Well, the evidence is mounting
and my defense is growing tired
So consider this my confession
Consider this the end
I am an asshole and a hypocrite
I have a broken heart and spirit
Yes, I hide behind excuses
and keep churning out the lies
So please don’t take it personally
when I ignore all of your phone calls
I don’t mean to deny you closure
I just hate to deal with things
As much as it may fucking hurt you
it really is just that simple
I am immature, indifferent
and a useless piece of shit
Once upon a time
I may have been haunted
by ghosts and forgotten faces
but now they know that I am one of them
So they pay for all of my drinks
And I may stumble around in emptiness
and chemical addictions
but I feel no need to hide them
I wear them proudly on my sleeve
So when I wake up in the morning
stained in truth and vomit
I close my eyes and take a shower
and it’s all quickly washed away
Dreams
I had a dream about her again last night. It’s two nights in a row now. Last night was different. I concentrated on every detail of her as if my life depended on it. She sat across from me. We talked and laughed. I was honestly happy. When I woke up, I remembered everything. I remembered her smile. I remembered her eyes. I remembered how her skin draped delicately over each of her 206 beautiful bones. It seemed so real. I thought it was profound. I thought it meant something. Then again, it was just a dream, and aren’t dreams merely a mechanism created by the body to reconcile what the heart desires with what the eyes see when we are awake? My practical side believes they could be just that, but my sentimental side refuses to accept it. It can’t. So I think that, with the promise of hope and potential, dreams are simply short films that the desperate mind shows to the restless soul to appease it and coax it into remaining in the body for one more day. When dreams eventually lose that power and control over those sensibilities of the spirit, we die.
Hearts and Hurricanes
Your face is a criminal who robs me of sleep and while I take pills for balance I can't help but stumble When I feel alive I get nervous My words stutter and stammer and your eyes make me wander from the only place I feel safe The heart wants what it wants regardless of reason and a sense of security has no place in my bones I used to hide in the basement and tape up all of the windows With eyes closed, I would wait as storms passed overhead You lured me out from the darkness against my own better judgement whispering words from the past that I was desperate to hear but all of the stars disappeared as we walked by the ocean and when the hurricane hit I just wasn't prepared
Unsettled Bones
The outline of your face
left fingerprints on my heart
and their oils left a residue
that still haunts every beat
Alcohol and ativan
help me try to keep the memories
from rising in the darkness
so that I can get some sleep
but the rising sun reminds me
that I’m just fucked without you
and as my morning shower soaks my skin
I know I’ve never felt so alone
and while my mind keeps repeating
all the words I left unspoken
the bathroom mirror only shows me
all of my fucking flaws
So now I try to pick up the pieces
that you saw fit to scatter
and if I could bear to speak to you
I think I’d ask you, “Why?”
but I guess the answers are never simple
to questions of broken promises
and I guess forever is a fairytale
that can never be achieved
but if I had the chance to start all over
I still don’t think I could resist you
even knowing all that remains
are panic attacks
and my unsettled bones
Poems
“Fabiola”
The dreams have all broken
and we fell through the cracks
So now you re-write history
and I distort the facts
We fall into our routine
and we don’t miss a beat
You just bitch about everything
and I drink until sleep
Stubborness and pride
make our hearts duck and flinch
and now either we can’t forgive
or just won’t budge an inch
Maybe all of our promises
were just something to say
and maybe emptiness is home
and not a stop on the way
“A Night in June”
As you walk into my room
angels scatter in a panic
like crack whores in a drug raid
They cringe in shadows
as not to be seen in your light
For the warmth of your presence
obscures the celestial glow of the blessed
and to stand beside you could evoke a comparison
that would surely clip their wings and crash their spirits
You slowly move overhead and settle upon me
like the clouds outside of my window
I breathe in your breath
as steady waves of your touch
storm my beaches of emotion
The hours that seemed to stand endlessly before us
fall fast and unnoticed like our clothes on the floor
and as the tide of our embrace slowly ebbs
an ever growing sense of covalence
invades my once barren heart
As we fade into sleep
I reach for you in the darkness
Your hand clutches mine
and ghosts of the past stop giving chase
My devotion is no longer their race to win
“16”
Standing somewhere between
heaven and helplessness
I thought of you tonight
but then again, I always do
As I stared up at the sky
I saw the sea of tranquility
where you and I used to swim
and talk of things like love, hope
and never never land
but now I realize that sea
is a lot like my heart
For it too is just a barren wasteland of weightlessness
full of cracks and craters
frozen in the darkness
with no sign of life anywhere
I also realize that since I lost you
I no longer dream
I just lie in bed
and long for a time
when I used to lose myself inside of you
Now I just lose myself
in the piles of dirty clothes and unopened mail on my floor
in the messages from creditors on my answering machine
in the hour it takes for me to get to fucking work everyday
and in the emptiness that constantly grows inside of me
Still, sometimes I can’t help but think about “someday”
and what a happy place it would have been
if you and I could have gone there together
but now it’s all just a crack in the moon
“Crash Site”
The remains of our promises
and our emotional baggage
are strewn across the landscape
like charred bodies from a plane crash
I sift through the wreckage
in obvious denial
not wanting to believe
that you’re no longer mine
but as the earth beneath my feet
turns its back on the sun
I turn my back on the prospect
that I’ll ever feel love again
Still, I go out with my friends
and I pretend that I am happy
Yet their smiles just make me
feel more empty and lonely
Now I sit in some dance club
and I’m sipping my drink
but the whole time I am thinking
that I just want you back
So when I get home I’ll call you
and you’ll say that I should not have
and then I’ll feel like shit
all over again
“The Epiphany”
It’s the 6th of January
and all along Mass. Ave.
