What we
Are,
We shall never
Be.
We are programmed
For the stars-
Programed to the
Sea.

I know you're looking for me to write something, but all is said and done. There's nothing left to say, and nothing left to return from.

I trace wild horses with my fingers;
Running,
Running in the dead of night.
Running from sunlight.
We were cursed to think up freedom
And not understand what it means.
The message is too many things.
Running-
From what?
Wonderful is the midnight dark
There is life,
There is the spark.
The perfect man is up
Looking in trashcans for food
To survive.
We live all this time
Just to die
One day.
So many years dedicated to
One day.
I'll find it out
Some day-
The way
Is too high
My thoughts, base.
Listen to the drums
Feel the bass in your bones.
Life is reflections and vibrations
A mind trying to make sense
Of imaginary stimuli
That's why I stare
At the stars in your eyes
Wondering
What the horses
Are running from

escape has become my cell
The Thin veil of freedom
Wraps tightly around my skin
Choke me with your silence
See me with no eyes
Death is a better alternative
You there, reader, are a fool
For sticking around so long
Look around there is nothing here:
3 walls and a cell door, a flimsy mattress atop a metal frame bolted to the wall, and a toilet.
In here I am all and nothing
Escape is overrated

Floating through space,
An endless eternity.
A forgotten face,
Do you even remember me?
Cold and alone, but not scared.
I was born
To choke on air.
Reality is just a word devised
To constrain the mind.
I exist, not here,
Outside of time.
Wake up!
Wake up!
I tell myself.
Wake up!
Wake up!
There must be something else.....

Been dreaming about Porsches and pornstars
All while holding my wife
Lovingly in my arms.
And I know it's a malady
To want more
When I have more than I need.
I find it difficult to come to terms with this reality.
I use to never have dreams
Now it seems,
It's all I have

I've been lauded as
"Pretty decent"
I've been celebrated
As "A Cool Guy"
I can chop mountains
In half with my fist.
A voodoo child,
I have never missed
My mark.
My story arc
Has only begun.
The highest peaks
Are only distractions
I want more than
This earth can give.
More
More
More

I feel ***** when I go out in public.
Like a mangy dog everyone tries to avoid.
I don't want to cause problems, but people treat me so.
I stay to myself, someone walks up and asks what's my deal.
"I have none." I say.
They walk away, hate brooding in their eyes.
What gods have I angered to deserve such a fate.
My head hangs low as I look for scraps, to be left alone, that would be a blessing.
On a side note, writing seems to be losing its magic. Things I could not bear seem to be piling on. My escape is gone, and I fear I'm being backed into a corner, and eventually I'm going to have to fight back, only to reinforce people's image of me.

Do you, by chance,
Know of romance?
Far too long I've had
A dalliance
With self-deprecation.
I was so sure I didn't deserve love,
Or a hug,
Or a sympathetic look.
Only recently have I learned what my past had taken-
Silenced a heart to keep it from breaking.
It's been yearning to awaken.

Do you, by chance, know of romance?
Not what movies feed you, or what novels mislead you into believing-
that there are happy endings.
Do you know how to wake up,
And as your eyes are still adjusting,
Not see demons in your reflection?
Do you know how to center yourself when life is spinning you in all directions?

Do you, by chance,
Know of the hardest romance-
Loving yourself?

History is changing before our very eyes.
Every moment has its sides.
Only time decides
Who or what is right.
I've seen it time and time again.
And I don't much care for societies
Or ideologies
Or causes,
But I do support humans' right
To be human.

That's all we are-
Be kind to yourselves

I've nary a use for dreams.
Stifled memories and obscenities
Created by a tortured mind.
The real world
With it's dangerous and deceitful
Seems more kind.
Nothing left to find.
They continue to sell us the dream of the universe.
"New adventures"
It's like new love same lame heart.
Somewhere along the way
We've lost our art.
What use is a dream
When reality has become absurd

Why step lightly?
Why proclaim politely
The thunder cracking in your bones?
Fear- you'd do good to leave it well enough alone.
Misery is the river of the world
Now
Row row row
Up a stream you already know,
Or jump overboard
And make a big enough splash
To drown out the low drum;
The consecrated, numb voice
Singing in your ears,
"Why?"

