*Smiles with in Solitude* - Page 13

I pour gasoline into my guts to start a fire to light up the darkness inside myself. To no avail as i sink further into this self loathing routine that I spent two years trying to break. I need to regain control of this existence that has been torn to pieces by false pretences and lovers that wouldn't agree. Give me your hand and take a walk, not with me, but the disguise I wear to hide myself from the outside world looking in

God save us all

I tried to kill the shadow within me.
Years of analytical genocide has tempered my pen
in the fire of calculation.

Yet throughout all of it
the nib has never burned
though it has grown red-hot; searing
the page like a brand
laying bare that which I tried to destroy.

I am human.
To be human is to dream.

My books have dusted over
replaced by social networking sites and texts
filled with integrals and differentiations.
But their bookmarks still elicit a curiosity.
I have taken my tome off the shelf.


I am human.
To be human is to dream.

You can try to exist statistically
to remove the pain of loss
or the nirvana of love
but in the end, you ultimately fail.
For your blood is mainly plasma
and your heart is another muscle
but your brain
the neural network of electric and chemical signals
is a finicky tapestry
woven in an unfamiliar weave.

And so, again
the pen has been lifted again
and the hand is twitching
with stories and musings.

I am human.
To be human is to dream.

Glad to see you dreaming

Someone once said to me
"I am the luckiest man in the world."
He was in a hospital bed after being hit by a truck.

I laughed it off
but the look on his face
was one of joy and seriousness.
How could a broken man
be the luckiest in the world?

I went home that night
and as I was closing the garage door
a homeless gent I'd seen before
waves jauntily at me.

I go out and have a butt with him
and he asks me
if he can build an igloo in my yard
for him to sleep in that night.
I hand him a shovel
and he thanks me, saying
"I am the luckiest man in the world tonight."

I sit behind my desk
papers piled high
and curse my life and work.
My woman is gone; my family miles away.
And my phone buzzes.
It's a friend of mine, and he has a brew with my name on it.

I replied "I am the luckiest man in the world
to have friends like you."

It's a matter of vision
however you view it, you are lucky.
Whether it's crushed ribs, a shelter from the storm
or a cool one raised high with friends
the strains in your life are strains
not tears.

I am the luckiest man in the world.
We all are so lucky.

Thanks Awakened, been a while. Neutered, hope you're still around- we gotta catch up.


*Scratched out on a napkin at lunch.*

The coffee's cooled
to that point of warmth where I can drink deeply.
A table over, a blue dress
I have memories of this.
Her lipstick is red, I think
judging by the glass.
But one can speculate all day
and that is simply a creepy thing to do.
So turn the pages of the book
and delve into your tea and crumpets
while I go get myself a refill.

Chains lie forgotten on the film reels
as I step over the camera onward
with a smirk on my chin that says

Stop.

You are now facing a new you
with diced mentality and chopped measurements.
This is not your usual scenario
where the glass ceilings loomed out of reach
now crackle like bubble wrap
between iron fingers.

The pedal sinks to the floor
and the lights blur to lines
that sear my eyes
but they do not notice the burning, the etching
only the road ahead
and the glow of fires behind.

Stop.

No.

Go. Faster, further than before
for there are ceilings ahead
that the old you never knew existed.
Let the asphalt carry me on

What would it be to me to be a taxi on the corner?
My yellow sides instantly recognizable to the flustered tourist
as I rumble on the corner waiting for a fare?

To race from one end of town to the other
carrying drunkards and businessmen
pregnant women and women about to get pregnant
as the ticker clicks?

To have my driver curse at the traffic
and hammer my wheel until the light turns green?
And my tires bite the pavement with all intent of launching
like a coiled snake for that one hole in the tide?
The thought makes me smile.

To see someone raise their hands
saying 'pick me! I can pay'
would be a focus in this chaotic crowd
where I stand with my bags and phone
frantically looking for a damned taxi.

I'm overwhelmed with all that surrounds me. I struggle to push through, not always succeeding. I keep falling, as if I'm purposely letting the world and its crap push me down. Yet, I always manage to get up and try again.

I give off a vibe of knowledge and success. Looked upon by those around me as if I've accomplished something great, never knowing that no matter how much I struggle to succeed I keep failing.

