The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

It lurks at the back of your consciousness.
It dwells in the pit of your stomach.

It is strong.
Strong enough to exist -
behind the facade of calm demeanors.
Strong enough to swim against the currents
of indoctrinated beliefs of righteousness.
Strong enough to be the wrong amidst all rights.

It is the speaker for the voiceless.
It is the doer for the incapable.
It is the strength for the weak.
It is sweet escape for the trapped.

Listen...

It's there in the lull.
When all is quiet, you hear it.
Whispering, inciting, winning you over.

It will take you over.
It will steer the wheel.
But only if you want it just as much.

I feel fine, now
that stoical ice
grows within me
like a tangled vine
wrapping around
inside, and outside
I'm a laughing smiling
clown upside down
on my house, and
my life, you see
this frown painted
by Courbet, realistic
as Pushkin's finest
piece of poetry.

I never got the sun,
A shooting star got there first.
So I played catch with the moon
And when I took my hands away
My fingers bore
                            Burns.

But the moon doesn't have flames,
So the fire must be in me.

Breath of life, it is a wild ocean
always a tide coming and going
in this place, it does not linger long
never holding on, only drifts quietly into night
into stars, into fleeting sparks of fire flies
or in the night waters, a ghostly glow
of phosphorescence, a transient trail
of luminescence that soon
fades and reappears to light
the deepest depths
of sea

And who am I apart from my wonder?
My sadness
My curiosity
My existential pondering?
Would I actually want that all to go away?
To live my life like this always or to have no idea of the feelings this way of life inspires; both options are depressing.
The depression is what gets to me
And is caused in part by both
I feel so little in such a grand universe, so pointless, conspicuous in my expiration date.
What's it like to die, I always wonder
I don't believe in heaven or God
I don't believe my consciousness will extend beyond.
I worry that every little thing is a sign that my life is becoming like sour milk.
And the idea of all of it gone is terrifying
Nothing to write about
Nothing to explore
For who am I apart from what defines me?
I am what I define myself as
And by that, I don't know who I am
The dictionary of me hasn't seen bookstores yet
Because the editor seems to be missing in action
All my calls for help have gone unanswered
She's probably somewhere beyond the reaches of cell service
Perhaps in a forest, climbing a mountain, or by the river
She needs that time to rejuvenate
And to create my story
I would say she's a designer of realities but I couldn't figure out what a reality was so I changed it.
I believe it's important to say what you know to be truthful
To follow the Maxims of Conversation
To compromise with yesterday in exchange for a better tomorrow.

chaste pecks from the super-sonic youth
numb lips flutter to the hollowed cheeks of normality
no longer the hand-prints on the guide book to hostility
a pamphlet of rudimentary teachings;
the principles of tolerance and rebellion and acceptance of human beings
a concoction of suppressed psychotic behavior, quick wit, and center of satirical tease
constantly moving with heavy footsteps and heavier hearts
their minds and bodies plagued with actions from a deserted youth
soul lusting over the naivety of people before self-actualization; how crude
do they call it an existential crisis or the daily life of a agoraphobic nobody
shouts from the depths of caged fears that scrape the oblivious flesh in their brain; a bit gaudy
mother, sister, brother, father how your words crush the knots of comfort that line my internal organs
bleeding from the pores of my screams; streams of moon-beams shooting out my eyes; oh, not again!
stomping our metaphorically spiked toenails against the idealism of pop culture
oh, my, how adolescence is the worst kind of torture
cherry slushies lined with cigarettes to create a whirl-pool of nostalgia
recreational drugs and ironic situations to ease our instinctual sense of proverbial nausea
loud-mouthed demons spawned out of clothes-hangers and emotional turmoil
show up in our nightmares that we nick-name ‘a good place to contemplate suicide’
repeated imagery stacked like flap-jacks in the mouths of blissed-out sociopaths
too self-indulgent to include us in to their personal stories so we can observe, record, and assess
i don’t perceive doctors to be particularly and predominantly just and true
but i one time met a doctor who told me ‘being a teenager is perhaps the hardest thing you could ever do’

Darling, I hope I'm the cause of your
existential crisis,
opening your mind
in horrifying,
vulnerable
ways.

I hope I make you question
and I hope I make you learn.
Maybe I'll rewire your brain--
praise me
let me incarcerate my
writings in your
bones,
let my thoughts linger,
let the pads of my finger tips
dwell along
the contours of the railways
in your head,


let me in.

What's to become of us
when all that we've coveted
is emptied of all value

What's to become of us
when the words we traded
seem to have lost their meaning

What's to become of us
when common ideals
turn to conflict

What's to become of us
when all that has been invested
gets swallowed by doubt and mistrust

What's to become of us
when we stand so close
yet between our hearts lies a lie