im living breathless
in a house of cards
i always count my steps
i wish i felt this less
I'm on a dead end street
always shuffling my feet
Im on some endless beach
all i can do is reach
the shafts of light lay break
across the cold dead waves
always losing my way
theres way too much at stake
my worries swell and stack
hearing my knuckles crack
keep stress under attack
like strings they swell and snap

I woke up in atlantis
searching for a younger heart
I'm hurting for some love
and a way to breathe underwater
the rhymes they just repeat
and regulate my pulse
i never feel on beat
my words always ring false
and in her sleepy eyes
feel myself getting nervous
in dimly lighted rooms
things arent supposed to bloom
put this message in the bottle
and leave it out at sea
I'm never coming back
please dont come look for me

if you ever find this letter
please read between the lines
my lousy penmanship
tells a story all its own
Sometimes things fall apart
like hearts that stop and start
I keep the sleep at bay
I'm not sure if I'm safe

I only rap cause I aint smart enough to write a book.

in the middle of my thoughts laid to waste
everything up top fighting for space
living too afraid to take place,
cased in four walls afraid to lose face in
im struggling losing patience
everything froze up left me in stasis
losing faith in myself and the world
on more than just a daily basis
leave it up to me to smile friendly
hard enough being my own enemy
askin what the fuck has gotten into me
I don't have an answer or an apology
watchin days collapse up from under me
feelin like years passed with no sympathy
like i fell asleep under an apple tree
knowin deep inside its all pissed away

keep talking I promise to keep listening
i got a book to keep all your fiction in
dont worry I'm not omitting anything
does it sting? knowing that you're the death of me?

midnights rolls in
everythings forgotten
taking pages from
every book that has
ever gotten, through
to me, loosely, losing
sight, some day I just think
I might come to grips
with losing light
eyes that wander over slight
missteps, staying stressed,
leave it all to be addressed
by the hands that shape the words
taking letters taking turns
take too long to fall asleep
hear the clock tick
hear the thoughts click
with the clouds thick
overhead, always storming
in my head always storming
in my head.

to be continued... at some point.

Everything in slo-mo
feeling like the gold coast
slow poke, close my eyes
never quite there though
finishing my last meal
choking on the overkill
tuggin on my sleeves cause
i never really know how to feel
this is just me, never quite comfortable
from under the
gun with a
fear of what the thunder does
clap for the honesty
cause speaking honestly
i never wanted these
words to be a part of me
i just open my hands
and they depart from me.

Here it goes.

I sing to myself in the soft
electronic light, breathing
in all of the wrong places
losing time, over thinking
sinking in where it always
feels just about right. 

and then

         I freeze up.
         staring at all of our words
         that we've moved and
         rearranged in sleepy stanzas
         uneven and rough around
         all seen edges. in the hour when
         the dead come to life.

as soon as I got home I knew.

It's going to be awhile before I sleep
and I want to be out of these clothes.
my feet stick to the floors as i pass
from room to room, living to hall,
hall to bath, bath to kitchen.
We are night people, and I play
with the words on the fridge
and keep things to myself. I let the
boards creaking under my toes do the
talking for me, but they rarely
make any sort of sense. But then again,

      neither do I.

on the stoop
with our knees up
we have long lightning
bug conversations,
the words lighting
up in random intervals
amongst the trees in
the dark, and our
hands wander our
sides restlessly setting
off the motion sensors
behind us, illuminating
something that has
yet to make sense to
either one of us;
and our thoughts meet
each other halfway.

I've left a piece
of myself at
the feet of every
single set of eyes
that I've ever loved.
The biggest one
at yours, and I
miss it the most;

I'm not sure there

is enough left

for anyone else to love.

out of my element.

I turned around

in the doorway; blindly

finding myself

in a place that I did

not find familiar.

the sunlight shouldn't

be in this place

and I feel more than taken

from what I remembered

as a comfort zone

hands wandering

my sides, feeling severed.

In the field outside

I could hear the bees

making conversation

amongst themselves

ignoring the world around

them, and wondered

if the bones scattered

throughout the wheat

had names, and if the faces

of the bees held the answers

to the questions they asked.

