That's the thing about secrets.
We bottle them up, and watch as they eat us up.
Corroding our bodies from the inside to the out.
We have to let them out. We have to let one person know.
Then two. Then three. Then four.
Then we're sitting alone wondering where everything went.
All because of the words in our heads.

are you generally happy?

a semi-innocuous query
now actualized as a two sided bladed poker,
hot stabbing me smack dab in
the chests hollow crown bullseye,
continuously,  as in all life long, and eternal longing for a
“yes”

it fits inside a pubescent aged wound that
refreshes with every breath;
a life long struggle for an accurate definition,
be a general of genuine happy,
that alone would deliver, bringing on bright day satisfaction

as a human, one operates on parallel continuums;
slide slipping on well oiled poles that over the years,
their lengths, increasing with add-on extender poles
formed by
twisty turny slips and falls of sundered hearts and sad loves,
marriages nicknamed Titanic, children found and lost,
complications responsibilities that are denied meeting the words  
  “The End”

a life that many would envy, questioning what’s wrong
with you dude, are you blinded to the riches yours,
reality is
shoulders permanently bent, a spine that’s held together by
spit and solder and curved by wearying wearing longing for
a straightness that is also called crooked unobtainable
and a piece of a peace that comes and goes
like a highway billboard that you pass too fast to be fully read

the body is corroding and worser yet to come and that’s a hand
you selected - luck of the self-selecting-drawing -

the opioids of the mind offers are rejected

the clarity of painful self exploration valued overall -
the place where the poems come from,
and go to die,
a landscape of a scene repeatedly visualized
but never been and never left,
the crazy contradictions come in two flavors;
vanilla smiles and chocolate weeping of tears that have
etched pathways cheek-chiseled

the city is a struggling strife for most,
the next red line on the side
of the measuring cup  and
everyone has a cell, a credit card,
and a measuring cup
<•>
here I stop can’t finish  
someone missing alerts me
to their real worlds troubles
making my complaints super superficial but
the silent running of the stilleto
cuts shallow
repeated hourly
the cut color,

pitch black

Flings and wings and rings rejected…
Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile

Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns a’ bleeding…
Struck dumb by night, no way to say “Let’s sound the stars another way”

Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks,
shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks…
Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride
beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride


Gypsy dreamer in denial…
Sleep and slumber standing trial…
I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept

Martian moons provoke the oceans…
Strange enchantments stir the potions…
The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies

Voiceless echoes feigning laughter…
Crushing quiet screaming after…
Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap

Startled stars at dawn are slacking…
Still her tempest sail is tacking…
In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets…
Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets


Cold cathedral clocks upended…
Frozen second hands suspended…
Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby

Ticking-tocking time’s a’ tolling…
Cruel eternity’s cajoling…
The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left

Brigantines skim gated grottos…
Distant divas voice vibratos…
Though eons pass, then intermix, I’m trapped ’tween time’s untallied ticks

Conquered candles flicker faintly…
Braided tresses quiver quaintly…
Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime…
Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime


Bolts of lightning flash unkindly…
******, alone, I huddle blindly…
I drain another dram and bray “she’s far too far too far away”

Twisted waterwheels a’ thirsting…
Flaming flower buds a’ bursting…
Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow

White crowned wave crests break unbounded…
Shackled seashore sands lie pounded…
Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled

Captive bluebirds nest in baskets…
Morning glories cover caskets…
Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin
and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin


Hungary hounds harangue the highlands,
howl at skies and desert islands…
Below, unfettered carbon crows conceal the parting path she chose

Lighthouse lamps and lanterns lolling…
Mute abandoned fleets are calling…
The shallow shadowed portholes vaunt dim traces of the past that haunt

Curved magnetic curtained faces
yearn contorted brief embraces…
Her fairy-tale like tattoo touch was serpentine but soft as such

Coffee cups and spoons corroding…
Mystic tea leaves, visions boding…
A cabaret calls, standing bare, beneath a splintered footloose stair,
vain vapors drape her vacant chair in One-Way Ships beyond repair


Splattered days are dripping dreary…
Shattered nights are wearing weary…
Without her footfall at my side I steal away within to hide

