The urge to run will breath life
into your limp figure
and shock your spirit into flight;
there's something whimsical
about the West, a spark
which was birthed within our
ancestors and simmers in us still.

Your amber eyes light up
at the Californian fantasy,
your skin crawls with
anticipation and restlessness,
your lips tremble with excitement
at the everlasting roads

So dream on, dear child,
because you're not going anywhere.
You're trapped here and you know it.

Listen closely,
and you can just barely hear,
stifled by the heavy doors, your
mother crying down the hall.
Listen closely and you'll know,
or else feign your unawareness
and maintain your little facade.
Assure yourself that there's nothing
you can do - and maybe even
believe it,
But you did listen, you did hear
her sorrow pouring out, so
pretend all you want, but it will
never not have happened.

Your mother is crying in the bathroom.

Your mother is crying
in the bathroom,
and you're no
better
than the rest of them.

the words catch on my tongue
like they're bound with saran wrap
I can feel them
clawing for escape
I bite and bite and bite on the speckled pink flesh
but I cannot free these pathetic
slaves in my museum of emptiness
chained to my esophogus
by long, thin, elastic threads
my teeth are too dull
to rip through
despite my constant gnawing

like that rat I once saw
in a memory so faint
I may have imagined it

I'm tangled up
in the ribbons of your hair
and your eyes, like sequins
on the silken canvas of your features
      You don't belong to me.
We only meet
in crowded rooms, or perhaps,
in dreams
      I'm in deep on the surface
      I'm treading in your gravity
Maybe this entanglement
isn't such a bad thing after all

Your words are infused
with the sweetness
    of your youthful laughter
and the melancholy
    of your haunted soul
Mine are a mere echo
   and infection of sorts
But words are words
   are words are words
Anyone can be a poet.

Maybe I once loved you
I don't know, nor do I care
For the part of my heart which loves
Is now as empty as my stare

The weight of my world surrounds me
Which only I can bear
Melancholy drips
From my vacant lips

is anybody there?

Today is a tricky substance.  In its
delicate intricacy
we sense the echoes of yesterday
and the prospects of tomorrow,
but all is lost on the ticking clock
as it gently
weighs the day away