"That's the right word,"
I say to myself,
Writing the next line.
Before I can finish,
My thoughts are interrupted
By my boss's yelling.
"Come on," he calls.
"You've gotten your fix.
Now back to work."
My head ****** up,
My scribbling hand stilled.
The boss's words smart,
But I must work
If I'm to eat.
Back to routine's kingdom
I voyage, utterly chagrined.
Memories of my escape
Join the mist's evanescence.
Like the treacherous ocean,
I am always running,
But forever fated to
Return to the shore.
The dictates of duty
Govern my restrained passion.
And thus, I yearn
For escaping through words.
To put it succinctly,
Mundane reality is terminal,
It will **** your soul.
Art is the soul's
First and best defense,
Whether words or pictures,
They represent your soul,
Fighting for its survival.
Survival in the escape.
Answer this for me:
Having just once escaped,
Why would you even
Want to come back?

‘Your voice,
           I feel sedated whenever I hear
                     its dark caress
           Yet it invigorates me enough
                     for it to be my work song
You took me from Eden
                 to the church that is
                                  you
I entered its ancient confines-
                 to meet another you,
          someone new
                                              and Wilson you said:
“Be my Jackie,
                         let’s steal a child from creation
                         for I don’t want to be alone
          like real people do
who run into the woods somewhere ne'er to return to humanity"
               I wallowed in the heat of your
                   Auburn cathedral
and got seared by the heat of your *****
             and I hear your voice
                        as sweet
                              as cherry wine
And as I hear the trickling of fire
I realized that it is the arsonist’s lullaby.‘

They say that I have problems:
Schizophrenia and such.
There’s a lot more, but
I don’t understand very much.

Am I crazy?
I can’t possibly be!
There isn’t anything
Wrong with me.

Why am I in this cage?
Just because I can’t remember my name
Doesn’t mean that I am insane!

If these walls could speak, what would they say?
Would they grieve for the loss of those who had been in this room,
Not realizing that their time was wasting away?

Or do people enjoy losing their minds?
Do they like the sense of clarity that it brings,
Like knowing why the caged bird sings?

The visitors I had today,
The visitors do not exist,
Or so the doctors say.

I told the doctors about the knight
Who showed me how to make pictures with raindrops on the window.
They simply said that my mind is in limbo.

The dragon told me a story
Of how he rescued the knight from the princess,
But the knight got all of the glory.

The princess tells me about the voices,
The voices, the voices that whisper all around
As you slowly feel your sanity giving ground.

“No! Stop! Get out of my head!”
At least, that’s what I wanted
Before my sanity fled.

Quiet
Peaceful
Room to think
Noise
Friends
Clarity
Reason
Chaos
Insanity
Infinity
What a luxury
It must be
To lose your
Mind
Completely.

My friend, what if you are the one who is in chains bound to this earth,
And I am the bird, the one who is soaring free?

"You drink too much.
You smoke too much.
Why do you stay?"

I laugh as
I roll another cigarette.
I slip the paper filter in between
my lips, and
smile.

"I guess I have a death wish."

I light her up,
and puff away.
We'll be up long into the morning.

My hope is sequestered in a black void; it is hopelessly adrift in a tumultuous mass of negativity that devours any veins of light that dare to reveal themselves.

I would follow it into the blackness if the thick, poisonous tendrils of gloom didn't bar my way. It seems that any heartfelt attempts at breaking down the blockage results in terrible growth of the tendrils, and so I'm emptily bound; my emotion has seeped into nonexistence.

tell me back,
make me miss the things that never were,
make me wish for something that already was.
bring me back to where it all started,
to the time when we began.
tell me about the ways the horizon line bends
and that you still think it looks like the crease in your elbow when the right light hits it,
how the memories are current and we, together, are right now.
make me know i am here.
give me the only lines you can remember from the only book you’ve ever liked,
make me feel the first time you laughed with me and how the house shook
every day for a year after.
make me remember the way you touched my skin when we danced under the streetlight,
where we were far from the dock but the waves still crashed into us.
tell me about the way our love was a straight shot to the stars,
where we were bent but only slightly,
where missing you was only used in the context of “I’ll see you soon”
and not “you haven’t looked at me in months”.
tell me back,
make me believe promises are still whole
and that we are too.

car engines. headlights. traffic. the way home.
not home, just somewhere i live.
we sit in the back of your mother's old mercedes,
"the ugliest tan color that ever existed" according to you.
it's a stick shift, and it skids and skips and sputters quite often.
i won't tell you, but i like when you tell me you want me to put on the seatbelt.
your head rests against the window,
and every knick in the road
makes you bump your forehead against the glass.
you're too tired to give a **** about it.
"i wish it was a better night, it's too cloudy,"
your breath visible on the window.
i can still see Vega, i don't think you can.
i nod my head and move my hand into yours.
i silently beg you to look at me.
maybe it's not a bad thing there aren't many stars out.
maybe it's the sky's way of telling us we should pay attention to each other.
maybe we hit every red light because the universe just wants to give us more time.
maybe the reason the light from the passing cars moves so fast is because it can't wait to touch your skin and
maybe the sound of car horns moves so slow because it loves the way your heart beats in the silence.
i mean ****, maybe i just want you to touch me again.
maybe it's just that i still need you and you're too tired to give a **** about it.