This has been an interesting year for me.
I left 2017 in a depression,
it followed on into 2018.

I completed a year's worth of coursework
for my Master’s degree.
“Master’s of Science in Software Engineering
with a concentration in Cybersecurity
and Project Management."
What a ****** mouthful.

I started a new job -
one I enjoy coming to every day,
one where I'm never the smartest person
in the room.
I get to learn so much every day.
One where I can grow and
take on responsibility.

I took a leap of faith -
made my first investment
and bought a house.

Shortly after, I took some responsibility
for something other than myself
and got a dog.

I stopped underestimating how important
people are in my life.
I repaired some broken relationships
and nurtured some existing ones.

I went through a severe bout of depression.
I found myself drinking daily,
found myself on my knees in my driveway
pleading to God,
asking why and how.
Sometimes all you have to do is ask the question.

I found myself in a state of uncaring -
completely apathetic as to whether I should live or die,
suicidal,
with my gun calling my name, whispering,
growing louder with each drink.
In a drunken daze, completely broken
and defeated,
I admitted to one of my best friends how
close I'd come,
how tempted I'd been.
She took my gun off my hands,
in keeping with a promise we'd made to each other long ago.

I have not drank since,
nor will I ever drink again.

In these darkening hours is when
I found my faith in God,
something that seemed to be there
all along,
yet was something I couldn't admit
to myself.

I met the love of my life -
something I've never been so certain of -
and it's opened up possibilities
I had only dreamed of.
Someone that there's a future with,
that chooses to grow, to flourish,
and to love.

Certainly life has more challenges in store,
the struggle, the suffering, is never-ending,
and sometimes it's all we can do to
stay above water.

This year has been one of absolute transformation,
and this December looks entirely different
than the last.

The words, like cats,
play around bushes
and are elusive
yet natural.
For, even long before
I knew their truth
and perfection,
they danced around my mind
like rocks being shaken
in a glass orb,
destined to shatter and spill out,
or make their way
and tumble from my lips
and onto yours.
Such simple words,
three in number,
said a hundred thousand times many
in a certain future,
linger in my gaze,
express themselves in
every action,
and in every thought.
I see them flitter in
the alluring shades of brown
you so reverently eye
me with,
as you stand to your tip-toes
and plant a kiss,
plant a seed,
and I feel them pass
from your lips
and onto mine.
And how you hold me,
and cast not one judgment,
as my demons
wreak havoc on my
thoughts like glass,
you speak what I know,
what I've known
and dared not admit.
So I admit to you,
to myself,
these words which are
pouring over a useless dam
in many other forms anyway,
I say it as easily as
I blink,
I say it as easily as
I breathe,
I say it with a finality,
a totality,
a feeling of such completeness
that none has ever compared,
I say the simple sentence
which proves a life sentence,
an all or nothing,
an all in,
all you, always,
all the time,
finally,
I say it.

I love you.

Like a home without a family,
plans mean nothing
unaccompanied.

The sweet burn of alcohol,
still on my lips.
The rustic smell of cigarette,
through the warm summer air.
The white page before me,
with meaningless scribbles.

For I am but one soul,
meant to burn.
Meant, because I have committed crimes,
crimes I do not yet know of.
And yet, I'll know of them.
Yes, I'm sure I will when I die.

I am cursed, you see.
Cursed with a vengeance on this world.
A world that has so wronged me,
that my heart will never forgive.
Cursed with endless work,
for I shall never quit.

How often, I sit and wonder,
If this world is hell,
and each of us has committed some terrible crime.
But that cannot be so,
for I know of those who live
fat and luxuriously without a care.

Maybe this is my own hell.
Maybe it is all in my mind.
This entire world, inside my mind.
My own little world, created
from my own thoughts
to punish my eternally.

But no...one must avoid such thoughts.
Thoughts of the world revolving around oneself.
Maybe, yes, maybe
I am here, along with all the others,
only to pass the time.
(There is a word here that can't be made out because it's been smudged. It might be "Religion?")

Why are people so certain,
Certain that there is more than this life.
But what if there isn't?
What if this is all we have?
And this one, fleeting, life,
is all that we have to make our mark?

How could it be such,
that man, a glorious creature indeed,
has nothing special waiting for it?
How could it be that such a kind, beautiful race,
is nothing but a bunch of meaningless particles?
How?

