Once Upon a Time
There was a little Wooden Spool of Yarn
Covered in Layers of Coats
Of Soft Protective Yarn
Protecting its insides

Everyone kept telling
The special Ball of Yarn
How pretty its layers were
How its yarn was prettier than
Any other color on the shelf
And if it fell from the shelf
Its pretty coats would protect it

Except one day it fell from the shelf
Hitting other shelves along the way
And the rest of ***** of Yarn spectating
Stared in disbelief
Because the coats of the Pretty Ball of Yarn
Weren't protecting the
It like they had anticipated

In fact
It had begun unravelling
Becoming Undone
It unwound and unwound
Across the concrete Floor
Yarn stretched like
Lines of a ruined and strewn apart coat
Until all that was left of it
Was a little wooden heart
At the center

The other Yarns of Wool
Stared in disbelief
How could this Yarn of Wool
Survive without his coats of Yarn

"He's broken"
They said

But slowly
Over days
His wooden heart began to grow
So strong that he didn't need a coat

He looked up and said
"This whole time I was wrapped in Cotton Wool
Layers of protection and defense
I couldn't touch the rest of the world
And now the excess is gone
All that is left is my heart
And it might be broken
Because I Broke from the Fall
But now I realize I didn't need
The capes and coats and excess
The wool wasn't me
What is me, is what remains
And now I can touch the rest of the universe
Because
"The heart that breaks open is the heart that  can contain the universe" (Melton)

The world broke me open
And it hurt
But I don't want to go back
To being sealed shut from the universe
Even if it hurts at first
Its worth breaking to rebuild
So now I my heart is big enough
To contain the universe"*

~JLH

I can feel you slipping away from me;
imagine what it’ll be like without you again,
because it’ll be different than not knowing you at all.
As I sit on my bed and write
I can feel the empty place next to me
where you should be playing with your iPod
and cracking jokes,
singing and rolling over on your back with laughter
after we sang a funny lyric.

I’m imagining lying here with you,
discussing and smiling and giggling over
my first kiss, and yours,
but somehow the memory
leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

I’m reliving you and him
and I, the one on the sidelines,
the one spectating while the game is being played.
And I’m not even keeping score, not even waving a flag.
I’m the invisible onlooker, the one who doesn’t want to be there;
the high school student stuck
at a basketball game because they don’t have a ride home.

And no, it doesn’t matter what you tell me,
how much you say that you don’t mean
to leave me out or keep me at bay,
here you are, doing it again and again and again.
And it doesn’t matter how much you apologize,

because I’m starting to get the feeling of being replaced.

In the shadows of the walls
where laughter once reverberated
as a symphony of gleeful bliss,
intonational inclines arise in the dark
as dancing phantoms haunt
the smirking silence which dissipates
from the splotched, upended floorboards,  
while midnight footprints breathlessly creak,
cradling the demonizing affirmations whispered,
the very ones I knew would never become true.

We stood by, powerlessly spectating
as the love we once shared
gasped for air, red in the face,
its gushing carotid bulging in desperation,
four lungs incinerating themselves
with imminent anticipation
of the death gleaming
just over the horizon,
its violet hues juxtaposing
with the glimmering night skies
of faded constellations comprising the celestial
as moonlit silhouettes waltzed across the water,
a bright cerulean rippling in our presence,
the genesis of a journey unforeseen.

Brutal acceptance rains from my eyes,
a rumbling river that reigns supreme
over the rounded stones stacked high
as a towering dam of branches and rubble,
leftover waste long forgotten and forlorn;
hometown fantasies of childhood memories
linger longer than our lost loyalty,
liberating me from the rusted chains
you'd stapled into my brittle bones,
a leash tied tightly around my throat
to **** me from my courageous caution
back into the splintered wheel
dictating our selfish agendas,
empty promises of dilapidated affirmations
now turned weary and worn
with this newfound sense of reflection,
a dichotomy depicting time's own passage,
the consequence of a metamorphic resolution
of open wounds blossoming into eroded scars.  

Futuristic visions of lesions now mended
seamlessly fuse with renewed self-reception,
your broken promises stitched with the threads
ripped from the capillaries comprising my core,
blood-stained carpet of scarlet and crimson
fading into an aged and weathered maroon,
never truly waning in its acquainted pigment
yet blossoming into a stained fabric
portraying the promises of the past,
of decayed ruins now industriously erected
into a radiant utopia of gallant, rubious valor,
the final product of an unyielding resolve
to have our story rewritten, our own steadfast evolution.

