Expression depression;
Writing empty blind words
like lonely thoughts and feelings.

Like waiting inside a car with
no gas and a broken heater
on the side of a busy highway.

Like a full bowl from your favorite
box of cereal on a Sunday morning
and an empty bottle of milk.

Like singing your heart out
to an empty room on a sinking
ship with no life-raft.

Like a log sitting in a fireplace
with no kindling and a
busted chimney flue.

Like a fresh blank canvas
sitting next to a bottle of wine,
and no brushes.

Like holding a much needed
cigarette outside a bar
with no matches.

Like a perfectly brewed pot
of premium roasted coffee
and an empty box of sugar.

Like a long walk on a
cold windy night to the store
while your wallet sits at home.

Like two candles burning over
a freshly made five-course dinner when
your partner calls working late.

Like a poem sitting on a
forgotten page, waiting words,
unseen. Unsung. Unknown.

Like a person;
like a poem-
like me.

'Water, Water'

Unsatiated; squatting on a raft at sea,
squinted eyes searching the horizon
while the soft sound of the shifting sands
far below
echoes through the salt to surface.

Perforated thoughts torn and thrashing;
jerked from the dark cool depths;
lured by the frantic frenzy
of wriggling emotions; gorging on
the hook of desperation; choking
gasping grabbed by the filthy hands
of madness and stuffed bleeding-
beating-screaming
down the raw toothed maw of insanity.

Staring at myself muddled by
lapping waves; gently rocking
the unseen stillborn beast
that I catch in the depths
looking up
trapped, all one can do is wait.

Siren's discord, sweet and slow,
unceasing, unyielding, unrelenting-
a slip...
bubbles rise; looking up,
a figure, on a raft, a fading
silhouette against the twilit
surface...
...laughing...

Crying laying dieing
from the self-inflicted
serrated sides of pillow-talk
words whispered into
waiting ears.
Lying to the reflected
fragments of her
living in the space between
shattered facets and feelings
surrounded by what looks like
so many more sharp
wanting edges.

broken
heart-bone beating jaggedey raggedy pop-lockin' emotions in the
strobe-lit stop loss chamber of feeling staring at a shattered mirror
and dining on consignment memory's leftover freezer dinners while seated
at a table for one.

Addicted To Love

I've known for some time that I have a problem.

Maybe it was the string of jobs, one after another, that you got me fired from...

That was my first clue. But I reveled in you still. I mean, I didn't think it was a problem

as my life began to spin out of control...

You were always easy to justify. You were the one thing making my life better.

Despite the failed relationships, piling up,

like a car crash on the freeway in rush hour...

Sure, sometimes people made comments. But to me they just seemed jealous

of what we had. With you came a sense of power. Prestige.

By the time I realized what I had become. What we had done.

It was too late...

But I held on. Maybe because I couldn't let you go.

You've been a part of me, the best part, for so long.

You were electricity. Fire. A thousand supernovas

exploding, and we would rise and fly in the waves of cosmic radiation...

But it can never last. The fire would fade. The waves would crash.

And I would begin to sink, looking for you, reaching out, searching,

letting you pull me up. Even as you dragged me down.

It began so slow. So gradually. I don't know when I lost control.

When I became more you than me. You've changed my sense of time,

now measured by the regular highs and lows

that have no relations to clocks or calendars.

Only the desire, which takes over, without me even knowing...

Somewhere along the way the line between you and I,

between the individual and the act, the action, disappeared.

And now I can't even save myself. Us. You.

Because if I do, if I try, if I succeeded,

we'd both be dead.

I clenched you in my fist. Squeezing. And I feel heat. Like a spoon,

held over a flame. Red hot searing pain. But I let you

convince me... I convinced myself... you whispered, I listened

till my fingers fused around you. But the hunger didn't care.

I didn't care...

I see you now. I see exactly what you are. In every mirror,

waiting. Watching. Looking back.

I can't celebrate you anymore. I can't love you anymore.

I can't love myself anymore.

And I

can't

stop.

Shit:
Desire, distance, hurt, loss, love and loneliness; the foundation of a poor poet's garden

She left, and I'll never know why
thought I can count the reasons
on one hand.