I had a dream of a face or a place-
I can't quite remember.
You were there, or maybe....
Not.
It was an aluminum haze,
An emerald craze.
The days don't seem too real anymore,
But honestly,
They never did.
I had a dream
The first in.... I can't remember.
It was warm, soothing;
Everywhere, but never moving.
But now I soar to lands dripping with diamonds
And the dream,
The dream gets farther and farther
Out of reach.

How does one muster the courage
To continue on
When dying
Is the natural thing to do?

Water drop
Longing return to the ocean
You can move mountains- erosion

It simply takes time

Another day.
Things are OK.
I'm still waiting
For my moment-
Any moment.
The fire
Has dimmed.
Smoke billows
Toward the sky.
I breathe,
But I'm barely even alive.
What's the point of fighting?

The world is invisible.
My brain can't comprehend what we're doing here.
"Fight you idiot!" That's what the voice inside my head yells.
Poe asks, "Can you no longer hear the bells?"
I can't....
It's all a low buzz now:
Cars honking for me to go,
The songs on the radio.

I am mist
Dissipating in the wind,
But it is OK
It's just another day.

There is something about distance
That makes you yell for what you've been missing,
And something about closeness
That forces you to seek silence.
I see your image
Behind closed eyelids,
Only to open them
And be met with
Mirages.
If you were truly here,
I would turn over,
My back to yours,
And find comfort
That I could take you for granted

It's disheartening to see sparks that once caught your eye slowly flicker away and die. I think on how long I carried the flame. Has it been long?
How many people have looked into my eyes and saw the fire waning? Now the smoking ashes of a once memory flutter in the wind like butterflies in migration. Where do they go? I don't know nor do I care anymore...

The world perpetually turns.
The Phoenix eternally burns.
Somewhere beneath the embers
Is a memory nobody remembers.
The smell of cleaning chemicals
Fills my nostrils,
But getting the stains out seems impossible.
God gives us only what we can handle,
But my suspension is shot,
So any little bump is a lot.
The air is getting warmer.
The air is getting thinner.
I struggle to breathe, there's no salvation for a born sinner.
The world turns perpetually.
The Phoenix burns eternally.
I am not so lucky.

I pen these words
To upend the scourge of humanity
In me
For I have been human
Longer than I think I should've.
To be honest, my poetry isn't in the words you read, but in my mere existence.
I am celestial, eternal.
I know this life is death-
Still I take my breaths
Because mortality is a once in a lifetime experience.
I pen these words to chronicle the journey,
Nothing more.
I do not belong,
But here I am;
What keeps me going
Is that one day,
I shall return to the motherland
And this life will be a fleeting memory.
A moment to be remembered
Then forgotten
like it's supposed to be.

What temperance
Hath peace
In me
Started?
The nights
Swoon,
Dreams alight
Upon my mind
No longer.
Endless faith
In hopeless deeds-
Growing pains
From defective seeds.
What I am and what I came to be
Never coincided peacefully
I was supposed to set the world on fire,
Instead I water the seeds of my own discord
That something good may come of it

Spend too much time in my mind
Still not getting ahead
Lately I've been feeling the urge to cry
Not really knowing why
Maybe it's a well of emotions
I thought had run dry
Don't understand it but I try try try
Tyrannically
I'll make you love me
My words don't taste like they used to
Bittersweet
The day my dreams and memories meet
Maybe I'll find
Meaning in the secrets I so carefully keep

Begrudgingly, I place shoes upon my feet to go places I've been before
A million paces back and forth
Trail marks left on the floor
Trapped, not by chains or circumstance,
but by a mind unable to feel
Walking through minefields of neglect and lost intellect
How many lies did I forget?
How many lies do I still hold true?
Communication flows from you to me, but not me to you
I'm in dire straits
This turtle race
Makes me anxious
I scratch and scrawl
Diseased words
On my heart
Words like:
"Unyielding pain,
Demons, haunting, hopeless, can't, unable"
And we are conduits of our thoughts
I've been pacing back and forth in these shoes
And just now realized I've never put on socks

Your eyes
Could melt
This pewter world,
And give
Power to
The powerless.
But the toungue
Learnt silence.
Statues remain
Intact.
Reality is no place
For dreaming.
Money trees grow
Their sickly, green leaves
As souls cascade
Into foreign soils.
You could've
Melted the world
With your song and dance,
But the rhythm
Has been broken.
The clocks are off key.
Some one
Should've done something.
Why are you looking at me?

