Away.

At times I feel divided
Part of me is here
And part of me is with you
Part of me is blue
And a part of me feels
As bright as sunshine
The other is waiting with
An open umbrella.

I'm so tired of miles,
Our hearts are connected by telephone wires.
I'm so tired of days
Cause I feel that I'm not alive with you so far

Away.

At times I feel divided
Not the way you'd think
But I know there's a reason
Why I feel I'm starving for
You and the way that you
Shine with your smile darling
It makes me feel better.
There's nowhere I'd rather be.

I'm so tired of miles,
I feel left behind when I look in the mirror.
You're not ever there
To make me feel as bright as I should, you're

Away.

Tossing your hair into the wind of the ocean,
I know what you're thinking wherever you are
But I still can't forget our bodies are apart
I know that you miss me as much as I do you.

The air doesn't even feel the same in my lungs without you here.

This would make a good song.

Hello, my bones are breaking
the room is spinning and you
know that you might as well
just rip out my tongue.

I've never been good at telling stories,
And I've never been too good at honesty.
But there's one thing that I know for sure:
I swear to you now: you'll never know me.

Love, it's waiting around
for you to take it and you
know that you might as well
just stay for a while when you're

Pushing those words through your teeth and
You're so beautiful when you annunciate those
Perfect little things that you always tell me:
I swear to you by now you're my life story.

Singing songs in rooms,
Padded to extinguish you.
But you burn right through,
But you burn right through.
I'm falling for the sound
Persisting through miles.
I swear to God it's true,
I'm living for the two...

Of us.

Note to self:

Not the best but it'll do.

I follow your eyes like the skies
Follow the stars as they're reflecting
Back into your eyes like a spark
Of light that seems so otherworldly
I sing to the moon as I walk in my
Shoes trying to find a place to rest
My weary head and my tired body
Right next to you, we made reservations.

Your eyes are glistening
With a salt stain on your cheek.
Darker around the eyes
I tell you "Dear, don't weep."

But you never listen to what I say.
I'm always wrong anyways,
Despite how sure I seem to always be
But your smile always shines on me.

You say,
"I love you,
For all that you are,
For all you'll ever be."

These miles aren't easy.

But the photograph couldn't
Be more clear than I see it.
You standing next to me, so
Proud of us and how far we've come.

Hardwired behavior becoming desensitized by the callousness of urban living.

I used to live and breathe country air,
With nothing in my heart but the sound
Of children running in a nearby park and
I remember being one of them.
It seems like months ago that I was there,
Rubbing my hands together intently as I
Attempted to cross those shaky bridges and
Make my way to the sandboxes beyond. But...

Now I concern myself with postmarked stamps,
Arrivals and departures in the nearby station
Where the trains always seem to meet at noon
To have their break then make their way out

Into the urban wastelands we call human civilization,
Where you walk down a street and hear millions upon
Millions of voices collectively becoming such discord
That we never know where one begins and one ends because

You see this is the meaning of a lack of harmony and
This is the very thing that disturbance of the soul represents.

It's all acquired behavior from television.
Nothing is innate, instinctual or natural anymore.
As these cities reach the ends of the earth
All I know is that we're losing the people we are.

I want to return to the fields,
To run in the sprinklers in the summer.
Just as soon as the sun hides
Itself behind the hills we find the end

To our days.

Poems from 07/30/2009

Renewal? I just steal the catalog cards.

This feels
Kind of like a nightmare
The taste of smoke still
Haunts me but I've gone
And replaced
All of my vices with a new
Sense of things and a new
Outlook on life and you know...

It's funny how no matter what we do,
And no matter where we are,
We're the same people we've been
Every day of our lives, just a
Different manner of speaking and a
Brand new set of clothes that
We bought on sale at the mall with
Money we used to spend on

Drugs,
Booze,
Company,
Friends,
Cigarettes,
Lust,
Our own
Selfishness,
Self-pity
New shoes.

So we can walk
To a graveyard
To bury ourselves
In the end but no...

Not me.


__________________________

Pissing Inspiration.

The only thing that I hate about reading
Is that almost every time I turn a page
I get a fucking papercut. So here I am
Reading these books with thousands
And thousands of little cuts on my fingers
Some of them are still fresh. The insides
Of the pages are smeared with blood and
More blood and ink. I can never seem to
Do anything without wounding myself.

When I got tired of reading I decided to pick up a pen and write.
The first words I wrote down on a blank piece of paper ironically were:

"What the hell am I going to write about?"

So I sat there for a while and thought,
And I thought. Until finally it hit me.
I would write about the dream I had!
I had finally found myself an answer but...

Then I remembered:
I forgot to remember my dream.

"Shit!" I said aloud as I threw my pen at the wall.
It exploded and left a blueish-black mark where it hit.

I never thought I would ever be a great writer I guess.
I still don't think that I am but you know what?
Writing my own stories is better than a little voice
In my head that sounds like me telling them to me.

Do dogs think in English?
Maybe.
Probably.
I guess so.

...the fuck would I know?



__________________________

I make bad decisions... sometimes.

One day I got this crazy idea
To hurl my body into the ocean
And let the water take me to
Any place that the currents go
So I was standing on a bridge
About to jump off and I look over
Some young man was there
And he was plotting suicide

So I said:

"You know when you jump the fall won't kill you?"
I guess he was willing to take his chances.

I realize that the difference between this situation was me being an optimist.
Now I'm typically the type of person to assume the glass is half empty. In which case,
I go to the faucet and pour myself a full, delicious glass of pure tap water. Of course.
This young man didn't know what he was getting himself into. He would rather sit there
And bitch and moan about how his glass was never full and there was no way it ever
Would be. But he was just too damn lazy to get up and walk to the sink and turn a knob.

So I pushed the motherfucker.
And then I got down and realized:

"I could have fucking killed myself."

Illustrations of...

Digging through books with explicit illustrations.

These are the things that remind us all that as human beings have souls. Because they move you. At the same time, do you feel love? Fear? Dismay?

The artist is trying to say something in every picture. Mind you, there are no words to accompany these pictures. They're in real-time. Almost like pastel colored photographs. You can even taste them without making contact. This gallery.

You set the book on your stove. Set it to six and watch it burn and for what? Because you couldn't understand it so why keep it? Why not just throw it away? Let it find its way to a stranger. Maybe they could interpret it better than you could?

You snap back to reality. Holding this masterpiece in your hands, you put it closer to the light. There are children dancing in the lines. You see a human heart. You see a young man on his knees in the alley behind a bar, vomiting onto the street. But it's all one collective thing: Two people sitting underneath a tree with a heart carved into it. Then you think...

"Why couldn't he have drawn himself as a young man? An eligible bachelor who went through a slew of women? Ten women in line in front of the threshold behind a closed door. They're mostly fixing their make-up, wearing nice dresses that'll just end up being wrinkled on his floor. What's the use?"

Then you think some more...

"Why couldn't he have painted how he felt when he met the girl in the picture? The time and place were perfectly right. It's such a beautiful coincidence."

Because you can only see what he wants you to see. Because you see, artists are the best at telling white lies and half truths. But you can tell with every penstroke, brush stroke. You can find it in the words. But...

Does it really matter?