the discarded skeletons of evergreen
lie defeated among the weekly refuse
It’s hard to believe that a few days ago
they stood so tall and proud
in the center of attention
adorned in lights, love,
and a warm feeling of permanence
Now broken branches and scattered pine needles
must face the cold wind and dark truth
that nothing lasts forever
For now they are only noticed
when they cause a passer by to alter his path
Tomorrow, a hearse to lift their lifeless frames
will come in the form of a garbage truck
As I make my way home from work
I stop and look closely at one of the dead
and I am taken aback
as I see my reflection in the unpleasant sap
“Napoleon”
While January’s speaking
with words that freeze the ground
the sun heads west with promises to keep
and my heart grows cold and heavy
as the night sky settles in
It seems winter has a way
of crushing every dream
I sit alone inside my bedroom
and I stare out at this town
I see the bright streetlights
and the shadows in between
Sometimes they bring a smile
Sometimes they bring a frown
but tonight they bring a sadness
that I can’t explain
And as the snow begins to fall
the darkness penetrates my bones
just as my lover’s absence
penetrates my heart
For in her eyes I saw my savior
and in her arms I found my soul
but somewhere in her decisions
I lost everything
So now the night has fallen silent
and somewhere deep beneath the snow
my hopes and wishes
rest in unmarked graves
but like French soldiers who froze solid
on some past Russian battlefield
I never thought to quit
while I was still ahead
“Crush”
In the depths of her eyes
In the depths of her beauty
I got lost in a moment
I got lost in a crush
where the seconds seemed like centuries
and we seemed like “something”
and the most misguided of illusions
let my heart feel alive
but reality was her answer
to my never asked question
For the truth in her eyes
left me lost
left me crushed
“Untitled”
I fall headlong and helpless
in a thought of your face
and I land in the place
where we crashed and we burned
It’s where our ashes still stand
like the victims of Pompeii
and where my ceiling of emotions
bears a mural of you
Now I curse at your beauty
You are so angelic, divine
and I damn all the words
that allowed us to end
My heart, the bitter Judas
has betrayed my soul
As darkness, the sweet lover
took your place in my bed
“December 19”
Nothing means a fucking thing
without you by my side
My soul’s been lost
My heart’s been raped
and my will to live has died
I am falling off the face of the earth
without you by my side
My sleepless nights
just never end
and my ocean of dreams has dried
“An unsent letter to Jessica”
You look just like an angel
but you hide just like a child
and the weight of all this silence
is just too much for me to bear
It makes my heart feel like an anchor
that can’t quite catch the bottom
Unaware, I drift aimlessly
until I am completely fucking lost
You know, you used to be the lighthouse
that could guide me through this darkness
and I don’t know what I did
to make that go away
but I can feel that things are changing
and I can’t say for the better
I guess my despair and emptiness
dressed up like hope for Halloween
Still, I have to say
you made me believe in second chances
and all of your smiles and subtle glances
used to make me feel alive
but now you’ve grown so cold and distant
and you respond to all of my questions
with indifferent one word answers
It’s a little more than unfortunate
but it’s how most of these things end
“Depression”
Life has knocked me down
but instead of getting up
I keep picking at the scabs
and making myself bleed
I cough up blood and water
in a sea of mediocrity
but I’ve got happy pills and alcohol
as far as the eye can see
Blue foam cubicles and ledger sheets
have made me become claustrophobic
and my hope’s become an angel
but even the best of us pass away
“We can make a difference”
“We can become anything”
but the dream is always greater
than we will ever be
“A Girl Named Jesus…or Anna”
Sometimes the air that fills your lungs
just isn’t enough to make you breathe
and that hole you have inside your heart
somehow seems to take command
You search so long for something real
but your resolution is only found
in the pixels that sit before your eyes
You lie in your bed inches from sleep
then all of the thoughts you thought you hid
decide you haven’t cried enough
So tell me now is death your friend
or just another vulture who wants a piece of you?
