The sun won’t fall
                                 As I chase you
Around Penrose stairs
                                 I’ve almost got you
Almost all caught up
                                 And in the clear
I can almost touch
                                 Your beautiful face
And I think to myself
                                “Am I ready for this?”

Pouring through an hourglass.
                                   I know where this leads.
A new scene where I paint the picture of confidence.
Standing tall.
                        Head high.
                                            Eyes ahead.
A strong voice with carefully chosen words.
It’s important to me that you notice this.
There are things you think you’ll never say.
There are things I could do but only think.
So you smile at me and I smile back.
And that’s enough.

Time’s up.

Open the flood gates!
                 You can’t be happy here anymore.

“You can’t get there from here.” Said a man in a white shirt
“You can’t get there from here.” Said a girl I don’t want to destroy.
Cut that scene. There’s no beauty in it.
Cut to a room that’s empty but doesn’t have to be.
A dream of you and me. Then only you and me.
These, our bodies, honey sweet.
You look at my arms and wish you could live in them.
I look into your eyes and am afraid.
Because I want to melt into linen with you.
Shatter and tarnish porcelain.
Okay fine, I might destroy you.
But I’ll bleed for this too,
And I’ll show you my scars
So you can press your lips against them.
Tell me that all this
                           and the fire too
                                                will be worth it.
Tell me if it comes crashing down we’ll never get over it.

There’s a ticker tape parade on 7th street
And I’m contemplating the life and times of James Joyce. That’s my scene. In another a beautiful woman is staring in the mirror; Inquisitive as she is, she ponders the pros and cons of having her nose touched up. She’ll never make up her mind, but time will for her. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws.” Joyce says, to which I reply, “What the ****?” I like to get into fights. On 7th street a child is riding on his fathers shoulders, smiling, without any knowledge of the ions of death destruction and oppression which humanity has toiled through in the midst of patriarchal norms and bourgeois practices of power and control that have led up to that moment in which he laughs as a float with a Lockheed Martin logo passes by. I envy him. Why yes, I do attend a liberal arts college.

You were a stranger,
And I loved you before I knew you,
But it was a conditioned love.
For if you didn’t look like you did,
Or talk like you did,
Or think like you did,
I wouldn’t have loved you at all.
If you were nothing like how you were,
I would have never loved you.
So it was a conditioned love,
And you were passive about it all.
It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t help who you were.
But you never stopped it.
You let it fester,
And let me burn for you with
Love and lust until the two became one,
And it became all I was.
The air I breathed was for you.
So I burnt and you watched,
Or maybe you didn’t,
Maybe it was too terrible to see.
All I know is that you’re covered in my ashes,
And you look stunning in grey.

You’ll **** yourself up, you will, you know it.
Staring at paintings of purple women,
Through indifferent eyes; flames will be lit
Just so you may feel something. And what then?

You, you, you, and the cross you say you bear.
Not nailed, but rather tied, fettered, and bound
To the wood by splintered brown and blonde hair,
Severing with a cracking, moaning sound.

Love is written large across your stomach; 
Not your heart, not your lips, nowhere it should.
Nowhere protected from the candle’s wick.
Nowhere it can turn into something good.

When it’s time, find bravery in your chest.
Do not fight it, just burn with all the rest.

Let us leave for foreign places
Away from this city of boringly beautiful faces

For ash filled cobbled stone streets
Fields of blooded roses and golden wheat

Castles cemented in antiquity
Crumbling walls of barren cities

Abandoned cathedrals of a bygone era
Smoke filled bordello backrooms with mirrors smudged by mascara

Let us leave before the hours turn late
And I have wasted my life awaiting fate

But I grow old
And warm dreams turn cold

How stunning you look tonight
How badly I want to tell you these words I write

My eyes did not open this morning,
But that's okay, my bed is warming.
A hornet's nest is hanging above me,
But that's alright, it's just a warning

Of good feelings cuz they're never free.
Broke the mirror cuz I don't like what I see;
Knuckles scab and my tongue is flayed,
Hurts so bad but the pain is heavenly.

Oh darling what of that floor you laid?
What of all the debts that were left unpaid?
All the times I promised I'd be alright,
But I'm still ****** up and I wish I'd stayed.