1:52 AM

There's something about the feeling you get after it rains. When it's pouring down outside it seems like the world stops. Nothing exists outside of the room you're in. Everything outside is another place, another world that you don't even care to think about. You're on the couch reading a book, or in bed holding your loved one close in silence as the water hits the window. You check outside every now and then. Just a quick glance to see if it's still pouring but it doesn't change a thing. You're holed up under the roof so that you don't catch a cold. So that your shoes don't get soaken wet. Your clothes.

Some people have ponchos or rain jackets. Some people put on hats and open up umbrellas. They usually go out into the world with disdain. But in some cases, there's a lovely couple who loves to go out in the storm and dance in the street in whatever they're wearing. They kiss in the rain and it's a scene from a romance movie that everyone wishes that could attain.

I remember being the child who was always caught out in the rain. In the yard playing with my toys. When it started to drip down I gave no thought to it. Not until it started to pour and I would run through the yard, up the stairs to the porch and through the door that my mother was holding open. A screen door. In a way I would retreat. I would find respite in the comfort of my home. I would take off my clothes and hang them on the shower rod above the bathtub and I would throw my shoes in the dryer.

"Clunk clunk! Clunk Clunk!"

After everything is said and done, though, the world feels so new. When you're looking out your window with raindrops still clinging for dear life so it seems from the top of the pane and you go out into the yard and the trees are still soaked and dripping so it feels like a light rain. When the dirt on the ground is drying up and the drops on the car make steam as they evaporate. The world feels new. As if it has been cleansed of something and it's time to start all over.

The couple who was dancing in the street goes back inside and they're the ones sleeping. The ones who were sleeping wake up and take the car, perhaps for dinner and a movie. The child goes back out in the yard to play in his sandbox so that he can make sandcastles with the dampened sand.

Everyone seems to wait for this to happen when it rains. It doesn't seem like anyone says "It looks like rain" in excitement anymore. Unless there was a dry season or they happen to be a meteorologist.

Sometimes when it storms the power goes out and most of the time it doesn't return until a few hours after it stops. This can be quite the pain at night time. But it's an excuse to light up some candles and sit in a room together.

This is for you. But you won't read it.

If I had my way, the entire world would sing along to beautiful acoustic songs that I wrote sitting next to my bed with a cup of coffee at my feet along with a few scraps of paper, crumbled up with ideas that I deemed "not good enough." When I wrote them, you were sleeping on my bed and I was trying to be quiet because I couldn't fight back the urge to sing from the massive amount of inspiration you'd given me. After about ten tries or so I would get up and check on you, and you'd be smiling while you were sleeping. I'd brush your hair away from your forehead and give you a kiss, then sit back down and write a song about how wonderful you are. In time. Eventually. When I found the words I mean.

If things were the way that I wanted them, there would be no roads and no maps to calculate the distance between us. Ever. You'd always have the comfort of knowing where I was and what I was thinking and we'd have a normal, daily routine and that would be to defy all patterns and try new things and to see new places. Taking photos at the Grand Canyon with the cameras in our phones that we still would use to call one another as we were sitting a room apart.

In a perfect world, you would never be lonely. Even if you woke up in another city in a bed by yourself, you'd go to your doorstep to be greeted by a vase full of beautiful flowers and a note in the middle of them that says "Darling.. you're miles away but you're in my heart at the same time." It would mean everything if you'd smile, even if I couldn't see it.

But instead I'm hundreds of miles away. Doing everything I can to build a bridge from my island so I could see you. There's an ache in my fingertips that feels like the numbness in my body. Aching to be anywhere you are and to be held by all of you. Only you.

Potentially fatal gas poisoning.

I start my day off watching the news. Nothing but bad news. Bastards who committed drunken hit-and-runs on innocent bystanders, houses burning down, flooding somewhere out in the midwest, school shooting and parents placing the blame on modern pop culture.

There's never anything good. I wake up to this shit. The feeling of morning stings like a son-of-a-bitch. Light up a cigarette. Stale. That's the price you pay for buying them in bulk, unlike any other normal fucking American citizen. I swallow the taste down with strong, black as mud coffee.

Jump in the shower, get out. Re-learn how to tie a goddamn tie every single morning because it's something I've never been good at. I throw on a dingy pair of jeans, leave my shirt unbuttoned at the top and untucked an throw on a jacket. Basically, I look like a scumbag, but a classy scumbag at that. Slipping my feet into my shoes I prepare to take on the world. But the world only seems to be coming at me in slow motion.

It's sad when you sit in a booth at a coffee shop with your friends and you can't stand a fucking word that comes out of their mouths. You want to spit in their faces, but without them who are you? Just some egotistical fuck with a clean conscious wearing a fucking tie and a seventy-five dollar jacket. Besides, it's unhealthy not to socialize.

They chew with their mouths open and spit their food out when they talk. Disgusting excuses for human beings. But you deal with it. Redeeming qualities are a saving throw in this case. You're tapping your foot to that infectious song that you heard earlier but hate so much. You can't get it out of your head. You just sit there and tolerate the nonsense as long as you can, build some charisma. Until finally... you stand up and excuse yourself from the table. To take a piss? You use that as an excuse to escape. To the company of other friends, or into the arms of a lover.

Conversations with strangers. I've found them more entertaining than sticking to the norm. Paying their tab to get a hint of advice as to what direction you should go in life. You meet them in these places: coffee shops, sitting alone and reading the paper. Or at least pretending to so that they can blend in with the scenery, on the public transportation, where they paid twice as much to get to where they want to go either because it fits in with their routine or because they've fallen in love with strangers such as yourself.

I stop at the store to pick up another pack of cigarettes despite having and entire field of tobacco products at home in my freezer. I light the first one, take the smoke in deep and exhale. Ah... the taste of fresh tobacco. One of the said strangers approaches you, asks for a light. You ask them the time and they look at a watch that was probably stolen or won in a game of cards. They'll probably pawn it off so that they can buy their booze. Mental addiction... what a bitch.

There is no point to this story. I never said there would ever be one. I'm just bullshitting with you. Rather than talking about something as fucking trivial as the weather, or about how many boozed up whores you stick your dick into the night before. I'd rather talk about this. Nothing that matters. Just a point of view. If you don't like it, if you don't like me, if you don't like yourself, if you don't like the world I suggest you go fuck yourself and do something substantial with your time. Because we're all dying or already dead. We're ticking time bombs just ready to either explode or dud out. We're all cars that are traveling along freeways like veins and arteries of this country. We're destined to break down sooner or later. No God is ever going to be able to fix that.

Call it a design flaw. I call it a reason to hate my God.

High-classed animalistic tendencies.

Human beings wearing the masks and skins of animals. The pelts.

Fresh blood. Fresh meat. We devour without any cause and without meaning.

Even of human beings disguised to further our causes. With new names, new faces and a better future. Best dressed for any event: a masquerade ballroom massacre. Keep the bodies in the coat closet. Fuck their wives. Adopt their children.

Smoke their cigars. Drink their wine.

Wear their claws on the ends of your fingertips. Use them to kill. Bare your teeth.

In all reality, we are all the animals we make ourselves. We're the fucking bastards that we let ourselves sink into. Destruction of self equals evolution. Society at its highest point can go anywhere but up. Decline.

We become citizens of war-torn nations who wear the skins of beasts.

Divine Presence.

We're sharks that cringe at the thought of meat.


And we strive for supremacy.


And God only knows what it means to be part of humanity.

