Step right up and get in line
Produce your ticket, your seat I'll assign
Down the steps, then left to your row
Best you hurry, lights are dimmed low

Take your seat, settle in, be comfortable
The show will begin at the blow of the whistle
I'm your ringmaster, behold the spectacle
Welcome to your life, your very own circus carnival!

Be awed, be mystified, be entertained
Be ready to witness the life you've gained
You'll see fate defying feats and high wire decisions,
Emotion driven acrobats and will bending magicians!

First up, we have a duo, we have a pair
A man and a woman, whom you've learnt to care
Armed with big hearts along with hardened whips
Here are your tamers, they're yours for keeps

They'll attempt and try till their very last breaths
Keep you riveted, as they toy with death
Love with their hearts and their whips do straighten
Teach you lessons with firm handed affection

Stay put, you ain't seen nothing yet
Seen it all you think, but not this I'll bet
Bespectacled, they work alone but part of a guild
Pen juggling and book flipping, one aim to build

To impart all they know across varying disciplines
They'll get it done through different ways and means
Sit tight, do well, for you'll be rewarded
After their routine, you'd have learnt, your life you'd have charted

Put your hands together for next in tow
No my friend, it's not the end of the show
Let's welcome the one you'll soon come to seek
Dons a suit, you might see him five days a week

For sustenance, it is him that you will search
Hurls tight deadline projects from his obscure little perch
Equipped with a bow and bolts in his quiver
Shoots assignment laced arrows, makes sure you deliver

This last act would be the best
It could be true, no! It's no jest
Feast your eyes on your evening's temptress
With curves that could **** and garbed like a sorceress

Tease your heart aflame with wild raw magics
Render you submissive with her sensuous feline tricks
She could be the one, for whom you would have bled
She could be the only, you might want to wed

This finally marks the end of our night of nights
Night abundant with reflective imagery and titillating sights
Hope you've the enjoyed the performances we've lined
Hope we've lit the spark in your body and mind

Before we part and go on our own separate ways
Before the sun rises for the rest of our days
Allow me to leave you with one final say
"Life will be the ultimate circus; whether or not you choose to play".

I can see the smile,
mimicking the crescent.
Hovering by the curtain,
peeking, prodding, Pushing.
But nothing seems as fake
as the flowers in that gilded vase.
Waiting to bloom, in shrouded anticipation.
Filled with disgust at the life they sustain,
So young, so naive.
Foolishly trusting.
Scorn curling my lips,
I walk away.
Leaving everything behind.
Everything that anchors me to this bottomless void.
Forsaking...Freedom.

It takes this boy three words to figuratively melt all my literal progress, to turn my thoughts right back into the whirlwind of memories I've spent the past twelve months trying to silence. At last, I stopped hearing his voice in the howling wind but two missed calls and a couple 2AM texts later and I can't think straight. I see his smile in the spaces between my fingers and LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE ricochets around my skull, firing my synapses sharply while his hurricane laughter echoes between my neurons.

Three words to rip all of my unexpressed feelings from their neatly-packed shoe boxes and send them swirling around my head in that violent vortex that took a year to subdue.

Three words to unleash the chaos I had finally repressed.

When will my
                Weakness become strength,
How do       I become stronger than my
                Hopelessness ,
Yearning      for the peace that
                 Yielding would bring.

Yes.
I know.
It is irrational for me to think like this.
I poke holes, second guess
and jackhammer at my own foundation.
But, you see, I do care even when
I come off as crass or I dishearten
your image of me.

I
Just
Can't
Stop
Myself

These destructive feelings
and urges towards relationships
are deep rooted in a fear
of abandonment.
I'm a battered man.
Batting below average.
Yet, every chance I get
I bunt or try to get hit
because that's more comfortable to me
Than swinging and missing.

But I do care. I really just don't know how to show it.
I hold on too long to brief moments
that seem to pass from memories
as if I stole them. I'm just nostalgic.
It's the little things that are big to me
and the silly stuff that resonates profoundly.

I do understand though.
The burden of my depression
rests solely on my shoulders.
It's not something I can brush off or
roll over. I just hope that you all
bear with me as I tunnel my way
out of this insanity.

I ask you for a smile and you hand me a crushing blow.
I turn to you for comfort from the pain you have caused in hopes that you will embrace me and erase the tear stains from my face, you run a blade of anger and bitterness in my heart.
And then, for only a moment, you will reach to me with the promise of love, you are in need of love, support and encouragement.
I will not hesitate to freely give it, even knowing that you will turn savage once again and devour the heart that lifted you up.
I hear your voice please to me for patience, understanding and guidance; all of which are immediately delivered and once you feel result you decide I need to be punished for loving you.
I offer you repeated opportunities to quiet the raging storm of agony and anger, but I am struck until I bleed for being so arrogant to assume that I could help you with love.
If you loved me you would stop whipping my already shredded skin and heal my wounds with the love and peace you keep promising......some day.
I beg you for mercy and give you unconditional love, and your response?
Ultimate rejection coupled with one more emotional assault.
Have I not bled enough? Are there not enough gaping wounds in my soul?
Where is your heart burried that you refuse to see me lying weeping on the floor asking for mercy and only for you to accept my heart and me?
How is it that you could find my soul's deepest desire insufficient?
I mourn the death of my hopes for us, and have only dreams left of the man I fell in love with.
Broken

What can I do to make you see
what the world can truly be
and the endless possibilities
that are out there for you, and me.

What can I do to make you smile
for you to sit back and stay awhile,
to get you out of your comfort zone,
to show you that you're not alone.

What can I do to make you laugh
about something other than your crumbling path,
why can't I help you open your eyes
to look ever so slightly on the brighter side.

Just get up.
Get up, and feel the thrill of being alive,
I want you to be your best and thrive.

Just wake up.
Wake up, from this hazy nightmare,
wade through the depths of your own despair.

If you ever get there,
come and find me.
I'll be waiting beneath the old willow tree.

It's the one filled with memories
of what is and what used to be.
Under the constellations of wonder and awe,
by the sea of emotions, ever jagged and raw.

Its roots are etched into my bone and skin,
for it's part of who I am and what lies within.
I want you to meet me there,
in the lands that lie beyond your despair.

I'll be waiting, ever fading
for you to see what I can't bear to know
that it's up to you, there's nothing I can do.
Time will pass, what will it have to show?

They were the knotted extensions of her soul.
They showed how she twisted the truth
right out the lies she had been told.
Since birth people tried to typecast her role.

Marry a man
Have some babies
Grow old

Her family would say someone mucked up the recipe;
sugar, spice and everything nice. She was
dissimilar to the 3. Her sugar was solitude.
Her spice? Tattoos. Everything nice in her
had been stripped and *******. So the only
thing left of that were the bits of metal in her lips,
nose and ears. "Brush your hair 100 times a day, dear",
Her mother had said for years. And she did
until the day she told her parents she was
a different kind of queer. Then,the tears.

Somewhere between her mother's damnations,
her father's belligerence and her usual
rebuttal of indifference, she began to take interest
in her hair. Those long, straight strands were
nothing like her. The red reflected
her parents rejection. In that moment.
There was clarity in the contorted
version of love she had to incur.
She decided the only expectations
to accept were hers. And just like that
the barrier between her and the world cracked.
She decided to dread her hair and dye it black.

As the years went by,  her parents learned
to accept their daughter. And in return
each year  she would send them a photo
showing how her hair had gotten longer.
She also added trinkets to the locks and let
the strawberry color grow back.
Yet she kept the tips black to remind herself
no matter what the world wants her to be
the most important thing in life was her self-esteem.