opened

Her body is rock

not like stone

but like

back and forth

whichever way the day takes her

but that makes her like

a wave so when

she tries to hug the shore

something pulls her back and when

she wants to run away

something forces her forward

Her mind is a book

but it’s in every language you can’t

speak

Her heart is like

her mother’s jewelry

box full

with gestures of

affection crowned with

chains linked golden

around her ventricles

flowing through her veins

pooling back into her heart

diamonds

embedded into its walls

Beautiful and heavy

But she will love you

for love has been through her

so often she calls it

God

and guides her as the moon

is a light for anyone who will follow

And she wants to be

swallowed by the sky

wants to feel like

she is apart of something

she can’t explain

and like there is enough

room to unbind

let loose the chains

and just shine

like a star

and even if she were to fall

someone will wish on her

and hope would be the last

gift she would give

the final piece to cut out

and because of it maybe

someone will live

Her eyes are opening

she wants to find

the world

though she is distant as the moon

when it is trying to pull the sea

but pull it

she does

sleeping prayer

Escape like the world

just got a little too small

for you to get lost in it

Pull at your frayed edges

let the strings come undone

Let there be stars that beckon

to be laid under

and gazed upon like

they’ve woven answers throughout

the constellations

and beg for you to question them

Let sleep cast you away

like a fishing hook on a rod

into a sea of dreams

let its current pulsate through your

veins and decide where to take you

Your legs will carry you faster

than you want them to but

let them

for you’ve trained them

to get you where you need to go

When you’re finished

crawl up to the shore

feel the sand beneath your deadened body

pick it up in your hands

watch as it falls through the cracks

and feel okay about it

because this is one thing

that you’re supposed to

let slip through your fingers

Thoughts From Places: East Coast Road Trip

Drive.

That’s the only thought that comes to mind

when your destination

is anywhere but here

and your car

is fueled with the mere longing

for something more

because life has something in store

but you have to look for it

if it doesn’t come to you

and that’s what I came here to do

Now

the price of freedom

is the same price of gas

in your car

or of a hotel bed for one night

but at either rate

it’ll take you pretty far

even when the roads aren’t clear

you’ll just have to steer a little carefully

Each city along the way

has something to offer you

like you are only going to last

if you put the past behind

and move on to find

whatever you have left about yourself to define

Like New York

you feel important

just  by breathing it’s air

because artistry rolls off

the people working diligently

and that city never sleeps

because you keep thinking that if you blink

you’ll miss something worth living through

And Baltimore

in it’s harbor

you’ll find

that things become more beautiful

if you shed a different light on them

In it’s aquarium

you realize how strange it is

to see

how lonely we can be

even when surrounded by others

You will also realize

that bubbles

are one of the world’s greatest amusements

to mankind

In Fredricksburg

every street

is a machine

to take you

back to a time that’s seen

the hardships

of our history

And you feel

like every corner you turn

has a new story

and you wanna learn them all

because each crack

came one by one

and where one tale ends

a new one has begun

And as it gets darker

the horizon is still something we chase

so we race down a highway where

every bridge

gets you from old to new

and a few of them

are bound to be longer that others

but stop worrying

that you’re not strong enough

or patient enough

to withstand it

or that you don’t have

enough breath

to last that tunnel

because you can handle it

cross it when you get there

enjoy the view

you’ll look back and realize

how much you grew

how you could always see

that it’s not the destination that matters

it’s the journey

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puG7HNKa_Y&lc=R24VB9jPoIKU46Swcrvc9dKovolwclexsl-aUFaO1Qk&feature=inbox

Hey Batman

Hey Batman

Haven't seen you in a while.

I've been acting like a child

trying to hold on to you.

Onto the things I have left.

but maybe it's only best

if I let loose.

Let go.

Because it hasn't started to snow

and we're halfway through December.

And I'm begging you to remember

how you used to save the city

and me right along with it.

You should know I always pity

anyone who doesn't take the chance to know you.

But then you advance

in this epic romance

and I have to decide how to

position my heartstrings around you

because in this equation we divide two

until they are fractions too complicated for anyone to deal with.

You have this thought in your head

that pain is not something to regret

but something we only gain from.

And you would light yourself on fire

just to feel how it burns

and every time you turn,

bridges fall down all around you.

The climax of our story is your realization

of your self-deprecation 

through a creation of bad news

and lone walks in the dead of night

without a soul to save, you choose to lose

your sight in the bat cave

that seems so empty lately,

like the spot just below your heart

that starts in between your lungs

and connects directly to your tongue

and curves around every word you've ever made.

And I would have paid

just to see you walk away

from something that you started.

And I would have parted

as soon as I heard you say

that we were too loosely bound 

in this uptight world.

But you would never say that.

Even if we are just

bits of sand falling through the hourglass

and it's only a matter of time before we run out. 
But for now, we just have to be.

You see,
I used to let the sun kiss my skin 

but now I miss the rain 

because we used to hurricane

as if we had a reason to.

But now it's "tis the season" to

making aching hearts

that tell a story in parts

that will never fit together.

But worlds grow and fade

and yet, I wouldn't trade

any late, lonely night

for any sort of fight

that one of us might end up in.
Even when every one of those nights has been
a new hole in my middle.
And that's hurts, just a little.

Just like bullets that run in between eyes

and moments that I catch during your sighs

because I can tie

every memory to a string

that weighs me down like a chain of guilt

and built from one time when your eyes lingered

on mine and every breath that followed

was drawn with caution

as to not disrupt the moments

that we set up around each other

in a fragile manner.

