This Is How It Be

my diseased mind is seeming kind of hurt
all these doors that open and i just wanna keep em closed
when the pain flows through i think of you
and i call you bitch behind your back but straight to yer face
save this date, i'm movin' on from losing time, wasted, wasted on you
what's the kid to do?

i keep fresh, the death of us and i was hesitant to let you go
but hell its the best choice i've made, you materialized the serial lies i told myself
i could dwell in the open ocean for days, i could sell our curtain closing in a way you'd buy
it's all a lie, everything we see
i'm a product of my environment, this is how it be

they say "i've been where you are"
i'm like "show me the scar"
i never can believe the needs of other people plant the seeds for deeds that feed the demons eating my insides

everything but the lies. my mind is like the sky, its clouded. my highs are like a dye that's changing the tides of my imagination. but i said my goodbyes, now i bask in all these lacerations. it's fascinating how far you get while standing still.
thy will be done.

All The Above

at a celebration of death, where we met, and i'll swear i fell in love with you then. i didn't even know your name, but that didn't really matter. i'll just tell you what did, matter. i could tell you had an interesting story, one that might not bore me. i wanted to hear it all, how you became you in a bunch of tiny moments that you strung together with broken hearts, and sobbing phone calls, roaring laughter, road trips and facial expressions for strangers. will you admit all your mistakes to me? can you tell me what keeps you going, it will become what keeps me going, this i'm sure of. and i'll give you that - i'm making all this up. but not the part where i fell in love.

but, when, after our initial meeting i saw you cry, i realized you were human. something you had every business doing. i have an inexplicable urge to destroy what little of myself remains after all these lonely nights spent writing about her, and that profound loss that intercepts every ounce of happiness i might have experienced. to be honest i'm not sure where i was going with this, just that when i look at you i know stability. i feel like i'm coming home, a place i haven't been since my early childhood took all semblance of love from four walls with a roof. i want to recreate that with you. when you told me about you and whats her name i nearly died. to what do i owe the pleasure? and i know you said forever once, but that is done and buried. and when you speak of that past - the one i can only imagine, there is no hint of doubt or regret in your voice or on your face. i'd like to be part of a story like that one day. suburban tales that ignite me and fuel my imagination. i'd play a role for you, and i'd be happy in doing so.

i'm not sure what it is about you, that makes me want to be someone who can make you smile. i started counting each and every time i have when we're together. and then we sat down to eat and you asked me why i was smiling, and i had no idea why - except that i was with you. you're the first time another person has been enough in a long while. i used to live off strangers and immediate family, never sure where i was standing. always treading through a muck of emotions, and just knowing that here wasn't right. i've since moved on from sleepless nights trying to harvest the best of me to serve up to someone else. i look back and wonder what i learned. i'm not sure where to go from here, how to tell you all the above.

The Speed Of Light

when a girl tells you to kiss her, you kiss her.

and so i did, but oh what i missed. a list of lip locked emotions just floating in the air, you silently shouted i'm grasping at straws. then a roar of quiet, and i'm thinking...i'm sorry, but her smile was golden, her hair like an ocean. emitting love like a potion, i'm certain the curtain is closing on us, our robust hearts, we're perfect a flush, we follow suit and we;re just in time. we were about to fold? oh, no. i'll hang on if you never let go. although a distance feels fitting, you in this place of position where i could keep you off limits. these small snare traps i set to catch the pieces of you that run from me. i summon them but you keep them on a short leash and behind a brick wall. i can see past all your past troubles, you never place them in today and for that i am grateful. the example, you set it, where i first remembered our pasts can be trampled and left in the dust, mine had been a constant companion gaining rust. when i look in your eyes i see so much, but they're not plastered with hurt like everyone else i know. and that's what i write home about. don't be nervous my family will love you. yes that is a strong word i explain to my spanish friend. the powerless words i use to describe fear, they're making my hands itch, and my mind can't resist - it follows my hands. i told everyone this was my last stand, believing it was my last chance. the rules you set, i was such a fool to accept, but i did, now i live with it. this irish catholic motion sickness i never grew into. my mind moves a mile a minute, how do you ever catch up with the speed of light?

the first line, the most poignant i've ever written, they don't diminish when i remember they're about you.