Oh, but I'll tell you how.
For this is unmistakably a cruel world.
A cruel, unforgiving universe.
So then, why bother?
With anything at all?
What's the point?

So then, why do I write?
I write because I hope.
Hope that one day these words will reach.
Will reach a fellow lost soul.
Hope keeps each of us going,
going, and going.

Hope must not be underestimated,
for it is the very essence,
the very beauty of all mankind.
Maybe, too, it is the curse
of all mankind.
And yet we still hope.

Hope for a better tomorrow,
a better world,
a better fate.
Hope binds, and connects each of us to one another.
We are all the same, really.
Each of us live on hope.

If only
I was able
to follow
my own advice,

I don't mean to be a bother,
or an inconvenience.
To mark upon your blankness in ink,
so settle down my thoughts
with every black line and
intention.
If I should go, say so,
please.
I do not wish to stay
unwanted.
I do not wish to intrude.

I only need a friend.
Someone to hear these trappings,
these innermost workings
which play on every insecurity,
everything I've ever done.

All I do is wrong.
All I do is hurt and
hurt others.
If you stay long enough,
I will hurt you too,
I will scribble away your life
as I do mine.

I don't want anyone to
hurt,
I just wish to
love.
And be loved
in every dark corner of myself.
But how?

As I grow older,
I grow more hated by
myself.
And if hate is all I know,
how could I ever love?
How could I ever experience another's
love?
Their compassion?
Their kindness?

So it is lost.

And I must ask,
though I mark you, tear you,
hate you,
can you love me?

Could you?

Consider me like an afterthought
and I will fade away.

Drowning it in,
and down it goes,
with a hook at the bottom
to sink you lower,
and take it all
away.

My Dearest Marie,

As I write these words, you
are hundreds of miles away from me, you
are asleep.
For each mile traveled, I felt the hole
of my longing in my heart grow until
it forced my heart to grow too.
Despairing and agonizing, I cried,
for I was sure I had lost you
again.
You never questioned it, to you,
it was something we'd work out, to you
it was unthinkable.
Thanks.
I know now where I stand.
It is with you, heart joined in heart,
miles apart,
until hand joins hand.
And I am so deeply sorry
my resolve ever wavered,
our love I ever doubted.
For I see now,
the further you go,
the more love I realize.
I will love you,
and only you,
to the end of the universe
and back again.
I will love you
until the end of time
and existence itself.
And how I wish I could show you,
my love, the true nature, the actual extent of
my love,
you.
And I wish I could produce happiness,
turn it into a product,
give it to the masses,
but keep the best and most
for you, my love.
And it is as well I am not a God,
for you would be a Goddess and all
would serve you.

So as you are sleeping, and I am too,
my arms will be around you,
precious you, and I will whisper in your ear,
No matter the distance,
no matter the time,
our hearts are as entwined
as the stars,
my dearest Marie.
I love you.

Eric

All good things come to those who wait.
Maybe, finally,
I have waited long enough
for a chance to have,
for a chance to love.
For a chance to spread my affections
through the great expanse of your heart,
damaged through past afflictions
and bitter memories,
I can soothe.
For I seethe
much the same,
and there is no blame,
to be cast or recast through
the past,
it's a shame.
That one so heart-wrenchingly beautiful,
(but she can't see so)
can be so trodden upon not to
see.
Not to see that it is she
who wanders and floats through many
a dream,
within a dream,
and casts away the sub-standards
of basic human wants
into something of god-like taunts.
And the dreams I have are never-ending.
Not because they don't end,
(Oh, they do)
but because I refuse to let them.
Alas!
I cannot slumber for eternity,
I must wake.
I must face that which is an
inevitability in its own right.
The insatiable desire of the freedoms
that we must not retire,
no.
We must be free to wander forth,
into a darkness, away from the light,
then see a sad soul
and regain to...
fight?
To fight again and again and
again?!
Perhaps we should cease,
if only we could.
We continue all the same (in much the same),
knowing what is to come,
knowing what peers just around
the bend.
Knowing, yet hoping,
against all hope,
that all good things must
end.

