Pacing on cold, honeycomb linoleum,
I watched the sun rise through mesh
curtains. Sunlight striped my chest
like Gothic architecture while a clock
measured the outside. Two strikes
for a car to pass, seven for a lonesome
jogger, twelve for leaves to reach
the road, twenty for a cloud to overtake the window pane, and three
months left for me to watch it.

Keep your eyes closed, we are blind tonight
You can sit on the floorboards,
where I've bled,
naked and dark with me.

"Where are you from?

"Me?"

"Yeah. Where are you from?"

"I'm not really sure. Somewhere. Where are you from?"

"Here. Well, I was born here. I don't want to be from here, though."

"Where would you rather be from if you don't want to be from here?"

"I don't know. Anywhere but, really. Maybe Alaska."

"Why Alaska?"

"Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. Well, you see, they have a month of darkness every year. Just complete darkness. Some people think it's miserable. I think I'd like it, though. That way everyone could be just as invisible as me, even if for only a month out of the year."

Do your parents love you?
Are you religious?
Do you love everyone except yourself?
Are people nice to you?

Swim into me, swivel in the air
your eyes are penchant stares
Try all you can,
let everything and everyone caress you
Let the cold wind blow
and the warm wind undress you.

"Do you know what you did wrong?"

"What I did wrong?"

"Yeah. What you did ******* wrong."

"I-I...I'm not sure."

"You have to be ******* kidding me."

"I tried my be-"

"Shut the **** up. Shut. The. ****. Up. If you want to be something, if you want to get ahead in life, then you can't rely on me, your mother, your friends, or anyone except you. You have to know that every decision is your own, and every consequence that comes along with each decision, is your own to handle. No one will help you, and no one needs to help you because it's not their responsibility. You handle your own ****, and you do better than your best. Perfection. If you aren't perfect, then you aren't anything."

Birds and flies swivel around my head
you sit under a tree with thorns in your hair
I say, "Hi."
You say, "Hi."
I sit next to you, and you don't get up.
You smile and say, "Where have you been?"

And death shall have no dominion?
Is that so much a hope rather than opinion?
Under the windings of the sea?
And if no air breezes by, for you and me?
And if the resolution of my lack of evolution keeps me free?
Is there any hope in harmony. Is there any hope in harmony.
Is there any hope in harmony. Is there any hope in being me.

"Dreams are dangerous, Josh. They're sedatives, not cures. Choose reality. Choose the bitter pill. Because whether you believe it or not, you will end up having it whether you're forced to take it or whether you choose to take it. No matter how much talent you think you have, no matter how much stubbornness that you mistake for ambition, you will be unable to attain your dreams."

"What if you're wrong?"

"What if I'm wrong? Well, let's see-"

"No. What if you're wrong? What if you say all this because of your personal experience. What if you believe all of that because your belief in yourself was stripped by those before you? You could have done something bigger, but you gave up on yourself. You could have been someone. You could have been happy, instead of what you are now. Don't take away the only thing I have just because you have nothing."


Fear is a deadly thing to bear witness to
The hollow spot in the wall,
the eyes staring at a coffee mug,
the words, "I promise."

Tear apart an inverted heart,
and disappear into reverse midnight
All alone with a telephone,
"You're still there, right?"
Dial-tone silence followed by
fist to wall violence
and to sit alone in a bathtub
crying
is a new form of living yet
dying

I can hear violins amidst the violence
And I can see your eyes in the dark
There will be hands shaking
To you, for without, every burn
that's been allowed,
a night to relieve
your weary mind from unkind
lovers, mothers, fathers, brothers
and a hope that you retrieve
yourself in the debris


"Why do you care so much?"

"Why do I care?"

"A better question would be: Why do you care about people so much?"

"Because there's more beauty than desolation in humanity, or at least I choose to believe so."


Sunset sonata
*** in empty beds, in empty heads
Our sweat is a stranger, just like you
and just like me
*** is like society
And we're so focused on ******* each other
no matter how badly it ******* hurts us in the process

It's time I fall out of love with your memory.
Admit, like Augustine, "I did not love, but yearned to love."
(Though I still cared)
I've scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Turning each curl of wood
till it crumbled in my fingers.
I could have stopped long ago.
Should have stopped long ago--
unearthing the memories
again and and again and again.
I think now,
I will let them rest in peace.

Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.
Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Gmail, and Instagram.
Shampoo, soap bar, toothbrush,
toothpaste, temperature, and time.
Shaving cream, razor, running water,
advertisements, sensitivity, precision, and cuts.
Burned tongue, empty stomach, loose tie,
missing shirt buttons, beating the clock,
wallet, briefcase, and car keys.
Ballpoint pens, scented trees, fast food wrappers,
loose change, lighters, citations, ***** clothes,
CDs, and napkins.
Red lights, pedestrians, homeless people,
newspapers, billboards, pets on leashes, sewer
grates, crosswalks, skyscrapers, and garbage.
Faxes, printers, memorandums, break room,
prestige, cubicles, customer service, paperweights,
filing cabinets, stocks, and corporate.
Wipers, streetlights, rain coats, dive bars,
and home.
Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.

I love reading poetry on this site.

The most common used word is love.
Well, actually ambiguous is used a lot. I guess it makes people feel smart about themselves.

Anyway, everyone uses the word 'love', but has anyone experienced it or are we all deluding ourselves?

Besides the point, I've learned that if you want to succeed in writing on this site, you have to make sure you write about how you 'fell' in love and then follow it with 'heartbreak'.

You can be dark, and probably get some 'acclaim' from the broody broods.
Or you can not be completely pretentious and write something genuine.
Good luck, though. They'll call it cliche or cheesy.
So you deal with that...
But first thing is first: You must get artistic.

                                                    ­                                                       Do this
                                                            ­                                        because
                                                                ­                              it some how
                                                                ­                 makes it look like
                                                                ­              you
                                             ­                                        know
                                                                ­                              what
                                                                ­                                      you're
                                                                ­                                               doing.

Make sure
you seem like you
DO THIS
for a l
          i love you more than i can take
            vicious words cause my heart to break
               in god we trust our love forever
                 never be gone from me, oh no, not ever!
                    good bye my love i'll cherish you... ambiguously


Now let's get wordy.
Let's use some words entirely too much like...
AMBIGUOUS
Then after that, it'll be time to crack open the thesaurus and write words that you're not entirely sure that you're using correctly.

The ambiguous alligator bit with a fervor as the metamorphosis of his analysis changed what he thought (DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE). He was chased by hunters, but was devoid of a cwtch (yeah, that's a word. Maybe he's a welsh alligator. I don't know. Parts of this poem are meant to be...wait for it...ambiguous).

the
     alligator's
                   father
                            died
                                   in
                                       the
                                            great
                                                    alligator wars of 1
                                                               ­               9
                                                ­                              7
                                 ­                                             2012 was an okay year, though.

what a tragedy it is to be abstentious at a buffet...(end it ambiguously)
                                                                ­                                              end

Then we have some depressing stuff on this site. Not that there's anything wrong with writing something depressing, but usually it's kind of stuff that you'd read at a seventh grade poetry slam sponsored by Hot Topic and Van's Warped Tour in partnership with AXE Body Spray and Monster Energy Drink.

We'll call this one....

'pain, pain, and more pain'

I knew this girl
name was elle
she rang my heart
like a ******* bell

i was fourteen
she was fine
we had assigned seats next to each other
but her seat was inside of my mind

we talked about deep stuff
like really deep
she told me she had nightmares
and i said i had them too
BUT NOT ALL OF THEM ARE IN MY SLEEP

the real nightmare was that
she had a boyfriend
he treated her really well
but he was a ******* FOOTBALL PLAYER
**** **** **** LOVE IS A ******* HELL

why not me
why the tool
i can play six songs on the guitar
and my parents own a pool

i could have given you everything
i could have given you my heart on a string
but you cut it with your knife
and ******* did it sting

my heart is black
my emotions in a whirl
i'll be like this for two weeks
AT LEAST
until i talk to another girl


I just love some of the poetry I read on this site, and I hope you like mine.

Thanks, guys!