Truth Be Told

the divinity in your eyes, it kept me hypnotized. i kept shaking my head but you waited and said "lets plunge into this together". it was the last word that shouldered the burden and shook the ground i stood on wide open. we - misunderstood, would figure it out as one. never for a single second did i get to stressing on what we might become - what i might have done differently, lives within me. i try and address it, my therapist says its best if i forgive you, i ask if that's a test i'm supposed to live through? she who always guessed best on what i would do next, knew i'd get reckless when i witnessed my youth,

leaving with you.

it's been a bunch of years to where when i say "i love you" it's like you're my cousin. this is what i dreaded when we ended it. all the second chances passed, now i see i'll have to last and build and grow without you. i still cast your image in the snow and watch it melt. i swear i'm on my best behavior, to be tested by my savior, i won't wager but this favor you're doing me helps. it helps my whole heart. and i felt everything in me win back it's dignity. i tackle my sins every Sunday and in someway i know it helps, and i forgive you and i forgive myself for having dealt with you so poorly, i felt i needed more of me, so there was less for you, i guess it's true - hindsight is 20/20 - and with you in my light i just pray you don't

forget me.

it helps.

Rediscover What You Can

i almost always let you win. they tell me to put the past behind me, instead i commend mine on it's unrelenting obsession with being seen daily. now i'm fairly new to all this spoken word of actively trying to recover. for years my escape was my cover. only it was draped with a lover. and maybe in a parallel universe, for its much too soon here on earth, my hand is held by you. my close by lover with connections beyond the physical, it's the mystical element you bring to mind - your hand in mine. but here on earth you're usurped by my greatest life challenge. and oh how i need you more than this substance that has no place if i were to recover. and now at a distance you still smother, quite the actress, the fact is i can't live without you, just a canopy and our love is lost in time. and what frame of mind do we use to rediscover our youth. the question that came before the times changed for me. but this time a new perspective reigned me in. so, to languish in these evils like a fine dish of china being thrown against the brick and wondering if you can pick up all the pieces and get it back together. that's insanity, can you not remember? these repetitions i hated and salivated when i knew they would happen, it's like a fire you can't douse in water and put out.

and when the phone rings, i feel determined, i almost will it to be you. a will i'd like to lose, so hard to swallow that pill. i say aloud give me freedom to choose a person who i'm certain will love me for a lifetime, a lifeline.

Feeling The Difference

i'm eating this banana and i think of you, growing up fro the roots but releasing fruit. the danger i always stayed away from, so one day when i came home you told me you threw all the evidence in the bottom of the pool. i was never a strong swimmer, and now it was winter. all these catch 22s you put me through. almost all my love was a product of you outsmarting me. and the people passing swore our love was in a casket, but i objected - of course we had moments of resentment, but we had more tokens of affection, our feelings weren't cloaked in apprehension.

and what is holy matrimony but a whole big tax bonus? will a ring on a finger really bring you to linger - good times or bad? well isn't that the promise they made? i just want a promise you'll stay for as long as we're happy this way. it doesn't have to be in front of god or certified, and when it's no longer worth your time i won't curse the course of our relationship, i'll get lost in the times i felt the difference.

I'm Still Learning But I Never Thought You'd Be Another Lesson

my heart has been bursting from years of rejection, you were an unexpected drop in the bucket. a bubble bursting, and i'm only human and so i admit i'm hurting. i'm not sure what it was that i thought made you different, maybe because you listened. everything i shared with you, i'll never get it back, its yours to keep, and i feel less for it. another episode from this hectic life, still unexpected the hurt you caused as i called you wife. of course i've misspoken, the truth is that you absorbed exactly what you wanted, but when you felt the tide pulling you out thats when you shut down and shut me out. and again i'm blindsided by this universal evil of leaning on people i only think i know. or maybe i know in a couple moments, ones where i'm convinced they're the hope i need to rely on, to cope and get by with. but the truth is, i'm the headless horseman and i let you course through my veins, i thought it would cause less pain than the slander i was selling myself. but it hurts much worse. more than i honestly thought it would or could. you've stained all the relationships i thought i had built. you rained on the parade i held for my youth. and complained when i only told you the truth.

