I remember
when you were
a giant,
huddled in your cave
with your friends
role-playing
the heroes
that you couldn't
be to your own children.

I keep throwing
dice at the wall
hoping to land a saving
roll that would
prompt you to come back.

We all have
a story
and rumor
has it that
the more
scars
you collect
the more
wronged
you are
the higher the chances
are of you winning
the Prize
and I hear it's
a good one.
So take that pain
take that sorrow
impale it on your
words
and let it
bleed
bleed
bleed
into something
more beautiful
and more permanent
than pain.

We joke
about the pain
of being hated
by our savior
We laugh
about the justification
of abuse
from those who were better
than from those whom we came.
We sigh
at the fact
that we never had
a childhood,
only a struggling
lurch from one
punishment to the next.

We love,
now that we are
free from your oppressive
games.
We live,
now that we are
out from your control.
We lie,
when we say that
the uncaught crimes done
don't hurt anymore.

Of course they do.

But we flourish,
determined to carve
out our own paths
down empty roads
leaving you withering
in the dust.

A friend of mine
told me they don't
like to write poetry
because it's too dark
and people tend to
panic when they read it.
When they send poetry
to their friends,
the responses are usually
"are you okay?
let's hang out
I miss you"
As though to make up
for lost time and apply
social interaction to
staunch the bleeding
that has formed such
turbulent verses.

But perhaps if those things
were said more regularly
without provocation,
their poetry wouldn't be so dark.

I stood
in that parking lot
the one that overlooked
the lake
and remembered the time
that I shared a cigarette with
you.
And you said,
"This is the first
time I have had nicotine
in a while."

Part of me
felt bad
that I had reintroduced
you to the beast
of addiction
but then again
I was addicted
to you
and your words
and your smile
so maybe it wasnt all that bad
and we were young
so whats the worst that could happen?
I quit smoking
because it feels good
to self-destruct
and I know cigarettes
taste better when
pondering the days
that have blown
away like toxic
smoke
and I have too many
of those
and spend too much
time thinking
about the immutable
past that I
myself
would inevitably become ash.

We skipped stones
flinging them at
the waves
with just the right amount
of spin
in hopes that they
would catch the front
of a wave and shoot
skywards
and in the moment
those stones
so smooth and
worn by endless
water
would soar skyward
no longer bound
by the gravity
that kept pulling
us down
into the sand

I went to
the Lake
today.
One of the
big ones.
As we pulled in
my brother says
to me
"If this is a lake
and it's this huge,
what's the ocean
look like?"
I told him
that it probably
looks the same
but only because
we are so small
compared to the
endless water.

I kept throwing
coins into that well
in the hopes that I could
wish myself back into
your arms
until I went
bankrupt from hoping

You never know
if something
is worth it
or if it's slowly
killing you.

That all depends on the lighting
and the score
and the hope that this time
won't be a waste
a lost investment,
but now the finale
is here
and the stars are nowhere to be found
so you run out of the studio
and look up into the black sky
and all the dead light
from galaxies away
all seem to have
gone out.

I get stressed out
from little things
like
looking through the contacts
in my phone.

I see all the names there
all the numbers,
tokens of friendships
no longer existing
and I can't help but let
my mind wander.

What if we'd kept our promises?
What if we actually stayed in
touch?
What if I could just reach out
to any of them and try to
talk,
just talk,
and pretend that it hasn't
been years since we sat in
poorly lit rooms
together
and talked about wanting
to bring the world together
in peace.

Instead we all grew apart and
I am left with a pocketful
of strangers.

Wash off
the blood
it isn't time
to be reborn.
Best thing to do
right now
is point your feet
towards home.
We're all pioneers
of stolen salvation
doing our best
with what flows easiest.
Blood and water.

These days they both
taste the same to me.

I remember
laying there
with you
on a quilted blanket
under the stars
with a storm
creeping in the distance.
I remember
staying silent
when I should have told you
I loved you
and letting the
rain and reckless
thunder
cut our evening short.

