The Last Straw

i don't wear patience cleanly. 

It tends to restrict my blood flow,

and it feels heavy in my hands,

like the time scale of Olympus

has been piled into the tiny space of my years,

forcing me to lie prostrate

and accept the creeping march of days over my back.

People assume stars are patient

because they live for eons.

Stars know nothing of patience,

that's why they are on fire.

Another L

i can swear i wouldn't answer,

i can boast i never shed a tear

but ever since you smashed my heart every smile's been a lie.

in the quiet between darkness and dreams,

the brutal honesty before a soul sleeps,

the memory of your softness creeps.

i reach the end of the world and the beginning of life

and i know it'll be another sad and empty night,

i hear your voice, i feel your touch,

but imagination's not enough.

you were the waves, you were the wind, you were the sun upon my wretched skin,

and i hate you for the hopeless, distraught, miserable wretch i have become.

Worse For Wear

you have no idea how deep i have to dig

to find the energy to keep doing this,

how white knuckled every single day is,

waking to the same long road

each time i'm plucked from sleep.

i wonder if gravity ever gets tired.

If the center of the earth could be inside 

one man's vacuous skull, 

that's where i go to harvest this primal burning that pushes me onward

leaving nuclear ash in my furrows.

If i ever give up,

the conflagration will be visible from 

Betelgeuse

You Choose Not To See

i have been hiding in plain sight,

everted and flaming

but forming such a discreet chimney of my mouth,

volcanic ash exhaled as incense,

rotting wounds expertly concealed

with such drippy sweetness

you'd believe a fistful of pomegranate seeds had exploded on your 

tongue,

their juices ravishing you hubris,

to loose the mask in my death throes

will make a strange viaticum indeed. 

Firebug

You look away

from me

like a fire

that is neglecting

the cries of 

what it burns

You may choose not to see

this pain within me, 

but that doesn't mean

you get to pretend

that you're not the one

who caused it.

What A Wicked Novel

Years down the line

at an undetermined point in time

when i am looking back

on the experiences of my life

both the splendid; the sublime

and those marked by cold regret

i'd stake my life on it that

the story i lived with you

will always SCREAM the loudest

it will bleed

off the pages

it will roll

off my tongue

like slow honey

golden and glowing

taking cover in colour

STILL refusing to be over

Meat Is Back On The Menu

i will never forget nor forgive the taste of the blood i have spilled for you

and your progeny.

like all my strength returning home again

to wake the sleeping lion in my chest,

and no i am going to run.

Not in fear, but in defiance

back to myself, whatever that may be.

Hollow or not.

To the ancient and burnt out ruins of a long forgotten life, 

to the Rome that was me before you sacked the city.

i will drip poetry from my veins

while i feast on all the truth i have swallowed

and the revelations i hold with both hands

Psalm Of Desire

i want your mouth to hunger for my name like a starved beast

and for my soft syllables to slake your yearning down to your bones.

i want you to roll around in my words,

feeling them like my hands exploring your very soul, 

pressure in all the rights places just to make your heart

beat alittle faster.

Letting those words take root under your ribs.

i want you to water the tree that grows there and pray beneath its

branches as it carves me into your soul.

i want you keep pieces of me in boxes and notebooks and buried deep in your heart-

the veiled pieces that only you have ever seen.

i want you to start with my eyes,

to tell me that somethings will always be true,

that you can't breathe without the scent of my skin.

Ritual release

recently i've been wondering whether it's even possible 

for someone to love me the way i love others

loving people ruins me.

if you're not going to love to the point of ruin, why bother?

it's how the Christ loved us as he hung there dying.

love should consume us.

it should prompt us to empty ourselves.

i am emptied.

Hollow.

and still filled and filled again with the love that swallows 

me whole,

unnoticed. Unreciprocated.

Ruining only the floor with the stains of its fervor

i smell bullshit

i've chewed through truths

with razorblade sides

and i've stomached lies

that have burned through my belly like bile. 

so the shit you feed me

won't be the worst i've ever tasted

some people learn to measure lovers by how bad they make it hurt

Presence

your presence

doesn't shake me

not anymore

and funny

my presence

doesn't let you 

stand still

No More Running

one day
you won't be able to run away.
one day you won't
be able to deny.
because one day
love will shine down
on you and there
will be no pace to hide.
one day you will
begin to believe
that another could
love you in ways
you once thought impossible.
But then it will be too late,
and all the love you pissed over
and burnt to the ground
and abandoned
will catch up with you.