We've fed countless articles from magazines,
And shows that reach our televisions sets by wires.
But we'll never be saved! No... We never will because.
We're just as heartless as our maker. Never fitting molds.
We're imperfection in it's single greatest finest hour
We're nothing but a private joke, laughed about behind
Closed doors. And we weep because there's a deeper meaning.
There is no meaning in all of this... not any more.

DEFY!

We murder in the face of those who would condemn us.

DEFY!

We escape to deserted islands of lust and treasures.

We ask for one thing... to be relieved of all our fear,
While we're made to kiss the feet of those who wave their judgmental finger.

Shove me in your box,
And keep me ticking
Like a clock around your neck
Telling you when you'll end.

Expire.
You pathetic,
Selfish,
Ignorant,
Stupid,
Naive,
Fuck.

Some lovely poem I wrote.

Comfort in the dark
That's all I want and
That's all that I need
Folded notes on napkins
Picnics on those summer days
A dress that blows me away

And I can't understand why you sing
Into your pillows every night next to me

Don't be ashamed of who you are.
Because who you are is beautiful and loved.

Captivated by the sound
Of your brilliant way of thinking
That's all I really love.
Standing on the edge of this ground
On the tops of the highest mountains
Singing along to music when no one is around

I'll keep wondering why you keep hiding
Don't go unnoticed. Please find yourself...

...Please show it to me when you're complete.

I wish I really felt like this.

You... you put a spell over me
Reminding my eyes what they can see
Reminding my lungs that they can breathe
And you, you're a perfect work of poetry
You move like nothing that I've ever seen
If I could stay awake I'd never sleep

Just to hear your voice even through walls made up of cardboard
Houses on the corner of the empty streets of an empty city block
I swear that I'm not...

Just a passerby or a stranger admiring you from a view
From a window or anywhere I'm out of reach
And I will do whatever it takes just to hold you tightly
I won't let go of you when I can I promise you.

My fingers gently touching piano keys
Can't rival the sound of you sleeping and stirring
Under the sheets, oh no... not a chance in hell.
And I'd wait until the sun brought morning
I'd sit on your doorstep just to bring you a better
Day... and not something out of the ordinary.

Because I saw sparks but I'll never be able to bring them back
Not like firework up in the sky, nothing like that morning light

Maladjusted to the sounds, the fury and the rage.

“Hello.”

The doors wing wide open and you can hear the faint background music of a symphony of strings, manifested in this imagination by the sound of the coursing wind. The percussive strikes of the shutters banging against the window echo through the house and through memory. Natural theft, plagiarized from a dream. Electric humming and water falling through pipelines. Burning oil lamps and writing romance novels in the dark.

The hammer falls. Staccato. Short and sweet but with enough impact to make you weak in the knees and to tear your heart to pieces. Stale cigarette smoke mixed with a hint of lovers and the trail they leave behind. Documents. This feels more like a scene from a nightmare than from a screenplay. You’ve got your leitmotif. You’re accurately represented in a psychotically-induced court of law.

These things tug at your strings as if you’re a marionette: vices of yours that in daylight are underlying but in the still of the night shout at you, calling you a coward and a thief and a liar and a fool. Who are you? Just listen for your song as you begin your descent. You lay in bed alongside parasites and symbiotes. You’re carefully assembled for one purpose: self-destruction by any means necessary. Yet, how do you feel?

Is your heart full? I mean, REALLY full. By that I don’t infer to filling yourself with cheap whisky that makes you whisper songs to the tune of an old television show while you’re in bed with the lights off and the blinds shut so that the moonlight doesn’t break you from unconsciousness. Whispering thoughts of madness. When the sun rises in the morning you will never know its warmth and glory when the day is birthed. No… but your tune will play none the less, drawing closer in its stages to completion. The epic ending. That tornado that whisks you up off your feet and removes you from reality and places you into a fantastical world.

Hysteria at its finest.

The Homesick Traveling Salesman.

Walking around these suburban neighborhoods.
I've got my white button down on and a striped tie.
My shoes are completely covered in blood. How exciting?
I've got my name tag that says who I am, but somehow
When I look at it I feel unfamiliar. It's like looking
Into a mirror one day and realizing that years have passed,
And you're just a shell, shadow of your former self.
Still, I've got my expensive briefcase with the metal fasteners.

What am I selling to these people? What do I have left?
My eyes, my ears and my nose for those who wish to be beautiful.
My liver, my lungs, my guts for those who've never had them.
My heart, my brain, my throat will go to the highest bidder.

And as I tear myself limb from limb for these people,
Feeling so much pain just to forget my failures I collapse
On the front porch of an elderly woman's house. Bloodloss.
Who am I anymore? And what the hell is my purpose? Anyone?

Please?

Do I have a soul? And if I do am I going to hell to burn
And to rot amongst all of these sorry lunatics who gave it all,
Everything for their torment. For their ideas whey they weren't
Conforming to the widely accepted views of society? Am I dead?

Just because I'd never lust for the pornos and the sluts.
Just because I'd rather die than let my memory fade.
Just because I have so much hope in a world that has none.
Just because I love with everything that I possibly could.

I wake up on the porch of this woman's house,
And the maggots have already started gnawing at my flesh.
I ask her to take a gun and just ease my pain,
But no. I change my mind, pick myself up with my briefcase

And I walk.
Down the street.
To the next house.
And for what?

Because I am an artist, and that is what I do.

Viva Adore.

We are hopeless creatures, devouring everything in our paths and leaving destruction in our wake. Pandemonium strikes at the sight of our own wounds that would heal into scars and callouses if we would only stop picking the scabs. Upon realization that we're the ones making ourselves bleed we lick our wounds much to the distaste on our tongues. We share our disease with ones we love by jumping up and putting the world on their shoulders but not before we leave our impression and compassion and virulence behind in their mouths to infest their bodies and make them spew poison from every orifice. What's left to destroy? We stand alone in a crowd of bodies, the heat and the stink of sweat... can you imagine the way that it tastes? How could you adore? How could you look in the mirror and count yourself amongst the slaves and the devils that plague our society and still crack that twisted smile? Open your eyes. Open your ears.

No title.

Resign. Just step down and
For once in a lifetime reach
Into me. It's been so long
Since I've felt the warmth of
Someone else on my skin and
Even longer since I've stare at
Something other than my own
Reflection in that dirty mirror

I call and I call but
You're out doing business.
I call and I call but
You all far from home.

My bones will break
Skeletal failure to
Undo what I create
Bury the murder weapon
In the garden by trees
And a tranquil pond.
Unsuspecting places.
I'm just another fucking

Regret.

The river.

Yet another sleepless night,
Cold in my bed clutching a pillow.
Loveless to say the least I'm
Drowning in an ocean of blankets.

If I had a phone would it be off the hook?
Or would I be intently watching it, waiting
Wasting my time just to hear it ring and
Hearing a soft voice when I put it to my ear?

Cautious arrivals.
My shoes are under my bed,
To keep the nightmares
From walking over the glass.
I realize now that
It's not my dreams that need catching.
It's not what's out there that I fear
It's what's haunting me deep in my bones.

Hang me out to dry and don't
Sing me any songs tonight
Sweet dreams, carry me
Until I wake into the morning light.

I'm tired of metaphorically putting that gun to my head
I'm tired of threatening to pull that trigger right in front of you.

In the downpour
You can't tell the difference between
Tears and the rain
Except by distinguishing the taste of it.
I'm not responsible
For what happens in my lack of decision
Making states of mind
Blame it all on the taste of the red wine.