I once knew a guy
who was obsessed
with death and
all its possibilities.
He once informed me
that we are more
likely to survive a gunshot
wound to the head
than to the heart.

"The mind is resilient,"
he said,
"but the heart can't handle such
a blow."

I guess that's why heartbreak
feels like ******* death.

Alas,
here you stand
on my street corner
shouting.
A sainted patron
of a God
that time seems
to be forgetting.
Hoping desperately
for a flood
because
death would be
easier
than being
left behind
forgotten
and dusty
sitting in the back
corner of a nursing
home whispering
to yourself
"He shall strike the earth
and He shall slay the wicked"
hoping you aren't among
the rest of us sinners.

I'll
never
have
the
Heart
to
tell
him
how
much
of
our
father
I
se­e
in
him.

Time
is but a human
measurement
dictating the amount of existence
between one moment and another.
Like inches on a ruler,
time moves in a linear fashion
but my favorite moments are with her
and I feel infinite
and we laugh about dumb
things until two in the morning
and oh hey we have to work tomorrow
but can take a nap
together
when she gets home.

It's only a matter of time.

Every time
I see her
it adds another drop
to the torrential flood
that is her love
and I feel like
I can breathe
underwater
like in a dream.

I was there when my grandmother
died.
I was urged to say something as she went
but couldn't as I had already
said everything
I needed to say
during our front porch conversations
where she would tell me that kids
shouldn't have to be sad like we were
and answered my questions about life.

The idea of sending people off with peaceful
words doesn't make sense to me.
The peaceful words,
the staggering revelations,
the infinite bounty of love
should be said during life,
not on the brink of life everlasting.

Whispering wonders to the
dead and dying
is about as useful as painting
a broken window.
It looks pretty, but what does it really do?

I fundamentally
believe
that the best way
you can show
someone
you care about them
is to cook for them.

To take something
and spend your
time
energy
and love
to convert it to a dish
that quite literally
sustains the
existence
of another being
is
to me
the epitome of love.

Death is the absence
of Life
and Food sustains Life
so by feeding those around you,
you indirectly say,
"I want you to live."

I am terrible
at taking compliments.
Not for any major lack
of faith in myself.
After all,
I am my
number one fan

Unfortunately
when you spend so much
of your existence
surrounded by
angry
negative people
you tend to be
in a perpetual state
of tension.

Eternally bracing
against the inevitable
"but"
The qualifier
letting you know that you are good
but
you'll never be good enough
in their eyes.

Far worse than the pain
caused by that
is seeing those who
truly care
hurt
because you shrug
off compliments
as a means of protecting
yourself.

The line between protecting
yourself and opening
to others is a thin one.
And it's one we all
have to cross eventually.

And rest assured,
you did it with grace,
but...

Cigarettes
and
cat ****.
Those are the smells
that remind me of you.
You had a tendency
to call the women
I cared about in my
life
******. (Capital W)
My mother,
My fiance,
My sisters,
and where does
this leave you?
Sitting as a bombed
out husk of masculinity,
a fluid ever-changing
identity.
I remember you when
you were a goofy nerd.
Now you are a Rebel (Capital R)
waiting patiently for the
antebellum south
to rise again.
I try not to look back in
your direction.

I have risen.
I have moved on.

There was something
romantic
about the hiss of the phone
after you'd hung up.
As though the rapid fire
conversation about my
grandmother's death
existed only in the space
between our receivers.
As though hanging up
would make the conversation
disappear
and the things said
would be undone.

That hiss only gets louder
and eventually starts to echo
with things said and unsaid.

"Good. She was crazy anyway."
"Good. She was crazy anyway."
"Good. She was crazy anyway."

For a while
even the word
poetry
made me flinch.
I had so many thoughts
swirling
in my head
but no courage to
put them down.
My cup and mind
runneth over,
and it's best to aim
the spillage at
paper (digital or otherwise).

