I'm Crazy Cause That's How You Made Me

that beautiful bayonet that you kept under the bed, you never got how much it said. it rested there easy, while i toiled empty, and you, you took perfection to the next level. that silly song you used to sing, and bust a move to - it's rusted and ruined. those flashes of brilliance that we shared, now the mortgage is in arrears. i spent my time being way behind, and it took two years, but you finally put me out. and all these fillers that replaced you on my speed dial, they do for a while. but sometimes i'll simply take a step back and lay flat and stare up, and become all the more aware of the concrete truth.

i miss you.

and i could write a thousand pages dedicated to you, or merely call you up at work and remind you just how real i actually am. but now i've invested in a life worth living, i have misgivings. ones about chasing you and facing you, because last time you spoke to me it was clear you finally, once and for all, had the facts. the facts bring me to tears. and i think of you with your circus of emotions and flagrant disregard for my well being, a disdain for all that was undoubtedly at the core of me. you cast all my mistakes in stone, set up a throne, where nightly i'd bow down and beg and repent. and while i was busy reliving all the poetic mistakes i'd made, you'd do anything but participate.

and, i still miss you.

you, the miyagi of manipulation, the bear claws of hatred, the monumental virgin mary with a wicked stare, the vine of life choking out mine,

to me, the stubborn baby i just wanted to cradle.

i have to fine tune my heart and train it to stop with this. i can't miss you. i'm just paralyzed with fear that my heart will stop working without you pumping the blood.

_______ ________ "Forgot About Us"

i had to find you. i went to your job and saw your friend. i had always pictured her to be less like you than you made it seem. you two could be sisters. i asked if she'd seen you and her face went blank, expressionless. she wasn't expecting me - i always lacked the capacity to show up must be what you showed her. she told me she wasn't supposed to talk to me and next i expected a but...

she walked right past me to her car and never gave me so much as a second look. i wasn't close to disgruntled yet it was my first attempt. i beelined for the bank near your job. there i saw you candidly in line. for all the things we did together bank errands wasn't one of them. i grabbed your shoulder and you turned but it was a total stranger. i was beginning to unravel, this is where i left you, where have you wandered off to. i started scouring the neighborhood, i recognized a couple people that could recognize you, and they told me you were out by the hills. you weren't alone.

i cut through this office and overheard a lady say "i can leave whenever i want". i thought how bitter, who is she trying to convince, as if her words would cut away the imaginary bars that leave her drowning in an isolated island of responsibility. i also thought - how profoundly true, but she's nothing special, we all can. leave.

when i got outside it was raining, i saw two girls entertaining the rain. inspired i started jumping up and stomping my feet down in a series of puddles. it felt like i wanted to drain them, dry them up, and leave them empty. i don't know what came over me because i end up laying in a polluted puddle feeling baptized in the most impure of waters. and the feeling flooded me that there could be moments where i could simultaneously pull off happiness and life without you.

next thing i know your friend is driving us and i'm in the back seat unbuckled. i feel like i'm flailing but i can't even make out the motions of my body. i'm pleading with you to come back home, that i can contact the keeper of your heart. i'll make an arrangement and get it back. i'm yearning for a fourth last chance. i don't remember anything you say except "i forgot about us". right then and there i pulled a page from my notebook and ripped off a corner with just enough room to right your first and last name, and below it "forgot about us". i put it in my pocket and whenever i start to go down that road i pull it out and remember why i can't.

