You

You could be anyone
   But you were you.
You could have picked anyone
   But you picked me.
You could have gone anywhere
   But you chose to stay and fight
We could have given up the first time
   But something held us back
We could have picked on each other's flaws
   But tongues were simply twisted
We could have stayed mad all day
   But love's just not that simple.

You forget the times - they were years ago
   When I was not the strong one
You forget the moments - they seem so far
   When I needed to be held up
You forget the days we spent apart
    I could tell you every date
You forget the anger and frustration of mine
    When you had to deflect all my pain
You forget when I was selfish
     To be fair I try to forget too
You forget because the years have passed
     But your pain is so new.

I seem strong because I've been there, love
     But this is foreign to you.
I seem smart because I know what to say
     But it's only what I wanted to hear
I seem selfless because I give you my all
     But you can't see I don't have a choice
You feel selfish, a burden, chaos in my wake
      But you don't understand how it's simply the opposite

You're a light in my darkness
A flame that never burns out
You're a hand in the river
My saving grace from drowning
You're my grounding weight
The one who keeps my head level
You're the man that I love
Because our love has made me better.

Stranger's Funeral

What is a life of a man not known?
     How tormented a feeling
           Fleeting and fearing
             Wonder and horror untold?

What life is a breath on still lips?
       Cold, motionless, frozen
           A smile forever untaken
              A kiss to the shadows
                 Taste of the unknown?

What is sorrow when not truly felt?
      Is it empty and fraudulent
         Well thought and not executed
              Softly spoken and not received?

What is life when death's door passes over?
       Is it scary in its darkness
          Warm with its smothering embrace
              Or neither in its ineptitude?

How still one must lie, how softly we speak
   When staring a death's eye and shedding a tear
      For a person so close and sometimes so far
         The end is coming fast.

Hard

It's hard for me to tell you.
Because you'll only want to help.
And we both know that you can't.
Sometimes I can't help myself.

Sometimes I fall into this place where I want to quit.
Recently it's where I've been living.
And it seems so strange.
Strange to hear it this way.
From a person who seemed
So happy and together just moments ago.

It's easy to play games for the crowd.
But you are not the crowd.
You are my private sector,
My confidant,
My trustee.

Yet by not telling you,
I've built this brick wall between us.
Accidentally.
I do not want it there.
But I'm afraid of what you will say when it is gone.
And you see that I'm not as strong as you thought.
Not at all.

Frustrating

I notice you
Noticing
And you don't know
That it kills me
Missing
Out on those moments
Watching
Them pass by
And wanting
Wanting. Wanting. Wanting.
To be a part of
It all
But watching from the
Outside
Just isn't the same
As being immersed
In the real thing
And it kills me
But you will
Never know
Because
It's just not a
Part of your
Life

IT

Instead it's about it.
Just about it.
Because it is something I can't stop thinking about.
It is something that has taken over my brain.
I thought it didn't exist.
It was a myth.
It was stupid.

And then it happened to me.
And it was everything I thought it would be.
Except different.
But the same.

You see, it isn't really something you can control.
It just comes.
In this exponential torrential downpour.
And takes over your every thought.
Your brain is no longer your brain.
It's its brain.
But you still can think.

But no matter how hard you try, it is still there.
At the forefront of your mind.
Scratching at the front door.
Reminding you that it is not going anywhere.
And you are somehow calm in the thought.
Something just took over your life, your body.
But you just shrug and continue on.

It is a powerful thing.
It gives your heart arrhythmias.
It puts insects in your stomach.
It can even cause excitement so high that you faint.
It causes speech impediments.
It makes you excessively perspire.

And yet you crave it.
You long for them.
The one that gave you it.
And it makes no logical sense.
The time between you and them could be days.
It makes it feel like minutes.
The time spent apart feels like ages.

It is a powerful thing.

Places

Safe and secure and stable
Longing for peace in conflict
Looking in all of the wrong places

Going to the directory
Not absorbing the language
Looking in all of the wrong places

Following the crowd to a crowded room
Drinking the drinks
Looking for love in all the wrong places.

Year

And the moment gave to the cadence
And the hush fell into the silence
And the gravity befell the brevity of the call.

The glamour faded quickly
The audacity slipped away
The quiet acquiesced for a day.

And the day for a year turned a second
While the birds cried for hours not a tear
And the last words on lips laid unspoken
This year, this year, granted wishes, this year.

Crush

Butterflies, fly butterflies
And fill the space that awakens
The tossing and turning of currents inside
The tortuous feeling of welcome and sprite

Follow, now follow
Sweet valentine of the soul
And sing oh my serenity
The beating that you know

That tremor that courses
Awaken! Awaken!
Tonight is the night! Awaken!
To see the other half
To make a complete whole
Complete.

Momentus

Sing sweet momentus!
Your great tidings hail,
our lowliness of the patients.
Frigidness bring that sweet numbing sting
That opium den of the lions

But how in this light
Can we ever continue to fight
The battle of unconquerable foes?
The swords that we yield
Fall like trampled daisy fields
And our hearts bleed with vapid devotion.

