Return to the Bottom

I want to lay down and sleep
Forever dreaming of the days I woke to your smile
The heady aroma of everything you are
Keeping me on the highest cloud
I want to return to the days
When I lived in your heart
Because I don't know where to go from here
In the world of today where "alone" is just as abstract as "dream"
And I don't think I remember who I was before I was yours
So
I want to lay down and sleep
Because I remember the view from the bottom
Where the floor needed vacuuming
And the old show under the bed was a comforting friend
The thing is
The bottom is up from where I am now
And above that is the dream of the memory of
You
I want to lay down and sleep
Because falling so far after rising so high
Feels like jumping off a bridge and not dying
I need to lay down and sleep
Before I start to fight the instinct to survive
And dreams become the reality of sleeping forever

How to Operate With a Broken Heart

I'm trying to find the words
Or a way to explain what's in my heart
All the feels piled on top of me
Pinned under their weight, I couldn't breathe
Until this crack in my chest opened to a chasm
And I stood up feeling numb.
The real fuck of it is
The world looks the same and nothing's changed
Just a slight tint from my eyes that makes everything look just a little blue
So I just put one foot in front of the other with a smile
Walking through an unchanged world that doesn't give a damn
Inside I'll ask "what about me?" and "what about my plans?"
Then I'll choke back that sob and keep walking
Keep smiling
Because nothing's changed.
It's the end of the road
And I still got bills to pay
I still got to eat and sleep and work and dream
With this mask upon my face
Stepping one foot in front of the other with a smile
Passing all the faces that taught me what it is to sonder
Don't you know this hurt?
Can't you feel this pain?
Fuck no they don't care
Why would they give one fuck when
I can't wake up in the morning feeling happy or
How I cry myself to sleep every night because the nightmares just won't stop and
There's fear bleeding out from under the bed and coming out of every closet
And I'm trying to find the words
A way to explain what's in my heart
Just to show you, to show me, to show everything
I got ulcers in my belly all from worry
My back is out and I can't stand up carrying all this weight
It hurts here in my chest
All the way to my soul
Drowning in a river of tears that only flows inside until everything is just a little blue
Because nothing's changed
And the world still don't give a damn
So the mask smiles when I can't
And I'll walk through day after day
Until I stand up and feel numb
Because the real fuck of it is
The right words only matter when there's someone to listen

I Only Cry When I'm Alone

In the morning
When the sun shines brightly and
I can see the beauty in the world
As the leaves whisper on the wind that
Everything is fine
I swallow a pill to make myself believe, so
I only cry when I'm alone

In my heart
Where love grows in transilience
I'm surrounded by the acceptance and fellowship and
I belong in this world full of devotion and care
Yet I still feel like a migrant,
Oliver Twist holding out his empty bowl, so
I only cry when I'm alone

In the evening
When the sun kisses the moon goodnight
As it sinks into the darkness to rise once more
Painting the sky with pastel luminescence so breathtaking
The Gods themselves stop to take heed and
I shiver in the cold and lonely darkness I've created, so
I only cry when I'm alone

In my mind
Where I remember every good thing I've ever missed and
I try desperately to forget every wrong turn I've ever made
Wars are fought against my heart and
Casualties are made of everything and everyone I love
Yet when the trumpets sound the ceasefire, it's too late, so
I only cry when I'm alone

In the dark of night
When your eyes can still find mine but
I can't see your face
Only the wound I've made on your heart
Bruised and bleeding
Choked in the desperation of my amity until
I wish I could only cry when I'm alone

I Can't Save You

I can create anything I want and make it as reall as I want. I can tell any story; dramatic, or scary or funny as I choose to weave it. But I can't save you.

All the rage inside you ... the all consuming fire that twists us and turns us around, making us into the monstrous beasts that we ourselves don't understand.

I can understand it. I can understand you. I can see everything I've already seen and everything I want to unsee through your eyes. I can feel the chaos inside and I can hear the cocophany. but I can't silence it.

