the grit slips between my teeth

violence is the only thing keeping me awake these days

and as the blood spills

dribbles like dirty water from a faucet

from beneath my fingernails

i sigh in the relief

and the realization

that i am still alive enough to bleed

i am not dead yet

you say you're in rare form

like that means anything

it's getting darker as the clock moves farther

and my eyes burn in the blanket of night

like crushed cigarettes

suffocated underfoot

i'm spitting up volatility

like acid rain and diseased blood

burning the floor around me

and plummeting me to the basement

So alive i was once
like a stubborn child
holding onto a stone
he found on the side of the road
i held onto a notion
and let it consume me
the convulsing addict writhing on the floor

I am tattooed with fury

and broken lips sinking to the bottom of the ship

and i fall upon the stair down into a basin

of bright lights and angry screams

the purge

of my soul

from my body

and again

Here i am

again

most days i look forward to the thin lines

traced along the window sill

cracking outside of the frame of reference

i built with twine and a memory

i'm stuck in the dichotomy

between my heart and my brain

this war's taking forever

and it's driven me insane

i'm callous and calculating

all the decisions i have made

this war's taking forever

and it's driving me insane

so i lay myself to rest

and pray for another day

because this war's taking forever

and it's driving me insane

tomorrow i'll wake to indecision

and take comfort in that pain

since this war's taken forever

and it's driving me insane

rap

***This was an experiment to see how quickly I could come up with a rap***

i get sick of using rhymes

but i get sicker of biding my time

until my cracking mind

collides into another line

and here i am at my feet

screaming never mind

screaming i lost the beat

when i never lost the time

i find it easy to be

stuck in solidarity

swallowing clarity

like it's 90 proof whiskey

vomiting up my soul

all the words i can't let go

stuck inside my skull

with no space to grow

poisoned from the sun

the hollow burning's just begun

because when i rip apart my rhymes

it stops becoming fun

it just really needs to be done

like a bullet from a gun

my words that fire

just transpire

from the clicking on my tongue

the rhythm's not a game

it's just a bullshit way

for me to finally say

that at the end of the day

i don't really know what the hell i'm saying

i'm sick of these games i'm playing

because all the words

that attack me first

are the same words that i'm praying

so i sit quietly on this throne

and ask god to leave me alone

to my thoughts burning my bones

till nothing's left but coal

just quietly recede

into something less than me

then maybe the words

will take their swords

and just let me be fucking free

Mad Like Beethoven

rain runs in heavy drifts along the side of the road

white spittle mixed in between inconsistent streams

it's soap

as if someone took the concept of a rainwater baptism

just a little bit too seriously

it's one of those days where the rain

is a double edged sword and speaks in little riddles

i hate riddles

still

i've become accustomed to the hollow men

the men made of lead and poetry

kinetics crashing into poetics

crashing into my skull

leading me to believe that words are weapons

and the magazine rack is the glass case

holding the shotgun locked away

whereas i

i dream of wartorn pages

ripped from my leather bound books

and all my leather worn appendages

i speak of nothing

because i'm biding the time

the ticking seconds backwards

into devolution

where the revolution is spring loaded

behind the firing pin in the base of the gun

pressed against my literary teeth

screaming in sickle shaped screech

verbal homicide

most mornings i wake up

and agree with the sun and dying grass

in my suffocated backyard

that the time i spend ripping the skin from my muscles

to understand the mechanics of my blueprinted soul

might be better served painting over the tattoos

i carved out of the Apple

seeing as how it's knowledge was in fact

simply skin deep

but then again

i hate riddles

and have become deaf to the tone

of the rain baptizing the asphalt

your smile is a shotgun

made up of fragmented bits

of something i consider to be beautiful

the blast against my chest

in time with the pounding of my tattooed heart

leaves me useless

and with life in me still

Killing Rosebuds with a Gentle Fist

i'm the product of ambient sound
i make this decision sitting behind white screens
in a room hotter than i'd care to know
clicking mixed with the ripping apart of music
rebuilt into art
or something like it
i stopped being sure
i'm alien to this city
dirty and splitting at the tips of its hairs
beauty hidden behind the constant murmur
this was paradise once
this was paradise once
this was paradise
once
it's like a dream
woken from being awake
and you begin to realize
this place never really was yours
the awkward moment
when your lips kiss the pavement
and you're asking what happened
to making love to the sun and the moon and the stars
all at once
what happened to cacophony of a hollow spirit
screaming for something she couldn't quite get a hold on
what happened to you

this room is hotter than i'd care to know
my skin is melting into cigarette burns
and liquor stains
i've become the antithesis
this place was never really my own