There's
Some things
Even the greatest
Poet
Can not
Write

Desperation
Settles on my skin
Like grease
Or oil.
Wash away all you like,
But it's hard to get under
The fingernails.
Words were a gale
Rushing
Lifting me up
But desperation
Keeps weighing me down.
I want diamonds in my heart
Eagles in my eyes
Pearls in my smile
But I am not that guy.
Hatred has wrapped it's claws
'Round my neck
And I kind of like it.
Wash it away
Wash it away,
Can't get under the fingernails
What the **** is even the point

Eyes:
The glimmer has dulled.
In the winter
We curled together
Hopeful that summer would melt our frozen hearts.
Cryogenics never quite took off; forever is nothing to scoff at. How are we to spend eternity when this quarter century has already lasted too long? We listen to the same songs on repeat- we know the words but forgotten how to tap our feet. Asymptotic lives forced to come close but never meet. Summer is here. Our hearts were never really frozen, that's just what they told us. And to come together is to burn alive- Salem witch trials- mediocre minds know extraordinary vileness. Nights I wake up drenched in sweat wondering what could have been. I play our songs half hoping to be frozen in memory. I reach and reach, but touch only air. Heavy, humid air. Always choking on ghostly emotions. Rain clouds come round but nothing falls. Existential drought. Bodies fall,
Silent
Under the sun.
The unaffected
Play on the beach
And have fun.

To walk through the fire unscathed
Is not ideal
For it means you are too used to the burn-
And no one likes their steak well-done

Oh, oh,
I've been runnin from
You.
Runnin From
Your love.
Trying to keep my head above
Your flooded heart.
I've been picked apart
By scholars and scientists.
None of them know how I exist-
How I survive,
But I'm still alive
Runnin
From you.

Our  skin is
                   Bats
blindly
        fluttering in the night.

The melancholy
Settling
          on our bones
Is an old man
Spending
                    $100
At a ******'s
In exchange for
Some pretty girl's
                                 attention.

Our heroes
              are Silver plated
But
               Cast in clay.

What is there

Left
          To say?
Life has conned us all

            As dried leaves
Scorched

                    Under sun rays
Fall

Without dancing in the wind.

We were meant to
  
               Glide up
In the sky,

While stars look upon us
    
                           And cry.

You say you're ready to end it all, things are too much to handle
Meanwhile I sit in a bathtub full of water blade to my skin.
I know you want something, some show of emotion-
Anything for God's sake!
How hard could it be?
But I am not strong, though I feign it.
I don't know a thing, though I claim it.
You search for an impetus to stay.
All I can clearly say is, "There is none."
Its devastating, that much I know.
But what am I to do when all I've been through has extinguished the light I once possessed? Somehow light shines through my words, sometimes
But it's just muscle memory at this point.
What can anyone do for you?

What can anybody do for any of us.....

This person sitting next to you tells you their life story- you listen so as to not be rude.
They go on about their plans
For the future; every one has plans.
And you scream, "It's all so redundant!"
You go on to say "what we want can never be achieved in this mortal form."
Try explaining a rocketship to a sloth.
Your dreams are too big to even make sense
So everyone thinks your crazy,
But they are insane.
"We're already dead, can't you see?" You tell them.
"Our dying breath lasts over 50 years.
Exploring our cell doesn't mean we are free. Don't you want to be more than a tax attorney?"
You plead, hoping somebody can offer some sense- anything, a nod of acceptance. All you're met with is silence and bewildered eyes.
You break down and cry at this feeling of lonliness.

But really
You say nothing.
You just sit there
Listening so as to not seem rude.

Writing.
Fighting
Demons that should've
Let me rot years ago.
I take my breaths;
Inhale deep and slow.
I consume the world around me,
But never grow-
Stultified caterpillar
With nowhere to go.
I know
There is more to this.
Whatever this is.
But until
My eyes are allowed
See salvation;
You can find me here.