I'll Toil While You Take

all that paranoia that did me no good, didn't prepare me for what you would. memories that surpassed happiness roared in my mind, to let it all go, this need to unwind. all the time invested, and it seems that you left with everything good, stuff i should have took. my days feel numbered, i forget my name and age, the downfall of us is we were never on the same page. and in the back of my mind this heavy thought took president, over damn near everything. but your face it changed from what i remember, the serpent slipped out of your skin, and into the wind, i inhaled it. this broken me that still longs for a perfect you, a direct hit to my heart, the heart that is only now still beating from self medication and rigged with valves that don't belong to me. ones i took from past lovers and friends, they transcend anything i was born with. and stories that i remember from my youth. how i thought every motorcyclist was waving to me, and then it came to my attention they were just changing lanes. an allegory for us. can't you see it, can you understand. after the first two weeks, and with nothing panning out i called in a favor to an ex butcher in lieu of the taxadermist having moved down state for the warmed and more pleasurable weather. anyway, i asked the butcher to go easy on my manifest of reckless endeavors. i stepped in them willingly and stayed in. and without a fight the butcher gave me three rounds in the ring, a loss by knockout he insisted would be the best outcome. i must have looked just insane enough, because not having been raised tough he gave me the second consideration, the one you wouldn't. and when he sized up the organ, marking it gory with the magic marker, i saw just how battle tested my heart had been. the headlining act of my mortal self, i finally saw what i have done to it, that crippling effect i seem to have on anything reaching out for my survival.

But You Do

it's funny sometimes what you remember. these people who pass through our lives, but they don't come out on the other side with you. and it's all a serene bad dream, a horrid joke with a missing punch line and you're not sure when to laugh or why anyone else is. and sure you leave adolescence behind but you never expected it to be so far gone. changes that become the make up of your new self. the one who has regrets and mistakes not worth mentioning because when you do you set yourself back about a year. and i hear about what you're up to now, with out me. and i always knew when we were together that this was all in passing. that you would walk out on me, and it was in those moments when i thought i'd never recover from you that i actually grew out of all the simplicity that kept me happy. and i think about you often, probably more than i should. and sometimes i imagine that you'll surprise me with a visit, cause you know exactly where to find me. and i'm not really too sure what started all of this, some pain that began escaping through the cracks of my heart and soul. i tried feverishly to cover it all up, thinking that if anyone saw i'd end up feeling even more alone. however, it all backfired when i mistakenly used an escape that i downplayed the dangers of. and years later i haven't ever gotten past what happened to you, and where you went. and while the sound of moving forward plays emphatically in my mind the choir is singing a terribly different tune. all these keepsakes that i kept from our time together are fading and they're expressionless, it makes me overwhelmed with sadness that my memories are dwindling. i know that if i give it another ten years of surviving with out you i'll probably forget everything you wanted so badly for me to remember. and i'm sorry, if i saw you i'd apologize because i know i'd probably be your biggest let down if you were still here to see me. and i try so hard to stay living at a pace i know i can be comfortable with, and there's not enough time to be angry and sad, and yet i still squeeze it all in. crouching behind every moment i can remember you in is this faint idea that i almost never had you. it was so scarce, the times we had together. and everything after was so much less desirable, left crying until my face was red and the taste of dead tears filled my stomach and made me nauseous, and you faded more with every passing sleepless night. all i inherited, what you left me with, became somewhat unmemorable. and while i miss you it's only now that i'm not sure what that even means, what lies within my carnival of emotions, where i go to find you. what it comes down to is my inability to breach this contract i made with a vulnerable self, so low i lost sight of the potential that swelled the future that was going to be mine. i took for granted all the love that was still out there for me, and focused on all the love i had lost. and when all i really needed was a hand from the right person, instead i got support from people incapable of realizing i was headed toward an implosion that would resurrect every minute and massive detail that created every misgiving i had ever experienced. and when it all finally bubbled to the surface my heart exploded and i could no longer look anyone in the eye without wondering what they had been through, and when they lost themselves. i only saw sadness, it crept into everything, and even the most beautiful memories got lost. i wanted to go looking for them, but even more so i wanted them to wind up on my doorstep or in some spot where i couldn't miss them for the life of me. the fight in me was gone now and everything, even the most simple tasks seem unfathomable and what i would give to reconcile with a much younger and more forgiving me. the impossible task of pushing forward and paving my way from a bottomless pit of grave helplessness to something resembling complacency. and i guarantee you that when i get there, because i most certainly will, that is where you'll be. the whole time, you were on the other side, and the patience you exhibited would be the first breath of fresh air i'll ever feel. in a world once bare and grey, you'd greet me at the door to the other side, the one where you knew i'd find my way to, even if it meant a painstaking journey where i had little to be devoted to. and i began to see you again, and the ardent union meant i was no longer losing. had i not found you, my darling, i'm not quite sure where i'd be, but rest assured beautiful you're the most plausible person and i am certain that my love is what i must let lead me. the second i begin doubting what we found together i sequester myself, my backbone becomes soft and i cost myself another series of awful and endless months where i'm caught up in a graphic and bleak sadness that hoovers, breathing down my neck, gathering ammunition that it uses to make my heart go missing. off the grid where i become a lone ranger searching for promises that i know will make me whole again. and it's nothing against that anger and resentment that resides in the pit of my heart, but i could do without it, and on any given day it decides to play an instrumental role in breaking me down, and forsaking the ground i walk upon. but it's up to me to never let that happen again.