Will it give you all you ever wanted
or just some welcome respite from all of your pain?
Your collar bones and spine make a perfect cross
to nail a broken spirit to
and your eyes are like two distant stars
whose light and yearning dim with time
Your trust is a ghost that never existed
and your smile is an illusion, just a swift sleight of hand
while your angst is a thief that has stolen your chances
and replaced any hope with an empty, blank stare
“The Truth”
I lie with you in bed tonight
I see the way you smile
but please don’t ask me how I feel
because I don’t think I can anymore
Once, you might have meant everything
or anything at all to me
but now I’m broken
I’m dead inside
and emptiness is all that I can give
“Julie”
A light fixture sits dark
and a shade of you hangs over
I’ve tried so hard to turn it on
but your outlet’s long been dead
In the bedroom of this winter
a frozen desolation
numbs the sleepless yearning
of worn extremities
My restless heart is aging
It is water stained and leaking
and it bears the emotional scars
that a strawberry birthmark leaves
Self-esteem and I are bleeding
ephemeral, and fleeting
completely still beneath the blankets
in a carbon monoxide bed
Fab 2004
Your eyes are a night sky
star-filled and cloudless
where the angels find solace
and swim in the darkness
Your voice is like Christmas
and each word you speak is a present
and I am the impatient child
who waits for each one
Now your face has been painted
upon the wall of my memory
and it has an immortal beauty
that time will not tarnish
Sometimes I imagine your touch
and I know it must be like heaven
an indescribable paradise
of which I can only dream
November
I’m an unnamed casualty
in the eye of your hurricane
In the eye of your camera
I am a picture of futility
In your confessions of love
I am the words never spoken
In your eye, I am the pupil
who will not learn his lesson
On the gray days of winter
I am the chill in your breath
You are the moon up above
and I am the tides at your mercy
I ebb and flow at your command
a willing slave to your whims
You are the first sign of spring
and the endless days of summer
and I am the dying leaves of autumn
that fall unnoticed at your feet
masterpiece
I am trying to have a quiet conversation with your television on the phone, but I can’t really hear what it is saying over your bitching and complaining. When will you realize that when there is nothing left but dead feelings, dead air is the most humane way to put us out of our misery? That just isn’t your style though. You want a trophy. You want to go out with guns blazing. You want a pound of flesh.You have to make sure that you are not the only one who has bled from this, but I died for you a long time ago. You just didn’t notice. Your behavioral patterns are as constant and predictable as the ones on the designer bags that you hold so dear to your heart. Maybe if I were covered with interlocking G’s or LV’s, I would have retained more of my initial value. Our emotional bruises rise and swell in magnificent black and blue hues. They have been painted and stained on our hearts, as if they were made of canvas. All I can say is we should both take a good look inside of ourselves and smile at the fucking masterpiece we have created. Be proud.
zombie
I fall in and out of sleep. My pillow is folded in half over my head and the blankets have coiled themselves around my legs and torso. My eyes navigate the darkness of my bedroom as I try to get my bearings. I finally make out the numbers on the clock on the cable box. It’s 4:28 am and it’s your time to shine. It’s your turn to keep me awake. The lips that I once knew the taste of so well now only come to me in the form of a ghost that sings a song of loneliness in my ear. I thought I had come through things unscathed. I thought that my armor had merely been scratched at the surface. I underestimated you. I underestimated whatever it was you blew into my face. Now I feel the tetrodotoxin seep into my skin and take control. You have left me paralyzed. You have buried me alive. You have stolen my soul.
earthquake
I feel so overwhelmed and uninspired. I just sit here in awe as my words and spirit fall and shatter like every one of our promises. My wilted heart hangs upside down on your bedroom door like a dozen roses that I gave to you a long time ago when we actually used to smile. Now happiness and hope sit in the far corners of our minds covered in dust. We have settled for one another. We have settled for gray skies. We have settled upon fault lines. As the small tremors rattle the ground beneath our feet, you pretend not to feel them and I just drink until I can’t, but the animals have already moved to higher ground. It’s just a matter of time until the plates shift and we find ourselves under water.
I could fuck up a one car funeral 