I am unsure of the nature of my insanity.
I don't know whether I shall overcome this,
or watch my life come crashing down around me.
I don't know where this path will lead.
It winds and it turns and it goes over mountains
and through valleys and even further
down
into caves and I am lost.
I am so utterly lost and beyond rescue.

I hear voices.
The say they want to save me.
They say they care.
I believe them sometimes, but come nightfall
all is lost.
I have never been so shaken, so scared.
I cannot describe this aloneness, this
simple singularity.
I know there are those that would take my madness.
They stand by me, but
I am blind.
I could hear them, but
I am deaf.
I can touch them, but
I am not convinced of reality.

I cannot accept that my life may end in ruin, but
will I really have a choice?
Will my mind just take over my mind and
destroy all I hold dear?
I don't know.

I just don't know.

So, you reading this, remember me please.
As I am now while I haven't been consumed by darkness.
Take these words and savor them.
This is me.
I am not yet insane.



One day I might be.

I sit and I wonder
while I sit and I wander.
I think of what I do know,
and of those things that I don't.
Of what I need,
and simply of wants.

I think of this life,
then of our deaths.
How could we know
where to place bets?

Of course, I think of you,
I think of me.
And then of all,
that is yet to be.

Down these deep chasms of
my mind, I walk.
Questioning everything,
of which I'm unwilling to talk.

There seems to be purpose
to my life after all.
Who would have thought,
after such a great fall?

The train rumbles by,
the whistle keeps a-blowin'.
And I can't figure out,
just where I'mma goin'.

And so it comes,
as quickly as it came.
I have wondered,
and, Lord, I have wandered.
Only just to realize,
it's always the same.

My heart aches.
I watch you walk away,
and I think,
This is it.
This is when I give up on love
forever.

I suppose I have always been the kind
to over-commit, to love too deeply.
I have always been the one left
after everyone else quits.
Always left standing alone in the rain
of my own tears.
Always.

I drive those I love away,
and destroy anything I hold dear.
Yet, it is not I, but the monster inside.
The monster is the real enemy,
but the monster is me so I suppose it is
I that am the monster.

Or maybe it is like you said;
We are just blaming the dark beast,
with no consideration of the fact that
we might be wrong for each other.
I don't buy that, though.
You are my best friend.
You are my only true friend.

I snap back to reality.
My thoughts, my perception returns,
and so do you.
You have not walked away, not yet.
I should know better.
I cannot trust my mind.

I try to imagine my life without you.
I try to imagine how alone I will be.
Maybe it is as alone as I am now,
but I'm certain it's more.
I'm certain I would be shaken to my center,
that I'd have my heart ripped from me.
I don't know if I can take it.

And just like that, my mind is made up.
If you must go, you must.
If I must be completely destroyed, fine.
But never again will I invest my heart in someone.
No matter what may happen,
I will never love again.
Never.

And forever and always
always
resolves to never.

It's your birthday today.
You would've been 56 years old.
You kept me, raised me
when I was young,
worked me
to show me discipline,
and believed me when I told the truth.
You made me apologize when
I had said cruel things,
and helped me love the difference
of others.
You believed in me,
and celebrated my differences as well.

One of my fondest memories of us
is when you baby-sat me on a Saturday.
We went to garage-sales.
You bought me every baseball I could find.
They were cheap then,
but I'd give anything to still have one.

I watched you drum away to many songs,
mesmerized,
knowing I wanted to do the same.
I was often behind your drums,
dreaming of things to play.

Today I sat behind a drum kit.
I've been paid to play.
That makes me a professional, right?
You would be proud.

I broke down today, behind that kit,
thinking of you.
I lied, said I needed a bathroom
when really I needed a floor to cry.

I curled up in a friend's bathroom floor,
and, finally,
felt your passing.

I miss you so much.

I remember picking up the urn
that held your ashes.
They were so much heavier than
I expected.
I was drunk off whiskey,
and it finally hit me.

You were gone.

You visited me in a dream last night.
We laughed.
We used to do that, remember?
I did something goofy,
you made a comment,
we shared a good chuckle.

You showed me what it means to be a real person.
You had your darkness,
like everyone,
but you had your light as brilliant
as anyone's.

You gave us everything you could,
and while I appreciate it now,
I wish I could've appreciated it more
then.