but thank god for you. and the love you have for me. every night i spend in your arms coincides with every ounce of happiness that runs through my veins. and it's all a big riddle to me, why you have this tremendous effect on my mood, but you do.

The Past Looks Better The Further You Are From It

i woke up uninhibited by all the bad i have walked past. and it's the same angel i dream of that summons me in the early morning daze. she softly speaks to me about her needs, and why mine are to be dismissed. she reminds me that i rely on her, it comes off kind of her even though she's belittling my desires. she does so though in the most romantic of ways, a gesture that feels like a caress. her words rub my back and they place my hand in hers. comfort that grows exponentially, and my head soon sides with the rest of me. she warns, the backdrop of my life has come out of necessity, thus leaving me empty. the routines that i've adopted we're chosen while i was backed into a corner, mediocrity swarming. my angel tells me draw the curtains, allow the outside to prey upon your every inch, stay in line with the scorching sun and let the heat expand your views and belief. then suddenly she looks around her and her graceful voice rises an octave all filled with promise.  plump and risen her words come out and as they do they're written across all the walls in the room, god told her i can see without my eyes, just take off the disguise, the memories are lies. a thousand other peacekeeping sentences came out along with those, and i race to keep them all close. and what she had spoke was set to be my bible, walking stick, and outlet. no doubt, i just woke up.

Visits At Your Grave

i parade the flesh of an old dear friend. then you come to me in my head.
and even when they claimed you dead, and lowered you into the ground, i knew you were close, around.
the spectators are screaming and they appear panicked, but i know deep down they wish they were participants. oh! they think it ridiculous? i might appear uncivil with the skin, as it's waving in the wind. i swear we were of kin.
and now i'm not sure what this is all for. i thought if i reminisced with the organ i remembered most, it'd be something you'd jump in, and we could hug uninterrupted for minutes on end. oh! that skin is my friend!
the presentation is something i've been wishing ever since i distanced myself from the colonies of people who frequent their library of emotions on an everyday basis. oh! i'm the craziest?
and who am i to stand alone, lifting my head when only i heard - you.
people reacted were wavering, their very pieces coming undone. some would melt in the sun, break from the fun, my head filled with delirium,
the fever i'm running has gotten so high, although the degrees mean nothing to me, i'm having some trouble. and there you are ahead, and the skin i was holding is now unfolding in front of me. it's you i see.
and suddenly i'm not so troubled, and  you come running, and we land in an embrace.
oh! your face! this was not the mistake they all claimed it would be. it's the best i've felt, we're back together, the way i remember.
i'm so happy, i'm bouncing, aroused again by you. the years that have passed feel like nothing.
i stepped through a time warp, a lesson in fine art. oh! nothing could keep us apart?
now, since there is no catching up to do, we lay in the grass. my head in your lap, and i look up at you, and for once i know exactly what to do.
but you're becoming faint, glistening in the sun, i know you'll go missing. oh! the love!
but before you're gone, i have to let you know, how devastated i am that you'll go.
and something i never expected, you tear up, and look me straight in the eye, it's like i'm waiting to die, not you.
and the words come loose - "when on your knees, and i'm not there, take a stand
and instead of grappling with your feelings, accept that maybe you're healing,
let my memory go. let the mesmerizing thought of me not ending, escape. it's an impossibility, we knew it'd be - oh! only temporary!"