I am a demon within the meek and fatally wounded
There is no innocent blood
All that is spilled is the red liquid of sin
Killing is no joy but a necessity
But all is well
For we are all mad after all
Let us dissect our insanity
Puncture the jugular of fear
Feral children’s muffled cries for mercy
We’re all in on it
Hypnotic insomnia
Open eyed moonlit wanderings
Spectating the impending doom is the ever diligent, all knowing entity
We’re all on the clock
The chopping block
Alone and startled
Exercising the eternal devourer of souls
The flesh of Beelzebub
The ones from under the bed, in the closet within your head
With the expressionless faces and evil eyes
The omnipotent offspring who has visions of the undead
Urging it to join
A noose, how romantic
Lovingly and creatively carving out your innards
Neglect was the cause for this uproar
And now no one’s safe
Next in line to be spat out of hell
Laughing
Laughing, whispering what little they can
Piecing together fragments of the soul
Brain bashing nightmares and legendary agony
Squealing sacrifices from burning webbed chambers of torture
The tearing your skin
Flowing of tears
Followed by the pursuit of death and its arrival
It’s here

i'm not really sure that i'm alive
i know that blood pumps through me
and that my heart pulses
but i'm only spectating
sometimes i can't even see
and it's blurry
sometimes i can't even feel
and i'm floating
sometimes i can't even think
and i'm foggy
so what am i?
a ghost of the child i was years ago?
the decomposing remains of my innocence?
a shell of what i should be?
the last piece of being that i am before i fully dissolve?
a detachment of my fragile body?

It’s a MAD dash when you’re fleeing
through charring flames,
a haniss act as the flames boil over and spill,
rivers spewing from the windows
gaped open wide like screaming jaws.
Smoke bellowing,
chanted shrieks and harrowing screams
fanning flame with the flaccid breath of the young,
just hopelessly I’ll bring a new worldly suffering.
It’s but the glistening flicker of the bright blaze
and flamboyant gleam
scaving about my slithering grin.
My eyes smeared and polished,
a senseless joy embedded beneath them,
as house to building, 
innocent to sinnly collapse bathed to ash.
It’s but MAD,
watching a maniac
watch a maniac
which just happens to be you.
Fleshly clothed,
spectating the world’s ******
into the salivating mouth of the flames,
tis but a hospital or an orphanage,
a school to a home.
The memory of the twinge and tickle of 
a match head flame spiders about the finger tips,
pawing at the urge.
One more blazing build couldn’t hurt.

He was all he could be
All he ever wanted to be

Spectating society

From the back seat
Of the two fifty three

Watching himself biking
Through the street

Happily climbing
Up the trees

Writing poetry
And smoking ****

He was exactly
Where he intendid to be


[Apart from me]

lately it feels like i'm not real
all i am is a set of sleepy eyes and an airy mind
spectating and thinking
my body floats when i walk
the only thing weighing me down are my thoughts
i hold the flame up to my bony wrist
sear my skin
leave a rusty mark
that reminds me of how
i can't feel anything anymore

I once had a dog.
A beautiful golden retriever that was given to my mother from my father during the holidays of 1999.
Less than two months later,
I was born.
Five weeks premature.

You see, I've always been great at doing things early.
I first spoke at age one, but only to my mother.
Grew ******* in grade five, but wore bras so tight that they flattened my chest.
Had a college reading level by the time I reached sixth grade.
I swear,
I had my mid-life crisis at ten years old.

It was springtime.
The smell of Michigan's cool air mingled with that of melted snow on pavement and the first songbirds of the season called for the buds to bloom.
I was twelve years old.
I returned home one evening to find the dog with the golden-white fur,
She who would race me down the field when I thought I could join a travel soccer team after spectating one single practice,
She who would race my mother back and forth through the water back when my mother was happy,
The dog who was barely four months older,
who had seen through every unripe experience by my side,
The dog was gone.
And all I did was smile.

Now, I realize how twisted that must sound,
but you just don't get it.
I had learned a long time before to expect to one day return and find no one by my side.

You see, I've always been great at predicting things early.

I was five years old and it was springtime,
but the harmonies screamed from my parents' mouths at each other drowned out the songbirds' melodies to the budding trees.
And I,
in all the glory of innocent intelligence,
asked my mother to promise me that nothing would happen to our family.
Three years later came the separation,
and four years after they decided to love each other again,
came the divorce.

Promises,
no matter how concrete,
seem to have this strange habit of being broken, don't they?