I Remember Things As They Were

what sort of person openly passes up love to get schooled with a fresh new face that came out out of no where/ i would have never known except for the picture in the corner on the page i couldn't turn/ i always had a sub par benign and dastardly outlook on love/ a life that wasn't far from my cynical explosions/ mass social sex appeal and the last coach my ex would steal/ heal? how could it when i never signed the deposition, i lined my mind with recognition of your features/ the less than fiction idea that we just might reunite/ a sight with me, you, the night/ the torture chamber you refer to as our relationship has wicked dips and dives/ catching my breath to stay alive/ and you thrive off my despair and have not a single qualm to dive off into the shallow waters where your only remaining knowledge of me exists/ lovely heartache on the brink of a revolution/ one that will sink the "new school/ you're complicated and opinionated, it's a win-win when we're dating/ my sins that leave me caving/ they're what keep you operating/ lopsided situations where we wish we didn't find ourselves/ it's that kind of hurt that's left me feeble and unbalanced/ and you're just evil and callus/

I Miss You (Fucked Up Remix)

we're sitting on the bed, and you repeat what i just said, oh something about the one, and hun do i think that's what you might become. you unknowingly tripped me up and pushed me back to my past. i start recalling offhand remarks that my grandmother made. my second great loss in life and afterward for a long while she was frequently pulling the strings that play at my heart. my first great loss was my father, his life ended on an ordinary day, in an ordinary way. and i start thinking more about the shape of my heart, and how it's become disfigured but insurmountable. i think of all the ways i was changed in childhood, for all the ordinary mediocre days - what had really stayed.

maybe it's not what you take to the grave, but what takes you to the grave.

i hadn't thought twice about losing my life, that is until i reached deep within and realized that there is more to me than what i've implemented the last couple years. out of sheer and naked fear i talked myself up a ledge. and that probably sounds peculiar and warped. but it was from there that i saw the most amazing view, i saw all the happenings, i saw everything i longed for. and i guess i knew deep in my heart, although at the time i wouldn't admit it, that you were there too. You. i have always ached for you to capitalize on my life. that's all i want, is to give you my presence. i had a way of drowning out your loneliness, that only i noticed how profoundly sad you really were. and you would never admit it, and you didn't, but i eased some of the pressure.

then again, with the whole world watching, i invaded you're life, and only now, when you've had to do without are you really hurting. in the past i was always still behind you, close by lurking. but now life has blown up and i'm busy. you kept yelling at me to do something with myself, and i went and did just that. i wish i could come around again with my cape and convince you in a minute how great everything is going to be. but i have bills to pay, and calls to make, buses to catch, and budgets to meet. and i'm not sure where or when your place in my life became almost unnoticed, but i can barely hear you.

i would have taken care of you for the rest of my life, but you walked away for the last time. and today i keep the promises i make to myself. but one last proverbial mention of your allusiveness that makes me a sure bet.  i'll be seeing you again. maybe i should spell it out for myself because i'm so slammed shut on the issue. there can't be a gray area. and yet it's here in my heart. whenever i come close to moving on, dusting myself off, and doing without you, instead i turn my head around to face the past where i privately admit i'm not sure how tall i can feel again.  the despair we brought each other might fade - i can only hope.

The Beast That Brought Cake To Our Going Away Party

you hate these socks i'm wearing, you just told me "they make your feet stink worse". and the fallen angel in the backyard is watching with outstretched arms, and i can't physically see her, but i know she's there. the last landmark from my past that makes the aches in my heart almost explode. and if it ever did explode a thousand butterflies would flutter out and fall to the ground. each one desperately trying to take off, get off the ground - but their wings are too weak and the gravity seems to be pulling in an usually profound way. i'm still not sure if it's just me or it's all a bad dream. but the fact that you woke up ages ago and walked out, which is an odd way to put it since i'm the one who actually moved, you stayed right where you were - still are. but i'm the one emotionally stalled on all fours crawling towards the faintest scent of how i remember you. the bearer of bad news, you had the paper in hand and read me all the obituaries, but you didn't mention was your intention to get my name there within the following weeks. the sheath you used to blind all my senses, it was kind of relentless, in my mind it was our connection - i called it love. you always knew better, more than me. you could predict the future with your crystal ball and tarot cards. and when you pulled the high priestess and the tower you saw weakness and me cower, i saw jesus with a flower in his hair. the sins we hold together are rabid enough in their own right, savage in cuffs on a lonely night.