Yeah baby that's okay, baby, that's alright,
I'm cold but my rooms filled with golden light.
I can't see it with my eyes stitched so tight,
Oh but that's okay baby; cuz I think I feel alright.

My love is an antique

It grows old and gains rust
Sitting on a shelf, idly gathering dust

It withers and decays
Slowly trading it's vibrant color for grey

But it will not die
It stands; crumbling before your eyes

It loses it's strength, but never it's essence
Existing for you in eternal evanescence

I have heard the war drums approach,
On the borders of angry states,
Where lesser men dare not encroach;
And strong men meet untimely fates.

"In what time and in which manner?"
They come in random intervals.
"For what cause and for who's banner?"
A dead issue to disposed souls.

I have seen blood wet two lands soil,
And dry to a patriot stain,
But when old blood is set to boil;
Young blood returns to spill again!

Row by row and row by row,
Marching too and then marching fro,
The Ancient saints, gone—gone—gone,
Into the sea’s most violent throws.

Brothers and sisters look on,
To the bare grey of the new dawn,
To however this sets them free.
Waves pull the pelican and swan,

Down into antiquity.
No tears cried, no lost sympathy.
Mary, the Lord is with thee.
Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee.

I hung myself on the first of July.
Hung myself right atop Picacho peak,
Where hard dry desert meets infinite sky;
Off between angels’ cries and demons’ shrieks.

But louder were the caws of some near crow
Who rasped joyfully, “This is the last place,”
He smiled, “There is nowhere else to go.”
Laughing vainly ‘til tears stream’d down his face.

And flew off into a veiled oasis,
Some realm my presence was not permitted,
Where mortality was not life's basis,
And creatures rivaled gods; ne’er submitted.

Oh that region knew neither pain nor death,
But I thought none of it aft’r my last breath.

I've found truth in lies
As I've grown older
Fire dies
When it meets reality's cold shoulder
I told myself I fell in love that night
When your face was covered by the black
But words shined light
And some of them I wouldn't take back
But others were sin
Especially those three
That hid behind a tragic grin
Shrouded in fatal hyperbole
Time has passed and passion is dead
And I wish I had meant those words I left unsaid

You bared your bleeding heart,
I couldn’t stop from falling hard;
Falling away... and I wish I could forget
All these visions that still fill up my head.
 
You look like my favorite sin.
Headlights on you, they never dim
Shining bright, waiting on a curtain call;
Walk away, maybe I won’t overthink this all.
 
I owe you so many thoughts I keep all to myself.
Can’t believe this is too good for my health;
You didn’t see how I died at the foot of your grace;
Call me a martyr with a cause gone to waste.
 
If I could relent to my old stubborn ways,
I’d again love to die by your grace.

Try, try, I try with all my might,
For years, years, for years I fight,
To love you how I think I ought,
Again, again, beneath starlight.

What passion has such moments brought:
Not spoken--but often thought,
From time, reaching that crisis,
Others, that progression is fought.

Such nights, so warm and desirous,
I find my lost, ancient virus,
Deep in those golden irises,
Lost in those golden irises.

I saw some shadows following me last night,
Some of them must have been yours.
They all disappeared by the morning,
Running in between the cords.

I’m so desperately in love with
Everyone i grew up with,
And that’s okay with me.
The shadows always come back to me.

Heavens gates are open but i stay grounded,
I’d ask for prayers but i don’t think that
No one here thinks much of me anyway.
I can still see the shadows anyway.

They’re running in between the cords.
Some of them have gotta be yours.

I became what I once hoped you wanted
Through years passed, years dead, and gone but not forgotten
With paintings of you dried like ink on skin
Through memories pondered, missed, and aged but not rotten

I never jumped off bridges except when i did for you
But still never enough to force moments to their crises
Never enough to satisfy, never enough to understand
But enough to never forget those ****** irises

A funny thought is, they never had a color to me
They were just what they were
Heavens gates couldn’t be so lovely
My world was those eyes, the rest was a blur

A funny thought is, that I am content
Finally understanding what it all meant

Charles you’re looking pale
And your fingers are curved
And clenched, and cold, and light
They feel like a chill around my throat
You should really get some rest
Or maybe drink some wine
You oppress me with your conversation
And I never know what to say when you’re like this
Hit me, Charles.
I want you to hit me.
Maybe one of us would feel something if you did
Maybe we could live a little
Because this isn’t life, Charles
This is Hell
And you started the fire
And I hold the keys to every room

Back when I was young my father told me:
That I’d grow up, and I would be lonely,
But not to go, chasing Cleopatra,
Or else I’d die just another bachelor.