The Horizon Stands Alone

standing upon my deck made of distress, i look out at the yard, covered with white. and the farther i look out the more grey it becomes. and if you pulled up those oak planks that make the deck you'd find at least fifty corpses. ones of love, friendship, the briefly acquainted, the souls who dropped when they caught a glimpse of the future laid in front me (something i can't ever see because i'm within it, and the passage is dark so only those far enough away can shed some light upon it). however, there are also ones that belong, the beasts, and domineering, the radical engineer who stole a heart that was so close to me, i thought it belonged. the damnation they must feel is something i can't fathom, and when i set out to the find the god i believe in, i'm sure that's the first thing i'll ask. why do some us have to spend such time suffering?

back on the deck and the cedar is unfinished. unprotected from the elements, i can relate to that. and it's all quite like the book i'm currently rehearsing. the lines etched in my mind, they come out at unpleasant times, i need to reschedule the mind. and blink ahead in my eyes.  a practice that no longer is preached, i reach out for my memories and they grab back. the past that i allowed to consume my present,  the one who acted as my co conspirator for all the grief stashed away. and it might create a certain scene in ones mind, me standing upon my enemies, i acted willfully. don't let it fool you, a picture paints 1,000 words, but not this time. and yes you can argue perspective, but i don't have access to yours.

and there is no perfect horizon - like the one i imagine miles away in the midwest. flatland could do such justice to what i'm feeling versus what i'm acting out. my horizon is hiding behind houses, and trees mainly. but there is the occasional outlandish, gigantic sort of heartbreak that smears the horizon, and lets it fade what should be close to perfect. i reach out and draw the imaginary line with my finger. what-should-be has ruined a lot of my opportune ventures. the blurred lines between the sky and the ground make everything a bit more surreal. it often leads to a sort of state of confusion on my part where i have these mishaps where while at my destination i'm unaware of the steps i took to get there. or i take a count twice, and still can't come up with a number. these steps and numbers are minuscule but the mere fact that this happens concerns me. then i forget. i've turned to writing things down, small notes. then people ask me what they mean, but i haven't the slightest clue. something about a cover up. is it criminal or exposure. do i need to call the station and tell them what i know? would i turn myself in for all the crimes i commit, or just the ones that haunt my daily life, the ones i remember, that leave me dismayed and buried in dilemma. catching up with myself is weekly task, i tend to rewrite the history books and add some pomp where it never belonged. and a tackle box that i repeatedly tell people i go fishing with, the solitude does me worlds of wonderful god-like goodness, and i suggest to them they try it out. solitude becomes more socially acceptable if you're terrorizing fish in the process.

The Flat Minds Who Passerby

  

   i minded my business for so long, i've forgotten how to approach you. and i imagine you're still the same but as soon as i'm close enough to get a look i'm scared and i back off. yes, i know you say it everyday i betrayed your trust, but i'm truly sorry, and when will that be enough. you know it's nothing i can make up. or take back.  i've spent a year trying to make it up to you and i've gotten no where. and someone said to me the other day that people don't leave where they're loved and now i wonder if that's why you've stuck around. i'm just a thorn in your side, but i love you, and maybe you've grown used to the pain. i ask for more though. i want more. let me see you when you're vulnerable, it's been so long. i wiped away a hundred tears, but it never mattered because i brought them all on. those tears that i founded, and i can't express how much it hurt me to see them. and maybe everything with us has always been too real, and maybe its time to let go, but neither of us have prepared, and so we're stuck in a sticky sort of purgatory. it's only a matter of time before one of us stumbles upon something we're willing to walk away for. it might not even be better, just new and overflowing with promise and possibility. and it might wreck us individually because we invested so much that we had nothing left on an independent level. is that what broke us down? i mean up? will you ever be mine again?