I haven't an angel to hold me up.
I haven't anything.
How did I become so predictable?
Save me? Darling...

The tears in your dress
And the markings on your back
So familiar to me and so
Untold to falling stories down

To the bottom of the darkest depth.

Don't wake me up.
The earth is the same as the hell that you fail
To save me from.
Nothing else on this side of the river means a thing.

Rain.

All of the sounds of the world have diminished to a whisper. Summers are just as cold as winters as far as my heart is concerned. I'm sitting on the porch, soaked to the bone from April rainwater, listening to the thunder and watching for streaks in the sky and all that I want is for something to define the moment. I'm shaking in my clothes yet I refuse to go inside. I'm waiting for something or someone to come bursting out of the sky.

Such a miraculous thing, but I'm drawing up conclusions and placing my hope in places that it doesn't belong. I am vulnerable. I am frightened. And as my body fights with all it has to keep this cold away, I feel nothing. I am nothing.

So I put my hands in my pockets, hoping that this will temporarily keep my hands a little warmer and I find a folded up note that I had written for a love-interest. It soaked though. None of the words on it are distinguishable anymore and my hands are all black and blue. Great.

It pours down harder. I'm a few steps away from the door but still I refuse.

I pull out a box of cigarettes and try to light one up with my back to the rain. Success, but it doesn't last long. Holding the soaken cigarette between my fingers I realize this is a metaphor for myself, and I look at it for a while before walking out to the road and throwing it into the street. I walk back, I sit down. I give up.

I give up. I fucking give up!

So I lay flat on my back and look up to the black clouds. There's no hope in finding what I'm looking for so I lay on my back and just accept death as it pours down on me. If I survive this flood, I'll still be left with lungs full of water. Pneumoniatic. Wheezing when I breathe, hardly able to contain the oxygen that I inhale.

If the sun breaks through, I'm already diseased. There is an expiration date on me, and it's a lot sooner than most of you. Because I put myself out there in the cold and found nothing but disease. I found nothing but emptiness.

Four hundred and twelve.

Where is home? I've forgotten.

I live my life from day to day,
From beaten street to street.
All of the street signs in the
World couldn't make me feel less

Lost.

All of the bridges across these rivers
Changing and aging just as quickly as I am.
All of these houses that are all along
These avenues painted with street lamps can't
Make me feel any more warm than I am,
Shaking in my shoes, forking up a couple bucks
To take the bus to the other side of town:
A place to sleep, an all night diner and a cup of coffee.

I stop by the post office to drop off a letter for my folks:
I'm doing well in the big city, mother. I've got a good job.
I'm making my bills on time. I wash my clothes every few days.
But in reality, I'm really not. I make my way around this town
By playing the blues on streets with so much pain in my voice,
I make a few bucks singing to strangers about how hard it is to
Live my life in the city when I'm so used to singing about the
Small town blues and just wanting to escape and find myself there
In the city: where there are millions of people but none of them
Not a single solitary one of them is me.

Removed.

Slip on the coat and buckle
And fasten. Outdate the latest
Fashion. Taste the ink that's
On the paper. Feel alive tonight.
Make some sense of this mess
Keep your faith but don't you
Hold on to it too tightly, for
It'll be pried from your fingers

Passing notes on airlines
Paper airplanes en route
To their final destinations.
Making their final approach.

When you wake up in the morning
And take a sip from your glass of
Water and that one first drag from
Your cigarette can you find it in
Yourself to come clean from everything?
Scrub meticulously in the shower but
The stench doesn't come off. Remove
That conversation from your thoughts.

Burn it like it never existed
Like all of the dresses and
All of the bridges you crossed
Only to be stranded on an island.

Bury yourself.
In trenches.

Lauren Bellfort (from the notes of Ryan Lancaster).

You're waiting by the sea, on the oceanic boardwalk along the bay front for my arrival.

You're biting your lip because you miss the way that I taste. You're tasting copper and salt.

You're looking into the horizon with your eyes as blue as twilight.

You're singing songs that echo off of the walls where you keep your vacant bed. It doesn't feel the same anymore without my warmth so you sleep on the floor.

Your hair is unkempt from the salty air, undyed. Your roots are showing because you just don't care anymore. You've got on your favorite dress. The one I always said looked the best on you. Your tears are leaving highways across your face because you can't stand the pain. You feel so alone.

Your arms are crossed.

I feel your pain.

A thing of a terrible past.

Shame, running from the faucets
Of rusty sinks. I spash my face with it
I'm trained to forget my feelings
And forced into a harsh, distorted body
I miss the feeling of country roads
With the wind in my face as we speed along
In a pick-up truck completely covered
With the dirt of the thriving countryside.

At the end of the day my life is cleansed
With the blood of the devil and the wine of saints.

And I cringe at the thought of you.
If you could see who I am at this very moment
I have no doubt that you'd be ashamed.
Because every time that you look at me
You have to come to the understanding that I...
I am your monster. I am your masterpiece.
As I lay here under the dim lights awaiting
Dissection, I'm singing your siren song.

Because it's all that I know anymore.
In a state of disrepair, and so alone.

The problem arises not recently
But is a thing of a terrible past.

Beautification.

Beautification; by definition I'm unsure as to what this word even means. I've never taken the time to look it up. As a matter of fact, most of the words that I use on a day to day basis weren't learned from any structural source. I just use them and assume that I know what they mean. Like beautification. I'd assume that it's the process of making yourself beautiful or attempting to enhance your features so that you're socially acceptable. I'm not one for this concept. For some reason, however, this word came to mind and I was thinking: "Is that even a real word or is it just something that my wild fucking imagination came up with?" No. Not at all. It exists. Have I looked it up? No. Do I intend on doing so? Not in the slightest.

When I think about beautification I constantly think of post-it notes that you attach to your face, to your hair, to your body in areas where you'd typically want people to pay attention to. Accentuated features. You write down any kind of compliment you'd possibly want or accept from this feature and stick it to yourself until you are one massive walking fucking post-it note and then you work your way in reverse, removing each note carefully so as not to get paper cuts. Self-improvement starts there. Gradually, as these notes that are stuck to your body decrease in number and as your hands become more and more covered with nicks and are turning reddish brown from the dried-up blood, you become more and more the person that you'd like to face in the mirror. You contest with yourself.

With time I suppose you get much better at and you're not constantly rushing to the store to pick up a fucking box of bandages. The better you get at making your self beautiful, the more and more you forget the things that got you there: those ugly scars and marks on your fingers. Those hideous bandages around your fingers, on the palms of your hand and so on and so forth making their way all the way up to your wrists. I honestly think that if a woman has beautiful wrists then she truly is a beautiful woman (just a side note). The further along the road that you are, the more likely you are to forget each and every step you made in the first mile of your hike. It's ironic in a sense that true beauty can lead to self-destruction in the sense that if you forget your roots, the reasons why you'd even gotten there will disappear until you're nothing but an empty shell. Beautiful on the outside, but completely devoid of any meaning in the inside.

