Blue Flames

Good morning.
And it ends and it goes and it goes
Without a phone call,
And without a touch,
We collide and are severed.
A thousand moths,
A million broken hearts,
The face on the tree,
Lift me up to strike me down
To where the eyes are snatched
And the tongues cut out.
Blood-covered spoons
And little frosting-coated words
Can keep a mouth fed
And leave a gut empty
When rope and bullets
Are hard to come by.
And my heart feels heavy
As I cough up the words
Of a small little girl
With a dagger in her mind.
The lightning overhead
Ignites the fuse of
My feebly standing lover,
As I blindly reach
For the key to the world.
The knowledge slithers up
From my fingertips.
Headlights and running feet
Carry me to the future,
As the mushroom cloud
Picks up the crumbs of
An innocent bystander
Who only waited for me.
And I
Could
Not
die.

Corrupted Purity

This filthy, maddening city--
Swamped with the indecency
Of a million sick-minded people
Living a million sick-minded lives--
Drags me to the stinking alleyways,
The darkest corners no streetlight touches,
Where I am consumed by disease
And become one of them:
A selfish, thieving rat
In a selfish, thieving world.

In a single patch of light
A flower stretches past the murk--
A touch of purity among a fog of corruption.
And in my sick-minded stupor, I trample it:
The one beautiful object in this barbaric town.
The last pure, innocent thing I will ever encounter
Lies broken and dead
Under yesterday's waste.
And in my loathsome daze,
I can't even shed a tear.

I cannot blame this city,
For it was me who became it's victim,
And believed it's whispers of selfish happiness.
I allowed it to taint the purity of my mind
To consume the purity of my flesh,
To control my every move,
And only now do I see my wrong
Peeking out under a layer of dirt.
What was once a flower,
Is now only a weed.

And so it will always be.

Harmless Sins

I have done what society has condemned.
I have stepped over the line of the accepted.
I have spit in the face of the pastor.
I have tasted the forbidden fruit.
And I have bragged about it.

I have seen the dirty streets of society's ignorance.
I have skipped to the wrong side of the tracks.
I have laughed in the face of the king.
I have strayed from the flock.
And I have enjoyed every minute.

I have disregarded the universal law of society.
I have danced my way through the moral wilderness.
I have cursed in the face of my family.
I have broken every commandment.
And I have smiled all the way.

But yet,
I have not been banished by society to an outside world.
I have not been shoved into prison and locked away.
I have not been slapped by their commander.
I have not been thrown into the lion den.
And I still walk among them.

But this is not my funeral.

Decisions (Part 2)

You shield your eyes from the bright sunlight as you look out upon a wide open field. The grass brushes lightly against your shins as you step further from the door. Wait. You turn around to see the door still standing there, with its impossibly clean, silver doorknob shining in the sun. However, no wall surrounds it. It simply stands in its frame in the middle of the field. You do a quick run around to see that only more field lies behind it. So you had escaped the constricting walls of the white room, yet you are still completely alone.

Too tired to explore this new realm, you sit on the ground, pulling your knees up to your chest. A warm breeze sways the tall grass, making it brush against your shoulders. With one deep inhale, you smell the fresh air and the warm earth beneath you. This world seems to welcome you, yet you still feel lonely. Lying down on the soft grass, you look up into the blue sky, unsure of what to do next. Your mind is exhausted from your claustrophobic ordeal. As you lie face-up in the tall grass, the breeze attempts to lull you to sleep. You sit up again and survey this new world. Open field. Door. More open field. It seems safe enough. The ground welcomes you back with the soft whisper of grass brushing together under you, as you fall back, looking at the sky. The sun warms your skin, with the breeze keeping you perfectly comfortable. Your eyelids feel heavy, so you give in and allow your mind to be immersed in sleep.

Something touches you. Something that isn’t grass. You quickly throw your arms up, smacking them hard against the unseen creature. The thing lets out a “houff” as you roll over and jump to your feet. “Who is it? Who’s there?!” you shout out as you look around you. Nothing. You walk around the door. Still nothing. Whatever it was had left. Wrapping your arms around you, you contemplate going back through the door. The sun was still shining, and the earth still looked very inviting, but you were far too spooked to attempt to sleep. Perhaps you should go back through the door. But what was the point? You could either go back to the tiny white room you were initially trapped in or stay in the wide open. But what if that thing came back? It hadn’t hurt you…but what if it tried again?

