Love Letters

I ran out of words
My speech turned off cause it decided that I already gave it all that I've got and its about time I man up
And I need to make some kind of move because I can only speak in vowels now
Aaaa....eee......I.....oh.......you do something to me that I can't describe
Its like I'm back in elementary school searching the playground for you from my perch at the top of the slide
And you hide from me on purpose cause you just want me to chase you and graze your arm when I tag you
And you know what sugar, you're it
You're the one thats got me reciting rules and rhymes in our two door classroom
Reviewing every love letter that I stitch together making sure I don't say something the wrong way
And I remember that its I before E except after seeing you the way you looked at me from my passenger seat
You got me wishing we were sitting in a tree........K I S S I N G
But the way you worked that tongue in my mouth reminds me that we're adults now and the thoughts that follow can only be catagorized with a letter that comes near the end of the alphabet
And I've never been so exhausted by just one kiss
When I was finally able to fight myself away from your lips we rested against each other panting like we'd just competed in the fucking Ironman tournament
It took years of cycling through the thoughts that ran in the back of my mind before this moment where I could swim through your eyes and fall over spent and content in front of your doorstep
Sprint to the end of your reflected smile for miles, hand over hand crawl through a waste land, just to get up and walk again to find the way to form words without my tongue tripping out of my mouth
And you might laugh at these guns but I've been working out a reasonable excuse to make the drive to you
I'm fully loaded, cocking the hammer to take another shot at your heart, and it might be just a shot in the dark
Cause they say that love is blind and it feels like you just turned off ALL the fucking lights
But I still feel you near me from the way you radiate like the moon
And I could be saying all of this waaaay too soon, but I can't stop thinking about you
I know you're in another city now and maybe if I cross my fingers and close my eyes you could hear me somehow
Cause when everything stopped and you wanted to crawl into my head to pull out what was getting caught
I was just trying to find a way to say.....
That I'm madly in love with you
And I know you lost your wings long ago but if you can find your way to my doorstep I can learn to sew your feathers back on
And I'll hold you with the strength that the dirt grips your toes
Because even the Earth knows that you're far too beautiful to ever let go

18 Years

18 Years
18 Years
18 Years of every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night
18 Years of searching
18 Years of believing that you could be lurking behind every impure thought I ever had
18 Years
Those wooden church pews have indentions from my arms, kneeling over them praying for a sign, hoping that you would talk back when I spoke to you in my mind
18 Years of nothing
Nothing but a family tree that was cut down by my forefathers to be reconstructed as a cross
Generations that nailed themselves into a legacy because they devoted their lives to a one sided mind in fear of an eternity of flames
A heritage of forgotten names that did nothing significant in their lives because they only worshipped you and worked just enough to survive
And I'm a disappointment to them, because I can't see a reason to follow the same path with mine
I'm tired of the division between my parents and I because we can't see eye to eye on a specter of faith, a ghost that only manifests itself between the lines of dusty Bibles and worn out hymnals, a scarlet letter burned into my forehead by my family members because they've been taught that a measure of a man can be answered in one question
Do you believe in God?
And if for no other reason than the sake of being fully accepted by my parents
I want to believe
I want to believe
I want to fucking believe
They remind me that I don't have see the wind to know it exists, I can feel it
But I don't feel you
I just feel bad
I feel bad for everything that I can actually see
I feel bad for every broken home and father that beat their daughter as she cried out to you asking for it to stop
Every rapist that invaded a woman's body because he didn't have the standard human decency to know that it was wrong
Every television channel that I turn on to see another story of a student that brought a gun to school and shot five of his classmates, painting over the academic plaques and football trophies that line the hallways with their blood
And the countless other murders that just occurred in the time that it took for me to bring that up
I want to believe
I want to believe that you didn't just create mankind so you could watch it fall apart
I want to believe that you can hear this, the closest thing I've had to a prayer in the last 7 years
Our Father who art in heaven, show me how to believe
Cause my father who is on earth can’t look me in the eyes without questioning what he sees
But I’m right here
You hear me?
25 Years now and I’m still right here
Still the trembling little boy on his knees begging for my fathers to accept me
Either show me your wrath or bless me with your presence
I’m telling you to kill me or fill me with this holy spirit I’ve only heard about
I’ve open my eyes as wide as I can and stared into your silent void until I almost went blind
Now I’m asking for you for the millionth time to give me the fucking sign
25 Years now
25 Years

