It's true that they belong together
Freedom is just another word for fetter
To have it all and have no better
That is life's eternal weather.

It's true that meaning is lost in translation
Because no one cares to hear your explanation
As they hear the words that befits your station
And you've learned to speak as befits your subordination

It's true that there is nothing to thought
Poring out without a clot
Yet will never reach the point it ought
Instead used and swayed as they are bought

It's true that pain is just a stern friend
While hope just leaves you in the end
Pain's **** is the advice he'll lend
Which you should heed or another he'll send

It's true that there is fault in truth
Like beauty blunted by its youth
The horror of it was its proof
While a fraction of it still lies aloof.

My fingers cramp easily enough
when there’s nothing
weighing them down.
My mind is numb at the first
black phantom offering
of hope;
always running from what could be,
preferring that nonthreatening illusion
while time goes by
so subtly,
just wilting away
today.
Still the broken won't heal
entirely;
I've learned it,
regretted it,
repeated it
too many times.
Though, it wasn't quite a broken bone,
but I wouldn't say it wasn't anything,
just a link
in the chain
that I wear as decoration
no longer bothered by the discomfort
of its weight
worn with pride
for its humiliation.
So goes my day
in the vacuum of time,
condemning everything to the irrelevant.

I have a guilt complex
like a catholic boy,
who can’t stop *******,
but with a bloated sense of entitlement,
always saying I didn’t get enough of anything
and a tendency to exaggerate for my own sake
since I’m a victim of abuse,
I’m allowed to abuse
and I tend to self isolate
as if I was surrounded by dead bodies
and I’ve lived out my life
for one great purpose,
for improvement and progress,
at least that’s what I tell myself
since I’m a slave to self indulgence
but the higher you reach,
the lower you are
and the farther you fall
and, of course, I’m arrogant enough
to feel the need to self destruct.

He never lived so softly when alive,
nor after in death did he care to die,
just sleeping
with hands clasped upon the chest,
dreaming of the pain which
so condemned his life;
of soft humiliations fine
which he drank in multitude,
morning, night and noon,
and found pleasure in such numb abuse;
since he didn’t know what it was to be alive
with no internal thoughts to bear,
just creeping slowly through the years,
with the subtle growth of doubt and shame,
like a garden growing in the brain,
finely preserved in his suit and tie;
he thought it was preordained to die
before one had lived at all.
He called life another death
and so he put a gun to his head
wondering then what he would really do
and then he went right along as
he had always done.
The loss of life is so well refined
like all good things,
it frees the soul and destroys the mind.

Do you know the cost of pleasure?
I've tasted it
In concentrate
But I didn't know
That I'd never be the same.
That feeling of imbalance
Eternally in flux--
Forever pushing for it--
Then falling through it--
Going to those places
I could never go
But still--
I can't speak of it--
The words burn
And I don't know
The facts are darkened
By the will to survive
Because otherwise there would be Nothing
But to condemn Paradise.

The broken record in my head
Is stuck
On the same verse
To a love song
That only ever repeats
And repeats
As if it is the only song
Ever sung
As the universe beats
Is it dancing to this song
And is my heartbeat
Just a mimic
Of this great dance
But what of those
Whose hearts are a little fast
Or a little slow.

It makes me so sad
Those words that you wrote
Bringing up memories
Not worth remembering
So why would you write?

You didn't have much to say
A few misplaced questions
That I'd never answer
For you
So why would you write?

We are strangers
That have seen all there is
To see of each other
Just a fellow shadow
And shadows can't write
Only yield to the light
And rule over the night
As an imitation of life
But I was alive in the bright of the day when you wrote me
So why would you write?

Of those two dozen men,
Who took me with the same
Strangely calculated touch,
Insulting me with their lust.

Of those few women,
Wrapped in the same plated lace
To compensate for the form within
Like a second skin.

Of that collection of men,
Their unreciprocated pleasure
Was the cost of their desire,
Which reassured my worth.

Always the pleasure
Peels off with the skin.
Always the end of it
Relieves the pain.

Only ask for death,
Which will always be repaid
Please destroy my lust,
Disillusioned by the touch.

I've forgotten my foot
Went walking
Without me
But I haven't forgiven it.

I thought for sure our love had died
I watched it waste away,
Rattling around my head
Before the long decay.

I saw the absence in the eyes
I touched the empty skin,
The cold was of a special stock
Just like the weight of sin.

I burned a stigma on its breast
And poisoned it with despair.
The taboo it bore bled it dry.
The flesh would not repair.

It wasn't till I saw it there
As ragged empty bones,
And felt the hallow space between
I knew it was my own.

In life, you have to reach out
And touch the knife's blade
Then let it cut you
Or you'll never learn not to.

In life, there's always something new to reach out to
A new fire to walk through
And new scars to acquire
That will remind you
What not to do.

The worse it hurts
The better you'll learn
And soon you wont get burned
By that one!