There's an age old story. A tale as old as time.
A feeling I can't quite muster, a voice that's not quite mine.

I've grown a lot this year, felt a lot this year, slept a lot this year, ****** a lot this year. Needless to say....it's been one hell of a 365 days.

This poem is a  stray from tradition, it lacks rhythm, flow, but ******* it it's written of my own volition.

I've earned that right, finally making my voice heard, learning how to fight. I've lost a battle or two, don't get me wrong.

But I still raise my head, every round for the gong. I get back up, throwing punches until I see stars.

Fighting with mad love and ambition, even if it kills my heart.

What's more important? A sane mind or a sense of place? What's scarier? Losing yourself or fighting demons you can't face?

There's a lack of attention that consumes my thoughts. There's feelings of self hatred, despite finally being on top.

That's the funny thing about thinking you've made it. The only person you have to best is yourself. The only person you have to let down, is every single person you've every helped.

That's the fear for me. Never finding happiness. Enough never really being enough.

Time being an illusion that slips away and before I know it, my legacy is just a disillusion.

I've had this dream on repeat. I'm lying in a casket, looking ghastly in defeat. Death and I have become one, finally giving that ever so cherished encore to a dance we've swung too many times before.

It's lonely here in the dark. Colder than I thought. Sweeter than I imagined.

Peaceful....yeah, peaceful.

Fear comes a walking,
Not clothed in black, or in plain clothes
but in style...passionate and powerful.
it is in the ordinary disguise that our
senses are thrown and we are caught off-guard
taking it's delicious offers to heart, ceaselessly.
It is easy to spot, but difficult to discern
And if left, will amass a great wealth of its own.

Stretching an arm to his bedside table,
he clasps an object with his hand.
He raises it up, and with a click of a button
a source of light forces his pupils to constrict.
The light in the form of his cellphone screen read:

                        4:17 A.M.
                   Friday, May 13

On the bottom half of the screen was nothing (0 new text messages) but a picture of three smiling figures in a foreign land.
And in one swift motion he flicks his wrist—
the phone makes a thud, ten feet away.
There was no use for it
when hundreds of his texts and calls were answered by the wind.

It may or may not have been four days since the incident that caused water from a faucet to seep through his eyes. His face now pressed against a blanket,
a scream pierces through the four corners of the bedroom.

The faucet water now found its way to his lungs
as he huffed and puffed. And huffed. And puffed.
As to what happened to his parents, he neither knew nor hoped to know.

4:19 A.M. It’s once again time to try counting sheep.

I watched my father die and i felt nothing.
Nor remorse or sadness.
I stood above his Deathbed and saw a stranger.

don't let
the ship sink,

and if
it happens,

don't
leave me
behind,

drown me
in your love.

i bite down to taste blood,
ground myself in this plane of desolation,
  to feel anything other than numb.

i share in your suffering,
where you are lost and afraid,
  broken before you begin.

i put my hands out into the stillness,
but it is hard to reach you,
  in the dark alleys of your mind.

i close my eyes against the change,
selfish, scared, swallowing every regret,
  where it resonates in the notes and chords.

i would trade places with you,
if only i could see your light shine,
  beautiful smile and hazel eyes.

You step out into the world and its tendrils seek to entwine.
It takes away my hopes and all the dreams I once held as mine.

You are faced with expectations and choices so not of your own.
You come to think it not so bad when life is both empty and alone.

It becomes just easier to forget about hope and any form of dream.
Responsible to self and away from expectations endless scream.

You close the world outside behind your safeties solid door.
And give up on love and dream like clothes discarded on the floor.

You accept a life of little value and so too the feel it will never end.
All for reassurance outside consequence wont reach in to offend.

I write of being sad and lonely in many of the poems that I write.
But I am conscious, it is I who cast love and hope out into the night.