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 Jul 2016 Tyler King
Jess
I
You came to me that night with singed thoughts
spinning wildly around me as you questioned-
the universe.

I could only watch as you carved madness into scraps of paper.
While your skull met my bedroom wall
again
and again
and again.

Only for you to run into the street and set fire to your findings.
It was then that you spoke to me for the first time that night

I need to go to the hospital.

II
Folding my self into the chairs of the only emergency room I trusted
I counted my breaths.
As your mother counted the ways that this was her fault.

Until they unlocked the maze of doors that lead to your sterile prison.
But there were still no answers,
only therapeutic needles to the hips meant to mute the mania.
But it could only stun yours to sleep long enough to be moved
to a bigger behavioral prison

III
The next three days were a series of
waiting rooms
phone calls
safe words
and locked doors.
Waiting through a supposed 72 hour hold.

But in this world weekends don't count.

And once again I found myself folded into a waiting room
as I met your grandparents.
Immediately forgetting their names
because all I could do was wonder,

If my sanity was falling just as fast as you were.

IV
I found you barefoot in a new pile of paper madness,
careening in a suicide proof wasteland.
Your eyes seared through my sockets as you whispered to me-
I want out.

But your blood was polluted with experimental drugs
and your fingers were twitching for a nicotine fix you couldn't get.

You some how managed to silence your body long enough
to convince them your mind had followed.
And that for you weekends do count.

V
You came back to me no longer singed but burning.
They eradicated your sanity and pretended to send it home with you
in a bottle of pills.

I watched you piece what was left of it back together.
So now we could wade through the remnance-
and wait

for it to all happen again.
It's all coming together now, one more time, I swear,
I'll get this,
I promise

I'm sorry for falling,
I never knew I'd be on your bedroom floor for this long,
It shouldn't bother you anyways, it never has before,
You probably don't even know I'm here

I ate your insides and threw up flowers all over the place,
It's too bad there's a garden inside of you that I'll never get to see grow,
I'm sick of you,
I'm sick with you,
I'm sick, and I will keep apologizing until you realize I am here,
I just want to have validation,
I just want your attention,
I'm sorry my pity party is a bust, but I have cake, and that should be enough

Your hair is burning with reckless intentions,
Your eyes are as blue as my sadness,
Your lips are a wall of graffiti that my spray paint could never cover,
I'm going over again, please never forget about me,

