When the storms rage in my head
When I'm drowning in my dread
When I'm living like I'm dead
There you are

When I have no hand to hold
When I've lost sight of control
When I can't be strong or bold
There you are

And even though I see no sign above
I'm asking you to give me strength to trust

God you say that you're good
but everything I know
Seems so out of control

And I can't make sense
of where you are in all this mess
and all I feel is my distress

But you say you're here
Could I know you're here?

Dancing on the stage bathed in ultra violet
is a dripping young honey making me ultra-violent.
My three stooges become scrooges using ***** useless excuses
to not be Zeus's and noose the spruce for their collusive abuses.
I leave the troupe, loop back, snoop, try to ******
induce some juice, a little loose chartreuse

The girl looks down from the platform, eyes vacant and hollow
Ten years of this storm full of snake-pits and sorrow
No glow but the glint of a nose speckled with snow
Her heartbeat allegro slows, lower tempo - adagio

For she's hooked to the pole by an IV of ******* and circumstance
I regret holding the cash and stealing her glance.
It falls from my hand, not that thats exculpatory
and when I next catch her eyes, it's merely to say, 'sorry'

The cloud is dark, It's a gloomy day
Perhaps this is the sign, the bleak sign i mourned for to absorb the breeding thought of killing my sprouting seed

Altering my future, an abuse of a forced choice
guided by my reason, responsive to the enslaving circumstances
I am enslaved to.

Or do i take this chance and swirl with the whirlpool in the troubled dark sea? Cast myself in it like Jonah?

My path is already marked, what i will do, what should i do? Silence my conscience and obey reason or follow passion and obey my energies? Or perhaps marry both?

After all, William Blake quotes: "Without Contraries is no Progression"

I will see in the end what will be, Que Sera Sera, and i will be sorry for the road not taken , diverged in this black wood.

Inside I am a furnace .
A gun lights up the night from
A driver's side window .
Rapid fire flashes .
Firecrackers .
You duck ,
I doe .
Why am I not afraid ?
Don't look at the license plate .
Just the shiny thing .
Your jaw setting ,
Adrenaline in your veins ,
You scream .
Tell me what it feels like .
Maybe I'm insane
Or just high .
But your name fails me
And you are the rest .
Yelling with a beer in your hand .
I don't need your protection .
Inside I am a furnace .  
Not afraid in my own neighborhood .

Are you broken, or are you whole?
Are you falling, or standing tall?
Are you sinking, or floating along?
And who decides this, after all?

Do you fly with the wind,
Wherever it blows?
In thunder or lightning,
Sunshine or snow?

Are you a victim of circumstance?
Do you soak in the rain, freeze in the snow,
Wherever the wind
Just so happens to blow?

But since when does the wind decide,
Whether we are wet or dry?
Or happy or sad? Or broken or whole?
We've lost control of what we own.

It's not up to the wind,
Or your boss or soul mate.
It's not up to your friend,
Or your terrible date.

It up to you, and you alone,
To create a foundation so strong,
You can remain grounded
When the wind comes along.

So are you broken, or are you whole?
Are you falling, or standing tall?
Are you sinking, or floating along?
The decision is yours, after all.

Do you know the feeling of holding on to abstract ideas?
Hot and abysmal
Whimsical fears
Dry and unenchanting miserable years?

Do you?

Or do you know the road of normal hopes,
Overpasses and classy folk,
Cheap sunglasses and average Joes?

Do you know those things?
Or does light bring dimmer views
Shadows of doubt cast around
A darker, livid hue
If someone had to die,
Would it be him or you
Or would you simply choose to escape and sing a hymn or two?
See forgiveness doesn't come to those who ask, ask anyone

Even me,

I have asked you plenty ones.
In hindsight, you will see

I kissed you, once. Twice. Three or four or five
Ecstatic times, or maybe more. I kissed
You once when I shouldn't have, many more
When I should have. In a park and with Red
October on the tee-vee and Sean Connery
Somehow pretending to be Russian.

I kissed you under the fireworks
On the Fourth, and in a caboose
At your family reunion. Remember
How we'd walk around at high school
Football games, back when anything
Was possible, and AIM was popular?

Over six times: there were marshmallows,
And the old, broken, Charlotte High School gym.
When I asked you out, I'd been dared.
The first time I kissed you, I was dared. That kiss,
Cliche and on the bleachers, brought
Butterflies that I only just fought off.

You, Ashleigh, were my first love, not named
"Wrestling"-- but I went to you-ess-enn-ay
And you went to em-ess-you. You moved
To greater Lansing from Port Huron
Just as I packed up my stuff to crisscross
My way over four years to San Diego.

I kissed you, once-- or was it more?