I blame myself for your passing,
I know I shouldn't.
I just wish you were here
to see things now,
see where we are,
as a family.

I called the sky tonight,
just wanting you to know
that the good so outweighed
the bad,
even if we couldn't see it.

I called, just to say
I love you.

I never want to wish days away,
but the days without you
have grown long indeed.
I fall asleep dancing
with thoughts of you,
awake with the dreams of you
falling from the tip of my tongue,
tasting the kiss
I've not yet known,
of honey and wildflowers,
of gentle soul and soft vows.
These days have me frozen in amber,
suspended animation,
watching the world idly pass,
counting months, days, hours,
until I am thawed,
until you arrive to hear
these words.

I would give you everything,
yes, every piece of me,
and wish to give you more.
I wish I could describe it to you,
the amount of love I feel.
Maybe quantify it, so
we can visualize it.
Is it a million, a hundred million?
Maybe infinity and more.
The word "love" is just not strong
enough. So how do I tell you?
Adoration, and passion, and lustfulness,
and fondness. All of these words, no,
none of them are powerful enough.
So maybe my own word is
an order, for who is to say
I cannot?
Lishvilnesh!
Hesmelah!
Bakeldohm!
I cannot describe the amount
of love I have for you, so
it must be lishvilnesh! I'm
overcome by hesmelah! I cannot
contain the bakeldohm!
Ah, but it is not so easy,
for it would take hundreds of years to
attach such weight to a word, and
infinitely many more
to attach my feelings
for you.

Sandpaper teeth,
a slight taste of dark,
bitter coffee grounds.
Ants.
Fire ants in the stomach
biting, stinging,
in acidic bile.
Working into a swollen
and unspeaking throat.
Into the veins and arteries.
A thin layer of sweat,
or rain,
as the cloud follows.
Can they see it?
Tongue, thick and heavy
as a brick sliding into
the windpipe.
Choking, gagging,
suffocating.
Over-active nervous system,
shocked by lightening
from the ever-growing,
ever-looming cloud above.
Shaking, tense, angry,
why?
Neurons firing too fast.
Why?

I can't apologize anymore,
for who I am, who I've come to be,
who I was and will be.
I cannot.
If my person offends you
when I do not speak my thoughts,
and also when I do,
I cannot help you.
I have spoken far too much,
and far too little,
for far too long
not to know
what I should hide
and what I should show.
I have wrestled my thoughts
for years until I've found I cannot,
but instead must observe them with
an objective eye,
cut them open
with an inquisitive mind,
searching for something,
but only to find --
that it is best to let them pass
without consequence,
without permanence,
only resonance.
And if you cannot take seriously
the things I know seriously
of people, the world,
the pain,
then you deserve
manipulation,
exploitation,
desecration.
For I do not speak lies,
and if so,
by mere mistake,
when I speak of what I see,
and what I see is fake.
Too many false words
have fallen on my ears
not to be distrustful
for the rest of all my years,
and not to know and read and see
what people would have come of things.
And I cannot blame them, no.
For we are all full of ***** tactics,
shadowy motives, and schemes.
It is everyone's duty to see this
in themselves,
and to know it must be in others
as well.
And when I try to take responsibility
for not or for
voicing passing thoughts,
and their effects,
only to be met with more wrongs,
and rejects,
I cannot.
For if I am to believe
my responsibility towards you
is meaningless,
then I should seek responsibility elsewhere.
I know.
I know there is much to learn,
and much I do not know,
because I know what I know,
and I know how little that is.
What I know are things about myself,
and therefore others,
that I will always improve upon myself,
or at the very least,
I will try.

So I will not apologize anymore.
For to do so means apologizing for
learning, of myself and of others,
for improving, of myself and of others,
and for trying, for myself and for others,
and I cannot.

I cannot apologize.

Are you like the wind
through open windows and
blowing leaves?
Do you pass by,
felt but not heard,
in the longing hour of the night?
Do you sing in silence
away from the reveries of your fate?
Will you settle on me
such as dust in an old room
with older books,
or will you pass by
as fleeting as a swallow
as the Winter
approaches?