A Thought Of Fathers

sometimes dads are tough.
he'll seem cold and callous.
he'll raise the bar
just as you're about to reach it.
it's not that he doesn't care,
but just the opposite.
fathers fear their children not
being ready for the world. and he knows
iron sharpens iron.
so he is willing to be
misunderstood in the
short term, in exchange
to show his love
for the long term

Shipwrecked

The bed can be an ocean

the space between sheets

a shipwreck flanked by

floating debris

The

sinking

death

of you and me

Read It And Weep

you desperately wanted
to hold a story of me.
But my love,
i am more than just a poem.

i am a novel.

i am all the things your eyes
simply skim over,
but fail to read.
i am depth, i am vibration,
i am the voice you long to hear.
and you will only realize my truths
after you've put out my fire for you.

A Poem From A Poet

only a poet
can be poetic
about what hurts him,
others just mourn.

only a poet
can make poems
out of his pain,
others just complain
how they don't want it.
for poets it's deeper than that
the roots are not pulled up
so easy.
oh how it hurts...

Past The Lips...

on my lips are the ghosts

of every storied regret

words; truths unsaid

that taste like acid

and burn;

both going down

and coming out...

it's a silent sort of suffering
to fall victim; frequently
to a stuck tongue
that nonsmoking gun
the shot we didn't take
the love we never made
the tsunami waiting to break
over the shores of hardened heartache

Regallity

she drizzles golden roses
greening me a smile
my mind's at the finish line
she's purple-teasing my crown

but first...

let's play conscious chess.
where she consents and i do too.
where we play time into motion
staying present too.
three, where we tread water and
stroke our egos royally.
yes, the real fun is in-between
the left strokes and above the knights
irrational, regal, but we like rational too.

You Are Art

When i look for love,

i find art

and when i look for art,

i find you

A Silly Dream

if ever one day

you sit and ruminate

carefully contemplate

the agonizing choice... 

"To stay, or to go?"

i'd rather you go

i only need 

the kind of love

that knows

it belongs

in my tomorrows

that wants

to try

to give effort

to fight for it 

because it means something more to them.

nothing to do with money

or power.

but human value

human worth

in another.

such a silly dream...

Have A Little Grace

leave people,
but, with best
possible grace.
departures do not have
to be devastation's and ruin.
departures can be just
goodbyes.

Of Course i Know Him

i have seen

the harshest of souls

damn love and all that it is.

But that's how i know it's real.

Because had they not felt love, 

they wouldn't despise it

for its counterpoint 

A Mere Moment

turbulence's begin.
her two wings tremble violently
he. stuck in the center of it all
wind swirling, windstorm brewing
control reaching, breaking point.
waves reaching tipping point.
head over water, sensations blurred

he stays the unruly course. sucker pilot

he remembers the house rules, c'est la vie.
love coated desires reach climactic endings
he stays the course, steering courses
this is the lightning before the thunder
before the lightning, again.
the house is burning down
in loving rage inside climatic desires
it gives up the ghost, ceases, when in New England

Not Even A Thought

Check your pulse...

yup still dead

and what do people do with the dead?

they mourn

they speak

they leave

they forget.

once again merely a memory

a glancing idea only when the issue is forced.

The dead do not speak

they do not advocate 

they simply are.

i am what am

What place do the dead have with the living?

They don't have one.

That's why they are pushed aside into a corner

of the world and forgotten.

No more worth

No more value

No more time.

That's why you forget them

that's why days go by and you could not spare a thought

Like her before who could not spare two seconds and three words

now you are not even a thought in passing.

That's why we say passed away. 