He said;

“Oh those pretty girls, there are so many,
Just look around you and, you’ll find plenty;
When you’re hurt and broken by a lover,
Amen, don’t worry, just find another.”

I said;

“Daddy, what if none of them love me back?
What if I’m alone, when the sky turns black?
What If all I am, ain’t what I could be?
It’s hard to find wisdom, but not misery”

He said;

“Son don’t stress, there’ll always be someone
Looking just for you. You: their only one.
And don’t ever worry about heartbreak,
The road to love; it is made of mistakes.

So, count your fingers and count your blessings,
Invite Cleopatra to your wedding.
Never love ‘til you don’t have to chase it,
But when you do, don’t you ever waste it.”

I was sober
Until
Your hand
Grazed mine

You are where you’ll always be
Laying silent in the crawl spaces of my mind
With hands filled with dirt and crushed pebbles
Eyes closed and that ****** bleeding smile
Basking in the glory of your own destruction

Always the Long Hall
Always the thousand pretty and ugly words
               That all just amount to desperation.

On moment you’re young and beautiful and desired and filled with genuine, unironic, honest to God love.

The next you are standing alone,
               bathed in the pale fluorescent light
      
And you are tired.

I will love you, in the Spring;
But never in the Fall.
My heart may be yours, presently,
But by dawn it will mean nothing at all.

I will love you like a sin,
That ignites a fire in my soul,
But darling you're only mine in the night,
And morning won't return the innocence you stole.

I will love you until I am condemned to Hell,
But not a second more.
My soul is yours until eternity reigns,
And it leaves to knock on Hell's door.

My Eden love for you burns so vibrantly,
But falling for you will be the Fall of me.

Pouring through an hourglass; she’s always “‘in love.’”
I look at her and see some of the stars I lost—years ago.
I never believe a feeling or a word she says,
But that’s nothing new.
I sit up before it all feels too familiar.
There’s a soliloquy of mine floating around,
I can’t quite catch it; I wouldn’t know what to do if I did.
The moment’s crisis is all but lost on me.
My ****** ego and pretentiousness.
I go home to forget any of it ever happened,
And I spell out “lust” where I mean “love.”

Drunk, ******, and filled with glass.
Draping my broken arms around you,
And through pursed lips I think,
“I’m so sorry for everything.”
I meant it. God I did. God I do.
Even with my vices I know
Love is more than pretty words.
More than you, me, more than poetry.
But God we were so close to infinite,
So close to indescribable.
Beautiful, perfect, lovely, flaws and all,
And that’s us, and I still believe
I’ve never looked better
Than I did in my reflection in your eyes.

He looks at himself a sinner
With horrible thoughts.
He looks at her, an hourglass
Running out of sand.

He wishes to be the twisted sheets
That cover her body as she sleeps.  
Or an unspoken thought
Melting away on her tongue.

He’d walk on burning coals
To be a little closer to her.
Then offer his tender flesh,
His scars and all, to her

He longs to be the stars
That she sees above her at night.
And a sweet grapefruit
With skin her fingernails

Rip apart.

Moonlight pours over your skin;
                 Your eyes still closed.
In this moment
I can almost imagine your lips moving
              Up
                    And down
Telling me you don’t know what love is
And asking me if I do
                                       As if i have a clue
                     Suddenly
A new lover
                      Her deep brown eyes
                      Her hands
                      Her touch
                      Her lips
             Not yours.
I’m trying to be fearless because I know,
                             I know she wants me,
needs me, craves me.
It makes me feel handsome.
With her nails in my back I apologize
         That I don’t know if I love her or not
She pulls my face to hers and whispers
Love isn’t always roses and heart shaped boxes
Sometimes it’s a guilty conscience and scratch marks in your back.
          
                        No.
My mind goes back to you
              Your hazel eyes
              Your hands
              Your touch
              Your lips
Telling me you don’t know what love is
       And me
Wishing I said we can figure it out.

Always the harp strung out.
              Always the cactus deserted.