Let me do my work each day;
and if the darkened hours
of despair overcome me, may I
not forget the strength
that comforted me in the
desolation of other times. May I
still remember the bright
hours that found me walking
over the silent hills of my
childhood, or dreaming on the
margin of the quiet river,
when a light glowed within me,
and I promised my early God
to have courage amid the
tempests of the changing years.
Spare me the bitterness
and from sharp passions of
unguarded moments. May
I not forget that poverty and
riches are of the spirit.
Though the world may know me not,
may my thoughts and actions
be such as shall keep me friendly
with myself. Lift my eyes
from the earth, and let me not
forget the uses of the stars.
Forbid that I should judge others
lest I condemn myself.
Let me not follow the clamor of
the world, but walk calmly
in my path. Give me a few friends
who will love me for what
I am; and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope. And
though age and infirmity overtake
me, and I come not within
sight of the castle of my dreams,
teach me still to be thankful
for life, and for time's olden
memories that are good and
sweet; and may the evening's
twilight find me gentle still.

Through what fire and revelation,
what loves have scorched us so,
what vines have wrapped themselves
so sure around our feet,
what webs have we untangled,
left hanging in dusty cellars,
been left hanging on
bare walls.

What love have we longed for,
with what truth we have sought,
and seeds we have sown within
for the times which passed by
without a glimpse in our direction,
unrequited and bereft
of the dust which so dutifully
held us in place for too long.

For what is the matter
of such strife and martyrdom
in comparison to the love in which you have given,
and to what end have these things manifested
to become such stepping stones as
the things that
led me to
you.

Now that you are finally here,
it begins to make sense
why my favorite season,
Fall,
would belong to you.
Who else could it have ever been?

I write this as she sleeps
next to me, with me,
but not with me,
as a testament to the light
she spreads across my pages,
chest moving
in and out,
in and out,
breathing kindness into
these words with her own.
The object of my attention,
affection,
she will rise tomorrow
to the surprise of post-midnight
poetry, hopefully
bringing a smile to her face
as she does mine,
and our small habits
across hundreds of miles
unfold
to become larger rituals,
grander ceremonies,
separated by mere inches.

Fall below the sea, if it so ails,
I will stay here to catch you.
Take me, in ways and in flesh,
wherever you so choose to go.
Do you hear how the wind cries?
How the midnight air swells,
paint me pictures with your words,
and I'll paint you in mine.
I'll show you where this attachment grows,
how the flowing motion of your body
is laid into satin robes,
and when your hips so sway into me,
let's dig into these unmannered times,
how I long to find the ways you
wrap yourself around me,
what my name sounds like passing from
your lips softly as the day's first
light gleams off your ocean eyes.
Lift me with you, I'll take you below me,
show you where this visceral dance
stays within and makes
us so true
and right.

I awoke today to a feeling of strangeness such as I have never experienced.
A feeling that I am not me, will never be me, could never be me,
but that I am a disease. A sickness. A plague of the mind.
A feeling of such hopelessness and despairity that my own existence
was questioned. Was ridiculed. Was proven again and again to be pointless.
And I am getting worse, so it would seem. Yes, it would seem
as if I have (finally) begun my slow descent into madness.
I do not welcome such, no, I try to push and keep it at bay,
I try so hard. But I know that it is inevitable,
for what else could there ever be for me? And to you,
run, I say. Run away for I am the sickness, the plague.
Run away, for I will destroy all that you hold dear, and if it is I,
then my. My oh my, the job has already begun!
And my life, what more could be desired? I have worked,
and worked and worked, and am in a marvelous position, but
I am not happy. I feel that my life is wasted on me, and
so, it is tempting to destroy that as well. Why not?
But no, I will try to hold it together. I will stretch
myself so thin that, when I fail, all in
my life will turn to chaos. All will be destroyed. But until then,
I will try. Until then, I will live.
Just as best I can.

Grasping air and biting dust
around in dazed minds,
I've lost what it means
to be found
and sought what it means
to be lost.
Muddy waters
block my murky sight,
what is wanted is never
given voice to that
which isn't noticed.
Fly on, carry on,
my carrion dreams,
away from me.

