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.