Tattoo me with androgyny

Apathy

Confusion and calamity

Drive me into the dirt

Take me and bury me

and in a hundred years

pray for me and my creativity

I've lost something

plot points and a narrative outline

tacked onto the wall with spit

hollow point bullets

and an iron will made of wine and sugar cane

Drinking it in

Swallow fistfuls of frustration

and a cripling sense of definition

the buzzing grows into something

similar to music

i'm oh so quietly grateful

to be finally stuck inside my skull

you're innonence

and today is the kind of day where i'm actually awake

i'm burning holes into hell with my eyes

i'm tired

and awaiting the quiet

I'm sitting in the silence of the library

tucked in the back corner

like books and catalogues

you'd never want to see again

i am reinventing myself by the windows

that show me reflections of paradise

reflections of reality

unable to find the bridge or the gap

i am a burn victim

in the middle of a ballad

i am a burn victim

in the middle of an ocean

i am not the man you think i am

i'm watching you dig graves

i am not the man you think i am

i'm the burn victim lying beneath

i'm sick of asking if my art means anything. take my mind apart to analyze what it represents. metaphors upon metaphors fucking metaphors and birthing metaphors. to what end do i exist? for this? or this for me?

"...i should have done that plus i could have done that..."

ask me a question. no answers. abstract and reality. hate crimes and making love. all the contradictions. no stanzas. no rhymes. everything and nothing moving in line.

my take on this is simple.

none of it matters.

that's why i matter.

that's why i keep consuming and producing.

i'm sick of asking if my art means fucking anything.

it does.

5:15 AM

Love’s a quick drag on a cigarette

Between my lips

Drinking in my wine

Red like lust

Clear like lies

Clean like sex

Cascade

Consumed

*Thank you Peter Mason for the word "lies"*

i will arise

night after night i die

continual cycle of rebirth

the usual bullshit

tonight i will arise

walking in paces in the snow

following my shadows inquiries

written in the lamposts alongside my life

wondering what i just walked out of

tonight i will arise

it's cold outside

and i'm asking; should i decide

live or die, walk or ride

do these things define me

my words make me mean everything

make me mean nothing

the usual bullshit

tonight i will arise

wake up to today's new obsession. shining in your face with emerald eyes and an echo beside the conceptual love. breaking apart in the dark. living a cliche. living a love. without love. without the thousands of things i scraped from the surface of everything. caked like blood beneath my fingernails. rocking to a beat i didn't conceive. grieving the losses i never fathered. is everything you see in the black and white i lied down beside? everything in peaceful little lies. everything held up against your chest. crushing your lungs. the weight of your decisions. the weight of who you pretend to be. breaking hearts in the dark. you're a cliche.

writing paragraphs backward. watching ink pool in the dips of the curves of your body. casting graffiti into cement. carving cement into snow. caring not for proprieties. for love. for love. for love.

i watch you throw yourself from the sky. i watch you throw yourself from my eyes. i watch you hide yourself beneath and away. i watch myself grow into life.

Speak.

let me Speak.

i'm looking only to drown you from my mind

ripping skin from bone

burning myself with headphones and ink pens

i want to lie to you

tell you i know who i am

tell you i know who we are

tell you i know who we were

tell you anything to wake you up

i want to lie to you

i want to Speak.

and i swore i'd not speak word again

there's nothing i can't learn

that i haven't from a thousand poems

scribbled in memories and blood

scribbled in insignificance

scribbled in the fact that i'm looking at everything

with glass eyes

with glass lips

with glass skin

someday i will remember

someday i will remember

someday i will remember

someday i will remember

someday i will remember

someday i will remember who i am

someday i will Speak.

i'm waiting for three things to reach me

reach me and teach me lessons i learned to love

i loved to lie down and lie to you

to lie about and around my mind behind my eyes

behind my eyes, i'm dying to hear you talk

hear you talk to the world and the moon

the moon i learned to pray to

pray to the love i once lived

lived in livid dreams born beautiful and lackluster

lacking lucidity

lucid is just a word

a word that means nothing

nothing that means anything

to me

i don't believe in words

i don't believe in love

i don't believe in dreams

i believe in me

the gods i built up

the deities to whom i pray

i believe in my mind

my mind alone

i'm 20 minutes late

i really couldn't give less of a fuck

and if i had a million words to lay out

to write out

to give out

to give in

i'd probably not give it away

figuring i couldn't save it for a passing minute

pushing idealism in a irish accent

counting on 20 fingers

136 toes

a million and a half statements of how little i love

care

people

definition

belief

causes and metaphors

your dedication astounds me as i walk out

into the saving grace of the cereal box

it's all about personality

it's all about your burns

it's all about your methods

i'm 20 minutes late

you're going to have to wait

i am a spray-painted imprint of love

and what once was

integrated with everything at once

it's strange strange estranged and only

alive to try and die

get it all because you want it all

show me love

show me what you got

synchronized and deep in syndication

moving in circuits between your eyes

give me your sins

give me your ins and outs

give me love

give me what you got

get it, give it away

run this way and that

run, run for me, run for shame

shaking about like a hurricane

if you were alive

what would you say

if only you were sane

give it up

give it to me

give it to burn away

put me up to be a silhouette of love