Something rustles in the grass.

You hear the rustling come closer, but you can see nothing. Your breathing becomes heavy, and you take a step backward, unsure of what direction the sound is coming from. Every thought in your mind is telling you to run away—any way—screaming, but your body refuses to move. Suddenly, you feel a hand on your arm. A deep voice whispers in your ear.

“It’s ok. You’re ok. I won’t hurt you.”

something wrong

Untouched by science,
Above all the stars,
In a world far beyond
These earth-given scars,
She lied down in waiting,
And counted the cars
That passed as her
Teardrops were falling.

Swallowed by oceans,
Immersed in the skies,
She searched for a truth
In a tangle of lies,
With a glimmer of hope
Shining deep in her eyes,
That dimmed as she
Gave up her calling.

And as she lay weeping,
Stars put on a show
Of fantastic lanterns
That she'd never know,
For her sobs kept her deaf,
And teardrops did flow,
So she never did see
Their great flying.

The sun moved to warm her
As she sat in the sand,
But none could replace
The touch of a hand,
That took her away
To this far away land,
But left her alone
To her crying.

The world tried to please her,
And yet she still mopes
Over love unrequited,
And yet she still hopes
That some day he'll come,
And untie the ropes
That bind her and keep her
From running.

Perhaps she will notice,
Perhaps she will not,
The marvelous place
In which she's been caught,
But for now she still cries
Over love never got,
And waits for a day
That's not coming.

Too Late

Your body is shivering

So you lie and say you're cold

'Cause you know it's wrong

And you know you shouldn't

But you do



Your mind is racing

So you turn up the volume

'Cause you're done listening

And you know you should

But you won't



Your thoughts wander

So you hold on to him tighter

'Cause you refuse to believe

And you want to forget

But you can't



Your eyes water

So you tell them how you feel

'Cause you can't keep lying

And you want to stop


But it's too late.

Decisions (Part 1)

You're in a small room. The white walls stare back at you, completely blank, other than the simple white doors facing you on three sides. Actually, there could very well be another door behind you, but something tells you not to look; that it doesn't really matter what is on that fourth wall just out of your sight. Instead, you look at the three doors. At first glance, they look identical. Each is painted in the exact same bright white color as the walls surrounding you, and each has a small silver doorknob. However, when you look closer, you can see that the doors are slightly different.

The door directly in front of you looks the newest. You walk closer to touch the white wood and can still smell the faint odor of paint. The doorknob looks as if it were just cleaned. Your distorted reflection looks up at you without a fingerprint to fog the image. Not wanting to ruin the doorknob's shine with your fingers, you step back to investigate the other doors.

You return to the center of the room, keeping your eyes to the ground to avoid looking at the fourth wall, part of you still warning you not to look and that it isn't important. You turn to the right wall and lift your head to see another average-looking door facing you. But this door is clearly not as new as the other, or at least not as well-kept. The door is dotted here and there with gray fingerprints, and the doorknob is smudged with what must be the oil from the hands of hundreds of others. The door isn’t completely uninviting, though. But perhaps the third door will be even better.

Once again keeping your eyes down, you find your way to the middle of the white room. Finally you look at the door to the right of you. This door was definitely the oldest. As you step closer to it, you notice small specks of brown wood peeking out from cracks in the white paint. The silver knob shows signs of age and use, but it isn’t as filthy as the on the left of the room. In fact, as you inspect the door, you notice no signs of dirt. It looks as spotless as the first door, with only small scratches in the wood. It seems promising, but there’s still two other doors to choose from.

As you step back to decide between the three doors, you suddenly notice just how small the room actually is. There’s no way it was this small before. The walls seem to be closing in on you as claustrophobia takes over. You feel completely and terrifyingly alone, as if there is and has never been any other being crawling along the face of the earth with you. You crave to be with someone, to liberate yourself from this room and the solitude it traps you in. Taking short breaths, you look frantically from one door to the other, trying to make a quick decision to escape the fear overcoming you. Dashing for the first door you inspected, you reach out for the spotless, shining doorknob. You throw the door open and hesitate entering only long enough to ensure that there is no danger awaiting you on the opposite side of the door. Taking in a whiff of paint, you step through the doorway, leaving the white walls to stare in on themselves.