I've been lost
And I've been broken
Given up faith
But I keep on hoping
For a piece of peace of mind
I've long forgotten
stirring up a storm
that there's no stopping

but by the time I realize
that the day time is now night
and the skyline is not bright
I just might die of fright
because I can't breathe just right
my chest is to tight tonight

so I walk through the rain
with my head low but my brow high
and the roads that were wet are now dry
but the heat ***** with my brain

You asked me not to be angry
but understood why I was hurt
and in my dreams, I'm driven crazy
trying to escape your words

I see your face and hear your sweet voice
I see you more than I would like to
and I try to justify what wasn't my choice
and in the morning I miss myself more than I miss you

I'm so tired of thinking of someone who won't return
she won't come back, she won't share in this emotion
it's beyond the fact that she won't be here in person
but I miss her spirit her essence her beautiful being
oh god why am I here again
why do I feel again
why must I torment myself with the fictional fact
that throws me back to the fire
of desire and loss
of love and hurt
I made I promise I cannot break
and I promise I won't break
but you asked me not to hate
and without your love
where do I lay?

I'm trying to wrap my heart around the reason that you left
but the more I try to think for you the worse the answers get
Maybe the lies that were uncovered were meant for me instead
of those, I thought were the reason you mumbled under your breath

all I ask is for a conclusion to years of dedication
but now you're gone and I'm left here holding on to degradation
a simple code yet quite unclear leads to infatuation
and I miss your family but I don't think I could ever face them

the thought of you with someone else after all that we had planned
hurts my heart and hurts my head but won't change where you stand
you're so far away and I can hear the chasm that splits our hands
to forever separate our hearts to never connect again

I love that you love me
let me hold your hand
we fit like a glove see

But don't watch me cry alone in my room

You hold me together
like a ball on a string
you'll always be my tether

but don't watch me fall into my shadow

what are you upset about
I have a bad feeling
my heart hurts when you shout

and now we don't talk about our problems

you're gone most of the time
I can still touch you
but your hand doesn't fit in mine

I have run out of tears and just stare

we sit with both hearts heavy
I think we both know
I think we are both finally ready

except we both know we may never be whole

now we don't talk at all anymore
and I still think about you
my heart is still bruised and sore

but I think I can now see why you were upset

There are always rings left
after the cool drink sweats
leaving his mark to be seen
a blemish, a scar, an unlovely ring
that my mom would always get mad about

but being a child
my mind ran wild
and time after time I would forget
and sit
my glass on the bare wood

and time after time
I would run and hide
hearing remembering what I did

I live in fear
every time I hear
your voice growing in anger

don't yell at me.

Desperation breeds creation
and I cannot forget
that beyond a desperate plea for elation
hides a concurrent twist

An overview of hidden views
never seen in daylight
Is impossible because they're often skewed
but beg for some kind insight

I see a scatterplot of scattered thought
and try to find the truth
But I grow weary within weathered thought
though I remain still in my youth

I do not struggle
With the concept of trouble
I often chase it

I brush away rules
Just like a hardheaded fool
It's time I face it

Vividly aware
I stop full pace and I stare
At only a thought

Thoughts that hold the world
My small mind races and swirls
Ensnared, trapped, and caught

But I think too much
Often I spit and I cuss
Knowing I fall deep

Please try to give me
The rich bittersweet release
To finally, breathe

“It really sickens me that you can’t take this life straight,” she said.

Her eyes were afire with a pink halo of hatred that smote her compassion. She reached for her coat and wrenched the cheap motel room door open. It made a small dull thud as it hit the brittle plaster wall. (I hoped my deposit would cover the damage.)

She was one surreal moment’s breath away from leaving me there for good.

“You’re a lonely old man because you’re a selfish old *******,” she said.

She disappeared down the walkway like some direful wraith caught in the night wind. The curt sound of her red highheeled shoes clicking the worn concrete. The inexplicable proof of her existence ferried away in a sea of incandescent tail lights that shown from the highway.  

Maybe she was right. Maybe I can’t take this life straight and never hope to. And, maybe I am selfish. But, I’m only selfish because I’m so **** lonely all the time. That’s the ***** of it. Life is a never-ending toilet bowl flush of selfishness, drunkenness, *****, and utter loneliness.

It took me too many years to figure out that the problem wasn’t her, or even with other people for that matter, it was with me.

It’s only when we figure ourselves out that we realize that we’ve been doing a lot of things wrong with our lives. Listening to the wrong voices in our heads. Taking the wrong advice from strangers. Avoiding the admonitions of those who really love you. These things happen all the time. None of us has the answers. I don’t know anything.

In fact, after all the years I spent searching for meaning in academia perusing dusty libraries and old bookstores for that gem of knowledge, I can tell you definitively that only ignorance is bliss. That it’s even true when it comes to dating. The less you think you know the better you are.

I guess this is where the train stops for me. Time to get off. Try something else. Take to the woods and grow a manly neck-beard like Thoreau did in Walden. Adhere to the early American philosophy of rugged individualism and all that. Too soon would I realize that life isn’t about solitude, or a separation from others; rather it’s about the connections we make. Solid connections.

The hedonistic Epicurus tells us to live a life of pleasure through the temperance of desire, and warns us not to seek what is inappropriate for us mortals, but to enjoy our mortal needs.

I do not know if Epicurus ever found a mate, a friendship, or even a partner to share his most intimate thoughts with besides his raucous audience, but I do know he died in isolation away from society. I’ve never been a hedonist. I’m far too traditional for all that.

My sordid love life is more akin to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the tragic story of Echo and Narcissus.

I’ve been Narcissus for too many years to count and what’s worse I was in oblivion. For too long have I been unto myself. Admiring only myself. The time has come to choose. Either die like Narcissus or live and love with Écho.

I’d like to walk in the sunlight, drink from the cool springs, and with a Shakespearian passion bask in it’s eternal glow and live inside the warm,  but ever ethereal, love of another’s heart.

To love another with such Shakespearian passion would lead me to realize that the only thing my love can save is myself. And, all the time this duality would haunt me—to unequivocally know that without the tenderness of Echo in one’s life there is only the vain Narcissus.

For now you know the duality, that is also the tragedy, of this man. Let that echo in your ears and see if it does not ring with the truth of all men.