All you wanted was something definitive.
I cant blame you
            For looking past little words
That weren’t even said to your face.
         You look beautiful tonight,
But that’s nothing new.
          Face to face,
I wonder what pattern of words and
                                  Looks
            Could make every inch of you mine.

My heart: a lone oak tree.

All I wanted was the world
                                               But I’d settle for Asher, Arizona, with you.
              In complete honestly
There’s not much difference between the two.
Love in the desert, love in the mountains
Love in my arms, love in the Pacific,
                    Love in my passenger seat
Love on stage
           Love walking away in my headlights.
                
                  “Love loves to love love.”

Hello, Love
I’m sorry my smiles a bit crooked,
          I’m sorry I’m looking at you like this,
                    I’m sorry I had to go and ruin,    
              everything by saying it all out loud.

Here’s the part where an anxious 20 year old sends the
exact right text message at the exact right
               Time:
Hello darling, I can’t wait for you
                    To come home for the weekend
So we can make strawberry cake
        And fall on my kitchen floor laughing
Spilling bottles of cheap wine
            While I finally draw the words I
    Desperately
Have always wanted to here from you
                        And return them in kind

I’m sorry about all that.
                   If you’d like
                        We can forget about all that
            And get matching tattoos
In the morning before you leave.
                   If you’d like              
  We can pretend it’s all so simple.

                                And
I’m sorry if I ****** you
                              Even if it is intentional.
Here’s the part where I forget all my apologies:
I grab you by the waist and
     Tickle you
                    Because I know
You’ll fall into me laughing
           And rest your head on my chest
And when you look up
                     I’ll be there to kiss you
And take you away to dark rooms
     With confident hands
Bad intentions
                               And the crazed euphoria
Of feeling your skin against mine.

They are marching in Warsaw,
Through their wind and their snow,
With their banners and their anthems,
And their God and their crucifixes.

They are marching in Warsaw,
Scared and proud,
Strong and powerless,
Loving and enraged.

They are marching in Warsaw,
With thundering footsteps,
That’s clapping fades into the sad,
Sad hums of something destined to be lost.

They are marching in Warsaw.
In vain. In vain.

The stars' reflections flicker within daring eyes,
The poetics of nature linger within my fleeting guise.

Cigarette lips making me feel like I'm alright,
Begging out the best version of me tonight.

Proudly bringing this moment to it's crisis',
Free in the grasp of golden irises.

Torching the remnants of my minds manuscripts,
Warmer than the feeling I find between your hips.

Forgetting time and just thinking of you and me,
Because by morning I don't know who I'll be.

When I become a prisoner of my own indecision,
And confidence becomes subject to a hundred private derisions.

I'll pry and **** upon words that mean something,
Analyze until they're reduced to sweet nothings.

Meekly **** all traces of nerve and boldness,
Leaving only memory of a temporary indulgence.

That for you will soon hastily forget;
But I will hold as a lovely regret.

Around street corners,
On dimly lit sidewalks,
She’ll come back to you.

As a burnt cigarette drops at your feet,
And you let out your last warm gasp of nicotine,
She’ll come back to you.

As you feel the cold on your bare cheeks,
And zip your sweater all the way up,
She’ll come back to you

Outside the liquor store on 8th street,
With a brown bag in one hand,
She’ll come back to you.

As she takes your other hand in hers,
And burns through you with her smile,
She’ll come back to you.

With warm brown eyes that feel like home,
And skin you could melt into at any second,
She’ll come back to you.

With her kiss,
And her sweet red lips,
She’ll come back to you.

When your head hits the pillow,
And your mind looks for its favorite story,
She’ll come back to you.

In the night.
In your dreams.
She’ll come back to you.

You walk in the room and I lose my head,
Walk in the room and you run through my mind.
Some spoken words, a smile, my face turns red,
My courage, my voice, I never find.

What beauty with which you are inflicted,
Such that, by you, my dreams may be wrecked,
Their enduring secrecy, insisted,
My thoughts and feelings, you’ll never suspect.

All this to you, my beloved’s beloved;
My own Maud Gonne’s John Macbride, to I, Yeats,
What contrary roles are we behooved,
I, the ground she walks, you, her heavens’ gates.

Such looks, such passion, more than I could be.
I hold no ill-will, no scorn, just envy.