A slight, pause, and then she alights upon the branch,
of a willow,
a Willow.
A recess in the rambling of her quickly, flitly
paced life.
A momentary reprieve from her star-guided quest for
truth.
She knows the journey, yet not the
destination.
Of woes and proclamation, and strength within
frustration.
She waits.
For the second-wind, the second-coming,
the stars to fall into the midnight sky so that
she may be guided to the...
truth.
The truth of what is and isn't and what will
come to be,
she lifts
her wings,
spread wide.
See her dance across the florid sky in sweeps
and dips.
Watch her fly, fly, fly,
far away, o'er the horizon.
But she comes back to me, yeah.
She always comes back to me.

Looking back,
I think our main issue stemmed
from the fact
that we completely skipped being friends,
and instead jumped headlong into,
what was supposed to be,
a lifetime commitment.
We never learned each other
as friends,
as separate people that,
sometimes,
require space to be themselves
by themselves.
As people that catch up when,
and only when,
the rest of life will allow.
We are both too independent
to be dependent
or contingent on
anyone
or anyone's schedule.
For a long while
I thought (consciously) I was not guilty,
but I know that I,
too,
tend to lose myself into relationships.
I think we did it backwards —
from relationship to friendship —
but at least
we are
friends.

Today is your birthday.
I always got to be your age for
12 days.
We had years I threw away
like everything.
12-22.
The pin to my old phone for a
long while.
So simple,
people asked why.
I always shrugged it off.
How do I explain to people
that I carry around pieces of
everyone I ever love?
That I can point many changes
in my life
to a certain person?
That I never shed a person
completely, and
that I think of every lover
daily?
You helped me quit smoking.
Another showed me how to hang
on to those we love loosely.
Yet another taught me
the destructive power of anger.
I dream of them all regularly.
I dreamt of you last night.

I suppose we all carry the memories
of everyone, but especially the ones
we love.

i recycle my words
stitch them rip them
tear them apart
turn them into monstrosities
frankensteins of lines
transplant them from here to there
from yours to mine and mine
to none
dead brain dead weight
fallen limbs and the
butchers table
to who or whom
do they belong not mine
let them rot decay
and fade with the times
a madman and a cleaver
cleaving clinging slinging
syllables together senselessly
sensually
torn flesh from bone
marrow and bloodletting
to purify the sickness

New year, new goals,
new places, new faces.
Stripping down the error of
how I've been, those I've
wronged, becoming gentle,
taking care of the self.
Forgiving the foolish things I've
said to unfoolish and foolish people,
simple-minded things I've done,
and those I have irreparably
pushed away.
I lost some people last year.
Some I should have,
some I shouldn't.
But mostly should have.
"Forgive easily, never forget.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
When someone shows you who they are,
believe them."
I regret nothing.
I had to be in all of those places
to be here,
to be present in a mind
that knows what it wants
and knows peace.
No longer at war with myself,
I still can't see where I'm going,
but I have quit destroying myself
along the way.
I can and do love,
and those that have not seen it
are still warring with themselves.
And to the first and only person
that has seen my love,
as it really is, love,
I should have believed you.

Shattered.
Like a glass so carelessly forgotten about
in the wake of something better.
Skin cracked, veins taut
with the anger of past failures,
cut, bleeding,
from the words of your mind.
Broken.
Given to carry the weight of others,
driven to forget about the weight of mine,
and hurt,
hoping to extract the last strengths
of me.
Hopeless.
As a man needing to calm his thirst
as the sun-baked sand reaches ever
onward,
and his reliances grow tired
and time ticks forward
relentlessly.

Shattered. Broken. Hopeless.

All that belongs to me.

I am transparent.
My words,
made of glass,
betray me.

I've been up for too long,
now it's time to come down.
Maybe face that the ideas
weren't really that good and
wouldn't have made me rich!
(Grandeur!)
Return to my natural state of
ink and guitar strings and broken drumsticks,
and tears,
so many tears as tears on the
pages, and I am
still unable to cry.
Have no doubt though,
they are there.
I'm withdrawing, pushing friends and family
away, it has begun.
I'm agitated. Always.
I wake up ready to scream
because even when I'm asleep I can't
sleep and my dreams are
of guns and terror and fear.
I run, but my body is not trained
well enough to run fast and far
enough to pull this thing out of me.
I'm scared.
But I will make it through,
knowing the next high is just
one low away.