Fancies flame, persist to flaunt her…
Wanton whispers hiss I want her…
Hyenas, haggard, held at bay, still gnaw on bones of yesterday

Graveled graveyards grey and ghastly…
Apparitions pacing past me…
The answers to my whys and sighs have veiled her limpid pale blue eyes

Lurid figments storm the valleys
****** the helms of spectral galleys…
The coughing phantoms at the wheel, they make it all seem so unreal…
Rebounding cracks of thunder’s peal, shake One-Way Ships while seagulls squeal


Yesterday’s unsung, unspoken…
Bygone paths fold, draped and broken…
The weary winds of winter cling to voiceless nightingales and sting

Desert blossoms growing colder…
Drifting sand dunes pause, enfold her…
An arctic kiss and blush revealed forbidden pipe dreams flung afield

Weeping willows’ wilting snow drops
drip on tips of tiny toe tops…
Their opal fires bleed and fade while suns explode in icy jade

Jagged hours hangin’ heavy…
Footsteps pace the barren levee…
While pros and cons and kings debate, acclaim and blame and fame equate
the ruin’s remnants left to fate with One-Way Ships that fail to wait


Blazing blades of love surrender…
Memories and thoughts transcend her…
The Persian gazer’s crystal shows I’ve truly lost my ruby rose

Buried deep in evening’s embers
dust forgets what flesh remembers…
The bitter taste of farewell’s haste has laid the ****** skies to waste

Ruffled ravaged ravens ranting…
Churlish ancient churchmen chanting
resounding what she told me true “There’s nothing more that you can do”

Trial adjourned by judge and jury…
Freed, she flees, absolved of worry…
Remaining runes and relics burn to feed the ashes of the urn…
Six seers, wiser, soon discern the One-Way Ships of no return

Om
In The Beginning
Sound
needed a medium
for dissemination
space and time
was born.
As I sleep sitting cross legged I know these things to be Truth.
All things consist of matter
matter of molecules
molecules of atoms
atoms of  atomic particles
atomic particles of subatomic particles
subatomic particles composed of strings
yes strings
the vibrations of strings at certain resonant frequencies --
Sound
I’m referring to Sound --
accounts for the creation of all things
all things composed of matter --
I matter You matter --
and Sound is the variation of pressure waves propagating through matter
through You, and Me, We
are hereby beings of Sound
Per-Son
Earth, Sun
the birth hum permeates us all
all things soak in the amniotic ocean of Sound
it is the background, the foreground, before Sound
was Silence
Silence is the antithesis of hissing existence sibilance is diametrically opposed to nothingness antimatter to matter in an asymmetrical universe.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there as witness, it still fell and the timbre transpired, to be
is not to be seen, perception exists within existence
Real is a three inch wide magnetized Mobius Strip spinning counterclockwise in a corroding
centrifuge of perception carbon dated to The Beginning
and The Beginning occurs every second
in an umbrella opening in a firestorm
the collision of soapy bubbles
clay in a snow kiln
uranium decaying
a sari being wrapped
the chopping of wood
ice capped volcanoes
an oily rainbow
the exposure of negatives
the grinding of coffee beans
a cobra swaying
You can charm a cobra by biting an apple
the blur of sweat and palms on stretched animal skins
congas bongos tablas djembes tom toms snares timpani
hands at warp speeds in an innate rhythm inundating time
four four two four four three seven eight twelve o’clock
what is time to Sound but a permanent witching hour for feet to frenzy?
each stomp a falling star that sears a crater, each crater a subwoofer for the Earth’s movements
Sound is time being rendered elastic
quantized digitized equalized filtered phased distorted compressed processed
time has been tamed
fast forwarded paused rewound slow motioned skipped
from one timeline to another, Sound is the de-lineation of time
the unraveling of space the curling of dimensions dementia in rhyme
minds are traveling back to the present, pre sent from the future, the future has passed
We are light, massed
night is just another shadow our auras cast
mating calls
jarred halos
woodwinds in an airlock
disemboweled factories
pyramids of electric chairs
pipelines in the desert
grief slumped shoulders
paper lanterns in a whirlpool
poems read in darkness
laughs sobs shrieks cries cackles yelps howls laughs whimpers
worlds ending with a BANG
an infinite piece quantum philharmonic orchestra clamoring to be heard over the revolution of the spheres
We sing
reverberating to replace Saturn’s rings
every single note a secret love letter passed ear to ear read instantly
all sounds converging to singularity
an accretive disc of sonic entropy spinning around one point
all We have left to do is drop the needle
call
and let the response cascade into us
Chain Gang of the Universe swinging old ***** spirituals
the momentum of our pulsing song accelerates beyond relativity
the amplitude of our vibration transmits from soul to womb
each newborn tongue blessed with a honeyed Om
My son, Your daughter, I taught her, You taught him
and now they can play cat’s cradle with their strings
tap dance on quarks and make fiddlesticks sing
So even now the Rabbis sing
Hear O Israel, the Lord is Sound…
As I sleep sitting cross legged I know this Truth to be all things.
Om