     when we're in the same room, nothing can keep me away from you. and yet, during our time together there were these unexplainable transgressions on my part where i lost the ability to see what was right in front of me. you held me so close and tight until i broke loose for minutes we can never get back, the ones where the mistakes i made take place. and from your point of view they stained everything that came before, and everything to come. i took up walking, the fresh air did me good, but mostly i couldn't stand to be in the room that i lost you in. at least the one where i physically felt you give up. the rust shattered, and the pictures all fell. the momentum of your letting go proved so spontaneous and blunt, that i never stood a chance at understanding. and i'm not sure if any of what i'm about to say is true but for me, at that moment (the one where i lost everything) you gained enough to find things that you never even thought to look for. i turned into a shadow, cast by you, yet overlooked and left alone. my heart ached and i prayed that you could once again cast a light on me and and use it to stop seeing all the horrific things i did to hurt you. i feel the punishment has had its place in the back of my head, where its taken up residence, and it lacks gratitude in its stay there. but who am i to send it out on it's own. and we're both so sincerely feeble, but i force us out to the front yard, and it's there where we start playing double dutch. it's hard with only the two of us, but we're determined and tie the rope to the ugliest tree in the yard. and everyone walking the block has a misguided judgement about us being immature and cozy, complacent. what they don't know is everytime the rope passes by our faces we take in a misfortune, then we spit it out. and the turns of the rope take forever for us. we want to reach out and stop the game, but we're buried with guilt and the spectacle helps.

I'm Not Sure Where To Start

     i took a trip, back in my mind, to a couple years ago, when i was feeble and you didn't exist. and i wonder what it would have been like then. could you have propped me up, would you have had the strength? i didn't know your name when i was at my worst. what and who pulled me out is still an unmanageable discussion. but one fact we can get straight is it wasn't you. and now i know come spring you'll be gone. and i'm still not sure what for. was it my lack of enthusiasm for anything other than you. and i stopped trying to explain to you long ago how my low self-esteem leads me blindly into these horrifying positions where i give up my grasp on the difference between good and evil. i look back at whats happened and i gasp, that couldn't have been me? i did that?  and the repercussions you owned at that moment left violent welts across everything. its become safe to say that nothing has been the same since.

     a couple months pass by and we are without a doubt back to our favorite position. we hold court down the hall in the den. and i always remind you that you're my best friend, and that i wouldn't ask for more. but now we're months removed from that perfect storm. from the times when our fights ended with messy beds and sweat. and the truth is, being with you i grew fond of everythinag that i once hated. acceptance swarmed about my life and i truly felt happiness for the first time. i never knew what you were thinking. a hiccup that suddenly blew up in my face, i couldn't let it go. and maybe i'm the share master and you can't relate. i want to ask you a million questions, and i want a million answers. you will be drained, quite literally, and i'll carry you home, and tuck you in, put on a movie and watch you with all my senses. i can't comprehend that me and you are in the single digits. everytime we're together i know in my heart that its one of the last, and i can't do anything to stop it. i grab the handle in the train car and i peer out the window. i'm in self-destruct mode and i can't get out, i'm suffocating. your far off in the distance holding a conversation with a total stranger. and maybe i lucked out, i gain nothing, and yet i'm free. because i decided myself, and thats what i'm going by now.

     so don't look for me in the den, i won't be there. and don't call for me when you're in trouble, and least of all when you're lonely. when you're lonely sit with your shallow heart and play the tunes of the past. and how you got us here. a puppeteer all along, how did i miss it? oh, you were so efficient.  and truthfully i don't even want to make up for lost time, i want you to learn that the very actions you engage in, start the engine that drives the car, and the words you speak steer and your ambition hits the gas, and where you end up is maybe none of my business but i hope its far from me.