like wet clay and each night that passes I can spend one less moment of the day recalling how your lips felt against mine...

...or thinking of how I could gaze into your eyes for the better parts of eons, but we are all peons of fate and our innate sense of duty pulls us from the things we are drawn to.

It is then that I remember that you were not taken away, how you chose to leave and that is okay.

In my agony over the loss of someone who's name no longer clings to my lips, I chose to cling to your hips and not let go.

I know better now, but I was afraid.

The memories we shared grow ever harder to remember, but that September you reminded me what love was.

It was fleeting and it was depleting, but I no longer find myself needing your touch.

I let go and I already know that you did so long ago,

but it stills brings a smile to my face when I recall how you stood on your the tips of your toes so you could kiss me,

I suppose even angels need someone to look up to.

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.

You make me want to take up skydiving...

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

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'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."

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.

When death comes
and funeral drums proceed me,
Death will not concede me
this one last victory.
That I will get to see
the look of pure misery
curl into a smile
as the razor opens my throat.

Who?
When?
Why?

Me.
Now.
Why not?

I am a poet,
connected by a network of poets
to thousands of poets...
but we are all still lonely
because we live inside our own heads.

I wanted to say something about love
that has never been said...

So I said this... ahem

"My love is like a tiger with no fangs hooked up to a nuclear power plant headed over by a Rottweiler who can't stop the imminent nuclear meltdown because he doesn't have fingers."

The next poem will be a little less different.