It's also striking how once we achieve greatness, we disintegrate. Once we're on top of the world, we become complacent and let our guard down, only to fall down off of this proverbial throne that we've provided for ourselves and be usurped by the next King or Queen of the world. The next big this. Something much more beautiful. We stop putting those post-it notes on our skin because we feel we have attained the greatest things without keeping in mind that there is always someone or something greater than us there. There's always something or someone that should motivate us. Put some fucking fire under our asses. The scent of coffee in the morning air. Once we reach perfection, we are more comfortable with decay. So in a sense, beautification is both what it means by definition and its polar opposite. beautification is self-destruction. Now aspiration: that's an entirely different subject.

Beautification is to me the search for acceptance and the steps you take to get there. Physically as well as mentally and emotionally. You search for things in yourself and make mental notes as to what you need to improve on. You focus. You go to book stores and pick up books with advice that were written by authors that you've never fucking heard of in your entire life or if you have, they're sitting on top of a pile of money that an ocean couldn't contain and you've just provided their afternoon coffee outing at some Starbucks where you're guaranteed they're paying for overpriced products to illustrate their social stance. You read these fucking books written by these disgusting people because you idolize and worship them. When in reality, if you're going to take anyone's advice you should take your own.

Stand in front of a mirror and pick yourself apart. I deplore you. Put yourself on display and fix whatever may be ailing you. You might get those nicks from all the notes that you leave yourself, and you might not. But instead of writing down compliments for yourself that you'd expect from other people, size yourself up by your very own standards. Let down your hair. Be the you that you are when no one else is around. Because in my past experience if you work on you for you, you'll never have to fear being overrun and you'll never have to fear being the victim of constant fucking bullshit criticism from others. You'll have yourself to fend with. Although the nature of one's self is a worthy adversary in itself. If you can face yourself at your worst you surely can overcome anything or anyone else. This is the true definition of beautification, I think. You won't need to cover up your nicks and scrapes. You won't have to be the drunkest, loudest person at the party and therefore the center of attention, standing there in the limelight expected to say or do something but drawing a blank and hence the dissatisfaction that you'll eventually get from these people and their fake tits, plastic faces and their expensive evening gowns.

Be at war with yourself. Not with other people. You don't need a dictionary to help you discover that. While you're at it, take those little notes with all of their nice little compliments and shove them down the throats of those that you strive to impress.

I stole this from myself so I could get famous.

Glances shooting in all the wrong directions
Plagaristic parasites burrowing into my spine
Unfolding in front of me like paper airplanes
Scars on a porcelain city skyline mean nothing

Nothing at all to anyone of us as we
Waltz to the sound of breaking glasses
And the rhythm of running bath water
Pulling up our feet and sinking into it.
When we emerge we will be reborn into
Sadistic cruel adversaries of ourselves
Built of carrion and feed for the vultures
Built of fake smiles and kisses like razors

No one told me when I was a boy
That this would ever happen
I never really knew what to expect
I never expected to fail like this

Breathe out. Is it poison
That smell in the air feels
A lot like sitting in a car
With a hose in the window
Singing me to sleep softly
To the beautiful sounds of
Breaking glass in three/four.
Echoing in dimly lit hallways.

So it is said
That this passing of emotion
Will leave the river dry
So it is known
That this pestilence coming
Is sweeping the countryside
So it is broken
Into my skin like the
Bruises and scars in leather
So it is said
That I'm becoming nothing
Just like this dwindling population...

This is a chorus for the undying trees
Singing symphonies with the wind
Drunk off the wine that gives us our life
And falling sleep in the primordial jacuzzi
This is the song that we sing so loudly
From the tops of buildings in burning cities
Drowning so deep in our vices because we don't
Know what to do about them anymore...

Not anymore...
The taste of cigarettes
Replacing the love in the world
Burning at the stakes with
The witches and the prostitutes
Who said you could never buy love?
Love is nothing but a symbiotic
Parasite eating away at my knees
Love is nothing but a chemical in
Your mind. It isn't real but it
Means something. It means everything.
It's what makes this world go around.

Passion in the form of a pill
Says refill.
Passion in the form of a poem
Says throw me away.
Passion in the form of lust
Says be a stranger yourself.
Passion in the form of love
Says please forgive me I

Never meant to leave you high and dry
Come home. Darling I need you.
Passion in the form of a girl says I
Need to find something more for myself.

Keep on drinking alcoholic.
Keep on dreaming make-believer.
For the sound of glory will
In time open up its wings and
It will enfold you completely
You'll hear violins weeping for
You as you exit your body and
Return to the source of this
Circuitry and you'll be reborn.
You will rise from your ashes
And this parasite will be gone.
Eradicated from your consciousness
Erased and forgotten and when you

Taste the summer air
From the hills of this
Reformed countryside
Clean and full of life.
No secondhand smoke to
Crowd you in the corner
Of this room. No more.
You can taste the fresh
Apples hanging from trees
And smell the flowers that
Are blowing in the breeze.
You finally feel complete.

A mental picture.

Blood... dripping from the ceiling like rain seeping its way through like a leak that I refuse to fix (but I say I'm going to).

Downpour. Let the flood swell and take us away. We're trying to breathe but the taste of copper is overwhelming. There's the muffled sound of a stereo coming through the walls. Talk radio at the highest volume. This could overwhelm the sound of a jet if it were in the same room but it's stifled by the drywall.

Oh my god it tastes like blood.

11.89

My newfound inspiration
You're made of the same things
That good dreams are, darling.
I sleep well when you're here,
Walking around inside of my
Subconsciousness like you own
The place. Making me feel all
Sorts of warm in a cold world.

You're such a wonderful thing.
My only wish is that somehow I can make you feel
The way that you make me feel.
So that you can know just exactly how you bless me.

I want to twirl your hair in my fingertips
Get lost in your eyes (don't lose me).

Hands.

Why do I feel like a ghost?
Why do I feel like nothing I do
Makes a difference in the lives
Of the people who mean the most?
I'm buying them quick fixes and
Offering my priceless advice but
Nothing is ever kinetic. Nothing
Seems to change anymore these days.

I want to save you all from being
Afraid. From being held down.
I want to give you all my courage
And make fear a thing of the past.

You'll have the heart of a child if you
Stand by my side and never back down but
The company that you make will be what
Leaves you undone. You'll be just as lost
As I used to be. And I'm so scared that
When this happens I will have let you down
All you want is to find your way home and
Now that I've built mine with my bare hands
In the middle of nowhere, lost but aware I
Just want you to know that I'm here. I care.

So throw your heart in the wrong directions
Watch it crumble and break, weather away.
And if you get caught in the pouring rain know
That I'll always be here to hold you up.

All of you.
I love you.

(For the world... someday I will make a difference.)
The highway is long and it never ends, but I've seen every mile and I know where they go.

Pins and needles.

Feel the faint sensation in your fingertips.
You're beginning to breathe a little more steady.
From the top of this building get a birds-eye view.
It's so obscure. It's so misleading. Beautiful.

The sunlight hits the streets and the sidewalks,
Working its way effortlessly around whatever stop it.
I wish that I could be a little more like that.
Someday I will rival the sun in ambition and ego.

Someday every magazine will want to do a piece on me,
And every scientist in the world will want to dissect me,
And every critic in the world will want to bad-mouth me,
But I will be... Oh, I will be immortal.

But first I need to gather myself together;
Take control of my body, my soul and my mind.
Wash the bedsheets after my lustful nights
And leave the distilled happiness behind me.
Because it's not what they have made me, no.
It's what they've done and what they've broken.
I'm much better than the excuses that I make
But I can't seem to be mature enough to take the blame.