Maybe it runs in the family.
Being left, that is.

When the first person I loved left me,
I thought it was for the best.
When the second person I loved left me,
I got over it.
When the third person I loved left,
I was lost before I was found.
But one year ago,
when the person who found me left,
the one person who I never thought I’d lose...
I don't think I will ever heal.

Life, it seems,
is even more cruel than a promise.
It's so loud in my mind that I don't know what voice is mine anymore,
but being forced to watch as the few people I let myself care about inch toward being as miserable as me is so much more unbearable.
It's starting to feel like springtime,
and normally that would make me happy, but the puddles that are melting from the snow drifts are my tears,
and the smell of the season changing only reminds me how easy winter makes it to be sad.
Every time I feel as though I have finally reached rock bottom,
rock bottom splits with my skin and lets me fall deeper.

I don't understand how things can just keep getting worse
How every door I open does not lead to a new beginning, but to a new end.
I'm great at math,
but how do I solve the equation when happiness equals pain but pain does not equal happiness.
I live a life where I keep myself lonely out of fear of being lonely.
I spend my days making time to play with words and playing with time to make words.
I want to choose death because I can't handle the hurt, but I choose life because the only thing worse than being hurt is doing the hurting.
I'm tearing myself apart in every way possible and you don't understand how quickly I'd end it if I could.


But Band-Aids can't fix bullet holes.
So don't be surprised when you can't wake me up one day.

You see,
I've always been great at ending things early.

Batteries of the skies;
booming thunders, and so are you.
You, the whirlwind the most ferocious,
befit such name ever notorious—

    ever in a strife of your own
    seemingly unending.

The whirlwind strikes hard
and fast, and as such; angels of death
descending, striking from the faint heavens
to accomplish its sole purpose, destructive in nature,

beseeching its everlasting glory
that’d evoke the sun’s jealousy, even.
Alas! You carry out the task
that spares none of the land,

taking away the dearest one from another, weeping,
flipping cars and engines from where they're standing,
while plucking out the road signs once robust
and even the trees once deemed so ancient—

none is spared but wrecked
before the might of the whirlwind
the total annihilation being its sole identity—
the one that destroys in the name of thy honor

    and in the very name of glory in vain.
    You look around—

only to see none has survived
or has been left alive; spectating
the empty earth and the water
while being dispersed, scattered amidst the air,

lifted by the hands of thy maker
disappearing—joining the void specters,
and thus befitting the word, truly,
the vainglory.

Imagine you've cut a cake five or six times, each slice having the same color, however, a different shade.

Now replace the cake with sides of oneself.
Now Replace oneself with Me; I am that cake.

The me that is of a higher mind, which I consider my conscious.
I have a side of me that only manifests when drunk.
A side of me that only manifests when high.
The me who is sober.
The me that represents my thinking.
And then there is him, Malum.

The darkest slice of the cake. He lurks, spectating, snickering...planning.
He's the voice in my head that wishes I were dead...so that he could swallow my vessel and turn it into his own.

He and I have a contract; I am to control and maintain my body, so long as I never been put into a full-on life-or-death position, or I am not mentally sacrificial.

I've witnessed potential realities in which he had control...and it's terrifying.

I hope he never gets out.
I am not afraid to fight, because I fear failure; I am afraid of Malum and what he will do. He is not human...and he definitely doesn't fight for humanity.

He is the me that wanted the world to burn...and he still does. He has no empathy, no sympathy, and he craves destruction. He's calculated, analytical, and he lacks love. He is pure evil...and he is waiting.

He is waiting for me to die.
So that he can swallow me alive, and turn the world upside down.

I love you when you're you. I love watching when you don't expect,
My eyes observing every inch of you, Like the lovely spots upon your neck.

Those beautiful nails upon your fingertips, And the adorable spot beneath your eye.
I love the tired face after you yawn, And how your beauty shines when you don't try.

I love watching you bite your finger nails, And as you play with your glistening hair.
I love spectating your every actions And how you act when I'm not there.

I love when your bangs cover your face, and then how you casually lift,
Your delicate right arm to uncover those lovely gazing hazel gifts.

Your eyes are capable of euphoria that can put happiness in the air.
Or can cause pure devastation, all in one simple glare.

I stare in fascination with each movement that you make.
Your very existence steals my breath away, and delivers more than I can take.

I love watching your lips call me Baby, and hearing your voice when you say it.
I want to let you know how I'm crazy for you in words, but Idk how to convey it.