Being of value has passed and we are left with a corpse

useless and ugly

not worth thought or time

old religions believed that the body is just the shell

that when we die only the empty shell remains

do you see now?

the hollow feeling

the emptiness

the lack of value and of worth

what else could he be but dead?

nothing but a memory if anything at all

not a thought

not an idea

just a pile of bones sliding in between the moments

of your life without you even noticing.

i am not shaming you

simply explaining reality

the dead mean nothing

that's why you don't see or spare a thought

for the rain sodden old scarecrow

the dead are dead so why do they matter?

they don't

and you made it so

A Glimpse

Throughout this monstrous campaign of pain and regret i have tried ultimately to find the man i am or was after becoming lost in divinity of another. i am surprisingly good at that, losing myself in another. Something darkly romantic about it think. Almost Victorian. In any event one question, one goal has been constant throughout. When i was married the answer was simple, direct and obvious. Also true but who cares about truth nowadays? The question? The one i have been on the hunt for since before i can remember?

"What makes you happy?"

Not so easy now but...

the people i love, sunshine through forest trees as the winds speaks through the leaves, the smell after it rains or of fresh cut grass, my daughter or the way her hair shines like Plutus personified in the sun. The kind of hug that knits you back into one piece for awhile. Writing (albeit poorly if you couldn't tell). The ocean. Roses. A cold drink on a hot day. My dog and cat greeting me when i return home from work. A good book. Music. 

Only one of them is a big thing. The rest are little things. i've always preferred small things and their tiny details. The big picture tends to hurt, and focusing on that widens the chasm within me (if that were all possible). Between the divide, there is a bottomless numbness; a vast void that is effortless to fall into. i don't know how to explain, except to say that the little things help create a bridge. They line up and then fuse themselves together so i can cross over to another day. 

i get really tired

and sometimes, i can't bring the little things into view enough to want to continue. If i am being honest, most days. More often than not. Yearning only for nothing. Imagine not wanting anything but... nothing. No more anything.

Most people people have "off" days or bad days; they're normal, a part of life. But mental illness is different and omnipresent. With mental illness, you have good days...

Because inner turmoil and/or pain IS your baseline.

Once In A Blue Moon

a letter for a former love
written using words and sentences from a text exchange
jumbled and rearranged in a new order of chaos. Since that is what you
love more than anything, certainly more than you ever did me.

so it goes existence is pain and adulthood requires so many tears
still i keep finding myself in pockets of time where i'm genuinely happy
it's appalling really the blue moon hangs from the sky saying

i am here

against all expectations an accumulation of setbacks in the forward march of

time i am here and so i must tell you what i could not tell you with as

much sincerity as i can muster; you feel like home, it wasn't a lie then

and it still remains true even after having lost naivety around love

i really did love you

i hope your heart is well

at least for tonight and tomorrow

Who's Paying Attention?

Who are you hoping reads
your words and feels it
beneath their skin?
the ones who have felt my absence?

It's so silly.
i am clumsy
and i trip on hope
of what could be,
instead of what is.

More Cinders

i bloomed when i met you
grew from and empty husk
into something more, something
that wanted to be more.
now i've wilted; dried; died; been lied to
pressed between the closed pages
of a story i once believed
could shake the earth
and bring light into the world.
Alas the story is much better when both people
believe in it, not just one. When vows mean
something to both, not just one. When both hold value,
or worth, not just one.

so consume me
entomb me
exhume me
use me up again
until i'm spent
then turn me to ash

it wouldn't be
the first time
and doubtless; the last.

Didn't Know What i Was Expecting

i searched for worth or value

in loose lips

and tested her tongue for a word

far too heavy

for her empty palms to carry

and her withered soul 

to hold

Devour

in me burns the most

Catholic of longings: to

devour the divine.

Carthage

a ghost with no bed sheet
do you see?
of course not.
blindness is an epidemic.
you choose not to see.
happy in the Carthage you made

Have i Been Here Before?

How the light lit those eyes up

like smoke screens and nicotine.

and provoked a summer day

that burned like a memory i inhaled;

familiar

Last Rites

our memories lurch
to a reluctant halt
in their funeral march
so i can pour salt
over them one last time

Meaning

until connection is established
and kissed with intuition
meaning is elusive.
yet, concretely
all meaning is blind imitation

Sinful

she's on the way.
yes, my love's side piece.
arriving with an ache,
she whispers.

i hear her.

knocking behind mystery,
i murmur.
hurry up, tear it down.
gift me drunk history
and sinful clarity.

What We Do Best

The last thing i remember

is how you looked in my eyes

as you left.

how you vanished from my sight,

but, i didn't stop looking.

but, i didn't stop loving.

how i did what i do the best

and how you did what you do the best;

and that is to say goodbye

without saying one.