These words are like
flower petals strewn across
a forgotten floor.
A contrast in a desolate space,
but chew them,
examine them, love them
and see their origins
birthed in poison.
They escape from their captor's
skin through long trailing tendrils
of ink
much in the way
the ***** pollinates the flower
and is never seen again,
much in the way the words are warped
by alliteration and savagely
captive in metaphors
like they belong in a simile
like they belong under the skin
the way a past made up of
a universe
can never quite make
anything whole again.
They don't quite belong in a
barren place such as this,
but can never move,
for  their venomous
cover would surely taint
all that is green and
full of life.
And if a wind, a breeze,
should lift them from
their resting place upon the floor,
they would surely float and dance
along,
in all normality,
in all the ways they should,
and will wither
and shed their toxic pieces
along the way
to cause coughing, sneezing,
and noses ****** like the watering can
that sprouted these
heinous flowers.
And they will fall
again.

I did it again,
I didn't fight -
I took less
than was deserved.
Nobody respects that,
not even me.
Too worried to tear
out a throat
to deliver a warning
nip.
How many times
do I have to learn
this lesson?
Too little, too late,
right time
wrong place.
Don't you dare
face me now.
I am rabid,
full of venom,
and craving blood.

You are my morning coffee
and my fade into dreams.

Taking a small break
Maybe you haven’t noticed
I’ve been kinda scarce

You are present as a passing breeze,
carrying the scent of lavender,
caressing my waiting hands
with a gentle brush.
But like the wind,
you are felt by
all
you surround,
and you wistfully drift away
before I can breathe you in.

My friends and I laugh a lot
when we're together.
We talk about a lot of things.
Stupid ****, women, philosophy,
politics, games, books,
anything.
We've seen the women come and go,
been there for each other
through all the heart breaks,
seen each other drunk and crying,
drunk and suicidal.
You can't break those bonds.
We chose each other,
they chose me.
We're a very tight-knit group,
and it's hard for outsiders to understand us.
We've been on a lot of adventures.
We work well together --
we're always a team.
Not a bad looking group of fellas either,
so when we get on the move,
on the hunt,
women never stand a chance,
and God forbid anyone ever
cross us when we're together.
As a team we're invincible,
we can't be touched.
They would lay down their lives for me,
and I would do the same.
It's unspoken, but we know it well.
We will ride together,
and we will die together
as brothers.

READ BOLD WORDS FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP


                                       *Top.
                                     the very
                                rain.             To
                     the air bags you hounding      
                     us know. you got it from
                   to bad. soul-mates. straw protect
                 the paper. count daddy. cat roof
                 We tree. creative writing. painting build
              of do everything day. tattoos. harry hope.
        in potter, himym. the dam. racing. falling shingles
      our in water into the trash can. all the laughs.home
We the hopes. the dreams. the love. many more to come *cover
to form the ceiling in which we gaze upon in starry wonder
         and                                                              ­             up
         building                                                         ­          up
         ahead   and what lies           behind.     To       keep
         so          we       may               see        what         lies
         harm.   These glass               windows we       keep
         all          that         is                our        own   against
         build     so that  we                protect ours         and
         walls                                                            ­           we
         open             doors  to  the  future.                These
         can                live                  happily                 ­  and
         way               to                    in                         which   Cieara,       Eric
         so                  we         open the                          only      /|\              /|\
         for                 our                  future                      and       |   Dance  |
         on                  which             we                    prepare       /\     /|\       /\
         on which to lay our lives and hopes and  dreams     /   \   / \     /    \
         Build a foundation of  brick, mortar,  and    stone

I just wish someone out there knew how I felt tonight.
I wish someone could feel these tears, as they slide
down my cheek, past my lips, and, finally,
fall, onto the paper. I just want someone
to understand. I'm so tired of being alone in this.
I don't know how much longer I can do it.
I've never been so tired, so annoyed, so frustrated,
so angry, so torn up, so absolutely
******* SICK of any god ****** thing.
I've dealt with myself for years already, and
I'm already worn thin. I just don't think I
can do it. I'm tired of living, I guess, and
I just need, I NEED, someone who understands:
I'm okay with dying.

I. Root — Survival — Fear
My deepest fear is that
I am not good enough,
and never will be.
I fear that I am unable to
love
and that's what makes me
unlovable.

