My uncle slit a man's throat with a box cutter in my childhood home and didn't apologize.
Sitting in a circle filled with crack smoke and stale beer breath.
This is a shining example of what I've lived with
and the lengths I've had to go to escape the thing people call "destiny".

Thievery, lies, pressure, and violence
has been calling my name for the longest.
But I know the voice too well to be taunted.  

Words are my freedom and words are my piece of mind.
There is not a single substitute.
Whether poem, prose, or paragraph,
This is the only calling I've ever had.

I've lived with a hoarder, addicts, senility, and ignorance
in a variety of different combinations and forms.
At times, power, water, freedom, money, necessities, have all been an unachievable thing to me.
Lost to the vile goals of those folk I love.
I am the only one who sees the beauty in the fragile and odd.
The others see only a mess on a paper, and move their eyes to the nearest glowing box.

My father drowned when I was six.
My grandfather followed soon after.
My mother felt the stab of this and caved so many times.
I witnessed and shared the burden of her pain and grief.
My grandmother forgot everything she ever loved or knew, and short after passed as well.
Pets and possessions,
friends and followers.
All gone with a drastic breeze.
I am the one with the vision, but I am trapped in a shell of a city,
covered with that wretched stink of refined soy.

Will I be able to unburden the world from myself?
You all give me such great courage and allow me to share the beauty as I see it.
You all have such great skill with symbols and it makes me feel like home isn't far.
I want this. I want this.

If I keep breathing like the rest of the world
I feel I may miss the sound of the world's heartbeat.
But my death would not bring a solution for the ones I love.
Only a warrant for more death.
I need this. I need this.

With my words, I conjure up hell.
And hell brings with it the familiar.
Run little kitties, run.
The Doubling House and The Sequential Church will not hold forever.
My havens are temporary, but the craters are forever.
I will struggle till the pain becomes all I am
and I buckle under the weight of what I shouldn't have taken
from the mighty Atlas.

I do this for me.
I do this for you.

I had a good time with a friend of mine
walking the hills of a wild flower field
paying no attention to the time
we were caught on a blanket during the sunset
with love on our minds
she closed her beautiful eyes
and imagined the stars were holes
made by the tendrils of a porcupine
poking through the frail fabric of the sky
then imagined them poking at her eyes
she took off running as multiple flower pedals took flight
I stood there engulfed in the cloud
and lifted my arms, I felt connected to everything now
I chased her out into the clearing she found
she spun till dizzy and I caught her right before she hit the ground
We lie on our backs looking up at the migration of dust
then realized you and me became us
the sun was no longer to be seen
and the stars seemed to imitate all that she appeared to be
she was a galaxy lying right next to me
I could feel that certain spark, that particular feeling
but I was distracted by the sky resembling my bedroom ceiling
She held my hand until we came down
and the stars remained stars and not exactly what we are
but everything we were around
We ended up on some separate couches back at my place
but when we woke up we were still high on yesterday

There was a strange moment
where time itself seemed to slow down
to a hundredth of a second
where everything was perfect.

Maybe it was just
the last vestiges of the sunset
dancing off your hair,
or maybe it was just a trick of the eye.

But for a moment,
there was perfection.

Maybe it was just,
because I like the way you smoke,
the way the colour accents your eyes,
in the mere moments that pass as you exhale.

But for a moment,
there was perfection.

Maybe it was just
because your smile ignited sparks,
that warmed me like the soft glow of a candle
as darkness started to fall.

But for a moment,
there was perfection.

Maybe it was just,
the way your voice lifted my spirits
as if nothing at all,
could make you happier.

For a moment,
there was perfection.
But for a lifetime,
there was true happiness.

They smoke, somber around us
    cooking phrases in our daily newspaper

dancers in their own right

     While I'm just trying to figure out how to
             breathe you in long enough that
                   I can float forever when you're gone

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena
My Hot Rod Lincoln...oh
Daddy took my t-bird away
Where did my car songs go?

Way back in the sixties
The car song, it was boss
Where has the music travelled
It's this generations loss

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?


Hot Rods, and dune buggies
The cars would go go go
Where are the car songs hiding
Does anybody know?

I miss my barracuda
My "Woody"  was the bomb
There's nothing out there like it
Where has the car song gone?

The music they are playing
Just puts me fast asleep
I need to hear my car song
No more "Rolling In The Deep"

Do you remember days gone by
When car songs ruled the radio
Think about the passing years
Where did these songs all go?
Little Honda, Duece Coupe
I miss my GTO
I miss the beach boy harmony
Where did the car songs go?