Someday I'll be on my feet, not in a bed.
Someday I'll look forward to what my day brings.
And someday I'll be in love like all of you.
Someday I won't have to live in burning envy.

My limbs are starting to wake up.

A metaphor for a pathological liar.

I take a glass of water and sip from it.
It's nothing special so I tear open a pack of sugar
And I dump it in. It all falls to the bottom and
I take a spoon and stir it in, and then
I take another sip. It still tastes plain
It's still nothing special so I tear open another
And I dump it in, let it settle and then stir.
Expecting different results this time but nothing...

Repeating, repeating, repeating...
Nothing seems to be good enough for me.
It's all bullshit and no truth.
And I'm pouring in lies... excuses.

Eventually it gets to the point
where the sugar is more abundant than the water.
Suddenly what's honest is overrun with sweetness.
Suddenly the truth hardly exists

Between grains... being held in and sticky.
Disgusting. It dries my throat.
I can't say that I want this anymore
But it's a little too late to decide now.

So I dump it in the sink.
All that truth is wasted.
And I start all over again.
And it's not long before I

Start tearing up packets of sugar again.

Returning empty handed.

I can't get over the way that my room smells like gasoline. I live in it. I sleep in it. I have a constant fear of lighting up a cigarette, only to see my entire life turn to ashes. I don't get out much. If I did, maybe I wouldn't care as much. For years I was never home. My bed stayed made, my clothes neatly folded and the posters and my writing on the wall just hung there unloved and unappreciated.

I'm out finding love. I'm out finding myself.

But then I return empty handed. My clothes are soaked and my shoes are worn in the soles. That familiar smell of gasoline returns. It makes me cough in my sleep. It brings fear again. Why am I here? For what purpose? I'm back to my roots but they're unaccepting of who I am.

Pete Townshend is on my wall telling me to leave. Trent Reznor. Bob Dylan. Eric "Slowhand" Clapton is asking me what happened to my guitar. I tell him "It got hit by a car when I left in in the street in New York city." But I'm making excuses.

I gave up the things that I love just to go out and make a name for myself. I don't even care anymore. I don't want to be some rock star. I don't want to be some writer. I have no goals, only questions. I need to find myself. But instead of going after what I know I love, I instead chase a dream. I chase something, someone that I could POSSIBLY love but don't in the moment. And what do I do in defeat?

I retreat. To a fucking bedroom with imaginary friends that could set ablaze at any moment. My life would be nothing. More nothing than it already is. And those posters that are on my walls are calling me crazy, because they are damned to live on my walls or to be taken down and thrown away. I'm just like them: Two-dimensional and just as disposable.

Deep inside of me I know what I want to do: Change the world. The problem is, I don't know how I'm going to do it.

The Devil...

The Devil isn't evil. He doesn't tempt you just to break you. He doesn't live in a prison and feed off the misery of others. He's not a fallen angel and he's not an usurper. He's not your stupid vices, he's not an excuse that you use for them. He's not the alarm clock that wakes you in the morning. He's not the bet that you lost a fortune on.

The Devil is a scapegoat. He's the poster-child for negativity. Because he was smart? Because he has a heart and a mind? I think the Devil loves humanity more than our maker does, though he does so with great reluctance. I think the Devil is responsible for inspiration and science. Fact. The Devil isn't a liar or a coward. He'll face you if you need him to and he'll prove himself when you call him out.

The Devil isn't cruel, he's just honest. And he isn't lonely, he's just in the wrong crowd. He doesn't sit around and watch daytime television and he doesn't take the lives of the people that you love. He's not your dysfunctional family or your father that left you for dead.

The Devil doesn't bribe you with eternal life or happiness. He simply begs for you to think for yourself. Since when has he told you to kill? To rape? To steal? Don't let the drugs do the talking and don't leave bruises on your lovers. Don't starve for days and not write a goddamn thing. Don't crash your car drunk head on into another one. Don't buy into the beliefs that other people feed you. You'll swell with regret. With disdain. With disbelief. Because the closer you come to being perfect the easier it is to break.

So don't break.

Don't be consumed with lust but love as you will. Don't have your feet nailed to the floor where you live and don't bleed throuh the floorboards. Don't break your back holding up the things and people and beliefs that you're supposed to but overwhelm you. Instead have your own. Run at your own pace. The Devil isn't impure. The Devil isn't evil. The Devil isn't corrupt. He's not a puppet master pulling your strings.

He's a beautiful song. He's love. True love.

He's an alcoholic. Yes, the Devil has problems too.

I think I am the Devil.

I lied. I wrote for you again.

Silence. All but the water dripping from the faucet into the sink two rooms away. You swore you would always love me. But it's not your voice or the sound of your breathing that fills my room anymore. It's not your smile being my sunshine every day from the moment I wake up. I miss you so much.

The good news, Carolina... there is no bad news.

I have you on my walls. I dug it in with my fingernails. Everything I ever wrote to make you smile. The alcohol graveyard that has filled your void since you've been gone. Since I left. I have everything I could ever want, but without you I'd rather be broken down.

Oh Carolina... with your flowers in the springtime filling the trees. With your beautiful city lights and your beggars on the streets belting out songs on broken guitars. I miss you.

I left a piece of me with you. From the moment I met you I knew you were my world and I threw it all away.

I still have your shoes. Your sand in my shoes. I still have the taste of you and your tears in my pillowcase. I still have your smile, Carolina. Come home to me and stay.

These drops of water are as loud as thunder.

Ink.

I walked along a city sidewalk
Drinking whiskey from a brown bag
Just the usual splash of warmth
Chased with a hint of nicotine and
Something caught my eye across
The bridge, hidden in plain sight
Something people would never care
to appreciate under normal circumstance

A young man in a long brown coat
Holding a lovely young woman in his arms
Black dress, high heeled shoes and
They were both smiling brighter than the
Brightest display of fireworks I've seen

I approached this couple in my drunken mess
And asked them how they make it work. How
Do they do it? What's the big fucking secret and
Why have I failed so many times to have this?

The young man told me to throw my bottle
Into the river. He took my cigarette from
my mouth and took a long drag, exhaled.
Immediately I found my arm around that lady
Cigarette in my mouth and completely sober
And she looked up at me and said "I love you."

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

On a transatlantic flight I look out
My window and see nothing but ocean.
I stare for a while and think "Oh...
That's nice. I wish that fucking attendant
Would bring me a rum and coke."
Eventually she does and I look out again

Miles upon miles of water
I'm inspired to write something
But by the time I dig out my pen
I've lost it.

So I'm sitting there, pen in hand
Like a gun loaded and ready to fire
But without a target, without a purpose
The attendant takes my cup and asks:
"You're a writer aren't you? I could tell..."
"I'm nobody famous..." I tell her and
I cut back to my little napkin, staring
Like it's a white ocean and I draw
A little dot on it and write the words
"You are here."

So I look out my window again
And I attempt to find the words.
It's a shame I didn't catch that
Inspiration when I could have and
Now it escapes me. Here I am
In the sky above the clouds. Above
The ocean without a thing in sight
Wishing I were drunk so I could just sleep.

There's some bullshit movie on the
In-flight monitors without any sound
(I forgot to ask for headphones. Pity me).
I watch it for a while and I can't say
But I figure it to be a romance film.
No sound, no words, just raw emotion.

No bullshit, really.
I wish real romance was this.
Where we don't talk so much.
There's much more in motion.