II. Sacral — Pleasure — Guilt
I blame myself still
for your passing.
Maybe if I had thought,
if I had been less self-involved,
to tell you about the car.
Maybe you would be here.

I cheated on you,
the only time I've ever cheated.
You shouldn't have had
to bare such pain
because of my foolishness.

I thought being with you
would finally let me be over
a heart-break.
Now I see that I hadn't
moved on
far enough,
and I'm sorry for its effects.
At least I made a friend.

I wish I could help my family
more.
They deserve so much better,
and I promised to help,
but the further I come
the more I realize
I must help myself.

III. Solar Plexus — Will-power — Shame
I am ashamed
that I am not stronger,
that I don't have the courage
to take the path less traveled.
I have been safe,
strategic,
in my life-choices.
Maybe I've had to be,
but maybe that's an excuse.

IV. Heart — Love — Grief
I've lost some people
along the way
as all of us have.
I know I hold on to parts
of my pain,
I know I keep it chambered.

I should have told
all of you
I love you.

V. Throat — Truth — Lies
I have my ego in check,
that is perhaps my greatest lie.
I like to think I do,
I fight against it,
but sometimes it swells.

A part of me is ready
to settle down,
become a Father,
but I don't know if that
is a truth.
A definite truth is that
I must be free.
How can I have both?

VI. Third Eye — Insight — Illusion
This world is an illusion.
We are all the same,
and all of the stars in the sky
are the same
as us.
Everything is connected,
everything is one.

VII. Crown — Cosmic Energy — Earthly Attachment**
I must let it all go,
those I love,
those I've lost,
fear I've felt,
shame I've harbored,
lies I've told,
grief I've formed,
and let the
illusions shatter.

The smell is in the air,
how everyday odors have become
suddenly
more pungent than they were before.
I recognize this.

Time is warped,
it slows to a crawl in front of me.
The birds stop in mid-flight
their songs hung in the sky
from little strings
in the heavens.
Things move so slowly
but all too fast
at the same time.

I am simultaneously inspired
and uninspired
in the same breath,
energetic and lethargic
in the same motion,
thoughtful and dull
in the same sentence.

The routine kills, it's time to
shake things up a bit,
time to change the layout,
change the scenery,
change the mind,
change the self.
It's time to learn as much
as possible
and forget everything I've
ever known.
It's time for a change.

I can't quite pull myself away
from the chaotic.
Always one foot into insanity
and one foot into order,
seeking what?
Clarity?
Maybe a thrill
like a ******
riding the wrongs until
they become right,
but they never do.
They never do.
But I am at my best
when my mind is in ten
places I cannot be,
and my body struggles to
catch up,
and it never does.
It never does.

I am full of holes
just like a good cheese

The day you tried to live,
you could not,
and passed on to the
Superunknown
and let us fall on
black days.
You finally let yourself drown
in a way much
like suicide,
a spoon in your hand?
Spoonman?
You could never quite break
your rusty cages,
outshined by your own light,
burdened by your own hand.
You roll on like a stone,
the final hunger strike.
Someone forgot to
show you how to live,
and now you will be missed.

Many words to be said
on a thousand subjects,
but should I?
A look cast in
captivation, in awe,
caught by her fair
self,
dissected by a curious
and creative
mind.
Deflected.
Knowing that things said
without due cause
cannot be said non-caustically
and ceremoniously enough
for mine
and her
celebration.
Given careful time, these
sentiments cease in any
colorful misgivings
and come to
careful poetry.
So the watercolor carnations
creeping, chasing,
charging in our chaotic lives,
bind her child inside
as much as I
possibly could ever.
Courageously, she claws,
and my callous lips
close to form her name,
her call,
my continuous circumstance,
Cieara.

I don’t know the weight of your words,
with what truth they carry,
but I assume the best
and that you have tied them up,
written them in fading ink
on homemade parchment,
considered them well,
etched them on the closed door.
I reach for the ****,
intending to see if it’s locked
but cease my motion.
I don’t know your intent,
didn’t know it then,
so chances are I never will.
Maybe you don’t either,
but, in this, maybe is a fracture
across time and
a life I wish to keep whole.
Closure is a blessing
when done with right intent,
but I don’t know you,
so I’ll take it at face value,
assume it is true and good,
and leave doors locked from within
alone.