Somehow this moment repeats indefinitely
The very point in which you heavily defend
The same four words that you say incessantly
An oxymoron that I’ve heard time and time again
But if I agree, then I’m the only one that’s wrong
And if I disagree, it’s “the ending that I’ve wanted all along”

Am I waiting for the same old fight again?
You’ve poked these holes in my heart with safety pins
Expect me to soak my battle wounds in juice ‘n’ gin
When it’s all over, I don’t need another ‘friend’
And when you go, surely I will let you be
But don’t expect to find ‘us’ alive in a future fantasy

Because I am waiting for you to finally be clear
And I am waiting for the last words that I’ll want to hear
Planned your routine until the cycle breaks down
If you were alone, then why was I always around?
And if I never truly cared right from the start
Could you honestly say you’d make it this far?
If you’ve done it all on your own with no one’s help
Maybe you should be fine to continue by yourself.

Somehow you’re always coming back to this
And I fill in the parts where irrationality would miss
Painted my story black and white and red so you could see
That there’s nothing between the lines you couldn’t read.

Here now
the pain of love’s bitter reality… surrounds me
But how
can they be better if love always leaves…
every time? (Lost in a fevered dream)
Every time.

But if we lie now, will we make it?
If it hurts, surely I can take it…
Is this really what we both need?

Is someone better who you’re dying to see
or is someone better who you’re trying to be?

Love, now
You’ve poisoned everything in my reprieve…
with insecurities
And now
You’ve returned with doubts, undoubtedly…
You’d love me (was it an opportunity?)
To hate me.

Is there someone better that you’re dying to meet
or are you waiting for someone better than me?
Will I be a better someone for setting you free
or am I someone better that I can’t see?

Someone better… (for the love that you need)
Someone better… (for the love that I seek)

Time and time again, you push me to the brink
To abandon ship and swim before we sink
But these thoughts don’t fade away when I sleep

Isn’t someone better who you’re supposed to be?

Because you were the one fall in love with me

The future is no surprise if you can predictably
say ‘someone better’ is someone I’m gonna meet?
Cause I’m sure as hell that someone better isn’t someone I need
If someone better is who you’re supposed to be.

Is someone better God has yet to create?
Because someone better always seems to escape
“Someone better” - an excuse to abandon and break
When you won’t accept your love’s been a mistake.

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

The outer heart is dense
Made for nothing but defense
But every now and then, something pierces
But when it’s repairing the damage done
What of that which overcomes
It is constantly breaking through, creating lesions
So little the reparations mend
What little alive left to tend
When the tissue is dead and sordidly forgotten
Death will come from all that it's abandoned
Heartbeats constant yet instable
Will bring anyone down to their knees
Heartbeats that become unable
To liberate, only condemned to defeat
The outer heart shall rot and expose
What once was too precious to behold
Is now fighting until its last breath
Ill-prepared and defenseless still
Oft fueled by only pure will
Through all the abuse that the inner heart will suffer
None worse than sabotage by the love of another
Heartbeats lapsed, confused and fleeting
Destroyed after all it had found
Heartbeats faint, profuse bleeding
Drowning in pools on the ground

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

I've swallowed whole my humble pie
For years now without remorse
I was content to leave it all as such
And let all things take its 'natural' course
But then I learned I could take a pen
And weave words around a rhythmic display
If it wasn't for that fateful chance
I wouldn't be half the man I am today

Because when I get sad, I close the door
And I cry
But when I get sad and think of these words
I get by

These words are my reconciliation
To a life in which I can relate
But I feel so shameful
When I chose mine
Because I chose mine

For years to come, I would covet this
A final poem, a final prose
And in the hours that past me by
I never seem to write any of those
These words I love to put to the test
As if tried and true never failed
And in my path comes consequence
of the catered streams where they wade
I've used them up, I've brought them down
On many, oft without mercy or delay
Without them, I'd never get this far
I'd never tell you in this way

But when I get here and close the door
I can get by
But when I'm alone with these words
I still cry

These words are my appreciation
Something I can dedicate
But it’s often so painful
When I chose mine
Because I chose mine

©2015 Neal Emanuelson

With fierce eyes turned towards the dawn
A tightly balled fist rose to the heavens
Parting smiles, carbon particles, and atoms
Collided and separated

And in the split of an atom second
The world caved into her mouth
Diffused with saliva-like opinions
And spit into the ocean fusion

A tear of wish amongst the sea foam rocks
Dashed by the sharp pangs of truth
Cutting deeper into her gaze
I fell out of expectation

Without a breath of hope under the torrent
Faltering a rescue of a retracted hand
Mirrored to the sky and sea
A lover gone to a memory

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

Over the river and lost in the woods
Made of fun-house mirrors built directly into ventricles
Of one heart beating through an overdose of chemicals
Thoughts drowned in the peptides of shores in the ‘waiting room’

Bygone feeling splashing all around for a lifeguard living with his guard down
His days went from providing his scarf to providing his hearth
To days in and out of compromising his mirth

He’s told “It gets better as it goes.”
He says, “It’ll be dead by tomorrow.”
They say “Come on now, life isn't filled with sorrow…”

And apparently, the dissonance is covered by a distance of another;
He’s a folly to the blood-and-water chapter
Speaking of mixing soluble matters…
The truth will often leave a bitter taste
But are the lies dissolved in accepting change?
Sometimes the words and visuals just aren't the same.

So today, he took three things out of his heart and mind
Left social phobia, some truth, but mostly lies behind
He will be the allergy to compassion and all that’s empathic
He will suffer; he will grieve; he will be pathetic
And then he will just go.

