Caffeine.
Shaky fingers attached
to quivering hands, steady themselves
on brick walls, paper, canvas, and skin.
Nicotine.
Reliable digits now detached
from a similar grasp. Without the stirring
lives of the artist, there is no life within.
Traces of muscle memory assist me again.
Feigned skill determined by the past,
and a pen.
Tranquiline.
Reality-defying, I'm aware to where my mind lies.
Without trying, you'll perceive it, and be on your way.
Underlying, a rare mind may use
hues to cry.
But the realist intellect knows
secrets deeper,
the mind of a dreamer,
and where to draw the line.

Please forget schoolwork,
for there are heartier things,
such as your forehead craving these
good night lips.
You thoroughly speak of
entwining our limbs,
while I'll dream of seeing
my sleeping beauty,
and a kiss.
Although rhyme does not showcase wit,
I'm still the man that tonight,
you will miss.
Moonlight peers over a crest of visions,
or balances right on the cusp.
With daylight matters so pressing,
I'll press just enough.
Upon the small of your back,
your resonant blessing,
to awaken your dreams
with my morning touch.
Now go to sleep with the help
from countess sheep up above,
and by my word, we'll catch up.
In the early morrow, my love.

Enter the greenhouse.

I love it here. From the gritty soil
to the abundant moisture.

Yet my palms are sweaty,
my green thumb is sore.
Classical music is to growing,
as is a kid to a toy store.

For once, a life-size terrarium holds me,
instead of ants who see grass as the trees.

Constrained, but so free.

This world remains a prison, but it contains both you and me.

Most accidents
happen near the hive,
near the home.
That's why I chose
to be a drone,
and go it alone.
Buzzing, stinging, pollinating,
all for the good graces
of my queen's throne.
The workers
sitting at home,
wishing they were me.
Out collecting pollen
like a bigger,
better bee.

Skip stones until the reflection is unknown,
and drown.
Lungs pumping oxygen,
and twice as much hydrogen now.
Before you realize,
the world is what's upside-down.

Let them set the stage, commence playing our game.
For keeps, you say, while wandering eyes and hearts are tamed.
Lucid perceptions of what could be our lives, but most of the time loosely spent immobilized.
Look before you leap was implanted in our minds.
Eternity is a cold killer, subtly set behind the colors of our eyes.
We played it off as nothing, stayed cool and maintained, secluded warmth under winter weather reign.
Get comfortable now, and let down those locks. I'll make time to navigate through them, just for a shot.
Poetic?
I think not, because indefinite rhythms pulse along with these thoughts.

Smoke plumes, I watch as the needle falls
and a chill consumes.
Uninteresting to those who misunderstand
what this species can do.
Deepest sleep is an uncontrollable beast,
with unmatched desire and speed.
I could confess now,
but it's not something they'll ever need.
In this moment we all lie alone,
driven to separate ourselves
from what's always been known.
Fighting to defend science,
they can't comprehend without bias.
A fist is made, an arm hurdled
with oblivious intent.
What is reality? Subconscious asks,
again.
Ten times and we climb to live as men.
Again.
Twenty times,
and they claim to be heaven sent.

Sitting, thinking. Spun clean.
Used, time and again.
Exploited, yet reliable, your validity, supreme.

Minute hand, who made you travel faster than the ******* called the hourglass.
Telling faster what's feasible than with the abacus, the predecessor to all modern math.
And the shorter hand, whose stealth cannot be seen in person, what remains?
You use gentle remnants, and all that is spent, to strike dread into us creatures that wish to repent our wrongful gains.

But the fabrics of my habit may only see the secondhand and foamy soap, unknowingly handed down through families, cleansed over happenstance tragedies outgrown.

Tumbled dry.
These miserable floors support a newly clean, whirring, lullaby.

Buzzer sounds.
Locked from the inside, the doors are now closed.
My time is up.
Head home, and fold.

The dream of countless quarters flickers with florescent lights, all I need is myself in a quiet place, to finally take flight.

Fall into the void until comfortably null, softened to a point in which I am flawless, yet dull.

Baby holding life
For the first of the first times
The last time I cried