What a sick ******* disturbing race;
And it's sad to say i'm the epitome of disgrace
So what the **** does that make me?
A self destructive **** with no integrity!

If I could peel through the rind of my skull          
The laughter around me might become a little dull
For the sake of my dignity and self enjoyment
I should make this last and indulge in some torment

Oh how fun it is to pretend that I'm on the petistil
Performing this unfulfilled sacrifice for a simple thrill
My slur gnarled into the cries of a self loathing comic;
For even the greatest have stated the best comedy is tragic!

So, gather 'round and pay respect to this nervous wreck;
Who befriends only pets or rather the comfort of a speck
Watch this defeatist plead for the misery of his next life;
The facts of fate are simple just take a glimpse at ones strife

I'm sure you'll see the ardent path beneath your detrimental stars;
Just gaze inside of your guilt and the afterlife doesn't seem so far
Look a little deeper through your pride to see exactly what you fear;
For Your reason blocks out what you cannot conceive and are dying to hear

That is the Irony of Sanity and we where it ******* well
Even before we reach our carnal end; we've seen the extent of hell
Although, I've never completely doubted the superstition of religion;
The thought of an eternal consciousness is entirely fiction

The only thing immortal about a human is it's opaque particles;
Physical existence will never fail to rot through it's perpetual circle!
It may seem hysterical to be hearing this from someone in my position;
But, It doesn't take a scholar to comprehend a personal realization

For I have foreseen myself as the lowest form of life to be;
My sincerest companions that made up the majority of my company
What shall be the retribution for this un-deserving carnation?
I shall plague each day as the worthless paramount of reanimation...

Dispatching my profession as the corrupted author of treachery;
And the needle begins to caper as I shed a contradicting mockery
All our indirect implications are rather redundant
Failing in comparison to the hidden word of the hierophant

For a mind with no sense can only tell a story in riddles;
And, Poetics itself is like watching a fox while he plays the fiddle!
The slyness of word play is exponentially folded when the theme is penance:
and don't even get me started on corroding intent with dis-tasteful connivance!

All of which being oppressed between the confines of these rhymes;
statements never stated that had been contrived at the time
A procession of silence establishing an obvious struggle of emotion    
Declaring the truth of hesitation and our twisted mental notion

How joyous it is to state a fact that can't be truly written;
Every word I've cast has no significance and is better off forgotten
I've been wasting all this ink converting beauty into reality
Completing eviscerating all meaning;Leaving nothing but a literal subtlety

Shipwrecked* heart
Sea of *betrayals
Misconceived idioms,
Blindly enslaved.
Was it really worth it anyway?
Fighting with hope;  a lost battle.
Fallible carcasses on a wooden platter.

Poisonous Ivy in my veins;
silent heartbeat bursting into flames.
Time is a thief,
buried beneath the sea.
Was it really worth the wait?
Fighting for love; a lost cause.
Permeable holes in an empty cup.
Troubling nature, impatient thoughts.

Infected,
Standing aloof.
Leveled indifference,
taciturn blind goof.
Lost chance; misleading poker glance.
Arms twisted, magnificent ache.
Ashes corroding the mechanical brain.

Bloodbath,
besieged wound.
Abrasive torture,
revealing the truth.
Cursed fortune; insensitive to pain.
Piercing a bullet through the soul,
expressed disdain.