Grace On The Internet

i met grace on the internet. not in the traditional sense, because there is a traditional way to meet people over the internet which includes the likes of a match.com or maybe if you're really edgy - or just need a good laugh - the craigslist personals, but no this wasn't like that. we were mutual friends with a jane doe on facebook. sometime in august of last year jane changed her phone number, and to let everyone know like a responsible adult, she listed her new number and tagged a bunch of her friends in the post. for some reasons, unknown to me, the comments sections ended up bursting into flames of humor and such. i wonder if anyone knows the science behind that anyhow, why certain posts have like thirty nine comments, and you know when you see that shit on one of your posts you're proud of yourself.  anyway i joined in on the comments with my own flat out ridiculously funny humor that floors you and leaves you suffocating in laughter.

grace liked my comment.

to be honest, i was trolling, as i often do on facebook because i take nothing serious, at the top of the list of things i can't take serious are myself, other people, and other peoples' opinions of myself.

grace liked my comment.

now i had to know who she was, so immediately after i got the notification i clicked on the link to her profile. i studied her profile over the course of about a week, slowly working up the courage to private message her and then simply take it from there. however, i was easily intimidated by the little snippits of her profile that i could view (facebook has several options for privacy, hers seemed less like maximum security prison status and more like an i-don't-care-what-potential-future-employers-see-on-here, which i liked already) and didn't know what the heck i'd say in a private message. facebook has added a new little feature where you can "ask" people certain personal information that they don't have listed but might share with you if you just, well, ask.

so i had this ah-ha moment where i thought i'd skip the whole private message thing where i'd have to articulate and formulate words in a coherent manner at the very least, but all the time praying that i could painstakingly forge a path that would allow me to ask for her number to which she would respond yes, you should have asked ages ago. i could skip all this because when i clicked the about section of her profile there it was, a link "Ask for Grace's phone number". i thought i had my out. i held my breath for a moment, the mouse resting in my sweaty hand knowing the little amount of pressure i would have to exert to click the link. i exhaled and clicked it. then came the what the fuck moment. i had to ask her why i was asking her for her fucking phone number. what. the. fuck. ( i never understood why. people. do. that. but i think it helps explore the seriousness of this offense facebook has clearly made). so frankly i was back at square one, but to some extent i was at like square eight since at least i was cutting out some bullshit, i was letting grace know that i wanted to hear her voice, she had to know i was interested in her as more than a friend, because i was asking for her number.

i dont remember exactly what i said, but it worked. she called me sweetie as we private messaged for a little bit where she ended up asking for my number. she immediately called me and we talked for over an hour until i realized i was tired and needed rest. later on in our relationship she admitted this to be something of a faux pas on my end, and it wasn't the first time my weary and fatigued mind/body would get me in trouble with a perspective partner.

anyhow i went to bed thinking grace was witty and self-deprecating and as close to perfect as i could establish in a little over an hour. a part of me sincerely felt as if i had just spoken with the girl of my dreams.

i believe in fate, and if you don't good for you, we'll just call it coincidence. the next day we ran into each other as luck would have it. mostly my luck because she was way out of my league and i'm staggering through life trying to figure out what's really good though, haha.

anyway, i fell in love, well sorta. she back stabbed me the first chance she got and she stays in my life because i can't imagine it now without her.

I'll Finish This Idea At Another Time

what are you going to do when the sky falls, your insides come out, and the lies you've been telling reveal themselves.

the real pain for feels sake.

i sit in the shallowest valley and try and kick a few chickens out the coop on up to you. hell, they'll survive, and there's nothing else to do. i'm wired, to tell you have to respond to a series of questions i was coached to ask you. the coach, a soul who lives inside me and prepares my most daring and brilliant ideas. if alone to my own devices the only ideas i'd have would be dainty and laced with ridicule from their creator.

yes of course these ideas still exist, they live deep in the pit of my stomach, where i sometimes wonder if, coachless, i'd have an easier time making out some sort of form of happiness. it is this very thought that makes me nostalgic of a decade ago when everything seemed hard, but was in fact so simple i did it all with eyes closed and without a word said. today this is only half of my problem. a staple of my aging process, the one that screeched to a halt merely weeks after it had begun. at times i'm conflicted with a short list of grievances that i can't come to terms with. i have taken them head on, battled them with my entire arsenal, tried passing them off to another.

and even though at most times i'm aware that their strength is only as much as i let on, they still fade in and out. whether they are looking for a fight, or just lurking about the hurt they let onset is unmatched in my lifetime.