Bones

This is your skin
This is your skin against me
And this is the reaction to something as simple as a hug that lasted too long cause we needed to feel our bodies pressed together
And I was just a skeleton in your closet that crawled out into your parking lot to move to the rhythm of your nervous heart beat and the possibilities of how your presence can flesh out these bones into something real
Something true
Something that could be waiting for me everyday that I could come home to
But metaphors don't do justice to anything I'd want to say
All I could do is grab you and put everything I have into my lips to try to push his kiss out of the way
And I don't want to step on toes, but its hard not to when I dance with your image all day
Come rest your head and let me capture you in my rib cage, cause for the last five years there has been a vacant spot since I let you walk out
Lying placid in my indifference, hollow, and completely absent minded
I couldn’t view beyond the interior of my own eyelids to see what I was missing
But as I stand here naked in my regret, the weight of the past sits directly on my chest
I feel it almost cave in, with the heavy sighs that erupt from my diaphragm
Echoing with the memory of your eyes that pry into my own, pristine hazel tones, that vibrate through my mind every second till its the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night
I need to deconstruct your frame and rebuild it, so I can know every inch of your insides
Every part of your body, Every hill and valley, Every imperfection that makes you radiate as a whole
Every human piece that reminds me of what I wake up for
What I could wake up to
I need to fall in love with every bit of your form
I could drive to you and wait outside your door every night for an answer with the sound of footsteps like earthquakes thundering behind a wooden barrier
They tremble in the same motion that my nerves ripple through my limbs
I could cast shadows that blanket you in your bed and work their hands under the small of your back reminding you that you don't have to fall so fast
Cause I've waited
I've waited
And I'm still waiting to give you these bones so I could linger in your flesh

Kick in the Ass

I start speaking and the timer jumps and I got three minutes to show everyone else up and thats the way a lot of people look at it
Strictly speaking this is a competition, its designed as a poet's test to grind out the rest into the audience to watch the second round progress into the best
Which is to say that it usually loses me before the final three
And maybe its because there's a lot of people out there that don't like what I write or the way I usually perform in an aggressive tone or how I'm making a second grade effort right now to make this piece rhyme or at least flow
But I started doing this shit because of I had something to say and I'd bet everything I own that there's at least one person here today that has never slammed before but everytime they hear it they get a feeling in their gut and an urge to step up but they haven't yet
So those of you out there, you know who you are, pay very close attention to my words
What the fuck are you waiting for?
For this brief period of time this mic is mine, but once I walk off it could be yours
Thats not intended to be a challenge to you, its an invitation
I want you to bring in those pieces of paper you've been hiding in your desk drawers
It doesn't matter if its another piece about someone that broke your heart or your day at work or how much you love bacon
Cause you need to stop thinking that the only poetry that matters is the stuff that tries to change the world
I'm tired of people crying about a personal revolution, its not going to fucking happen
And yeah, that sounds great, but if you really wanted to make an impact you wouldn't just be spitting words at locals in a bar, so what are you really writing for
Yourself or a high score
So don't dare mistake this as some kind of plea to shake up the slam or a request to be your inspiration and become your best friend
Cause there's a very good chance that I could think your poetry sucks
But keep in mind I'm also an ass because I don't have the tact to be anything other than honest in every aspect
So you can trust I'm speaking the truth when I say that I respect every person that has the guts to get up and share their stuff with a crowd thats going to judge you
Now this is your kick in the ass, cause some of you need it
I know I did, and if any of you need the same kind of push that I got we can exchange numbers after this and I can fuck you over too
And you can come back here every week with a new piece trying to be better than me till it wears off and you quit writing like you got something to prove
You can learn the same lesson that I did, stop trying to earn a place, and just say what you want to say
Fuck the scores, fuck your fears, and fuck anyone that might have anything negative to relay about your performance up here
I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass or wipe your tears, but if you come talk to me afterwards I'll shake your hand and see you next week

Sentences Behind Your Eyes

I didn't want to march outside and change your world
I just wanted to get out of bed
I didn't want to blow your mind with these words
I just wanted you to let me sit inside your head and catch fragments of thoughts like refridgerator magnets and arrange them into sentences behind your eyes
Now close them and read this with me
I don't want to be your savior anymore
I never wanted you to look up to me
I wanted you to level with me
I wanted you to realize that you're worth much more than you give yourself credit for
I didn't lose myself in your skin because of the make up you wear, or your new shoes, or the way you fixed your hair
Its cause sometimes your words would float in the air and I breathed them in
Till they came back out of my fingertips in uncontrollable bursts like when I wrote this
I wish you could march inside and change my mind
I wish you didn't feel so alone with a thorn in your side
Now close your eyes
I don't want to be your devastator anymore
Stop calling me
Stop calling me cause I can't stop picking up
Your voice is the cigerette after I just quit
I need to hold it in my lungs
And exhale back into the phone
I admit to the truth
I say things you shouldn't hear right now
Of course I miss you
But I have to hang up sometime soon
I have to disconnect from you
But you never say goodbye
You just fall asleep on the line
And I still listen to you breathe when you do
Now close your eyes
I don't want to love you anymore
But I still get that knot in my stomach and that knock on my door
Two AM and you can't sleep without me
And I can't say no
So here you are
Asleep in my bed again
I'm just waiting to burn the sheets and wash off your fingerprints when I trace words into your curves
Everything that I should have already said
A confession of half truths and little white lies that starts with "I wish" and ends with "good bye"
Now open your eyes
I'm sorry
Even though that word means nothing to you anymore