I have scars from each time I've fallen, some larger than others, but at times I feel they are self inflicted. That through all my struggles, I'm the one pushing myself over hoping to fail, hoping to just stop. Sometimes I think, 'what if I don't get up this time? What if this time I just don't bother? I mean, I've gotten this far, isn't that enough?' But there is always something inside me that drowns those thoughts out in the end and forces me to get up. Even if I am pushing myself down, a part of me refuses to stay down, no matter the number of failures.

I don't dare bandage myself up; my scars must be exposed, at least to me. I can't cover up my failures, because if I did I'd forget. Each fall, each scrape, each gushing wound, they are there to remind me how I fell and how I managed to get up. No matter how overwhelmed I've been and how far I've fallen, I never forget how to get up. I never forget how to push through.

No one, that is who I am.

My talents emotionless. My vision's obscured. Neither painter nor poet; I'm blind to the art. 

Beauty and wonder are mute. Destruction and sorrow erased. I neither see evil nor do I understand its purpose. I walk over grace and virtue and turn my back to the meaning of power and justice. 

Dark is just a shade I have yet to master or even comprehend. Light shines at me but it never gazes through me. 

No one, that is who I am. 

I throw words at a paper hoping something sticks. I make lines on a canvas imagining something grand. But they mean nothing. They express nothing. 

I can't grasp originality. Out of tune and off beat, all I do comes off stale. Repeating the same sour note, my feelings are bland. 

No one, that is who I am.

A reflection of my past works is all I seem to be. 

and here is my attempt at poetry

hicorry dicorry dock the mouse is in my dinner because i went to mcdonalds, mmm delicious .

Still the same, altogether the same
view as I raise my head from the pillow.
The old off-white sony, crooning country music
begging me to hit it to shut it

Off.

The cereal has the same consistency
though the boxes get flashier and flashier
and at the meetings, they tell me "make it sound better
since the product is as good as we can get it.
Altogether, same ol' same."

As I let the words flow in the meter
that has become me, I smile, for the rhythm
is altogether the same.
But it's learning how

to

use the s p a c e s

that makes this fun, for while I am the same,
I have the capacity now to show the difference.
And that lets me sleep at night and
look forward to tomorrow.

I just had a hell of a conversation with a broken man.
Spread out with books around him
the coffee cup black with the scum that builds
from repeated fillings and drainings.

His eyebrows furrowed
over sad brown irises. As he contemplated
the gravity of the situation at hand,
how his future was skewed from the start. I felt
no pity.

The broken man is brilliant,
synapses sparking with neurological connections.
And yet he fails to realize
there are more views of his predicament than just
the vantage point of his pupils.

I sat with a mountain dew
and nodded assent to his degenerate arguments
and injected as much levity and sunshine
into his eyes, my needle muted
by the murk about him.

We shook hands and parted with the comment,
"work consumes you." And I told him
I'd do coffee with him and his girl the following tuesday
after the hammer had fallen. And he smiled.
It was a hell of a conversation. But I'll not trouble you with it
for I've seen trouble enough for a broken man.

Tired, exhausted, my body refuses to shut down. The trees stand still, knee deep in dead silence. My eyes refuse to close.

My window shows me a world drowned in slumber, taunting me. The echoing silence mocks the action packed noise in my head. 

Hoping to find a remote control to mute the chaos, at least lower the volume for five minutes-- it's too much to ask. I can't turn off.

Dreaming of sleep, while others dream of adventures and epic voyages. I'm supposed to be battling evil, not myself.

The wind sleeps to the soothing zooms of cars on the dark roads. I can hear the cars in the distance. Why am I awake?! 

Even the bird that keeps me up at 2am found sleep. I can hear it laughing at me, and my discomfort; hope a cat eats it. 

My eyes grow weary, yet refuse to close. As sand storms consume those around me, I've yet to see a grain of sand. 

Madness is all I have found, and a pen to write the tale that follows. Chapter one, I need sleep...

Come my way, my truth my life.
Such a way as gives us breath,
such a truth as ends all strife,
such a life as killeth death.

I got me flowers to strew thy way.
I got me boughs of many a tree,
but thou wast up at break of day,
and broughts thy sweets along with thee.

The sun arising in the east,
though he give light,
and the east perfume,
if they should offer to contest
with thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.