I despise haikus
With all the passion present
(Except the good ones)

I wrote a poem
Seconds before my head exploded
In a flashing of
Cacophonous pain
Inharmonious
Agony
Was it dehydration?
Hunger?
Stress?
All I knew was that it hurt.
And the ibuprofen was safely at home
Out of reach
I've always hated geography

Kick the kid, kick the kid
They all yell
They all scream
Circles of bloodthirsty vultures
Ready to dine on the misery of others
At the expense of both
The dignity of the attacker and the victim
His blood is on my shoes
My converse are stained now
Forever they will scream out
SHAME ON YOU, YOU ****
I don't want to be a monster
They are making me a monster
The world wants me to be a monster
I have to be a monster
To get by
I look down at him again
I don't want to kick him
But they keep shouting
I am so weak
Maybe if I kick him a little, they'll see how strong
I can be
kick
kickkickkick
kick
KICKKICKKICK
No more screaming
No more yelling
No more pulse
The crowd runs away
They leave me with my shame
And my stained shoes
And my victory
At least I have that
Victory

Burn my wick down
Until you extinguish my flame
With the liquid wax
Of regrets past

It will be tragic
But I'll only be half paying attention
Because you're bathing by the light
Of my flame
And it is very distracting

Open-window beauty
           I see through
Your windows
           I see you
Let me in on all
          The stories
Let me see you
           Always

"Not bad for a cloudy day,"
She said as the clouds gave way
To the torrents of rain which pelted my head
As the stoplight said 'yield', then blinked harshly red
The cars as they skittered across the wet street
Were coupled as urgently with running feet
And as water from roadside splashed up on the walk
We gathered in bookstores for coffee and talk
The flags were brought in on their damp, cotton lines
And the halyards stayed free from the rope which entwines
We with our coffee felt free as the wind
And we laughed as the thought remained:
Please don't rescind

I want to be that firework
Like, in your face showing Gandalf's work
Up and at 'em flying high
On my suicide run into the sky

I enjoy the smaller things that
No one ever does
Noticing the words and expressions
Just  because

The little, hidden dimples that
Show up when you smile
The way your shirt conceals your form
Yet reveals it all the while

Let it be, said I in whisper
Pulling back as though I'd kissed her
Let it be, I said again
Oh, how I longed for a "more than" friend
I wanted her to love me too
And in a tiny flash, I thought of you
How you had made me fall in love
I had trusted you; you were my dove
You didn't let me down at once
But in the end, I was the dunce
The incompatible? That was me
And so I whispered, Let it be

I can speak the words of another
With the conviction
Of a thousand horsemen
Riding into battle
But my own words I say soft
And they are lost in the thunderous
Hoofbeats

Silence and I have this unspoken agreement
If I don’t let anything break it, it’ll be around me
But I rarely keep up my end
How can I protect silence when I can’t protect myself?
Silence is an abstract, and I am tangible
Fragile, breaking daily
And I don’t mean to complain
Because Dear god, some of the breaks are beautiful reminders of life
And some are just beautiful or reminders of life
But I break daily
Some breaks are larger than others
But still it remains to be seen: How can I protect the abstract
When I can’t protect the tangible?

Let's run through the night
You and I
Let's run through the cold
Through the mist
Let's run like mad
Because I'm mad about you
And Helen Hunt knows
What I mean

Take my hand
And let's run recklessly
Through the slicked-down
Streets
Never fearing
A broken neck
Only fearing
The rising sun
Which signals the end
Of this night
Our night

Something's shifted
Something's wrong
Repeated mantra, like a song
What has changed
What is altered
My disbelief has never faltered
Distrust in me, can count on that
Is this time too late?

Something's shifted
Some things begin
Deep inside me, deep within

I wrote my life on a 3x5
Tacked it on my bulletin board
And stared at it
The shock of being defined
By ten lines of slanted script
Was rivaled by the shock of my apathy
I guess the whole point of living a lie
Is keeping it short enough
To remember the truth

I'd draw you a picture
If my sketches weren't ****
I'd write you a poem
If the rhymes would just stick
I'd give you a hug
But you say mine are awkward
So here're books and a card
From Urban Outfitters

A regret is like a bomb
In your intestines:
I don't have one
I don't want one
I'm not going to be an idiot
And put one inside myself
Nor will I let other people
Put one in me
I will die
Before I allow myself to become
The object of suicide bombings
Because that's what regrets do
They don't just **** you
From the inside out
They take collateral damage
And **** your friends and the
People around you
Regrets are one of the worst
Afflictions to have

She walked with a skip in her step
Like a stone on the water of a lake
Her graceful gliding interrupted
Only by a joyful spring in the air