I wash up on the shore a few days later to find you wrapped in the arms of another,
I wish I would've fought harder,
I wish I knew when to stop,
I'm so selfish, I'll never stop being angry at myself,
I-- I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so, sorry
 Jul 2016 Tyler King
Dan
I have heard your words in the night
I have read everything your heart has moved to
The very words written on your soul plain as day
There is no need for ambiguity
The bags under your eyes are because you can't sleep
You climb bridges because you know what horrors await at ground level
At times you remind me of myself
In the trinity of your world, you take the place I do
The ghost who stands tall and skinny
I have walked parts of the path you travel and if my journey is any indication you have nothing to fear
I am with you tonight in spirit
You have no need to be baptized by fire for if no one else I can forgive you
Pain in this world isn't always your fault but you are responsible for how it moves you
Do not be pushed into harsh action my brother
Understand the sovereignty of choice for all individuals and that times and people change
Do not blame yourself for the sadness you feel
The writing on the wall whispers "be calm be still breathe"
The saints and prophets wish you well
We are all but skeletons left here
Dry bones rising out of the sand of the desert
Just like Ezekiel
Stand tall and trust that nothing is imaginary
The wounds on your hands will heal and the snow will give way to flowers again
 Jun 2016 Tyler King
Dan
I reached enlightenment going 75 on a highway on a summer night
No visions of Blake
Only spirits of Kerouac and Thelonious Monk beside me as I sat glued to the wheel
The psalms read as tail lights
The night smelt like memories of Boy Scout camp in the hills
I saw all of the kids of the American night as they should be
O holy angels
Fresh cut sunflower souls
Finding cute boys in Nashville or Indiana
Breathing in every ounce of childhood nostalgia with cigarette whispers
The only cigarettes I smoke are the secondhand whisps from close friends
The smell of cigarettes reminds me of lost love
No tears of Marx
Karl Marx is asleep tonight and all is quiet
Josef Stalin sits in an alley
Gut rot drunk and weeping
Somewhere in South America Trosky weeps through holes in his head the shape of ice picks
O American children
Drinking 100 proof distilled American passion
A stronger high than all the drugs I have never taken
A stronger kick than all the boots of the ones who won't put up with apathy any longer
Tonight we are the ones who are holy and crying
The chill of the night seeps into my bones and I shake with the earth and with drums and saxophone and everything sounds as it should
Paul Robeson my heart goes out to you wherever you are tonight
I stand watch so the skeletons of Babylon can throw stones at you no longer
The shattered glass reminds us the struggle isn't over
O American Angels listen to me ramble
I have sat in ecstasy and seen the smile of God and everything will turn out ok
Death comes when it has to
Don't rush it my friends
Until then raise whatever glasses you have as high as you can
Use the stones they throw to build your foundation
Kiss the ones you know in your heart to be holy
Don't worry how loud you are yelling
This is America and you don't have to be sorry
This is as beautiful as we allow it to be
This is as many tears as we can afford
Only saints cry on Thursdays
And tonight the wisdom of sages are written on bathroom stalls for whoever cares enough to read it
Bless everyone who sneezes
Don't  tell yourself that you aren't enough
Don't fool yourself that there is an enough
You are already as complete as you can be
You are the sunflower soul
You are enlightenment
Going 75
Down a highway
In the American night
Reassembling the pieces shattered on inconvenience,
Smoking my lucky,
Trying to imagine what the taste of your lips would be like against a shattered nose,
Blacking out and bleeding profusely for my beliefs and opinions,

What a time to thrive,
What a time to thrive,
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

Waking up on the floor with a black eye, holding on to the floor; the only solid thing left in my world,
To the progress made and to the progress I have left to make,
Sipping fine wine and then chugging what's left of the pack of PBR,
Getting wasted on my youth and everything involving it,

A drunken recipient of happiness and sadness all at the same time,
What a ******* mess we have made,
I just hope the cleanup doesn't take as long as the mess did to make,

Even if you don't look back, be sure to know who was there and where they've gone now,
******* white and pitch black,
My worst fears, my worst fears,

I am just learning,
I have given so much hell,
Don't stop talking to me, I haven't been listening
what they don't know is that I said "absolutely not" to his offer of marriage as I laughed through shiny teeth and then we made sweet sweet love upon his former companions divan and we desecrated  the room we burnt that **** Down he lit 300 candles on fire to profess his burning passion to me and he proved it to me with his eyes and drooling lips I can't believe I believed the lie I was blinded by the orange glow that I so loved it made my intestines quiver as I gargled salt water I felt like  Mumbai as the colors surrounded me but the stench overwhelms me I could not breathe and for a moment I felt safe in my own skin as I lay there listening to the uneven sound of his breathing and the way his heart beat matched mine, I'm not joking, EXACTLY the soft glow of the tube flashed against the poorly painting cream walls that we left marks on it was a battle field or a storm and now we lay in the eye of that which our love is swirling about ready to destroy one another over and over and over again I can't take it my body was not made for such violence my heart begs for love and gives love only but yet it does not receive and it is not because it is incapable but it is because those who surround me are so unwilling to open theirs for fear of letting a dark being inside to shatter the windows of their home they have spent their entire lives building and because of this they do not expand they do not grow they are scared they fear and they tell themselves over and over again "I cannot do it" we all reach this point but at this moment of saying you cannot is when you must
Everything at once,
Now nothing at all,
A cycle recycled over and over until it is the last thing my mind can get a grasp on, the only thing I can rely on,

