When the calm in my eyes met the fire in yours, I mistook your heat for warmth.
You were an artist and arsonist, creating something beautiful just to destroy it.
The cycle was violent, reminiscent of manipulated shades of red on canvas.
Your words were sharp, softening my tone until I fell into quiet submission.
Your need for control couldn't be satiated, I failed to realize that I handed you the knife.
Blood pooling at my feet, I still felt grateful you chose me.
I opened my mouth but no words came out and as you lit your final match, I realized I was the art.

I built this prison by hand, laid every brick until I couldn't see the world around me.
Shackles on my ankles, anchors keeping me from floating away.
Solitary confinement the only solace l've ever known.
I built this prison by hand, my sentence indefinite.
My pain written on the walls, a reminder of why I'm here.
Memories kept out like the worst kind of contraband.
Suffering consequences of actions not my own.
Was my trial fair? Do I deserve parole?
Having once felt safe within these walls, I find myself claustrophobic.
Suffocated by unearned guilt, choking on shame.
Cracks in the brick reveal light.
A reminder that the sun rises, time passes, though I stay here.
If I built this prison by hand, what else can I build?

A hermit crab
In love with his bongo.
Scuffles on with his bongo beat.
Each thump filling the empty space
Around him.
He walks the hot concrete.
In search of something like home.
His shell dragging behind
Weighing him down.
The thump no longer loud enough
To move its tiny body.
The rhythm barely rattling around its
shell.
After a while everything can turn into a drag.
But still, he scuffles on.
He smiles, stopping to take a break
On the grass.
The concrete burning his feet.
His tiny claws scraping across the bongo.
He looks over to his left.
To find an old boot.
Nodding her head, tapping the ground
Following along to the beat.
Although weathered, she too smiled.
Echoing back his loud thuds.
Her sole cracked but full of life.
Life happens in the strangest way sometimes.
Two outcasts alone.
Drumming up stories without a word.
Scuffling on a bongo heart.
Life doesn't have to be a drag all the time.

I think I figured out my health woes
and mental ones to boot
It's salt rinses until I can leave it to the tooth extraction professionals
Why is it so difficult for me to make the phone call
Do I still fear I'll be yelled at like I was child?

I want parental validation to ward off these unknown strangers
but I've been getting to know - for 10 years now
I'm smarter than my folks at home
The horror

The trick is to have the childhood faith you once had in them
in yourself - and in everyone else when you're not there
"These idiots will get along just fine. Why can't I?"

I'll make the tough phone calls
Post vulnerable pictures and songs
Deep down, do I just want a partner again?
Dog sitting alone
If I was trapped in my childhood home for a weekend
with some gregarious girl opposite of me
I would be a wholly different person
as I was in the past - 3 or 4 times over

This is the soberest I've been in a year
"Had my tea today without any sugar, no difference"
Except I see the fear and laziness as infinitely surmountable

You're up against propaganda promulgating passive lethargy
on all fronts
Sometimes you need to admit you're better than the herd
and swat away the crab claws dragging you back down
into the bucket of schlop  
Stop feeling so bad for using a few paper napkins
when you couldn't find a washable cloth
You need to break some eggs when humiliating the charlatans
and their fans out of this cultureless slump

If I could hold
what hands won’t

If I can have
what hands don’t

If I can smile
and take note

I can handle anything.

I don't sit in these minutes.
Wondering how and why
I fall into a motion, mindlessly
Opening cabinets of half-made
Half-done, half-finished things
Opening and closing
Yesterday and today
Just opening and closing
Until it starts to make sense
Until this loss fills in the cracks and these half-things, this half me,
find a resolution to seal these doors shut

When you are Loved,
and so deeply cared for;

There is nowhere to run..
  Nowhere to hide

The only thing you can do
(under the warmth of that beautiful Hold)

     Is to slowly unwind..
     Until  you  Become.

It is already in you, Love..
buried behind the horrible Residual.
Remember..?

Within the soon to crumble Wall..

within the Corruptible,
that was so unfairly and horribly
     corrupted

Is the  absolutely Beautiful  in you
that has been  (and always will be)
     Incorruptible
.. preciously-Hidden, behind the wall


"It is Incorruptible..
It cannot undergo Decay"

You are in there, sweet-one
   buried underneath
every horrible part of it all.

      As the wall comes down..
      Love will find you.


   When allowed,
   it always, always does.