Somedays I feel

like I have fallen

six stories and a hair

waking up cold

in another world,

keeping with the

tradition and a smile

that I like to spread

around, brown eyes

in a blue world,

hands awash with the

consequences, just remember

that I love you, and

that I am the harsh equivalent

of all my best intentions

gone horrifically awry.

this year has been my hardest

and im afraid im not gonna be

stronger on the other side of this

im praying for spring and the

heart to not feel like i deserve

to have what I want most just

because of the goodness and love

that i have brought into peoples lives.

this is no way to end a decade.

I let lou reed's voice just

settle in, cold and silty like

a cloud and my stare goes soft.

my fingers still work the

keyboard even with no focus

and I am typing from a

daydream somewhere

inside the tornado. I do not

know the way back, and sand

is all I can see for miles and miles

moving like the ocean at a

heartbeat like pace in full moon.

long way home

All I saw was lights on the fence,

bouncing up and down and spread

out in small intervals like morse

code letters but with no real pattern

to be found. Just before I heard the

subway doors close in the station below,

I could smell it. I knew that in the next

few steps around some dark alley corner

it would be there, some five foot tall, seven

foot wide piece of someone still dripping

with colors not found in nature. A crime

with no victim, given birth by a generation

with nothing to do, too much time on our hands.

That smell always takes me to other places,

places where my breath would show in the air.

Places where the sounds of trains comforted

me and rocked me to sleep late in the night.

In an effort to search I broke my path up

into steps, zigzagging across town like someone

trying to get lost, or maybe lose something else.

This was the first time that I had walked home alone

in what felt like years, the air beside me absent of

laughter and dialogue, I had to fight the urge to

talk to myself. The words biting the inside of my

mouth begging me to find someone to introduce

them to. But in my current state, I was in no shape

to speak to strangers

So I sang to myself instead.

where do you run

when everything has lost its name

and the things that used

to be familiar aren't anymore

and when you reach for

things they aren't there

the gaps widen

and the terms have changed.

I'm drunk and stumbling
and these words are not
what I should be writing down
in this frame of mind.

you're sincerely welcome

the city makes

a humming sound

and answers my

questions honestly

under its sleepy tones

as the windows

smile with their hands

waving in the wind

like flags from open panes;

and the sounds

of the cars

coming to a complete

halt as if all life

was extinguished is not

a welcome home

but an apology.

we have dialog here

like two guitars

whose voices dont match

we make ugly noises

that splinter in on themselves

like a double negative

and you're sincerely welcome.

I woke up this morning

and remembered everything;

the wrinkles in the paper

that were wrapped

around the words

like a blanket, keeping

them tightly packed

in between the lines

like yours always were

left to be interpreted by

the darker and slower

parts of the brain.

the clock by the bed reads

noon and my eyes feel

like 3:17 am in the room

with no windows where

we sleep every night.

where the door is always ajar

and the machines never

get turned off, leaving the

hum to be heard from

bathroom to hallway,

hallway to door, door

to bed. Always asking

if this is alright, in the

wake of whats left

of the dream we were having.

5 am is the hardest

place that I have

ever weathered,

whether alone or

not I find myself

concentrating on the

cracks in the hands

at her side, caught

in the streetlight

on the fire escape,

two steps down

from where her

last kiss found me;

lost in lungs full of

smoke and mouths

full of smiling teeth

all with their own agenda.

follow the line from here to there

and you will find out what its like

in the hours spent telling stories

like your favorite book, lost in the

spines on the shelf to be found at

a very convenient time later only

to be sat down and forgotten again.

every day the hole opens up a little more

and I climb a little further down

with a light behind my eyes

hiding like a smile, but darker;

she spoke soft and intent

and without pretense

keeping the words in

front of her so as not

to lose her place in

the conversation. and

when they ran out

she just kept going

her purpose finding itself

after a few sentences like

walking on familiar ground

during the new moon.

in the dark corner I blow

smoke rings at the shaft

of light that falls out of

my kitchen window to

break on the alley below

spelling out someone elses

words before dissipating

and finding their way back

to where they came from;

the doorways blocked

keeping us from the places

we aren't meant to go. In

my dreams the signs say

keep away in a fashion that

I am not accustomed to,

the sense of dread setting in.