She was running through his mirrors, waiting for bandages and gauze
He was privy to the scene as his mirrors stayed intact without a flaw
Watching himself scar up the reflective measures; making transparent views of pleasure
Until one broke; exposing a familiar scene of brick, last place he etched his soul forever
And in ambition to recover, stopped her in the moment that marks a desire to discover
But he failed in ways most intricate
Wrapped by the sharpest lines of the most delicate
Sinew that warped the core of something the void could use to replace truth that were self-evident -

But… no.
He’s digressing from the path
There was no particular reason to even do the math
The numbers didn't add up to what he had previously squandered
She was fresh to a life that she may never have encountered
With him; it was just vying for affection through a virulent infection
And it was a part of her that stepped in that day, a partial fit to the display
Fresh paint on the decay

So today, he took three things out of his heart and mind
Left insecurity, rationality, and his future behind
He became a monster to dishonor and a liar to himself
He’s disgraced; he is inane; he is unwell
And then he will just go.

He has been completely unable to dissect himself and put back the pieces without a coming up short a third-party to my misery
He has been completely distrusting of those whose lives have never felt equal pain overflowing from his tragedies
He has been routinely maintaining dispositions that contradict on every semblance of a trusting word in my vicinity
He has been completely dishonest about my conditions as if they were just failed attempts at analyzing strategies

I have been the juxtaposition to every single saintly word as he chose isolation prone to my own forms of devilry
I have been the very epitome of a mask that cries behind every nonchalant smile displayed like a centerpiece
I have been an undependable source of confidence ever since he broke skin through my poetic farce of empathy
I have been completely unreceptive of every word a kind voice has ever come to lend selflessly

And he has been a ******* child without remorse and word to those that have ever cherished me

So today, I took three things out of my heart and mind
Left the hate, the damage, and instability behind
I will become a martyr that defends nothing to prove
I will be unable; I will fail; I will lose.
And then I will go.

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

And then there's the blood
But I can't feel my own skin
A knife in the hands of volatility
The sight of my own, estranged
Losing a handle on reality
Although it was never all that firm
I’ve lost the meaning in morality
As well as the meaning in this mortal boundary
Was the knife in my hands cause I'm shaking
In the mirror I stare, my vision is fading
Is it the end again?

The tiles are stained so deep in my masochism
A fitting match to this porcelain heart
The broken lines that I've utter may reflect
the lines that I have etched on myself
Cutting away the innocence or whatever was left
The damage is forever unending
Slipping in the broken pieces and bleeding
In the hours I’ve screamed through the pain awakened
Through the red, white, and black I’m escaping
In remembrance of what I’ve forgotten
Regrets that have could never be amended
Is it the end again?

In the bitter solace
of this silent abyss
I am not the one I thought I was before

I want to escape
But I’ve punished fate
By myself to be here where I don’t belong

The reasons cease to be
A recourse that appeals to me
I've found naught but a glimmer
[[I found you instead]]

And so I cut away
This decay of flesh and hate
I've been dressed in since I've known my face

I may have hastily
Said this meant more to me
But forever is such a caustic lie

And now you are in me
Accosted and withering
I cut this stubborn sinew
[[I had once called a heart]]

So I bleed to breathe
And bleed to believe
The pain is merely a wake up to the end

To the end of me
A bliss-less eternity
My hands are cold, but my vision never so clear

Now will you call for me
And hear my eternity
The lifeless saga of a lost savant

© 2015

I remember the same look in your eyes
As we went on the same ride
Disappointment followed the weight of your strides
And we went on the same ride
Caught on the dreams of another lonely teen
Saw you peeking through as it ripped at the seams
I only remember the same look in your eyes
As we went on the same ride

You spoke colors and I spoke terms
That you knew we’d never learn
And in the times we thought of love
But there’s too many lies in truth
Even though you've promised change
I cut my hands on the same words
And I keep on bleeding

I remember the sound of your sighs
As we dreamt on the same skies
Turns out they held onto another’s night
As we dreamt on the same skies
And if I could see it coming just like this
Maybe I could make sure I wouldn't miss
I only remember the sound of your sighs
As we dreamt on the same skies

You spoke in years and I spoke in days
Of things we could never say
And in the times we thought of hope
But there’s far too many truths in lies
Even though I've promised change
You cut your hands on the same words
And you keep on bleeding.

We breathe in truths and speak in lies
Of all the wishes that had died
And if we could start it over once again
But we've lost too many chances now
We can always promise change
But we’ll keep cutting hands on the same words
And we’ll keep on bleeding

And you’ll keep on bleeding.


And I’ll keep on bleeding.

© 2014

She’s talking through my dreams again
Always the same as she’s always been
Dressed in distress and decadence
Soaked in hate up to her lovely dress
My favorites threes since
My second, better death

Forever her eyes up to the sky
Above her head a broken halo shines
Infinite repeat so easily broken
And that’s when I hear the words
She’s finally spoken up to me
With the slyest grin

“I’ll cook your heart inside of mine
Drip into every atom of your mind”
As scared of her as I should’ve been
I could not resist and let her into
My broken arms, so full of sin
Caked with blood and my lasting regrets

My troubled world starts to crave pain
The dream begins and I enslave her
Scarred and beautiful as death in her skin
I behold her true but is it only… because I’m lost?
Or am I lonely?
Without a soul to bind me
I’d leave this place all behind and say goodbye

But where I fell is where I stay drained of will
And in my dreams she never fades away until
Opulence in impurities and confident insecurities
Have ravished her frame from days on end within
My fevered lust, which has come betrayed with truth
And lies, I turn to her “I love you still, but will let you loose
Upon this world as I’ve done before- never return to me
Anymore.”

But then, she returns again.

© 2014