See, I made you. As completely and perfectly in my image as God made Adam. It's just that I didn't understand that the apple of my eye was original sin to poison your innocence and banish you from paradise.

10 Things I Hate About You

I hate the way you lie to me and
The way you make me cry.
I hate the darkness that you bring and
How you wear it so well.
I hate the way I know no one will ever love me like you and
How hard it is to get away from you.
I hate the way I always come back and
The way the abuse feels so familiar I mistake it for the embrace of a friend.
I hate the way you cut me and
That I know I'm nothing without you.

For Those Who Are Still Tirelessly Pursuing Happiness

Happiness is an elusive cunt.

The carrot dangling in front of your face keeping you hauling these bags forward. Always pursuing happiness, have you even thought of what you'd do if you caught it? Have you considered that maybe you can't catch it with your arms so full of luggage?

Have you considered just being happy instead of chasing happy?

What a bitch smack those words are. The people who say things like that, they don't understand. They think it's as simple as just picking up your luggage and taking off. They're even glad to tell you, happiness went off in that direction. Wait, you dropped a bag. It says "depression" on it. It's heavy and clearly high quality, and it looks so good on you.

Do you think they have it in my size?

The luggage is heavy. It didn't start that way did it? The first bag was easy; I mean you weren't carrying anything. So you picked it up and you started walking; a nice walk, with plenty of people all carrying their own bags. After a while when your arm was tired you decided to look inside.

Remember what that felt like? First the feeling of utter relief when you set that bag down; the pins and needles as the circulation started massaging the numbness back to life. Remember how terrifying it was to reach in and pull the second bag out? When you started carrying both of them it still wasn't that bad. Sure, they were heavier but nothing you couldn't handle. Until the two bags turned into four; which turned into eight which turned into ... tell me, how fast did your arms get numb this time?

Maybe you should take up juggling. Everything might not be so heavy and cumbersome if you just keep it all in the air; and you might be able to reach out and grab happiness with your free hand at just the right time. After all, you've only got two hands. Just be careful looking ahead, you might trip over now. Maybe a forklift.

Do you think happiness has a forklift?

This goes on forever. The luggage just gets bigger and heavier while you fall further further behind happiness and you realize you don't have the right to, only the right to pursue happiness. No, this this problem goes much deeper than anything you could have seen or could have controlled. And no one can tell you where happiness really is. But I can tell you what I've heard:

1. I've heard happiness in laughing with a toddler about something nonsensical.
2. I've heard happiness in the raindrops hitting the roof of a covered porch warmed with hot coffee.
3. I've heard happiness in the beat of the drums around a fire of dancers.
4. I've heard happiness in the music of lights that shine from my fingertips.
5. I've heard happiness in a lover's voice wishing me good morning after a wonderful, sleepless night.
6. I've heard happiness in dark at midnight.
7. I've heard happiness in the first light of dawn.
8. I've heard happiness in the company of the friends who erase the concept of "inappropriate."

I've never caught happiness. Not once. I've seen it quite a few times and it's beautiful; and I can tell you that happiness isn't carrying anything. Happiness is always just a step ahead because maybe happiness knows something that I don't; because if happiness is traveling without baggage, what do you suppose happiness is chasing?  The only way to find out is to drop your baggage, speed up and grab it.

Soul Tree

Awake again.
Alive in perpetuity,
Alone in purgatory
Chained to the hard floor.
 A shadow cast aside;
Left behind in the light.
Standing in the skin of a wolf;
Old bones collected in a haggard hide.
Still covering up your scars?
Hiding the real skin?
It bleeds beneath the spit in your eye.
Bruises on your neck,
Frantically glue together
Every rule over broken.
Desperate for the maudlin dream of yesterday,
A seedy, macarbre facsimile of what was;
Old when it was new.

Which pill will you take
To quell the voice speaking truth?
A light in the dark.