What good is the truth and the rawness of soul when the deaf one's the one that I'm telling?
I'm speaking now, not for you, not for them, but for me
I want to end the short circuit that has trained my mind to be
Malfunctioning from the start of thoughts, and breaking at the fore
Of every single thing I've thought, as it happens, there's a score
Of thoughts befitting every kind of fiend that walks this earth
And yes, there are those other thoughts, as pure as babe at birth
But negative will always win while stroking little bearded chin he gently breaks the chords within
I can no longer see the light the dark will outshine every bright beginning to tell me what's right
It doesn't matter, nothing matters
Reality, the choice I once had
Stolen
Now I'm confined with the rest of my thoughts
To battle it out in my skull
Will I win?
Who knows? Who cares?
If I had the answer, I wouldn't be concerned
Who poured all the chocolate syrup on the floor?
There isn't any more
My chocolate syrup, rich and dark
Like blood to my lips, life-fufilling
Never spilling
There isn't any more

Let me smile for one last time
Before I take the fatal climb
Up the side of this house
Twenty stories won't **** a mouse
Says physics, but it's alright 'cause
A mouse I fortunately never was

He wanted to become something, but he did not want that something to define him. He wanted to be a part of the picture, but not to be titled or signed. He wanted to belong, but he did not want his belonging to override the fact that it was in fact he, who had come to belong, not a nameless member of the group. He wanted to be found in a dictionary for those who sought him, but undefined like the ***** of a line. He wanted to be stationary and mobile consecutively. In short, he wanted the impossible, but then, didn't he just want something worthwhile? And isn't it true that nothing is impossible?

I can tell you all your errors
That you write upon the page
I can tell you that you're acting like your shoe size, not your age

I can tell you that you don't care
Even though I know you do
And when the tears start pouring out, I know that that's my cue

To take back everything I've said
To hold it all inside
To put away the honesty in the crawl space where I hide

I'll zipper up my bottom lip
To keep words from spilling out
And on days when the zipper breaks, my pillow hears the shout

We've come this far with honesty
That I've kept locked away
So why should we be open when today is just one day?

Bowie was right
I have to put out the raging inferno
That is self-doubt
With the gasoline
That is apathy

Squibbly-dibbley-Dee
She loves me
Nurbley-durbley-dur
I loves her
Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!
Gonna say 'I do'!

An equine of the purest black
Of the smokiest shape
Doth tread lightly
With calm words
Filled with the strength
And the weight of morality
His path dictated by the men
Who stand fore and aft
Clearing the way
Pushing him on
That he might stand on high
Nigh impossible to tear down
For a symbol exists long past its time
And though his steps of smoke are made
They echo throughout the decades

I've got an eclectic taste; everyone who knows me better than they can throw me will say it
(Those that can throw me better than they know me are giants
And they aren't allowed to exist too near me;
I'm a Halfling.)
But my tastes are eclectic, and my album choices range from "Ten$ion" to "Merry Christmas"
My palate asks for potato salad, then daiquiri ice
I love the way Trainspotting wraps up nicely and how T2 comes along and undoes the work of the previous film-- ruins it
And then I love The Grand Budapest Hotel for being well-kept and neat
I have a range of tastes that don't align, that don't make sense.
But with you, my eccentricity ends and my choice is flavorful.
I choose you and you are not an eclectic choice.
You are the sense in my senseless choosing, the centre of the fractal whose patterns are too convoluted
You tie me all together in a nice, neat bow and here I am
Standing on a mound 5/2 of a year thick.

My journey to self-discovery
Began with a walk
Down a hall of mirrors
Let me tell you, every one of them
Shattered
I think they're leaving a message
In the shards

Tears like these
Need patches
Not flimsy
Stitching

Gotta get out
Of my sock drawer
And into the hats
Cause that's how you get
A head

nemo scit quare
ego ridens sunt
nemo scit
et nescio

Who knows that girl from the city abroad?
The girl with the smile and the little head nod?
That girl's running 'round with the key to my heart
With the power to stop it, or my whole life start

Who knows that girl from across the way?
The girl who picks flowers each and every day?
That girl is a princess, not Disney, but still
She's got the wave and the eyes and the kindness that kills

Who knows that boy with his hand in his pocket?
His other hand clasping his mother's gold locket?
That boy's got hands so gentle and caring
Eyes just like icebergs into which I am staring

Who knows that boy with the scuffed up shoes?
The boy who brightens when asked to share views?
He's a real go-getter, and I just know he'll win
'Cause his pure little heart is bereft of sin

Your presence lingers
On outstretched fingers
Like reverberating notes
Of opera singers