Jenny it’s getting dark and
             I should really be getting home,
                                                But I’m in New York City,
And I’m drunk,
And I don’t know what I should be doing with my hands but
I wish I could hold you in them.
Just so I’d know what to do with my hands.
And they wouldn’t feel so weighted,
        And there’d be something in my palms
To keep them from balling into fists.
         I wonder if you were here
If you’d even see me at all;
Now that I’m such a New Yorker.
          And do all these things I’d like to say I hate
But love.
        Irreverently.
                       Passionately.
                               Painfully.
I’m not not myself.
        On the contrary actually.
  I’ve just finally discovered the tools necessary
To make me who I’ve always been.
  I was not who I was.
And you were not who I thought you were.
Or maybe you were.
                     Who am I to say.
I’m just a man you never knew who is deeply, foolishly, and                   completely irresponsibly in love with you.
And who wishes you were here
So he could hold you
And keep his hands from balling into fists.

I've been living in the walls,
Present but not known,
Watching the rises and the falls,
Of lives more interesting than my own.

How lovely life seems,
How beautiful are these faces,
How well do they hide their cries and screams,
That they confide in me, concealed in my secret hiding places.

Can they feel me here?
Do they hear my breath behind this thin white plaster?
Or when I join them in shedding tears?
But I keep quiet, averting disaster.

One day, hidden in these walls, I will die,
And they will find my body and drag it away,
Bury me in some hole without saying goodbye,
But if my soul survives... in my memory they will stay.

What feeling do you inflict upon my lips
That ought be saved for someone else
What feeling do i invoke between your hips
That may be the root of our own hells

With arms around you I make love to myself.
Outside the leaves are changing with the ode of Autumn,
And the rain sings my favorite grey old song,
But I don’t think it sings for me.
You look up at me as if this all means anything,
While I hate everything i do to you,
And I will not tell you my name,
But I don’t think you’d care to know it.
You’ll be done with whatever this is soon enough.
Our ****** vignette of nothingness.
You put your nails in my back like you’re supposed to,
I kiss your neck as I imagine I probably should.
We act out love like the marionettes we are,
But we will garner no applause.

Lovely thoughts hide behind green eyes,
War and poetry consume your mind,
And to your lips they bring forth words so wise,
And with beauty unrivaled by any poet I may find.

How loving a heart you possess,
Spewing the blood of passion by fire,
Creating emotions always felt in excess,
Trapped in the rubble of broken glass and barbed wire.

But when our lips touch I hope your mind and heart are at rest,
The mind's thoughts cease to allow the moment to be,
The hearts turmoil is replaced by fire within your breast,
And through green eyes I am all that you see.

But when you leave this earth, your soul set free,
I hope you leave your mind to science, and your heart to me.

Youll **** your self up
If your folks didn’t already
Staring into mirrors
Like they’re another universe
Frozen in the cosmic horror
Of you and everything you are
Hour after hour.
A stubborn *******
With a mind full of bees.
But you’ll find ways
To look at the ceiling
As you put on mascara
And focus on the background
As you paint your lips red.
Excuse yourself when Grandma
Pulls out the family photo album.
And time will not wait
The earth will turn
Dynasties will end
Wars will be fought
Your sister will move out
Grandma will die.
And you’ll never really see any of it
As long as you just stare into mirrors
Through bloodshot eyes
And don’t learn you don’t always
Need to just
Tear yourself open
And bleed everywhere

My dream: A juniper tree.
Giving shade, to you and me.
Where sin feels ever so sweet,
And our heart and thoughts roam free.

My dream: old cobblestone streets.
Where we feel no chill nor heat,
And you, my heart forever keeps
The old Parisian feat.

My dream: A chapel steep.
Ran down to Destiny’s deep
Grey eyes, that I see and weep.
For this dream, I stay asleep.

My eyes will grow red,
Strained to hell,
Looking for that familiar thread,
To lead me back under your spell,

Tell me I love you,
And that you're all I need,
And my inventions I find in empty bottles are true,
Then choose any artery in my body; and watch it bleed,

Save me, even if it's just for a night,
Sin will suffocate me as I stare into my reflection in your eyes,
That look through me as they burn and ignite
The love I proclaim; which is but lust in disguise,

My eyes will grow redder than the blood I bleed,
As I am informed I love you, and I concede.

