I stand in the mirror
I see a shadow so lame
but what is inside the shadow?
is it beauty or is it pain?.

is it beauty of the face,
is it beauty of the heart.
is it beauty which you rejected
because I didn't satisfy you enough.

if you love me you should know,
that my appearance shouldn't matter.
if my heart is not beautiful for you,
walk away and I wont batter.

Poetry hurts.
It hurts to look at, hurts to read, because
it digs into the muscle fiber of your heart and burns its way
marking a fixed tattoo in your bone marrow
tearing through your brain material and ******* you dry.
It requires you to latch into the throttle of the soul and feel the pain
and joy
of everything you experience.
No, there is no escape-
explore your pain, stay there, fully enjoy the beauty and the frightening
love of this terribly glorious world.
Books don't hurt,
they placate. They are the balm on your poetry-burns,
allow you to view your pain objectively, to quietly observe
from a peaceful, magical
faraway land where pain doesn't matter
and that roller coaster is just a funny backdrop instead of
the vehicle in which you fall in love and lose your innocence
in the same run.
Books are the numbing, the morphine
to allow you to fall into an enchanted sleep.

We all need books and poetry at different times- to each his own-
but for my own part,

I prefer poetry.

The waking world is dreaming with its eyes half open wide
And I am but another lonely soul
With visions often fleeting in their clarity, as I
Continue wishing time would make them so
Longing for the future doesn't help to make it so
Any sooner than its time is meant to be
More a self inflicted torture than a punishment, I know
But it can't be helped when you're so far from me

Call it what you will, for good or ill, or not at all
My feelings on this aren't soon to change
I cannot find the words, nor rhyme the feeling that enthralls
The normalcy is feeling oh so strange
Each time I hear your voice, or feel your touch when you are near
Then wake to find it once again a dream
I hold you oh so dear, but I have yet to know your name
Or in my waking hold you oh so near

Although our time is yet to come, I feel you in my heart
And every day, you're often on my mind
Sometimes I feel I'll come undone the longer we're apart
Even so, it's you I long to find
You may not know my name, or see my face with open eyes
But I know you dream of me as I do you
If we can but remain true to the promises of time
We'll find each other when our time is due

So, let us keep on dreaming with our eyes shut oh so wide
Until the two of us, such lonely souls
Encounter our first greeting, and we finally realize
Our dreams are wide awake and finally so
The promise of our future, heart to heart, will finally show
That loneliness can't stop what's meant to be
It only makes us stronger 'til the day that time bestows
Our heart's desire into waking dream

I'm skin and bones
real and tangible
or perhaps a prolonged reverie

Broken conversations,
empty lungs,
doors half open,
hearts almost out of love.

We used to talk of how
we used to be infinite.
But now every second now feels
like a stroke against an unforgiving current.

Our conversations broke
as the flaws of our souls
fell through the cracks of this glass foundation.

These upset words that escaped you
left the air around me a little sad,
a little awake,
and with a lot of echoes.

My lungs went empty
talking you down.

I left the door open for you.
So you can walk in
and slip in quietly-
I won't say a word.

And this heart could never go empty,
not mine.
Yours,
at this point,
I know not.

Flowers never lost their color
as long as you walked this earth.