Yet our orders still ring
Sweet tidings they bring
For the reward is a baroness of cadence.
That sweet numbing sting
That all he who can bring
Will drowse us all into victory at last!

Distance

The cordial moment lasted a breadths gasp
Cusping on the edge of momentum
The breeze it blew, the sun in knew
The time would tick forever.

Inviting yet imposing the
Lasting impression
Impeding on kisses untouched
The glances they shared while
Hearts beating pounded
The distance was a sea of despair.

And fighting the line and the rigid night belied
The courtship had slowed to a halt
The grass flew in ease with that sweet summer breeze
As the carriage disappeared in the distance.

Hush

And what is a flaw

but a mis-characteristic

The ebb and flow

of a singular cacophony

Twinkling in the night sky.

And what is a mistake

but a mis-structured decision

The breezed wind

of a closed concert

Hushing the symphony before it begins.

So it goes

The battery dies,
the moment falters and eternity stretches forever
The clock runs out,
the dimmers fade and the world continues spinning
The day goes by,
the darkness grows and the years keep getting closer
The shine will fade,
the smile dim and the time will keep moving forward
The drips will stop,
the breath will halt and the tree will continue to sway
The breeze will call,
the night will fall and there will be another tomorrow
So it goes

Canned Heat

Dancing filled something new
It wasn't quite the position or the flailing limbs about
Nor was it the quiet and horror filled looks I was receiving
It was the fact that I was with you
Finally with you
On one of the most magical nights of my life
Moving under the star filled sky
Surrounded by neon lights
Coursing down the rough terrain
Just you and me
Ostentatiously dancing the night away

Dose

The inebriation was impeccable
Blurs shuddered something viciously sweet
A surge of something not quite touchable by the mind
The silence crescendo-ed before it halting screeched to pianissimo
Graduation of quality seemed more like a pit fall
Clarity gouged its way through hazy morning lights
A scratch of reality bled into another dose
The tilt drew everything backwards
Things lazily ebbed into a quarantine of heads
A quiet drip and scant beep flowed past like fire
Burning deep into skin like seared numbers
Pricks and patches came with scattered exploits
New days crawled on broken limbs
Past memories flew uninhibited, prolonging a gaze downward
Exceptional foresight fell to a weary close
A dose for a rose and a torn nightmare
 

LOVE

The crescendo seems phosphorescent
The climax hits the moment like beads of water
The gentle crash and silent swell of heightened senses
It seems the time has lost its seeming matter
The quiet cadence fades to a beautiful silence
A serene breath falls from the chest
The world drops
A touch
An end
Beginning
Climbing the ladder
Stringing along the scattered shatters into one
The impertinence falters
Everything falls into significance
From the hours drone
To the mysterious drag of light from all corners
The iris of pure validity and valor
Engulfed in a sea of black and white
Drowning under the heavy hand
The only four letters
Two vowels
Two consonants
One syllable

Indistinguishable

 And so the rain fell over the cadence

The effervescence of the scene so polluted

It seemed the magistrate held so little in corruption

The sound seemingly of strings strung taught and broken on pluck

However so slightly, seemingly he beheld, the glimmer of the nighttime whispered,

“Come into the realm of freedom and dynasty

Wherefore the innocent hail guilty and the rich sire the poor.

In which has set the bitter taste of originality

Hitherto blunder that with which the Mighty Hand severed.

Cloth to tomb, the lies of the deceitful ring only true to the perverse,

In yet the simplest circumstances it revealed unto no one in the middle of the square:

Upon this block is built ruins of the faith, keepers of the fallen.

It is here that which may lay the foundation to our coronation of the unknown,

Casting out the intelligence of the consummates and rejecting the sense.

It shall rain the evilest power unto them,

Drenching those “holy” and “majestic” until the world is truly as it was before:

A home of those to flesh and blood and to nothing of pride.”

The siren sang the muffled words to the worlds of the highest on low,

The birds that proclaimed lay dead at the passing with glorified feathers behind them.

Yet of those who saw no change, no disturbance,

It were they that shall enrapture and toss over the throne,

To reclaim the world once belonging to those whom perturbance once began.

Rhythym

Impecably impertinent

Unfathomably incorrect

Flawless in injustice

Promptly indirect

Figuratively wonderful

Theatrically improbable

The saint that met the sinner

The angel of the devil himself

The death of a life never started

The birth of a death oh so new

Practicality unspoken of nightmares

Dreams of unwishable fears

Nightly terrors of daylight

Darkened power of evil

Shining in black and white

Fading out to myriad lights

Killing the soft sound of the innocent

Burning the ashes of the grave holders

Completing a rhythm that never ends.

Serenity

The equity spills at the chorus
The journal with rough edges and tears
The neverending sound of cadence
Believing in things not quite there

Enjoying the beauty in sorrow
The book full of spirits despise
That perfect definition thereof
Of that quiet, cold summer's night.

And in essence a face not quite tormented
Yet in entirety pours out the soul
Who are we just to judge without knowing?
Yet to know is to Big Brother's fold.

In obscurity creeping minds wonder
The obsolete completeness of faith
For the surely without a doubt broken
Grasp on to some things better left unknown.