In the quiet of this empty room
Only the sound of our voices
Echoing to emphasize
The importance of our words
Vital to our sanity
And this endless back and forth
Love me
Hate me
Create and destroy me
But for god’s sake let me be
One way or the other
Allow me the ability
To move past this twisted torture
The one where you push me away
And then spill your kindred soul
So I have no choice but to crawl right back
As sure as the sun rises and sets
Falling right back into your web
And hoping you don’t devour me

I am an escaped prisoner from barred disillusion,
A personable recluse fighting the illusion
Of an introspective extrovert who finds solace in confusion.

I wonder how it is that I find optimism alone,
When collective pessimistic thoughts condone
The woeful tales that howl and moan.

I hear voices of people that aren’t there,
Yet find myself in calmness aware
Despite their tormented accusational affair.

I see ideals living and thriving out there
Even when apathy or indifference ensnare
Battered hearts and worn out minds in despair

I want nothing more than to ‘want’ so desperately
I hold onto desire so restlessly,
That I’ve tired the being of my entity,

I am an anomalous paradox captive to the sea
Where waters churn in active disharmony,
Yet comfort as it may my tranquility.

I pretend that I’ve already staked my global legacy
As if my words, thoughts, and feelings,
Have changed the world entirely.

I feel everything as I believe it should be,
Riding the waves of intensity
In emotionally humble serendipity,

I touch the stars in remote prose,
Wandering the vast expanses without close,
Wherever my mind goes, it goes.

I worry about the future of humanity,
As if I was merely here to watch observantly
From some unknown eternity.

I cry for those in silent pain
With fake smiles of disdain
Who dare not speak for thought in vain.

I am a quiet observer of the human condition
Checking and balancing sedition
Though never granting my submission.

I understand the fallibility of the mind,
Gathering as many perspectives I can find,
Theorizing everything to which I’m inclined.

I say it’s all relative but it’s all relevant
Prone to be dominated by the prevalent
Missing the subtleties that are heaven sent.

I dream when I’m awake through my ideals,
Even when they’re still just spinning wheels,
Hoping they gain traction as time reveals.

I try to be better than the day before,
As that’s the best way to keep score,
When the world has us compared to others so much more.

I hope my legacy is genuine,
I regret nothing even when I sin,
As time wears down my wrinkled grin.

I am only human, to live and to die,
That’s about all we can be or rely,
And honestly this notion breaths me a sigh.

It starts off...
A pen, paper and nothing,
I walk through the de-sert,
With the belief I can't afford anything,
A slave to the earth,
Always wanting everything,
So I sold my soul and every limb,
All gone now I'm looking in the darkness,
A voice whispers to my skull,
FEAR ME and fearLESS
FIND ME and LOSE you,
Let ME work on what's left,
Give me your broken pieces,
I will find the rest from birth,
I will make your ugly look pretty
Just look on Jesus,
And see how a life of pain,
Turns to one more sheep to gain,
In your destruction lies HIS beauty
From a low life beggar,
To a chief in the community,
But you always remember,
Now that your brighter than the galaxy,
That pride goeth before a disaster,
And you may return back to beauty in destruction,
Like the once top creature,
That thought he was the best creation.

Time flies, you are lost.‬
Time flies when you are driven.‬
Time flies, regardless‬.

Mister, misses
A snake's tongue
To sounds of hisses
A caged bird
The spoken word
Breathe life into me
Or kick me to the curb

For I am human
I am only me
Not justified by anyone
Or anything else
You may see
Picture this, picture that
I'm not looking to offend you
Or contemplate an attack

I have seen myself
From my inner spirit
As I dream the day away
To write a song, and
Perhaps someday, hear it
For music is my passion
And writing is my attraction
And as a wonderful couple
Together, they equal my
Purpose, significance, and
My call to action.

Marooned  land-locked
    on  island  earth

Born with an orphan’s
    unknowable ache

Born with an empath heart
– always feeling too much –
mystic receptors wide awake
    in a highly sensitive soul

It’s as if I've walked along
      forever alone,
    one step at a time,
    lost in a restless nebula
from the earth to the moon

Consciously dreaming
      to steal away, 
bearing the weight of the sky, 
upwards over the mountain,
away from these chains
         that bind

    The maelstroms echo
behind silenced, probing eyes
with an unsated thirst
      to be wanted
    dead or otherwise:

Never understanding
    the reasons why,
spinning around in my head;
where "once upon a time"
        was hidden,
        buried alive              

A lifetime spent trying
    to unlearn the things
    I wish I’d never
    sought to know,
    clinging to the love
I've touched in my life
  evermore enwombed
       in my heart

    Passing milestones:
walking another barefoot mile
passing so many locked doors
    without keyholes
– way outside the lines –

    Choking on all
    the latent words
      lay fallow, 
      left unsaid 
Always looking for
something dreamt
but seldom manifest 

Growing so tired and weary
with no one standing by my side;  
no one to lay down beside me
    to take a rest for awhile

Just another chapter
in a timeless same old story;
  another dark star
      burned – out
      – vanished –
into the utter obscurity
of a sky so close and yet
       so far away...


Jesse Stillwater ... August 22, 2018

These words are fingerprints;
A momento of the fleeting seconds
Where I overflow with emotion
Like a glass under a faucet.

True, these portraits are usually
A collection of broken mirrors,
But let me write when I am howling
At the moon in my car
As the man on the radio makes love
To his microphone
And the glow of streetlights light
The path home.
Let me write when the floors are clean,
Lemon cleaner and sunlight pouring in,
And I'm trimming the ends of flower stalks
For a vase that paints these walls of mine "home".

I am not entirely fragmented.
My ankles may weaken
And my spine my stiffen
And static might overwrite my thoughts
When the sun retires,
But against everything, I stand.

I stand.