Stop with these requests
And all your questions,
I need some suggestions here
On how to live and breathe
And make these thoughts
For once seem clear.
It's not unheard of
To be unsure of things
All the time, but this is
One rhyme I have to get right
While the words are still ripe.
The problem, friend, is I'm
Too short to reach the branches,
So if you'll please take your stances,
I'll take your hand and that one's
Knee, to pluck what measly
Words I can from my dying tree.
My rhythm's all wrong now,
And this isn't some song I can
Just rewrite, revise, then call
It a night. These words are my
Soul, these words are my
Whole world, you see, and
To be off time means I'm
Out of my prime, and I
Still have to rhyme to make money.

I keep these words behind glass
   in the fear that I might lose
   the ability to make them on my own.
I keep them in jars and frames
   and dust their letters clean
   each day that I awaken.
I keep repeating them,
   chanting the sounds to myself
   and to your sleeping ear.
I keep these words behind glass
   to remind myself of the words
   that I'm too scared to throw away.

Rearrange, re-estrange, re-derange.
Exchange the change you
Prearranged with something
Even stranger.
Interchange your long-range
Thoughts for something
Shorter, maybe don't be
Shortchanged this time around.

I keep the tears in my head just for the night.
It's past the hour to be sad and I might
Feel the urge to set them free another day.
So I seal them tight, quite tightly away,
Until the time returns again for salt
To run and burn my cheeks because
This bucket of mine has a lot of leaks.

I can't seem to patch them up well
Enough to hold the product of those sixty minutes,
So the bucket swells and overflows its lip.
It's why my thoughts tend to slip, I think,
The days too long for just one hour,
That time spills and becomes a scattered shower
Full of my ills and my unpleasant days.

Maybe you didn't put the stars up high
To make me hope to touch them.
Maybe you didn't make them shine
To turn this little planet dim.

But every day I hope to reach,
Every day I hope to see,
The stars loving you and
You loving me.

You're honest when you're drunk,
Forcing down a hunk of white bread and
Chugging water to keep it all down.
But the truth comes up and parades around town.
Teeth chew slowly while lips spew lonely truths
On counter and face and shoes.

You make a mess when you're drunk,
But it's so much cleaner, too.
Your anger is meaner and you say what you want,
You'll dare to leave but then you won't.
Stumble around and give me the words you found
While you drank your fears
And wiped those angry tears on my shirt.

You're younger when you're drunk,
Lines melt away and you come out to play.
You say what I didn't know I had to hear,
With no sign of fear that I might mind
Your unkind words and your babbling, bumbling mumbles.

I will write every word that I can,
I will write every emotion on every face,
Every tear, every star in endless space.

I will write endlessly,
I will write fearlessly, page by page,
Write to please every mind, every age.

I will write every story I can,
I will fill each book my soul, my ink,
I will not be afraid to share what I think.

I will write to the edge of my ability,
I will write wings upon my back,
And fly with words until my bones crack.

I will write 'til I'm dead,
I will write away my death,
And whisper poetry with final breath.

Here we are, skin on skin,
But no closer than we've ever been.
You're the one that I've always had to want,
The need that only stays to haunt.
Take my lips now, but you won't take your turn,
No matter how many love notes I burn.
You're the one I've always wanted in day,
The need that I can't get to stay.
The night is cold, star on star,
And your knife in my need will leave a scar.

I started stealing recently
Because of the feeling of power it gave me,
Like if somehow all that power
Would make the healing go faster,
But it only got me caught.
I started small, petty theft,
A piece of gum; not a lot.
The thrill was exciting
And made my heart beat stronger.
Every store was inviting me in saying,
"Come, stay a little longer."
So I did.
I lingered and I watched, and my
Heart raced as I fingered each item
With my eyes and paced the aisles restlessly.
They were just trinkets, what I stole,
Nothing anybody would miss,
Not like I did every night as I woke up
without a kiss
without a voice
without something to call my own.
So I started stealing to, if anything,
Distract me from what I was so painfully feeling.
Staring up at the ceiling every night
In a too large bed
With too many thoughts in a too small head.

My thoughts are louder than the
    headphones in my ears, while I'm
Staring down the cliff face and
    yelling "echo" through the fears.
But they're bouncing back and
    beating against my face, which
Isn't my own, just a mask I've made
    of paper and string and lace.
It's stuck there, covering my lips,
    making me lie, changing the blips that
My radar is catching every day, while
    sanity is beginning to sway
Against the endless tones
    that aren't loud enough to drown
Out these dismal mental moans
    screaming past my headphones.

Waiting up, buttercup,
Waiting for the sun to come up
And greet the day anew,
With blazing light that grows and grew
Back then when the earth was young,
Before words were inked or songs were sung.

Laying down, sweet girl,
Laying down to watch those hairs curl
Around my fingers, soft and smooth,
With lips to calm and words to soothe
What pain is bottled up in that head of yours,
That mind too young to fight such wars.

Sometimes death seems easier than here.
Maybe then the maybe's will quit.
Maybe then the voices will hush,
and maybe I can write this **** down.
Sometimes death seems easier than cheer.
Any day now the volume will drop.
Any day now the clocks will rewind,
and any day now I will finish a thought.
Sometimes death seems easier than fear.
Sleep might come and ease this pain.
Sleep might come and kiss me soft,
and sleep might come, shower words like rain.
Sometimes death seems easier.