Set Fire to the Ocean

A stirring in my gut
A nervous bleeding in my brain
I don't want to go
Not into that good night
Nor an ocean of wisdom and learned kindness
Such is the mark of age
The first steps of death as
The body wrinkles and withers
The fire of former greatness
A nova to a black hole
Trapped in the core of the shell of what once was
The only thing free in this world is verse
Verses that flow through my veins
Dripping sweat from my brow
Verses that erupt from my cock
Cumming to inseminate this audience
With an idea
I'm a free man.
Not to be silenced.
Not to be caged.
Less than what was
More than what is
Lost between here and there
Floating in an ocean of wisdom and learned kindness
The idea takes shape
And it becomes a reality
It is better to burn out
Than to fade away
But one does not simply set fire to the ocean.

Please Don't Kill Yourself

Please don't kill yourself
The simplicity of the words shock me
And in the moment I hear them I realize that no one has never asked me not to do it.
I mean, sure, sometimes people would tell me it was dumb
or that I shouldn't be thinking that way or even giving me the laundry list of things I have to live for which proves that they don't understand what depression and suicidal ideation are like to begin with
but to say "please don't kill yourself"
Never
And in the quiet and simple request I found a pause
A single moment
Frozen in time and light as leaves fluttering on the autumn breeze
And I danced in raindrops that would never hit the ground
Moved between my own thoughts that would never reach my consciousness
I  shouted poetry so loud it echoed off of the walls of my own empty mind
Taking up the pause with the simple beauty of realizing
Everything that broke me no longer makes me who I am
And in the quiet and simple pause I found a fear
A single thought
Running through my veins like ice frozen to sharpened stakes in the cold winter wind
And I dodged them as they fell at my feet
Until I stood caged in a wintery prison of my own making
Bashing my head against fear itself never knowing
That breaking is not a reason to bleed
This juxtaposition of pause and fear
Holds a quiet dignity and beauty all its own
A majesty and poetry that I live for
And as I write the words
I know that therein lies the key to my salvation
And I dance in raindrops that would never hit the ground
And I dodged them as they fell at my feet
Everything that broke me no longer makes me who I am
Because Breaking is not a reason to bleed.
Please.
Please don't kill yourself.

Remember

This is a poem
To tell you what you're going through now is worth it.
I mean, that's what you always say.
But I want you to remember it.
I want you to feel it and know it.
Take it inside you and let it really fill you up
No. I mean REALLY fill you up, like a lover with a horse cock.
So that when you look in the mirror
All strung out with dark circles and tracks from dried tears drilling lines in your face
You'll know
You'll remember.
I want you to look at the sink and see
Crimson black, spilling into the water
The mess you've made of someone's dream
Go on, look at it
And remember
Remember every second of it
Lay in your bed alone
Cold and scared as a child of the dark
Too tired to sleep and too afraid to dream
Do you remember yet?
Good! That's real good.
Now start telling yourself its worth it.
Try to get up and lift that weight from your shoulders
Nevermind that you knew that's where it would fall
Go on, get back up you piece of shit
Get up and deal with it because this is what you wanted
Isn't it?
That's it. Just relax and let it happen.
Let it inside
Feel it in every corner of who you are
And let it embrace you, hold you
The only one who ever understood you
And you want it.
You know you want it.
Let it inside you, fill you with its seed
Make it a part of you
Your dark lover, your steady friend, your ongoing nightmare
Always remember that this is worth it.
Always remember that you asked for this.
Always remember what you really are.
Remember how special it really is, this relationship
Remember it when you cry at the beauty of the sunrise
When you think to kiss your lover like its the last time
Think to today, with blood on your hands and darkness in your heart
And laugh with your child
Never forget this pain and never push it away
Because you wanted it
You welcomed it
This is a poem to remind you that you chose blood, bile, tears and pain
All for Love, and poetry and beauty and laughter
Now look around at the ruins you've made
For a few moments of peace and a few hours of pleasure
Look at it again.
Remember.
It was worth it.

What's the Endgame?

I've been doing this a long time. Feeling the feels and then explaining them with all the words in the lexicon at my command. The problem is, words can't explain feels. You can't apply logic to the beauty of a sunrise. Talking about love is like dancing about architecture yet I can build an empire and defend all the lands in my dominion with the very same words.