It strikes me hard to write this down:
"If love is an ocean, consider me the
Crazy asshole on the beach drinking
It from a glass wishing it would just
Get me really fucking piss drunk."

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The weather outside is terrible
My flight was delayed two hours
And you're sitting there holding
My hand. Extended goodbyes
I know I'll miss you more now
That I've held you a little longer
I've kissed you just a little more
It's getting so much harder...

I'm unshaven and in a shirt and tie and
Jeans you bought me as an early gift
With my suitcase full of notebooks
Full of words that I've written for you
You're in a dress wearing some flats
And spent three hours on your hair
And make-up just for the impression
"While you're gone, remember me like this."

You're holding my hand tighter
Than you have ever before.
Making the most out of that time
Before we'd be tied by miles.
Holding me tight like you'd
Never have to let me go.
Wouldn't that be something?
I think it really would.

Holding back your tears like you're
Holding back a collapsing wall on your own.
I know it's just a matter of time before
You do. Before the floodgate bursts and breaks

To be honest this delay just makes it harder
Because once you're gone, once I've departed
I'm going to wish that I was nowhere other than
Where you are at that exact point in time.

I know you're going to write me
Countless letters while I'm gone so that
You can give them to me when I come home
So that I can see how much you missed me
You know that I'll call you every night Not keeping
In mind that you can't always answer the phone
Hours later you'll check your voicemails and
Hear my voice in a tone of complete utter defeat

The world is so damn big but
It'll never stand in between us, sugar.

At the sound of the boarding call
On the intercom I hear your breathing
Getting heavy and hard to keep pace with
As my heart sinks into my stomache
Still, I don't think I'm comfortable with
Letting you go. No, I need another minute
Another hour. Another kiss goodbye. One,
And I'll be fine. I know I'll see you soon.

Because every cold night that you're not there
I meet you in my dreams
No matter how much of a nightmare the days are
When you're not around.

After about three hours, we get up to
Grab a cup of coffee. We stand outside
And hand-in-hand we kiss as flakes of snow
Melt in our warmth. You pull back and
Look into my eyes and tell me how much
Even though it hurts a little you love long goodbyes
Because we appreciate every single second
Like it's the last time we have together.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I've had this friend for years
I suppose you could say we're rivals
For years I was jealous of the
Attention he got when I got none.
He became renowned for his work
And I have to admit, he was great.
Like a modern day Hemingway.
Grace in every word he'd written.

I was in town for a short while
He asked me to coffee, set time aside
I was there early, eager to see him.
He was an hour late, drunk... disheveled.

When I asked him why he was late
He shrugged and said he was nervous.
I asked him why and he replied:
"Because after all these years, you've won."
I didn't quite understand so I asked him
If he could elaborate on what he said.
He took off his jacket, ordered his
Drink and then looked me in the eye and said:

"All I wanted to be wasn't famous.
It wasn't to be rich. To be well-known.
It wasn't to be the best at what I do, which
To be honest I certainly am not."

I asked him again what he meant.
His words reached millions. Moved them.
They're the most eloquent in modern print.
He had earned his way to fame.

He said:
"No, my friend.
All I wanted was to be you.
And now I realize,
I'm the furthest thing from it."

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I used to read up magazines and
Would pick out the most ridiculous
Articles just so I could see what
New Bullshit people were buying into
I used to watch movies all about those
Young kids falling in love because I
I believed that was the closest thing that
I could ever seem to have to it.
I used to open my big stupid mouth to
Motherfuckers walking along the streets
So I could boast about myself, that I'm free
And how they all are just fucking sheep.
I used to go to social drinking places
To tell the girls that are the life of the party
How fucking ugly they really truely are inside
And how it took alcohol to make them interesting
I used to go to coffee shops and hope
That there was a vacant table or booth for just me
Because I hate being social when I'm
Catching up on my Bukowski.

This might be why I have no friends.
I really need to work on that.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Just a note to all the girls
Who want to feel love but
Always have trouble with boys
With your huge teased hair
And your band shirts you got
From hanging out with whoever
That you kissed because you're easy
And find you cute because you're fake
Who make music that you don't even
Listen to unless you're on your
Stupid socializing websites.
Falling in love with all those e-boys
And breaking their hearts like you do.
I see you in the mall buying your
Stupid clothes from all the trendy stores
And you claim to make your own shit.
You wear those stupid fucking sunglasses
And strut around like the world should
Kiss your feet. Yeah... you with your
Slutty tattoos and your gratuitous piercings
I'm really disgusted by you and I hope
Every single person you've fucked has
A disease for being so shallow to fuck you.

I need a fucking drink and an acoustic guitar.
For real.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Tonight I wrote a few poems
Personally I don't think I'm any good.
But I write because I want to
Move people. But they never
Read a word that I have to say.
Maybe that's why I don't like
What I write? I don't know.

Sometimes I'll leave my notebook
On tables in cafes and watch intently
To see if anyone picks it up and
Reads what I'd written inside.

No one really does.

I think I might just throw them
Into my fireplace some night
And just start from scratch. Yeah...
Now THERE'S an idea!

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The thing that I hate about former loves
Isn't the memories that we'd made I suppose
It's the goddamn keepsakes that I can't
seem to get rid of no matter how hard I try.

Out of the love in my heart
I decided to fill a notebook up
With poetry and drawings for
And about her that was unfinished.
Now the damn thing sits in my closet
And I can't seem to throw it away
Because despite how much things changed
I still put a lot of heart into it.

Next to that I have a photo album
I burned most of the photos from it.
And then there are labels and corks
from wine bottles along with her notes.

I don't want to offend her by throwing it all away.

And at times I'll turn on the radio
And I hear songs I used to sing to her
I know without a doubt that she
Fucks her new boy to those same songs.
(Come on, be a little more creative!)

I've turned the page. Yet it seems
Like your ink had leaked through.
Soon you'll be gone, phased out.
By then, I'dve sent all this shit back to you.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I walked through the rain tonight
Smoking a cigarette. Kept getting
Upset because it kept going out
Or of course getting soaked. In
Which case I'd just have to start
Anew. I hate wasting cigarettes
Especially since they keep me calm
And I never seem to have one when
I need it the most. I get this
Anxiety. Like the world is going
To fall apart right when I smoke
My lucky. And I won't have one
Left to calm me down so I can
Figure it out. Solve that problem.

I think I'm going to die of anxiety
Long before I die of lung cancer.
I want to die playing Ziggy Stardust.
Is that random? I think so but really

Who the fuck cares? It's a dream.

Coughing up butterflies.

You and I, coughing up butterflies
And spilling chocolate on the floor
Along with a bottle of wine that we
Bought for our anniversary night
Celebratory bliss in this room with
Lukewarm water in the bathtub and
Empty cups of tea on the dresser
We left the lights on in the closet

I can feel the air between you and I
As we breathe, faces half-buried in
Pillows and I'm fixated on only you
Those dark eyes so full of love and
Your make-up doesn't look nearly
As perfect as you do. Your hair is a
Mess and I swear on everything I am
You couldn't look any more beautiful

You touch my face and I reach for your hand,
Because your fingertips are cold as ice and I
Swore a long time ago that I keep you warm,
That you would never feel cold, never again.