Adamant rapture
with no return.
Imprisoned belief
with no more fire to burn.

By: Michael M. De La Fuente

I was nothing but a teacup in your fingertips
Sliding and slipping, shattering
I was nothing but snowflake in your abyss
Floating, flying, faltering

I was little but a shamrock in your field
Invisible, irresistible, inspiring
I was little but a knight’s wooden shield
Dangling, desperate, dying

You only ever were a word in an epic poem
Useless, universal, unifying,
You were only ever a lyric unsung and unknown
Waltzing, wandering, wavering

You became the tragic figure in the snow globe
Imperfect, ironic, isolating
You became the space that filled the empty wardrobe
Tired, tedious, trespassing

I was as small as pretty as a conquest
Coy, cuffed, charming
I was as small as a name in a black book’s list
Smudged, smeared, sparkling

I was as innocent as your favorite horror films
Vicious, veiled, vying
I was as deadly as your favorite poison
Cyanide, clarity, corroding

I was as lost as a vintage world map
Outdated, ostracized, offending
I was as furious as an Olympian’s final lap
Ephemeral, evermore, evading

I was as uncertain as a Polaroid candid
Gray, golden, growing
I was as adrift as an airplane with no landing
Turning, trying, tumbling

You were as lonesome as the plains of Montana
Wide, whistling, waiting
You were as lifeless as the eye of the camera
Fixed, fruitless, fleeting

We were as doomed as the ides of March
Lamenting, looming, leering
We were as fated as the planks of the cross
Destined, dripping, drowning

We were as simple as the heart of a fairy tale’s journey
Cruel, careful, converting
We were as heroic as the martyr of tomorrow’s yesterday
Unburied, Unknown, undoing

We are as fickle as the triumphant burn of inebriation
Sweet, sinful, smoldering
We are as distant as the chasm between here and the purpose of our creation
Bruised, buried, borrowing

We are as shameful as the last cigarette
Anxious, alone, ailing
We have been as deceitful as long as our secret’s rest
Silver, swallow, savoring

We could have been as inexplicably grand as royal gems
Imposing, imploring, imploding
We could have been as scarred as our nightly Amen
Begging, bleeding, belaboring

We were almost ivory and innocent
Fearful, favorable, frittering
We were almost hell-bound and Satan-sent
Satin, silk, slaughtering

We are unwritten words and syllables on blank pages
Neat, nuanced, needing
We are unseen images on unpainted canvas without aging
Perfect, peaceful, pirouetting

We are as final as the stroke of white paint against the night
Rebellious, rivaling, riveting
We were as concrete as the glittering sidewalks in city moonlight
Gilded, glowing, gone

The glass patters in the darkest hours of the night

Exponential reverberations resemble that of a radical earthquake

Disrupting the peace; serenity.

The erratic patter splatters, exemplifying works of Jackson *******

A stain on the cloth of happiness, it spreads,

Disrupting the normal pattern degrading matter

Corroding, yet it creates.

Feeds, but it drowns.

Creates smiles, and forces frowns.

So simple, although complex

Dark patter.

Yeah, we kiss sometimes.
No , sorry we kiss all the time.

He does hold my hand.

Sometimes he even says I love you.

He's my boyfriend... Because I was single.

I'm his now all because of you.

I was single cuz you broke up with me You broke up with me cuz you didn't want me You didn't want me cuz you were all done with me "for now."

You were the one Jumping into freedom

and then you drowned in it.

You were so excited to be "single" that you forgot your fear of being alone.

You swore it wasn't over.

Please Tell Me what you meant by "Let's Break Up"

Please Tell Me what the month of silence and ignorance meant to you.

Please Tell Me how "I just can't do this anymore" translates to anything but "We're all done here."

Please Tell Me why your words speak a different language that only you have the dictionary for.

Please don't tell me it was all temporary
because your words were dripping with tears of permanence.

Don't tell me it wasn't supposed to last.

I didn't know Good Bye was synonymous for I love you.

Because in my dictionary
Love is a Verb
and Those actions and your words do not hold up.

They're flimsy in the wind blown by the hot air you blow around.