Acting like I'm in control, watching it all meander through my wispy consciousness. It rises from my head like the steam from the first cup of coffee in the morning. Bitter and sweet and keeping me alert at all times. Take it in, tasting all of its acidic truth; the seduction of its arresting intensity an elegant testament to the subtle art of bullshit.

I set out upon the road less traveled; a trip to ease the pain. Driving so fast and far away I forgot what I'm running from, blasting music and lyrics so loud I can't hear the voices in my head anymore. A trip to ease the pain, I can laugh at the sad clown in the corner and I can cry for the Harlequin waiting in the room for the happy ending that will never come.

Reaching in my chest I pull out a patchwork heart; every stitch tells a story. A tale for the heartbroken and a happy ending for the heartbreaker. Its cracked and scarred surface recounting endless nights alone wondering which turn was the wrong one. Every handicapped beat pumping the last drops of hope into the chasm of loneliness that can never be filled.

Yeah, I've been doing this a long time. I've stepped on fuzzy landmines, I've laughed through bottomless pits and pratfalls that make it all look like well choreographed slapstick. Never forgetting to make them laugh and keep them guessing, because the truth is boring and just a little bit wrapped up in itself. This clown demands applause at his show.

So I lay here, bleeding, battered and bruised; and all I can think is what an awesome alliteration that really is. I can't move but dammit I'm poetic! I experiment with the words, shape them into my armor and wear them to hide it all away. Meanwhile, I bleed out all the aspirations of yesterday, drowning in my own sin, sinking to the Great Below.

The truth is, my shoulders hurt from carrying the weight of the world and every wrong laid at my feet; building a cage around my heart. There's this post-traumatic thing, letting all the coldness of honesty seep through the cracks of the foundation; but I've always said the truth is best when spoken brutally. Look at the teeth that want to bite the hand that feeds; they're in a pool of blood on the floor.

Timing is everything and this time was all wrong. A clock-faced mirror showing a raw, open wound draining blackened puss onto my head for no reason other than, "I don't know." The reflection clouded by the power of a breaking heart, hidden by all the bad intentions I'm guilty of. A defining humiliation that knocks at the door demanding attention.

I dare not ask why all I see are barbs and wire inside of me. Surrounded by monsters of my own design, shedding tears of joy at the beauty of their torment. Here in this room built with my own two minds; walls both old and wise in a hiding place where I can never hide. Still I'll walk against the wind resisting the temptation to give up changing all that resists giving into change.

Arriving at last, the devil's face in front of this sad man; are the tears a sad goodbye or a happy arrival to the inevitable hell being built all these years? I couldn't reveal the point if I'd written it myself. This is not a way to ease the pain; a sad man with hands in a bloody sink. The flip side of sanity is to play this game to its end. Declare the winner. I've been doing this a long time.

Snowflake

In my mind's eye I can see you
Not today
But the way you used to be
The way we used to be
With the sun in your hair
With the stars in your eyes
And I'm weary from the weight it takesTo carry this image in my head
Choking me with the fire of the lie

Bits and pieces show the past
Illuminating the shadows of what you are
And what we were
Leaving me to wonder

What will I do without you?

How will I live without your lies and
What is left of me after your abuse
How will I live in a world of happiness and joy
When all the while I'm expecting pain and suffering
How can I say goodbye
When your pain has been a companion for as long as I can remember

What will I say?
To the blank page that begs me to spill the agony
On it's waiting, depthless countenance
Where will I put the baggage?
Once forced to carry
Now empty, light and useless
What will come of my time?
Now filled with laughter and love
In the wake of such censure and condemnation
How will I feel
When the beautiful snowflake
Melts, only to fall and be wiped away
As an ordinary tear