It was a friend,
someone I trusted
whom I sent my poetry to.

I asked for her thoughts
and she responded,
"****"

And that was the best
advice I'd ever received.
Too bad it nearly broke me.

"His father really
does
provide for him,"
The woman said
as she slid a small
paper scrap across
the counter
to me.

It had a credit card number on it.

"He still feeds his son
even when he's locked up."

The boy avoided eye contact
with me.

She and I
are in two
very different
holding patterns of existence.

Yet the very thought of her
sets electricity coursing
through my brain.

A wildfire
in the backdrop
as I tell her
I love her.

A friend once
offered me a
cupcake.
Not just any cupcake,
but a Gourmet (capital G) Cupcake
from some bakery that sells
cupcakes and cupcakes
alone at almost four dollars a pop.
It was a beautiful creation,
pink with a little candy crown on top,
promising a fantasy world
of strawberry flavor.
It was named the Pink Princess
and I threw it away after one bite.

Because, much like everything else
in life,
it doesn't matter how much
frosting
sugar
and bright color
you use to present something.
If it still tastes like ****,
it is.

I watched him
through my window.

A man,
scraping the stick figure decal
of his wife
off the rear window of his minivan.

Death
or
Divorce?

Which is worse?
I suppose that depends on
one's view of
Life
and
Life Everlasting.

She was fun
in the way that
she would send
Poetry
to me
through text messaging.

Sometimes it was
just the way she wrote
to tell me to
do the dishes.

Other times,
it was prose
and verse
helping her make sense of the day.

Sending her thoughts
from the cosmos of
her mind
into the cosmos surrounding
our terra firma,
converted into
zeroes
and ones
and then
back into beauty.

The boy had a heart of gold
which was fine
until the price of gold went up.
Now a commodity,
the boy was
coveted,
traded,
owned,
by collectors who cared only for
the purity of a golden heart
and little for the humanity
surrounding it.
With a little gray matter
and a little bit of paint,
the boy disguised his heart
with a layer of silver.

Which was fine,
Until the price of silver went up.

It is often difficult
to pick oneself up
after a tumble.
Especially when the gravity
of the world
matches the gravity
of the situation,
all you can do sometimes
is allow yourself to fall,
to your knees,
eyes skyward,
but nobody is promised
a God ****** thing in life
other than the fact that
deep down,
hidden
and ignored,
there is a power for survival.
A need to carry on,
if only to spit in the faces of fools
and the world
and say,
"You're ****** right I'm still here."
and no matter how shredded
how tattered
how worn our hearts become,
they still beat and burn and stand up against the world.
But,
We must never forget the ones
to whom the world got first.

I woke up this morning
with the sneaking suspicion
that I was missing out on
something special today.

What was it?
Another manufactured holiday
from another manufacturer of
greeting cards?

Had I blinked for too long
and skipped all the way to the next holiday?
What was next, anyway?
Father's day?
No reason to celebrate that.

But hey, fourth of July
is coming up real soon
and we can all gather and
watch
colorful explosions
expressing more than we can
with our words.

My friend,
my colleague,
my fellow human.

Life is ******* hard.
And I wish there were
something
anything
I could say to make you feel better
about this whole living thing.
I will never claim to understand
why people
in trying to carve out an identity
for themselves,
decided to carve great holes in your
soul.
Through these holes I can see your
kindness and your love escaping,
and it breaks my heart.

I don't know what you should do,
friend,
but I do know this:

Your path in life is nebulous at best.
And that's not a bad thing,
because when everything's in the ****
like this,
and you want to get somewhere better,
all you have to do is
point your feet in a direction

and
Walk.