Well Off

the darkness looms over
even, as stars litter the night,
to see the Beauty that is
the love obscured
the blinding light
we watch evenly but,
is a well mind adequate?
when the light stings,
must love shine through?

Wishful Thinking

as i pause in this

moment of where do i 

go from here, 

i feel a cool breeze

on the back of my neck. and i am 

washed with the feeling that although

i am alone, i am not alone.

because people aren't so different,

because some hopes run together

and some wishes bleed into

one. 

No Going Back

When you find beautiful
depth with someone,
nothing else will ever do.
nothing else will
ever be good enough.

because you have been
awakened to the fact
that mere moments in the
abyss holds more intimacy
than years on the surface.
and once you become
conscious to that,
there is no going
back to sleep.

Long Story Short

In the book of us
we wrote at your pace

i was only the margins

holding your place
while you dictated the page
i wanted to help
set the narrative
but you decided everything
by choosing nothing

you stopped our story
in the middle of a sentence
and i haven't heard
from you since

The Old Ape

There is an old tale of an undying ape, who guards one of the entrances to Nirvana. Eons old, he sits and tends to a white lotus, the lotus of the palace. Its aroma is said to attract female apes. So the old one sits and tends to it ever so gently in the hopes to present it to his bride should she ever come.

They say that an undying being is the sign of an infested body, stagnant and corrupted. Stuck between this world and the next, unable or unwilling to move on. Such a long life would surely be lonely, even for an ape.

At one time, the ape shared his den with a mate. But he alone became infested , while the other passed away. Now, even the flowers offered in tribute to her passing have withered unto dust.

Remnant

No longer do i

have the instinct 

to fight

or

to flee

i only know how

to remain.

A Little Bit Of Pain

Throughout this all

i have found one thing.

And that is that pain, in all its forms, are never as beautiful

as people can make it sound. Haven't you learned by now

that it hurts either way?

Beautiful

Beauty is....

it resides in and out of oxymorons.
in the drug, out of the malady and the choice.

sometimes, it seduces what, a dazzling violet delight
when, creative projection must, shatter pitter patter.

leaving.

fragments of truth, left.
holistic perception, right.
beauty, dead, center.

i Hate These Dreams

i dreamed of you
after a long time as i
always have. Even before
and even after.
And yet even in a dream,
even for alittle while,
i couldn't be with you.

i Think It's Time...

driving far away

from the sea

(away from you,

away from me)

the clouds are golden

and you are

shining

fading

into the horizon

a glowing goodbye

Not One Bit

i loved you more

than i had room for

and i regret

not a bit of it

Do As i Say, Not As i Do

If it takes all out years
we must build these bones
into something our reflection
can admire, something that
the gods will say, "Well done."

Want

Yeah,
maybe i did love
alittle insane.
but at least i
had the courage
to lose myself in
something i
truly wanted

My Princess

i will not tell

my daughter that

she can be anything

she wants.

i will tell her

to be herself;

and then anything

she wants

will float beautifully

towards her

If Only

You live vividly in my dreams
where i paint you in forever
and love you wildly
where "timing" isn't our end
and "circumstances"
don't tear us apart

Down To The Depths

implosion; erosion; time in slow motion
you chewed up and spat out my unwanted devotion
like words that never tasted right on your tongue
i drown in color as you fill my lungs with promises
i black out as you break them

i will not

sadly

surface

again

What Is The Common Thread?

This is why you can't have nice things

(like me...ish)

Because it's YOU that literally breaks everything

So keep spinning gold into shit

and then trying to avoid 

stepping 

in it. 

What's the common denominator here? Your style in choice has a part but look at yourself. At what point do you fix you? At what point do you stop running to the same thing? i was different in so many different ways. Yes i was broken, yes you couldnt fix me nor did i need you to. All that was needed was for you to be light at the end of the tunnel. Sadly, you left. And now you can thoroughly enjoy being with an old, out of shape, hairy (yet not on his head), incredibly despised, Peter Pan syndrom, jerk who dresses like he's nine years old. Good luck with that.   

Soulless

The soul defines existence,
It's expression is found in feeling,
choice,
and action.

Look upon thee
Entreat with the undying Yomi
whose visage is hate made manifest,
and become one with life's circle again