In my mind's eye I can see you.
Not today.
Not anymore

Tragedy and Comedy

As I walk
Through dreams left abandoned
I remember so much
So many days and nights
Lying wide awake
Through the sound of
Rain pouring from my soul
I ache to live
I yearn to die
I need to share
Words that paint the picture
Every cut
Every scar
Every drop of blood
I need to be seen
And I can't explain why
The story exists in the telling
The art lives in the poetry
Sometimes it hurts
Yet the stories still come
Told and retold
Walking through dreams left abandoned
A ghost town
Full of myriad images
That might have been
Scattered to the winds
Along with the ashes of the future
Once so vibrant
Now putrid and unlivable
Tattooed on my heart
Until finally ... Life
Cuts away, clearing the scars
Bleeding out the person left behind
I break the ties that bind
And I'm finally happy
Through so many day and nights
Lying wide awake
Through the sound of
Rain pouring from my soul
I'm alive in dreams newly born
And I die in the fear of pain's return
I need to share
Every hope
Every whispered nothing
Every kiss
The art lives in the poetry
Sometimes its beautiful
And the stories come
Told to be retold
Full of promises and what might yet be
Scattered to the winds
As I close my eyes
And I make a wish
To walk through my dreams
To tell the stories
Good and bad
I need to share
The tragedy and comedy

Darkness and pain
Fear and anguish
Suffering and regret
The seedy underbelly of the human psyche
Will draw you in and bat you around
Like the mouse to the proverbial cat
No one wants to be here
And those that are here never want to stay
Mired in negativity and
Enmeshed with insecurity
The bedfellows of doubt
Caught together in an orgy of reactionary emotion

View From the Bottom (Rough Draft)

The carpet needs vacuuming.
There's an old shoe under the bed
I should really keep my room a bit cleaner
But I can't find the strength to even stand
Because this is the view from the bottom and
All I can think of is why I'm here
How did I get here?
Because the view from the bottom,
Much like the view from the top,
Is a place where you can see a lot.
All the things left unsaid.
All the matters left unattended and
All the tiny details that were missed.
My bad genes match the dirty jeans balled up in the corner
And I laugh but it's a laugh full of irony
Empty of feeling and devoid of joy
Because this is the view from the bottom and
At the bottom even cockroaches are looking up at you, saying
"Damn brother, you need to pick yourself up!"
Only there is no picking up.
There is only laying still.
Watering the carpet with my tears that
Flow for no reason, or rather
Not any reason anyone "normal" would understand.
See, laying in the bottom is the safest place to be
When it hurts to move; when you know
That movement can and will mean something terrible.
Because this is the view from the bottom.
Looking up at the sun, so affirming and life giving
If only it would burn me to a cinder and stop all this
Give me a chance to give back the life I don't want
The pain I can't take and the drama I don't need.
If only I could muster up the strength to move
Fight this instinct to stay alive that keeps me laying
In the dirt of a floor that needs vacuumed because if I move
Just an inch
I know the view from the bottom will be the last thing I ever see.

Blue

She speaks to me softly
The stuff of dreams
Wrapped around me
Squeezing me tightly
She tells me she'll never leave me
She tells me she loves me
She tells me I can be free . . .
As long as I'm with her
She crawls inside my veins
And she pumps her love through me
Until I bleed her out
Creating verses of devotion
And paintings of her beauty
Until I'm an exhausted and beaten shell
She takes me in her arms

"When will I be okay?" I ask her
She answers with her body
Pushing me down
She climbs on top of me
"You'll be okay inside me" she whispers
Taking me again and again
Until I have nothing left to give
She humbly asks for more of my love
Offering butterfly kisses
and Promises of forever
She'll never leave me
As long as I give her everything
When will I be okay?
When? Will I be okay?
I'll be okay if I live for her
I'll be okay if I bleed for her
I'll be okay if I sing to her
I'll be okay if I believe in her
Never that I'll be okay
Never that I'm enough
Never that I'm okay on my own
Miss Blue
The stuff of nightmares
Taking never giving
But I have found my voice
And when I leave, For what will be the last time
She asks
Could you stay . . .
Long enough for me to say goodbye

She speaks to me softly
The stuff of dreams
Wrapped around me
Squeezing tightly