A Routine Mission

It was supposed to be a routine mission
A one man operation that would only take an evening
Then I report back to the rendezvous point with the boys and have a few cold ones
But something went wrong
Next thing I know a fever falls over me while I'm in that jungle and I'm trapped
When I came to that cup of chicken noodle soup was just sitting there staring at me
It taunted me, an angry tiger pacing in front of me with vegetables and pasta dripping from it's jaws
And I was in a bamboo cage with it
There was no use entertaining the thought of escaping, for it would take much more effort to fight what was outside of this cell than to wage battle with the rabid animal inside
So I sat up and grabbed it with my two bare hands and fought it down my throat, each mouthful taking swipes in my gut and trying to crawl back up
I could only wrestle with it for so long before I had to retreat back to my corner and lay down
Let the beast settle in my stomach, for its roar was threatening to find its way back out
Then the orange juice slithered into my peripheral vision
Oh God, the orange juice
This technicolor cobra that snuck into my corner while I was resting
Oh, you slippery mother fucker, don't tell me I have to deal with you too
And I could hear foreign tongues screaming wagers around me while I was drenched in sweat with a washrag that weighed down on my forehead like a blood stained bandanna
And they raddled the bars and reminded me it was coming
They screamed for me to end them or it was coming
And I knew it, but I didn't even want to look at those creatures
My stomach turned over when I just thought about finishing them
I couldn't do it......just needed rest..........just needed sleep
Then all the voices fell silent, and there was a shuffle of feet as the crowd opened up and fell down on their knees
And the cobra and the tiger gathered next to the wall where the ground was displayed and a figure cloaked in a terry cloth robe walked down the path to my cage
A voice came from under the curlers and the bifocals and said "you didn't eat your soup"
And I said "Nooooo"
And the voice said "you didn't drink your liquids"
And I said "Nooooo"
And the voice said "are you cold, do you need another blanket"
And I said "mom, please, I feel like hell, can you just let me sleep?"
And she said "You're not going to feel any better unless you get vitamins."
And I said "Well the vitamins don't help if I can't keep them down."
And she said "Do you want to watch something else on TV, how about something educational like the Discovery channel?"
And I said "please, mother, I just want to discover what happens when I close my eyes"
I crawled out of there on Sunday afternoon, well fed and emasculated
I like to think I just forgot what dignity is.........rather than losing it

Shine

There's openings of black sky midnights that separates your beauty marks, stretching over expanses of unexplored canvas I'd like to design
Use my fingertips like paintbrushes decorating landscapes that illustrate the maps inside my mind
Design a pathway to a mansion with 56 floors, each one filled with portraits of years that came before, pictures that don't feature people but just emotions, that glow and move on their own
And when we reach the roof we can touch the heavens and pull the essence from the night so you hold it in your eyes and I can watch you shine
Burn embroidered signatures into the depths of our chests that say that I belonged to you until death
And you can shine like a star that only wakes after dusk
You can shine and write love letters to our children on the clouds in stardust and whisper fragments of half the love I've been privileged to receive into them and let it rain down
And you can shine a light that reflects like God's smile glowing off the tops of oceans of love potions that swallow the hearts of men and women, intertwining with the blood in their veins till they shine like a lighthouse in torrential rain
And the dust of our bones will drift past the villages of witches and undeserving princes
Past the boroughs of three heads dogs and two inch tall tree dwelling elves
Past the fields of iocane powder and life waging Sicilian men
Past a world of enchanted wonders that no one thought to be true, just as no one thought it was possible to love you the way I do
So marry me in a kingdom past a portal to another world through a gap a in stone wall
After I announce myself to the six fingered man who killed my father and challenge him to a duel
And slay a dragon that holds a ruby for a heart so that I can ask an eight foot tall blacksmith with arms like tree trunks to fashion it onto a ring for you
Then provide the horns on the alter of an elder God who will carry me back on a gust of wind
And I can live off the fairy tales I created on your skin