You and I stand up together to pour another drink
And you switch the vinyl on the turntable. There's
The sound of the needle picking up silence. You're
Looking desperately in my eyes and you lean into me.
That taste. I can never get over the taste
Of love when it comes from the press of your lips.
The sound. The song. Those three words
And how they're defined by moments such as this.

You don't need to say it because I know,
But still... you say it anyways.
Just to make sure that I know for sure.
Just so that there isn't any doubt.

Horizons.

Awakening; tearing down the bridges from reality to memory.

I hear a whisper in my ear: "Breathe..."

Swimming in an ocean of desperation. Starving. Every night I'm reminded of where I should be and I awaken to a cruel world filled with longing. At the horizon, the clouds meet the water. The sky touches down.

I'll meet you there.

Just one more drink please?

I need an old beat up guitar
In an old beat up guitar case
And an old beat up notebook
To get this out of my heart
I need some minor sevenths
And some major ninths just
To say what it means to me
To grow up just like a tree

And someday boy, you'll touch the sky
Just keep reaching, don't ever grow tired
These weights around your ankles won't
Hold you for long, just sing you a song

Today I woke up with this
Bad taste in my mouth that I
Got from a night on the town
With my terrible company
I got out of bed and I put on
My jeans from the night before
Wrinkled in the opposite
Corner away from my bed

And I walked to the city square
Bought myself a newspaper and
Began to read again but the only
News these days is bad news

So I left it behind
On a coffee shop table
Made my way home
And crawled back in bed

Today just isn't my day.
And neither was yesterday
But I'm making recovery
Just one more drink please
To sing me to sleep tonight
I'll wake up tomorrow and
Make something of myself
I promise tomorrow will be

My day.
It's gonna be a
Good day.
Just give me some
Good news
And I'll alright soon.

II

They have a name for people like you. They have a lot of pointless, pretty words. They have bullshit. They have lies. Because underneath that make-up I know what you are. You're a cancer. You're a fucking disease, and you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are broken, just as broken as I am on the inside. But you deflect. You're in control. You're the one asking all the questions and you're the one telling all of the lies.

I imagine you breathless with your knees to your shoulders and my mouth against your neck. You're wearing nothing but bruises on your neck from my hands. Your eyes are open as wide as your legs and you're begging me to steal every single last breath from your body and to taste every last drop of your spit. I've tasted your body, and you taste of sweat and lust and heaven. I've tasted your blood from when I've bitten down on your lip to get you going. You gasp. Another breath, stolen.

I hold you down by your wrists and you act as if you want to escape but you are where you belong and you know it. There is nothing more to want than being used to you. Because your body is mine but you don't understand. Because just as your body is mine, my soul screams your name when the nightmares come because you are my only rescue.

But you have this way of destroying me. Not calling back when I'm at a payphone in the pouring rain stranded on unknown streets tasting like liquor. It's the only way that I can replace your taste. Nothing burns when it goes down like you do. Not even shame. And then you come around.

And I hold my arms around your body and you tilt your head back as your lips meet mine. I know that I'm terminally ill with a broken heart but I keep coming back for more. Cheap motel rooms with broken sinks and showers with brown, dirty water. The bed is littered with burn holes from cigarettes. Forgive me.

Because you are just as diseased as I am. There is nothing healthy about me at all. But I aspire to be your everything. I aspire to make you choke on three words. I aspire to be the pillow that smothers you. Suffocate. I mean this figuratively of course.

You are the ocean. And I am the breeze. I am the storm. We are homewreckers and heartbreakers, the both of us. We are broken, tormented and tortured souls. But we are so right for each other. In the end we might destroy one another. But until then we are...

Maps.

Unwind like a ball of yarn
I'm slowly getting smaller
As the miles pass underneath
My feet and I grow tired
I have nothing left but to
Pull myself in but someone
Is standing on the other end
Stopping me from becoming

Whole again...
I need to regain my sight
My ability to touch
Has been greatly dulled and

I can't find a way to fix this
Hole that is in my ceiling
Rain somes dripping down on my
Face and it's keeping me from sleeping.

I waste away starting from Carolina
Making it's way across Texas pavement
I can't let go of the home I made out
In the deathly cold of the Midwest.
And as I reel it in I catch flowers
I catch letters I catch reasons to return
But I'll never call it home again.
I'll never show my face in those parts again.

My ears are ringing
Filled with traffic, and misleading
Road maps look like veins
And there's a piece of me in every one of them.

Nothing special.

I wont forget the way September tastes. The way I lost everything and in defeat I walked away. You were wrong about me. You could never keep me warm. Swallowed it down with the taste of strangers, it burned in my hollowed out ribcage. Living on pillows and sheets and falling asleep to the lullaby of passing trains and a ringing telephone that I refused to answer. Static on the television. Dreams of a bigger life but not knowing if the world would change. Losing hope... I lost all hope in you. Your city's lights grew dim in the back of my mind but you never could. And all of these stupid acoustic songs I sang at the top of my lungs completely drunk in bars filled with smoke and people I wouldn't dare keep with were cries out for attention because no one else would listen. I can't forgive myself, and neither should you. Goodbye for good, my dearest friend... I'll always remember when I tasted you (and nothing will replace it).

by the ocean

There was a beautiful young lady at the end of long a dock. I could hear the sounds of the ocean all around me. The air smelled like salt. The wood on the dock was peeling up from age. Without shoes, your feet would be torn to ribbons. She was looking down at her shoes a while and she looked up at me. Never noticed I was standing there.

She put out her arm and motioned for me to come closer with her fingers. But I was afraid. The wood of the dock could collapse from under my feet and I'd be feed for the sharks below without a hope of getting out of there alive. They can smell blood and I've many an open wound from transversing the world, being weathered with the seasons like a stone in a riverbed.

Scars all over my body from beautiful women who tasted like cigarettes but never of love or compassion. From where they'd claw into my back as I made love to them but in the meantime I was only a cheap fuck.

Scars from all the friends who held knives behind their back. Some used them as foodholds to climb up on my shoulders, pull my dreams out of the air and smash them on the ground below. Some just wanted to see me bleed, hiding a cruel smile behind their teeth.

This girl is my way out. If only I could reach. If only she could write down her telephone number and send it to me via paper airplane, but it'd blow away with the breeze. This girl is familiar and I can feel it in an open wound in my chest. This feeling... I've had it before but it never was seen to fruition. I know her face, I know the way she tastes and I know the softness of her skin.

That finger that she motions with, that she's beckoning me with has touched my face and cleared my eyes of tears. Her voice rings in my ears with a million apologies and harsh words. She doesn't taste like cigarettes and she spits when she kisses me because I do. She doesn't taste like alcohol.

She is an angel. But when she was painted into existence, she was left unfinished. She is broken and she's broken me. But I can't help but admire her here, by the ocean.

progression isn't a matter of playing out of key, it's a matter of singing your own tune

Humming along to the tune of violins. Beautiful sounds fill the room but in my head and caught in my throat... discord (something else).

I'm finding it difficult to put the melodies to the harmonies. I'm out of sync. I'm on the floor beaten and bloodied, catching my breath and waiting for the deathblow.

I need to find my way to my feet. I need to fight this, but I'm unsure as to if I have the strength.

And every time that I let out even a breath of air, I'm spitting out nothing but blasphemy. I'm out of key. Singing along to a different song in my head while the others are playing their grand symphony. I wish I could agree.

Forte! Forte! Crescendo some more! Until I'm screaming my lungs out. CAN YOU HEAR ME?!