I want to be a butterfly in a hurricane
The winds will surround my fragile body
Every raindrop will be as a bullet, ripping through my silken flesh
The hurricane and I will become one and I will feel its power course through me
We shall rip the Earth into a new shape befitting our anger and love
Every uprooted tree, every split open house will be our songs to the world
Our songs will echo through the ages and I will show them all, that a butterfly can make a change
If only with the help of a hurricane

Sometimes I wish
that I was made
of dust
and lice
and other bits
of things that no one wants
so they could brush me off
and have a real reason
for wanting me gone

I am a leaf gently floating, gently falling
Down to the earth where my brethren lie
Upon the dried corpses of our kin
Long since passed, like seasons they go
And yet we mourn them all silently
Without ceremony or processions
Of remembrance

I am a leaf gone to join my fallen brothers
On the battle field that is our life
Yet I do not weep for myself at all
This fall is the greatest thrill of my life
It seems to last forever and a day
Soon I, too, will be another corpse on the ground
Swept away gently by the breath of nature

I have to understand that what I did was out of
Non-necessity
The actions that occurred,
All happened because of me
What I've worked for is undone
There's nothing left to work for;
there's nowhere else to run
I've shot myself in the foot
A thousand times a thousand times a thousand again
And every time I pulled the trigger
The hole kept getting bigger
Until there was no foot, there was no hole, there was no end
To the pain that was self induced
The end that my actions had produced
Made me sick to think that I
Had caused my heart and soul to die

Let me kiss you
Just once
On the cheek
So my curiousity can finally be
Satiated
I want to feel your soft skin
Brush against my lips
As I pull back from your face
"I bit your ear," I say
And you laugh
Because I only kissed you
No biting here

Smile when you're walking, boy
Smile when you hurt
Smile when you're feeling down
And when you feel like dirt

Smile when the sun is up
Smile when it rains
Smile like you mean it
So it takes away your pains

Smile all the time, my boy
Smile all the day
And someday when you're dead and gone
Those smiles will come back your way

I am not a poet
Though I aspire to be such
And as I try to be the best
I don't accomplish much

I am not a poet
Nor was I ever one
And the best I've ever accomplished
Is to let this work be done

I used to write words a mile a minute, like my mind was on fire and nothing would stop the burning except words
And then you
You stopped the burning and I lost my breath and the words stopped pouring out of me. . .
It was because until you, I had no voice
I was coasting on the momentum of a thousand hands before me, pushing a thousand phrases into the same old form on the page
I was a copycat thief, stealing what I knew, because what I knew was safe
I thought what I knew was safe
What I knew. . . But I knew you, and I fell in love
And falling in love is not safe
Falling in love is like every other version of falling, except people don't believe it can happen as easily as they believe that falling down stairs can happen
Falling down stairs happens every day
Falling in love does not
But the vulnerability is still present in each, and I knew it and it was not safe
I knew you and you were not safe
I lost my stolen words, and I had to find new ones
New words that I did not steal, but these new words are still ******
These new words are a six year old taking the bike out for the first time and scraping his knees ******
These new words are a trip to Disneyland when you're very young and you've lost your parents and you can't enjoy the park because you're terrified that they'll leave without you
These new words aren't worth ****
But they're worth everything
They're worth everything because they're new
They aren't stolen
They are harder
I can't fit them into the shapes I have seen
They're a DIY project gone terribly wrong, but I keep at it, because it's a project we're both working on
I'm burning my hands with the hot glue gun, and you're coated in glitter glue
But we're doing it together
And these new words are part of the process
Part of the danger
Part of what I knew, but what I know now is you
I know you, and you're showing me the ropes, as we read the manual

I stand and I tap my foot
(my last season's Prada shoes)
Because I get so tired
Of standing
In line

I wish that we all could exist on
Interconnected
Albeit separated planes
So we could see one another
But I could pass through you
And board the train
Five minutes sooner

I'm just so impatient
Because life's too short to be spent
Waiting in line
Crying over useless relationships
Riding planes
Going anywhere
I just need to be there
I just need you here
I need to be doing something
Not waiting for something to happen

You make me impatient
Because someday we'll be dead
And I want to live the hell out of life
Before that happens

I used to think that maybe you were all I'd ever need
I thought of you as only mine; a product of my greed
But you aren't mine, and never were, and that is just a fact
This phantom-fake relationship, was it just an act?

So tell me truly, gorgeous one, when did love leave you?
Tell me when that winged ***** stopped by to bid adieu
His arrow's deep inside my chest, but you don't have a scratch
I've got a seeping puncture wound, without a stable patch

The first time I saw you cry was about him
And it was in your month so it wasn't fair
It was about how he had pressed pause
Played with words and women
Like he was running through so many flowers
Just running through flowers; he'd be back soon.