She left, and every clock stopped,
though shadows grew and the day
marched on.

She left, and now two thousand eight
hundred miles and three time zones
separate our every word.

She left, and I can not seem
to forgive myself, or her,
for letting go.

She left, and though together,
we have never
been more alone.

Noon
I wish we were laying,
the the dappled light of noon
blowing lazy curtains in and out.
Gentle bellows languishing as
the yellow rays turn gold
and sparkle with dust.
Curled together, comfort, peace,
while the slow sound of our breaths
call and answer each other
in time with the steady pulse
of the breeze.
Beyond the steady ticking of time,
the clock is stopped
and all the world is here
in this moment, together.
Looking, seeing, knowing
you in the silence. My fingertips
follow the dance of light
and dark across you.
The soft rasp of my dry touch
on your sleeping skin, hands
dancing gently to their own music.

Phantasms
Imperfect desire, one
eyes expressive with tight, down-turned lips,
mascara thick and dark against her fair hair,
a quiet, cautious raccoon.
Another
thin, tone, full lips, empty eyes,
the bored sound of her chewing.
A crane flustered and gawky.
Another
tan, brown, like a wild
impatient hoarse. Breathtaking
in this moment.
Another
dark hair, smokey voice,
a raven, mysteries hidden in
the promises of her smirk and smile
while somewhere, below,
in a Chinese restaurant,
sits my love
alone.

Open
I dream
beyond my reach, lives, worlds,
my small impotent hands
are unable to grasp.
Weary of waking, of walking,
of wishing and wanting... always
always wanting
what I cannot, or am unable,
to hold.
A bird is circling in the sky,
calling for its lost mate.
It is the only sound
echoing long after
the rifles crack.
A speck fading up
into the encroaching night.
I know that bird,
though not which one
I am.

Topography
The soft bulge, gentle lines
of taut tan skin
descending, the whisper
of secrets murmuring
from the hang
of her black blouse
before
plunging, my gaze
to the jeans beneath
and the silent silky
triangle of folds
suggested, imagined, desired,
within.

Forgotten
I am helpless, undone,
tied up with all the
strings pulled out.
Soft cotton falling,
a shower, then
a trickle.
Like so many
rain-laden clouds.

Curse
I am in love
with love
and I am in love
with pain
because in
the long run
happiness and heartache
become the same.

 2 bad poems in an hour... yeah, class was that boring...

Withdrawal

Nicotine heroine withdrawals

with caffeine headaches 

and grass induced

paranoia

while on an LSD flashback

from peaking on shrooms.

Empty, cracks of desire 

racing in canyons of fire and ice

and sparks, across dehydrated skin.

Eye twitching finger

spasms head shakes shakes

shake angry electric ants 

dancing with daggers down 

every nerve.

Sweat and urine sick

soaked sheets in locked

boxed beaten broken bound

burning burning, oh

the burning pain

of minutes and

hours and

days and

nights and miles

and miles and miles

unchanging, an eternal

suffering

easier

     than being

without you.

Help

( I need a little)

I feel the distance

building between us

a change,

in the wind and the clouds,

Unseen but felt,

we don't know, 

when or how,

till its strikes 

out and flashes,

a bolt.

Igniting, it sizzles,

exploding, my world fills

with an arch of brilliant light

hide from the pressure

it builds

hide from the friction

and yield

as the sky tears us apart 

each nigh.

Took me for a ride, lied,

wounded all my pride,

without knowing or having a clue.

Now bleeding and broken

my heart is spoken for

by someone, I can't hold onto.

the pain and the distance,

love flows with resistance

now tell me what am I

to do?

So many fleeting thought go unposted...

Here are the few recent leaves that fell, rather than scattered to the moments without pen, without paper, without desire, or left to the carlessness of a man-boys charge...

Scotch

Flames lick and laugh
tickling with thick smoke
the belly and bowels
as slanting bars burn
casting colors of
gold and red warmth against
the room’s pale walls.

Lantern, furnace,
ruddy and rheumy,
bright blank eyes
stare off through
the dull gray fog of age
and ages, remembering
the ruins and barrooms
where once,
or never,
or always,
a lighter step had waltzed.