Friends, enemies, on, off, stuck

Stuck

Between the wall of abundance and the wall of isolation,
Finding love in the rubble,
Forming friendships from the dirt of the garden, picking flowers to give to hopelessness,
A toast risen to the collapse of the modern poet,
Surrounded by wreckless abandon and driven out by the fear of living,
The fear of not being enough,
The fear of being too much,
The fear of a little bit of everything,

Taken by the hand and shown true beauty, wiping tears away from the face that's too far exhausted to even make out in broad daylight,
A disaster,
A broken messiah picking gospels out of the hairs of broken hearts trying to mend,

I,
The soldier,
The commander,
We, they, us,
A figment of a wild imagination trying to thread the string of suicide together with the string of optimism, getting stuck on the pessimism catching the needle at every vice,

I will suffice,
I,
The soldier,
The commander,
Fighting a war with no winner,
Stopping to rest my head on the headstones of the forgotten,
Please do not forget about me when I am gone,
Paint my flowers golden and light a cigarette while doing so,
Lay them together on my grave, and, instead of a moment of silence, raise your lighter to my name and read to yourself quietly,

I,
The romantic,
The saddened,
The disaster,
The punk playing music so loud it vibrates your thoughts,
I, the remembered,
I will go out in flames just like how I showed up in flames,

You, try your best for me
I am not much, but trust me, I am worth it
I don't wanna ******* hear about it,
Stop trying to get your **** wet,
She doesn't want you, I figured you'd realize that when she told you to stop; that she was uncomfortable,
What made you think she was just being stubborn,
What made you think the only thing in the world she wanted was to have *** with you,
Why are you like this

Women are not just toys,
Women do not want your **** as much as you think they do,
Women especially do not want your **** when all you can say when you're around them is jokes implying that you want to **** them,
Why the **** do you think you're entitled to their bodies,
They are angels and you are the devil,
Please, for the love of God, give it up

It makes me sick to think that you're sick enough to think you have a right as a man to act this way,
That because you have a ******* for a woman, that it's completely okay to force yourself,
That it's completely okay to act filthy,
That it's completely okay to joke about,
That it's completely okay to be the biggest ******* on this planet

Our sisters are being taken by our brothers and we are not doing anything to stop it,
Our diamonds are being stolen by thieves, and all we are doing is slapping their wrists,
Why can't we stand up and stop this


Why does a woman have to feel afraid to stand up for herself,
Why does a woman have to fight what seems like an endless battle for a right to her own ******* body,
Why do we stick up for rapists,
Why do we call women *****,
Why do we congratulate men for using women,
Why do we stand for this

We are doing this to ourselves,
We will learn eventually,
Or maybe not,
We reap what we sow
 Jun 2016 Tyler King
Dan
Breath
 Jun 2016 Tyler King
Dan
In Genesis it talks about God giving people the breath of life
I believe that this happened and I am thankful
It is also said that Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree by observing his breath in meditation for three days
I have always considered the Buddha to be a pretty smart guy
My one issue with running is I have trouble breathing
When I'm stressed I take in deep breaths
I have the repeated verse of Machinehead stuck in my head

Breathe in
Breathe out

The air around us connects us to all living things
Sometimes I think that the air I breathe is the same air Allen Ginsberg once breathed and I feel glad
I once was in the same room as the air Bob Dylan breathed and that was pretty cool
On nights of poetry I breathe in the same air as my friends, whom I love dearly

Breathe in
Breathe out

I started meditating last week and I want to tell everyone
If I'm obnoxious I'm not sorry
But when you have lived a life of constant divided attention you enjoy not worrying about anything
I am hesitant to find someone who takes my breath away
Because at times my breath is the only thing I own
I am afraid to drown
I am afraid to suffocate
Breath is what connects us to all living things
So breathe

Breathe in
Breathe out
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