So I write down these feelings, Just to give you a tiny view.
Of my utter fascination with simply everything you do.

So when you catch me staring, It shouldn't be a surprise.
I'm just making great use of my vision, by loving you with my eyes.

Work, eat, sleep, death.
Is that what it’s all about?
Just treading water every day.
Counting breaths til time runs out.

Life, laugh, love, live.
Accepting and forgiving.
Isn’t that the way that life should be?
Not spectating but really living.

Rappin like I'm strappin. Cause every time I rhyme it's a crime of passion. Directing these words to take action, splitting these ******* into fractions. Killing wack rappers for your satisfaction.
Bring back that boom bap for a new vibration. Cause we need to move this nation that slowing to stagnation. These new spitters have no inspiration. No words for the kids that spectating, they raise kids into self hating, unappreciating the knowledge awaiting.
You see.
My reason for breathing is to keep you believing in the dreaming worth seeing.
Rhyming to those who need some healing. The children need to know its ok to have feelings.
There's a king or queen in these young beings.
But you teach em to struggle from the beginning.
But I preach the hustles O.G. meaning.
Teach em your mental muscle out weighs and out pays dope dealing.
That when you die the last thing you take is your with your *** is cash and bling bling.
Teach these kids to run with no legs... Lil tink tink.  So dont close your eyes, life passes by in a half blink.
**** conforming I'm preforming to make them think.
This country is not weak we're just on the brink of finding that missing link to confirm the only belief... wich is love, and only our love should reign from above. One love is the riches of all lives, from saints to thugs and that's because...
 you matter, I matter, matter of fact we are all made of matter, and equality is still a missing factor. This country was built from immigrants, and it's insignificance has lead to neglence and ignorance. But our omnipresence could be start of our new independence, get out the past and rise up to the present. We have a presence that could change us from the accused to the defendants.

I feel stoppered, as if the profundity of my thought needs some epic outflow that cannot be mustered up as a random piece of artwork (which is how I normally create poetry) - or, if it could be, would only be possible after letting loose with poems that are comparatively banal and simple, so as to make room in the birthplace of my mind for a stronger, larger, and better creation.

But I could not abide that. The stopper remains until I express the inexpressible: a tangled mess of existential dread, a million moments of loss, and the silver-eyed guardian of hope that flits on the edge of all things.

Yes, that mess.

The loss is possibly easiest to understand. It's not only my own loss - though every sorrow I have accumulated becomes a constant companion, a whole host of them gathering at my elbow - but the loss of others, and of the world. And then there's faded cloth, chipped paint, and barns falling where they stand - sorrows that nobody grieves. I myself could weep, but I have rendered myself unable.

The ache of existing is a far more complicated emotion, tinged with all the loss I feel and colored by my own withdrawal from life itself. Perhaps the two are more connected than I suppose. It's a tangled mess, either way.

Existential dread is a phrase I have lost sight of, hurling it around so flippantly as I do to ease the slowly unmasking terror of my perceived meaninglessness. I use it, baldly facing the words so I can laugh at least once, if bitterly, and then swallow the horror of Edvard Munch's "Scream".

But that does no good. For once inside again, back where it began, that feeling has now been given words, shape, and texture. The scream then has a voice, which I must silence in some way.

I silence it by walking away.

My body is not quite fully mine (though I would **** to keep it). It's just the present vehicle through which I vainly peer, not bothering to wipe the window-shields or keep things tidy. In the silence of my own company the key turns, lights flick off, and I close the door behind me when I leave.

Of course, at that point, the roles are reversed and I carry the vehicle inside my mind even as I walk away; that is where the ache comes from then.

But there are so many places to go when you do not have to move an inch, and each of them has a color, smell, and sense of completeness that can layer over the image of my lone and lonely vehicle, parked under a single street lamp and swept by shifting dust.

By spectating those other things and places, it's like I want to become a part of them - to transcend myself and enter the image; meld into the experience. And yet I carry closely the constant anger of knowing full well that it cannot be. I knock my head against the glass wall of separation again and again and again, and every time the pain has dulled so I don't notice quite so much how very far away I am.

Some of those places are very dark. At times I am ****** against the glass as if it were against my will.

It is, but it isn't all the same.

Most of the others are simply there along the path, convenient because of their proximity, and yet demanding in their infinite extent. A bottomless well of experiences that cannot be touched except by proxy.

The last kind are actually beautiful places. Stories of humanity, divinity, and divinity within humanity. Stories of life, loss, joy, and the terrible tread of change that rips our hearts apart and smashes the pieces back together in a way we cannot fully comprehend - but need to.