When we kissed I laughed
Because I thought it was funny
How you tasted like communion wine
A concept so immaculate
A salvation so immediate
The Fall could never find us.
Through Holy Sonnets we wandered
Through earthly sunsets we sat
Feeling nothing but the pull that keeps us to the ground
Never acknowledging that the pull of gravity will keep us in our graves when the time comes.
communion wine flavored memories
paint an endless still-life of something
that suffers in motion
hurtling, hurtling towards disintegration

Remember a T is nothing but a cross without a martyr
and when life gets hard you just try harder
because no matter how it ends up we still have a box of participation medals
waiting for you at the finish line.
Trials and Tribulation are just accidental martyrdom waiting to happen.
Don’t fall on your sword, but rather
Take it up,
Tear down Tyranny
Teach those around you the Truth.
Never mind the Tears because with vulnerability comes beauty.
You’re so beautiful when you cry
They said,
You’re so very real.
True to yourself, you said, is all you can be.

Downtown has
36000 people going 36000 different ways
All noses turned up or looking down
Each experience better than the last
Footsteps on faded asphalt carry echoes
Of friendships unfocused
Blurred by distance and ***
The conversations carry
Manifestos lifted to the sky
“we are going to have a good time tonight”
“I don’t like drama but I have to say something”
“I haven’t heard from him since he went to rehab”
The endless void of downtown holding these revelations
Only to release them when the people are long dead
And downtown crumbles
And the footsteps echo no longer.

Coffee is gross
Though I still drink it.
Why would anyone subject
Themselves to something
That tastes like the inside
Of someone’s ***** muffler?

Yes, that was a *** joke.

I guess there comes a point
In everyone’s life where
Practicality outweighs pleasure
And it’s far easier to pay a dollar for
A cup of swill
Than five for a cup of personality.
I guess that point happened to me already
But I was too busy blinking
From the flavor of this ****** coffee
To notice that
I somehow became an adult.

I put a picture of my parents,
Fifteen years divorced,
Into my copy of Gone With the Wind
and took a moment to muse over the irony.

That bridge in your mind, I wonder
how often it is I wander across.
Or did it burn with the rest of our letters,
tattered remnants of the time that we both lost?
Now which way are we running aimlessly,
in hopes that our paths won't cross some day?
The stars had crossed, the moon had cracked,
on the day that you had gone away

As the sun finally sets on our Shakespearean tale,
you said that we shouldn't have to be ******* in a cause that
we both knew had no avail.

Now winter's come 'round again,
filling me some form of bitter clarity.
About the day we decided we'd tear our hearts out
with a special deliberate dexterity.
It's been quite some time now,
and we're both loving without regrets.
With the exception of those nights alone,
haunted by old silhouettes.

You said that you couldn't follow your heart,
because you didn't know where it would lead.
You said that we could no longer be us,
You'd be you and, I, I'd be me.

That bridge in my mind, you wonder,
how it is I stopped you from wandering across.
I had to burn it with all of the sketches,
Lest I be reminded of just what I had lost.
And now you're here, you're standing before me,
talking of regrets and wanting a second chance.
The memories return, they flood in,
of a fateful day, and you ask me if I want to dance.

The bridge in my mind's rebuilt,
as we begin the poisonous waltz across the floor.
The sun, it started rising again,
I turned to your pillow but you were there no more.

The bridge in my mind is ashes,
no longer can you wander across.
Some day it will rebuild itself,
with patches from the hearts that have lost.

Often, when I disclose the fact that I'm from,
The Lone Star State,
I am asked,
"Do you miss it?"

I don't miss the people,
but I miss a lot of things about it.

I miss the warm springs,
blazing summers,
warm falls,
and the chilly winters.
Chilly, but warm enough that you can still go outside and have fun.

I miss how flat everything was.
I was like the landscape itself was saying,
"I have nothing to hide. This is your adventure,
traverse me with force."
I miss the cotton fields that would be the spectators,
the spectators of the fun times and the hard times.

When I'm asked if I miss Texas,
I respond with "the weather",
but there is always more to every story.