I am not in Kansas,
I can’t stand but I am dancing
Atop table counters at the mall,
Crying out in every bathroom stall.
Razor blades take lucid shapes,
Cut it all out, but save the rage,
Compress it into a can of air;
Forget where you are and why you’re there.
Freeze my lungs and burn my lips
In the grasp of your fingers’ tips.
Arizona is slipping away
My shoulder’s ink just fades and fades,
I am not in Kansas,
I got lost off where the sunset beckons,
Oh it’s calling to me,
In between all my lost ideas.

It’s been a while since I’ve bought a dress,
Or gotten a pack of cigarettes
Then burnt them and inhaled the ashes.
Now I just see ghosts of ghosts,
And can’t recall the words I spoke
Years ago to Mallory Olson,
**** it I killed my memory.
You gave me all of your mom’s liquor,
When I started getting a little too sober;
Oh I would’ve spun so hard,
I would’ve fallen so hard,
Jumping the fence to my backyard,
I am not in Kansas,
I got lost off where the sunset beckons,
Oh it’s calling to me,
In between all my lost ideas.

The ceiling only ever danced for you,
I was just happy to have a room,
Away from my home and family,
I liked the fire more than all the trees,
They all spoke to me in prophecy,
College degrees, wives, sons and daughters,
Each day destiny’s a little farther.
I left you where I met you,
With pyrite and a tattoo;
The flowers cover over all the scars,
Darling, the flowers cover everything,
The flowers will cover over everything.
I am not in Kansas,
I got lost off where the sunset beckons,
Oh it’s calling to me,
In between all my lost ideas.

She walked in beauty
As if she hadn’t
The slightest idea
She was mine.
When she passed me
And I saw her smile
Smelled her perfume
I remembered all
That was stolen
From me.
How careless was I?
How careless was I?
To leave home
With the front door
Unlocked?

Watching Ridle Baku takes me back
To cobblestone streets
Strangers speaking in mysterious, angry accents
Asking, “bist du Amerikaner?”
Ja.
A few blocks separated us,
A chain and barbed wire fence
And MP’s wielding machine guns
But on Saturday’s my parents took me out to the market
And I wonder if we ever passed by each other
Two children in the same city
The city was yours, is yours.
I was just a tenant.
Standing in ancient shadows.
I never knew Arizona didn’t have castles
Until I left, and I missed them.
I got a Mainz 05 scarf when I was 18.
A year before I watched you play for them,
And score against Leipzig.
And the city cheered.
Your city cheered.
And all at once I realized how much I loved Mainz
And how badly I wanted to call Mainz home.
How badly I wanted the city I grew up in to feel like home.

Golden light pours onto us
Like a baptism by dawn
This moment always feels holy
And I can hear Church bells ringing
But they haven’t woken you.
                     Thankfully.
Because the world is still now
Nothing matters but this.
And I can just gaze at you
In wonderment, in enchantment
Like a holy shrine
Blessed to everyone near you,
But still only mine.

When you wake up we’ll leave this place
Find Jacques or Pierre at the Cafe
He will already know our order
It will be the same as every other morning
I’ll read a newspaper
                   And say
real smart stuff about the economy,
Or war in the Middle East,
And hope you’re impressed,
And crack a joke here and there
So I can see your smile and hear you laugh.
I can’t see anything past that      
From lying here in our bedroom.

Beneath our window
On cobblestone streets
People are speaking French
We may never understand them,
But when we walk those streets,
                        We know.
They’re talking about
How beautiful we are
And of course how American too.
We’ll never fit in, but that’s okay
Because Paris is ours anyway
I see it when I look in your eyes
And nowhere’s ever felt more like home.

Every morning, the dark room.
Every morning, the wandering hands.
            
           The white linen, the black curtains.
The Golden light waiting behind them
      Silence in the air
Silence in every breath you breathe
          Every one of them is for me, I know.
            
            The white walls, the black ink.
The green leaves of the spider plant
      Sitting on top of our dresser
That you swore you’d **** within a week
          But will never wither or wilt.

          The soft touch, the strong arms.
The wandering hands, restless
      Until the find you, they always do.
So they may pull me closer to you
          As the golden light fills our bedroom.