Yet, there was no plan for

falling into this pattern

of touch and go

and living so low
that we want to slow
time, for it threatens to rip us apart.

But I've never felt like that before
Never have I wanted to pull out my hair
or stare so long at something that it combusts
or trust someone so instantaneously
that I'm dangerously close to breaking.
You try to gut out your insides until you feel nothing
in hopes that maybe something
will start to re-build itself inside of you
so that we won't have to starve
the one thing that carves us most.

We are sitting at a traffic light

stuck on go when stop is our main priority.

Even when there isn't a haven in sight

as you and I make up a minority

of stalled out cars and broken dishes,

fallen stars and making wishes

on the smallest of them.

Because they are us

and we are them.

For Betty

I wish I could remember the last thing I said to her. 


Nobody told me she had been sick. 
So maybe it wouldn't have been a surprise 
to learn that sometimes 
we are more than just vines that intertwine 
while growing up the side of somebody else's storyline.
But now, I have a story to tell.
And I've probably put someone through hell
at some point in the past
but I hope it never lasted long.
And I'm humming a song
as the words are compiling
I remember the smiling
that always found a way forward in her voice.


I wish we had a choice
so that maybe I could give
another chance to live.
I wish there was a way
that I could've made her stay with my words
and when she heard
she could grab on like I was throwing a life-vest
into the waters of death.


This may cut us in two.
But that's what death will always do.
Make eyes that stare into nothing.
Trying to lose control until something
else can pull us away.
And as we lay her down, we say
You'll be greatly missed
and then we list the reason why.
But you're born, you live, and die.


And it happens all too quickly.




R.I.P.

X: Hit Me Here

Today is the kind of day when I like to keep the shades pulled. When I lay under crumpled sheets of hazy thought that are too lazy to give me rhymes, so I write this instead. When I wait for hello and dread the goodbye. It's a day where I wrap my arms around myself so that I don't fall apart, as if it could stop the deterioration inside. When I limit my conversing to less than five words a sentence so that I won't concern others of today. When I lower myself into a hole where I am only known as a target. If you lifted the covers you may see an X slashed across my skin.

Arrows are aimed here. Each one is a reminder of something I'd shed a tear over. Or pull my hair out over. And screams are only a cure for the pain. Something that is welcome here. More welcome than I am. 

Memories are also welcome. They are vivid and sharp today. They can etch the horrors into the back of your skull.

Greetings are nice in the morning. Somebody wants you. But goodbyes are a tragedy of a different sort. They are heart wrenching, but even more so if there isn't one at all. Words just fade into oblivion with nothing to cap both ends of a string of conversations. It's a sting you weren't expecting. That's when the X begins to brand. 

It gets really dark here at night. And quiet. But there are no street lamps to flood the sky, so the stars are a clear map for any destination I'd like to get to. Even if I have no one to make the journey with. 

I might stay here for a while.

It's lonely and full of mirrors that reflect my flaws but it's better than having to walk toward the sun and pretend that I like the burn. 

When I'm done, I will walk to nowhere and when I grow tired I'll turn around and head back. Simple as that. Don't worry, I'll tell you what it's like there.

Smiling is something they can't force us to do.

Smiling is something they can't force us to do.

It is something we must bring upon ourselves. For people like you and me, our walls took so long to build up that we only let in the people that we inexplicably trust. And because the walls are so high, there aren't many people around right now.

I'm tired of seeing plastic smiles stamped on faces by society. One day, their cheeks will fall and they will be lost in a world that turned away from them. And they will beg to be let back into a ring of socialites because it's all they've ever known. And curls will deflate and nail beds will cake with dirt as the silence turns them savage. They will finally revolt, as they refuse to let themselves break, and they claw, until their fingers bleed, at the walls society trapped itself in. But here's the difference between society and us; They built their walls high to shelter the people within. We use ours to keep people out.

But maybe the walls are built all the same, we only use them however we choose. Maybe we all share the same walls, but they are interpreted into or own boundaries until we think they belong to us. And the rest of society lives inside the walls, interrupted only by the rare outburst, which is disposed of like any personal thought to grace their minds. You and I, we live outside these walls. The difference between us and the savages is that we accept it. We are free to find beauty in our flaws. And it only strengthens us as we gladly sit in the rain and count the lines on our hands, our screw-ups, the people we love, and the crimes we've committed. And in situations like these, I find myself pressing my palms into the earth so that maybe I can leave an imprint of my journeys and someone can know that they're not alone.

There has to be something that separates us from them. From the people who drink to erase who they are, until they become indistinguishable from the next. From the people who look down on us because we are free to love the wind and admire it because it is ever changing. Our chains will not be from them. We are allowed to hold our thoughts out in front of us and analyze them as they rest in gentle fingers that pick apart. And they shut us out in the first place because we were smart enough to realize that something was offbeat. Maybe it was us. We just knew it wouldn't work out from the start. But in a way it makes me grateful. While they're confined to one familiar area, it's allowed the space that gives us room to wander.

But when walls start to cave in they try to turn around and take back words that are not easily forgotten. It is thought that this is acceptable because they think they are above us. But you and I know that there is no competition that connects us to them. They'll try to pretend that nothing ever happened, and this is all a big misunderstanding that they are going to pass off as a joke. And they'll expect us to laugh. But smiling is something they can't force us to do.