Desire, in 3 Movements, E Minor

I dream of you in the sacred space between twilights. Your smile haunts my nights and your absence is the stalking specter of my nightmares. I toss and turn, churning and twisting, the sheets, breathless and panting I silently cry out for you, as your unspoken name echoes deafly and I fall back into turbid slumber.

You, glowing, a woman, with power and presence in your every move and intonation. Innocence tempered by experience, your knowing eyes, brilliant insights exposed behind the flash of your smile, behind full lips smirking in perpetual bloom, ripe with humor dipped in tart ironic cynicism. To run my fingers through the ravens’ mane of hair, feel your hot pale skin in the cup of my palm, to let the tips of my fingers dance...

Forever. You. Days and weeks, terms, eventually leading to miles, and years, you, forever. Burned into my memory, now, into my heart, as the sacred, the holy, that my profane, in awe, could never approach.
Goodbye, and thank you, for the photo I never took, but will always, always keep.

"The is a large gate behind childhood that closes" -Civilization of Max Bright

Haunting words. Haunting music. Can I grow up? Can I become a man? Can I be the man that others deserve? That she deserves? I want too. I am not sure I know how. But I want that love. To share it, to be a part of it, as it overflows from any person or relationship or family or home and spreads out like a rising tide into the world. The peace that comes with compassion, with empathy, with no longer being... alone?

Can I pack up the toys of my childhood, its whims and flights, and put them away?

All things that we touch are a part of us, forever. Joys and sorrows both leave their scars.
Suffering is life, and desire. Desire is not love. I know desire, what I want to know is love.
All things happen for a reason. Even if that meaning is to nothing and no one but ourselves. An article, a movie, a song, a feeling, a moment... they layer together, creating and recreating us, as we are pulled and moved by the selves within us, reshaping what we are and what we will become.

What will I become?

"Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open mind inciting and inviting me.
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns,
And calls me on and on across the universe"
-Beatles

2 years.
In the same place, computer lab at school. Killing time while thoughts of the future run in circles around my head like a toy train, box after box after box, cars chasing each other in an unending loop. So here I find myself, escaping from the pointless meandering of conversation, its inability to give any answers or to provide the same cathartic release.
Two cities, on separate sides of the country. San Diego, New York. Two coasts, two worlds apart. The two thousand eight hundred miles seems small compared to the months apart. Bad connections, time differences, life differences... miles unable to measure the emotional distance that exists, ripping and tearing with every beat.
No good answer. Job prospects running slim, far and few positions here, but great there. But friends, family, my life, here. My heart there. Warmth here, cold there, space here, none there, culture there, people there, ocean here... here, there, here, there...
Yeats,
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;"

And these overwhelm my own issues, my own fears and feelings. Struggling with a self that is held in casual dissonance, two songs playing at the same time, juggling identities, feelings, actions, attitudes, never able to let either go, the rogue, the womanizer, the rebel, the student, the boyfriend, the fiancé, the future husband and father... I look into the mirror and don't know who I see in front of me. Minute by minute, as both flash and flicker back and forth behind reflective sunglasses. I am torn. My life is torn. There is no reconciliation, just the sacrifice of one misery for another. I cannot embrace half of myself, half of my life.

The only joy left is in the moment, ignoring the future forks. But even that is tempered by the fear of falling two deeply into the moment, forgetting the consequences of smiles and small talk.
No forgetting. No letting go. No embracing anything. Tomorrow holds no joy. Today holds none either. Every moment is clouded with shadow and anxiety.

Right below my bellybutton, somewhere deep in my center is the worm of life, throbbing and aching, whispering in its serpentine tongue my own silent desires in my ear. I see beauty everywhere, and it makes the twisted form of me, inside me, throb and hiss till I feel it might burst out, exploding, erupting... la petite mort...
Coiling and uncoiling deep inside me, the serpent never sleeps...

Id and Superego circling and circling...

Binaries, choices, deconstructed into each other, built back up, then razed again. And again. And again...

Love and amore. Irreconcilable. The soul mate of my friendship or the love of my life. A career in misery, or a struggle in paradise. Together or apart, I fear I may never be whole. And the same fear, of myself, of the stirring serpent within, its shadow haunting them both.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"