We live in systematic chaos that is
peeling us away from what we need to say,
what we need to do.
It is stealing our tongues from soft-spoken mouths
and squeezing our lungs until we are hushed
amid the people too rushed
to push against it.
It is a chaos that is subtle,
a chaos that is tearing at our
huddled forms, our minds too muddled
to even consider fighting back.
But we hack and we hoist against
every other trouble in the day,
which only serves to double the pain
crashing in at night.
And with all our might we praise
a form way up in the sky, so silent
and forgetful we begin to question why.
Why do we scurry to honor this
man in the air who seems to
be in no hurry to help, to hear?
When we **** and we steal whatever
we want, this systematic chaos
just continues to taunt us down here.

Collecting words collecting dust
Sitting on shelves sitting in her mind
No one ever sees them, these phrases
old and beautiful and kind.

Hold me close
Hold me dear
Every day
Every night
Every year
I'm lonely, see
I'm lonely, friend
From birth
To life
To end
Hold me close
Hold me dear
Through good
Through bad
Through tear

Open spaces
Open wounds
Open heart but
Open too soon?

Closed doors
Closed eyes
Closed mind but
Open enough to
catch the lies.

Give me the time
For reason and rhyme,
Give me the space
To dry your face,
And give me a light
Touch to hold you at night

Sitting here thinking about the way you smell
Staying up remembering the good old stories that you tell
Solitude's got nothing on you
'Cause all alone I can't enjoy the view.

The music plays and all the dancers freeze in a moment
That is slow and our breathing is at ease.
We are humans caught in a wonderful ploy that plays
with our minds and might one day bring us joy,
But for now we are frozen in place, running
forever away like we are trying to win this race
That is quickly turning into something
more like a marathon of yearning
But we are getting tired, you and I,
and I don't see a reason to lie anymore.

Have you ever felt something you can't describe?
As if being pulled, earth-bound,
while the ground stands in its Great Divide?

Have you felt the sorrow of souls,
Thousands lost to hopeful tomorrow
while the Boatman takes their tolls?

Have you reached inside and touched your sadness
As if feeling the slow peeling of your heart
will somehow soothe the madness?

I'm scared for you
I'm scared enough for two
I'm sorry I missed you
Really, though, it's true.

I'm sorry for rain
I'm sorry for all your pain
I'm really just too vain
I'm sorry for the strain it caused you.

I'm really so scared
I'm really wishing you cared
I'm sorry I hurt you
Really, it's true,
But I'm scared for my soul
I'm scared for you, too.

I am taunted
By men who are
Haunted by stars
Falling on their heads.

I am followed
By women
Swallowed by men
Stepping on their toes.

I am captured
By humans
Raptured by words
Filling up their heads.

I am humbled
By words
Mumbled by lips
Fooling all their heads.

I finally get it
What those songs are about
I finally get it
Why they fill me with doubt
I finally get it
Why you blushed so red
I finally get it
Why that filled me with dread
I finally get it
Why I can't stop screaming
I finally get it
That I'm just deep dreaming
I finally get it
Why I can't enjoy the view
Because I'm hoping for the day
When these lies stop tasting like you.

****** my heart
****** my hand
****** my finger,
with a shiny band.
Steal my mind
Steal my life
Steal my soul,
call me your wife.
Take my fear
Take my sores
Take my love,
it is yours.

To slave away at words and rhyme
Is not a curse or plague.
It is a skill that can be taught,
Though the lessons rather vague.

Anguish is
Not enough miracles
Not enough time
Not enough words in my head
To form a decent rhyme

Anguish is
Too many worries
Too many fears
Too many prayers to a god
Asking for more years

Anguish is
So much hope
So much doubt
So much hurt in the world
The hope gets pushed out

Burn your bridges to the ground
Until the day you look around
And see you've bridged the gap
Between your momma's lap
And adulthood and see the people you hated
Have all been abated
Because you are the strongest
For surviving the longest
Nights when you cried
And your soul almost died
Without having the chance
Of taking a stance
Against everyone who put you down.

The April day is cold
And I await my death
Not in some distant future
Unknown to me,
Weak, mortal.

The April sky is grey
And death is creeping close
Down the hall it marches
And in my chair I shudder,
Weak, mortal.

The April sun is gone
And death is nearly here
For my soul it reaches,
For my life it craves,
And scared of death
I sit and wait
And wish I was not so
Weak, mortal.

I care not for what may come
I fear not for who I'll be
But I care for what I'll be
I fear for who will come

I want to see you,
Meet you,
Awkwardly introduce myself to you,
Court you,
Kiss you at your door,
By accident.
I want to love you,
But love is not an accident.

How do you cheat the soul?
Break that entropic chaos of feelings
so erratic they shatter like stars in death
and blur into one immortal being
all at once?
The answer is sin.

How do you cheat the mind?
Trick that intricate mess of thoughts
so complex and yet so basic at their core
into believing it is wrong?
The answer is deceit.

How do you cheat the heart?
Beat that pulsing beast of an *****
into submission so deep
it refuses to heave again?
The answer is love.