Mother lets me hold her hand,
especially when we cross the street.
I can feel her heartbeat
through that sometimes sweaty palm.
The vibrant pulse of energy,
visible to all she acknowledges,
as we cross the narrow paths home.
I ask her sometimes how she maintains
everlasting effervescence.
She replies with a smile and a tear and says
she understands the world.
She takes my palm and holds it to her face.
Her breath is cold, her eyes empty.
She says she'll never leave me
but I know that can't be true
because the steady beating in her hand
turns into the cool breeze
that carries me across the barren street.

I search myself for answers
I knew before that I didn't know.
I look into my reflection
as if its another person.
Maybe I'll find something new...
Maybe they'll give me some profound insight...
I coax it to tell me truths,
my eyes send daggers into its own.
But when I step away,
the reflection slowly fades
until it is so far,
so small,
that it fades back into me,
and I am questioning myself.

Homeless

There is a pile of sea shells
on your kitchen counter.
The kind that you can hear the ocean inside.
Just hold it up to your ear
and I'm swept away by the chitin contours
hidden by your rolling crests.
I can't stay here admiring
your ability to change the truth.
Because once built as a home,
you are now an empty carcass of unfulfillment.

You stand before me in defeat.
Eyes grated out in a selfless act towards sight.
Your flesh hangs heavy on iron bones
cast down on you in repentance.
If I could show you the way to survive,
I'd take your guilt on my bare back.
If I could help you live without blame,
my arms would be pinned down by sorrow.
But you can no longer see,
and no longer care to listen.
All you once knew and have the capacity of knowing
float by on a wave of ignorance
because everything you have come to know
has been disproven by those you
trusted to be real
but have become an illusion.

Self-Doubt

I don't know what to say to you.
I can't change the way you hold your thoughts.
Your heart breaks into mine,
shattered glass splintered by thoughts
of an old friend.
She steps out of the shadows and walks down the plank
built by my self-consciousness
I killed her with my accusations.
Her skull rots with the flesh of my attack.
My body crumbles.
My fears have been humanized by this lifeless presence in the mirror.

Tainted

You say you're sick of where your life is going;
too many people trying to hold you down.
The stubs on your back are beginning to swell for you to fly.
The future is so close the horizon can't grasp it.
Too bad once it gets here it'll be the present

You can't hold onto the anvil dragging you down
because tomorrow the light will have gone out.
The ingenious lies presented once by fortune
can't follow you down the crowded hall
leading to somewhere other than comfort and security.

Outside, Looking In

My breath condenses on the glass.
Snowflakes dangle flirtatiously in my hair
as I look longingly at the purple plush dining room.
A wooden table set for six lies in the center of the obesity,
but only five sit drinking
My home has frozen over.
I stand outside, my eyes taunted by the emptiness.
Alone we all stand.
Not aware enough to find a way out,
to melt this glass.
The window of two worlds feels cold to the touch
yet boils on the inside.
It fogs to hide itself from the harsh world of reality.
It reflects each of the selfish worlds
refusing to compromise.

Random Thought

Too often status is equated with difficulty.
The most difficult people to understand are the most attractive.
The hardest schools to get into are automatically the best.
The rarest jewels are the most expensive.
Is their beauty determined by quantity?
Would diamonds be as ugly as pebbles if they were as common?
Or are the standards we use as humans based on the wrong measures.
Perhaps if we looked within ourselves to discover beauty,
it would be easier to attain.

Bread

So many people I'll never know.
some that I might have loved.
Paradise lost, or never found
in an endless war between
what seems to be essential
and what we really need.
Desire vs. bread
Make up your mind.

Untitled 2

Why do I have to BE something?
Why can't I just be myself?
Am I a human being or am I
just DOCTOR, LAWYER, TEACHER?
Is a declared person any better off than a free one?
We live in such a finite world that
a person can no longer just BE.
Do I want to be known as myself
or as my profession?
You tell me to go through life with a goal-
well, maybe my goal is just to live.