The first time I saw you cry I held you in my arms
I was wearing a shirt of acting
Acting the part of a father
And fathering a mind full of doubts and fears
I told you to hit stop on the paused player.

The first time I held you in my arms, I didn't know what to do
Patting or stroking or still
I still don't know what to do with them
But I tried to say the things I didn't know how
How you needed so much better
Better find yourself a true love.

The first time I made you cry, I said 'I love you'
The first time you cried because of something I said
Good goodbye tears, happy and sad
Like the world was ending, and ours was, a little
You left with him
We lost each other
You lost yourself
I found me

The last time I made you cry, you said "I'm sorry"
But it was because I made you think about him
And it was in your house so it wasn't fair
I made you think of infidelity and the fear
Of losing Someone you love to Someone you love
I was the second Someone making you think of that first someone
Of not-too-many years ago

The last time I made you cry, you comforted me
I threw up in your toilet and you said "I'm sorry"
I gave you nothing but unprocessed ****
Rejected goodness and nourishment
I gave you memories of bad people
And bad thoughts of good people
I gave you strife
And you said "I'm sorry"

I shall be thine Atlas, thine scapegoat with a shoulder
That I with weary back might take position as the holder
Of all the items you have boiling up within thee; take them out!
Instead of boiling up, project them unto me and thusly shout:
"Thou art truly a disgrace, a mere construction of a lie
You exist as foul temptation, but you tempt no more, for I
I have gained more pressing matters; I have larger game to shoot
To me, thou art but humble grass smear'd 'neath the footman's boot
And I've become an heiress, or a prince, perhaps, a king!
I've left behind the people who wish to control my everything
My every waking moment is now in my control
You disapprove? Excuse me, but I never asked thee for a poll!"
I shall be thine Atlas, and I'll gladly take your spite
I would also take thine fists, if thou so wish'd to fight
But ne'er in my life would I, lift fist nor finger to you
That's one thing that I wouldn't, nay, couldn't ever do

Room 3327 had a 'Do not Disturb'
But that didn't stop the maid
She walked with her shoes lightly scuffed from the curb
To clean up the room and get paid

Room 3327 reeked foul
And the maid reached to cover her nose
The coth that she grabbed was no cotton towel
But rather a dead man's own clothes

The lights had turned off when the old man died
And the town seemed to wonder the cause
They said power failure but all knew they lied
It was just that the time was on pause

The old man had locked all his files away
And though through his belongings they searched
They still cannot find, not even today
The things that in his mind were perched

The old man was magic, or maybe a god
Whatever he was, he was dead
The coroner came and wrapped up the old ***
Without knowing the gold in his head

The man never slept, and the irony shouted
To all those who knew him awake
The perpetual slumber that they had all doubted
Was now taking place as they spake

He had turned the lights on
And let the town live
But now that he's gone
He's nothing to give

I took an axe to our bed
So it wouldn't feel so empty
Without you inside of it
With me

Well I've followed you a hundred years, and the journey's led us here
To a hundred one a-coming fast, another age so near

Are you going my way, stranger? For a stranger you might be
But you aren't and we both know it, and we know I'll go with thee
Hundred One is mighty fine, but think how great it'll be:
Two Hundred One and your ancient bones still make a bone of me

Yes two hundred one, when skin is paper, I'll still hold you near
And inhale the dust that once was your hair, and sneeze it in your ear

Can you see the tracks ahead? I can hear the whistle CHOO
As it spits what we will be, in time: black ash in sky of blue
Hundred One is nearing now, and I'll board this train with you
But know, my love, that I am yours, and whatever you see fit, do

I've followed you a hundred years, and I am following still
For a love like this, with stones or sticks or magic or tricks or spears or swords or guns or words, you simply cannot ****

It's one of those days when the deep dark seeps in
And closes my eyes to the world
The change in my corneas affect the whole image
I'm seeing things I ought never see
Not when I'm alone like this
The deep dark nothing crawls on my face
And takes giant bites of my residual self-image
Until I remember nothing of who I was
I am erased completely and I do not know
Whether to thank or curse this changer of me

She swayed in the breeze
Beneath those wide willow trees
Like a fragile, fallen angel in white
But though I had started
Her lips remained parted
And I knew then that she was all right

She called to me lightly
Cooing, and, brightly,
I closed several inches of space
I stood as though touching
This miracle clutching
My arm and the side of my face

She pulled me in, then
And I did not know when
The earth had stopped twirling about
But when locked lip-in-lip
And when tongues inward slip
There's no want to find ways to get out