These are the places that return me to my body. The wide-open plains of truth, with a breeze that tears through all pretending. The guardian of hope is there, flying on the wind. She lives in all the places where beauty is, and yet she is almost always mute to me. She opens her mouth to speak, but I have left my ears behind when I came to these places, remember?

So the sudden silver flash of her wings is only enough to wake me up. But it is not a gentle, happy waking. Every feather that I see is a sharp pang of agony, because it makes me feel again. No matter how many steps I have taken from my vehicle, that sight hurls me back to sit in the driver's seat with tears running down my face.

I must find a way to take my body with me into those special places, to fuse the two so that I can walk between worlds and hear the trumpet of her voice in each.

But for now I am stoppered, until I learn to feel when I am all alone. A gentle hand more quickly opens up my constant wounds and losses, true; but I must learn to weep for me. With no one else to see.

And if I learn to stare unblinking at the sunset of my soul, perhaps I'll see a new day...

...for tomorrows always come.

The sounds of speedboats racing,
white, foamy lines in the water, tracing.

The stars above peer through the clouds,
spectating through mysterious shrouds.

The hustle and bustle of the city - died down,
by the waterfront - an absence of sound.

Not a man, woman nor child,
cat, dog nor creature wild.

Alone with my thoughts,
almost distraught.

You cross my mind
bitter, mean and unkind.

Epiphany strikes and I realize,
you were nothing more than a wolf in disguise.

©  2017 José

I sometimes have wondered
That story, did it carry on?
These dreams of mine
Spectating in on the many lives
Pondering what they feel inside
With all that is above
Shallow Sea

Shallow Sea
Full of dreams,
Their people, the greater periphery
And all that water
Coming down on me

Shallow Sea

They walk up, hand in hand
Towards the top, with wind and rain,
Fear is high, they sit, they talk.
They know what will happen, just courteous conversation.
He twists, she turns,
Opposite directions for the first time since July 3rd.
Like cogs in a broken watch.
Time stops for them, no more counting
One year, Three months she says, nearly more?
Is that the rain or tears that smother their face,
From here, it’s too hard to see.
She looks out on the Sound;
The wind howls and the rain beats over what is left,  
Nature never stops, why are they?
He cries now, his face shows the pain
Cannot suffer it anymore, he’s tried for too long.
I watch as I pass, spectating the commotion.
I’ve been with them the whole time, walking behind them,
Past the Citidel and through the ***.
Then I remember, That Man Is Me.

I saw you again last night
You were in my house
In this dream, I lived on the first floor
Of some elaborate vintage hotel

The opulence that surrounded us
Juxtaposed the dissonance
Of our internal dispositions
The true feelings we never shared

You were in my room
You kissed me and I knew
Something wasn't right
Really, something wasn't right
Even in real life

So I started to project
My true and honest feelings
Like I felt I never totally could
Wanting what I wanted
Seemed to be the opposite of yours
And I never wanted to let you down

Always the opposite, never the same
Constant clashing of ideals
Never peace, torn in between
What I wanted and what you said you needed

So I finally told you, I needed to be done
If not for my own sake, then for yours
So we didn't self destruct
And completely tear each other apart

As I said those words
You said some in return
About how you thought something
Had always been wrong
That hit deep in my soul because I knew it too

I didn't want to admit that
I wasn't ready to love you
I was emotionally closed off
But thought I could squeeze you in there
Along with all the other feelings
I was too ashamed to tell you about

So I let it go
I let us build up the hope
Of something permanent
When I didn't feel ready
I felt like I was partly participating
And partly spectating
Only half committed
Because you only had half my heart
And I can't help how I felt
I just did a ****** job
Of handling it and not being honest

I couldn't tell you
That the reason I couldn't tell you
That I wanted to be with you forever
Was because I didn't see it like you did
You said I was your world
And I can't help that I didn't feel it
There was nothing you could have done
To make yourself my entire world
You knew you weren't and you tried hard
You really tried to make me love you more
I wasn't ready, I was so preoccupied
With still loving a boy that was never mine
He wasnt ready for me like I wasn't ready for you
Constantly wanting the inaccessible
It was my fault I said yes when I didn't know
I loved you yes, but I could have loved you more

So, for that, I'm sorry
I can't fix the things I did
And my heart hurts that I hurt yours
I'm sorry for not being honest
But I'm not sorry
For being myself
And for chasing my dreams
For leaving home
Even though you were left alone