They crumbled under my feet as I trudged on to a future where good-bye Bleeds and Love
is Sore from all of the deeds it performs.

You can swear love up and down the walls of your new home

But I've come to realize your words are more temporary than our parting ever was.

You only meant for...

meant for...
meant for...
meant for...

Oh that's right you only meant for me to wait patiently

You only meant for me to stay frozen with the smile that you could tell was really empty without you.

Well News Flash: My Heart Takes Up Rooms

Since you're so much smarter and wiser you know that matter can neither be created nor destroyed

and the Explosion only spreads it further.

So I hope this means you understand that
This Heart is painted on your walls and
This Heart is spattered over your memory and
This Heart gives a love that infects and
This Heart is too busy pumping divinity into this world that it will

Never leave me empty.

It will Never be me who jumped too soon over a threshold that wasn't there.
It will Never be me who left something behind that I couldn't afford to lose.

No it will Never be me who put the live ******* the backburner only to see she has crawled away while I brewed a new life for myself.

Stop You Say?
Stop You Say?
Wait You Say?

Wait for What, I ask.

For Simon to say Freeze?
For Simon to say Hold?
For Simon to say Pause?
Notice Simon never says Please.

Well I'm here to ask you, who the **** made you Simon?

Who made you the banker in the monopoly on who could live my life.

I think your ears heard the wrong thing when I held your hand and said

You were it.

I should have known better but then again
I didn't know we were playing a game.

But as always, the games have concluded and I ask Where's Your Medal, My Dear?

Is it under the new clothes that you've decided are your style now?

Is it hiding under her tongue?

Is it Wrapped around that bottle that you swore you'd never touch.

Are they in the eyes of the New friends you've known forever.

Sorry... 6 Months.

Well Pardon me for not being blinded at the Shimmer of your Participation Medal

But I'm too busy holding the purple heart you left me with.

I'm too busy weaving Gold into the fingers of my loved ones.

I'm wrapping a gold chain around his neck as a new promise that we will both win Together

A Sign of a Team Rather than Opponents.

Do tell me why, though, that you felt a need to win when I never wanted to keep score in the First Place.

It all gets so vicious in between those "Temporary" Words and False Actions.

Let this be a Lesson.

Watch your words closely.

Don't Let them run away with you because one day they might tattoo themselves into your shoulder.

That Chip that you can Never brush off.

And then it won't matter if you said them in Flowery Purple Wording because those words will be the ones that Scar you.

Purple will look a lot like defeat
And You'll understand that the
Tin you've traded your Gold for is corroding before you.

Please Do excuse me for mining for a more precious action to go with Love

Pardon my resistance to swallow your false intentions.

Please Forgive me But I Need to

Go Live My Life.

When the first wind blew
From fire’s sorrow, tangled by chains
The scarlet remains you left put me in sanity
For the sake of bitter gain
And pride-degrading fables
When i wanted you to lie still
After you got the hearts to ruin
For the sake of the lone pendulum
That sways from your very own blood
Your veins are the chains
That bind me down to hell
With the pests of your past
Crawling to grant my shallow wishes
With neither payment nor reward
But your hatred was as much
As the soul you have abandoned
Your revenge was pure
And forest red without cherish
Without no one to welcome you
Nor a home where you can ease
Your weary heart clasped in blade
Dragged by corroding chains
Is injecting me with lethal hatred
Of pain
In admiration
And in my older days should I have known
You were my fragments of haunted joy
Kneeling in festering blades
Until the chains slowly possess and
Rage, in the blue robes of haunted night
Against the spinster spider’s love
Painfully degrading your inability
In knowing that you killed your soul while
Kneeling down in corroding chains
Against the loyal spider’s shame

Tear drops drop
like emotions in motion
waves of confusion stirring up commotion
currents stronger than the ocean's
corroding stones as their eroding
a cold world is turning
approaching implosion  
more explosive than explosions
a torn heart, is a fabric
that can never be rewoven
once it breaks, it will never be re-open
to being open to true love
once the truth is slain
love is pain, so is sane
the pain once sustained,  will be ingrained
like a stain, will leave a mark
that will grow dark
until if covers
every part