My feet are still stained black

As we ran through the night
The grass wrapped itself around our feet begging us to linger a little longer
Devils danced behind us
Licking our heels as we laughed because even the most vile creatures seem enticing at times

When you're five minutes late for curfew you might as well stay three hours more
Every passing minute building up a stronger reprimand
But the memories towered higher
In the form of teenage hands climbing onto middle school rooftops
The tar up top coloured our skin black
Darker than than the thoughts I had the night before
Darker than the closet I lock myself in
I watched the figures spin on the ceiling from my baby brothers lamp
Doomed to rotate in a predetermined route
I learned then how to walk with my feet pigeon toed so I could avoid a circular path

Fighting my aching knees from the awkward bend
I looked up and saw you
Knees bent inward
Wincing
But happy to be on a linear path

The tattoos on your arm still trickling blood
They were a statement though
And expensive
Your friends admired the candle design on your shoulder
Sadly the dim light burner brighter than their smiles
Brighter than your red swollen eyes after your dad told you how to be a better daughter
He calls it looking out for you
He calls it constructive
I call it a drunken state of discontent from a wasted life
I call it a six pack on his breath

So when you look at your tattoos and remember a few years before
When you want to relive the childhood adventures
I'll be waiting on the top of our middle school with a pair of warm clothes and a magic eraser to clean you up

I am afraid

I am afraid arthritis will take home in my fingers
Through the chain link fence in elementary school she told me that I popped my knuckles too much
I am afraid that one day I will be sitting at a table full of bills, papers, and envelopes
Forced to look her in the eye and tell her my pockets are empty
That we're losing the house and the dogs that the kids loved so much
I am afraid that one day I will be too quiet
Never speaking out and that may cost me or someone a few fingers
I am afraid of going on long car rides because I never know if she's just being friendly or if she's in to me
The way my mind races at speeds faster than I can react to the winding road makes me fear I'll crash, killing us both and I'll never know what she was thinking, never
I am afraid I am stuck in the high speed setting on a washing machine with the door locked shut but I wouldn't know because I am the one who crawled in
I am used to the head banging on the sides and the soap in my eyes, if I stay in here any longer it will kill me
I am so afraid of what lyes outside though
I am afraid that my siblings won't speak to me once I'm gone because I didn't know how to communicate with them
Their favorite part of me was my ability to drive them away from home
I am afraid of my drivers license and the power that gives me
I don't want to have
I am afraid if I don't figure out how to control all these emotions they will control me
But maybe they already are

I wish I had power lines in my backyard

Like Angus and Julia I want a mangoe tree in my backyard
I heard you like mangoes
Maybe you would come over and we could read books together in the cool shade

One time I thought I might try to talk with you
Your ears were as clogged as my sisters sink
Your eyes as sharp as the knife that left the half inch scar on my right index finger
But I heard you are a nice girl
I have heard a lot if things

If I had a computer for every time I ran through how I could approach you, I could be the CEO of Microsoft

But trees are weird now and it's all about power lines and cell phones
I don't have your number
That makes me non existent

I'll keep doing my math homework and never ask you questions on how to do things
I know that's not my place
You sit under the knight

You sit under the night
But not with me

An early onset of winter depression

When the tree leaves have fallen and the bitter cold comes around
I am going to need someone to hold my feet sure in the ground
In a season of fires and blankets to share
I wander around clueless with no emotions to bare

As the trees undress themselves barren beaches are all that's left
They stick out sore and crude like the hole in my chest
And the giants in my heart once occupied my time
Have all gone away and died leaving in my heart a black grime
Their bodies decomposing and rotten
The stench flows through the new wounds I have gotten

Through the time and temperature changes my body fails to adjust
And I too like the giants will soon turn into dust
Like the leaves on the ground and the hole in my heart
October brings about feelings of being ripped apart
At both home and at school faced by a great divide
Both parties petition me in an effort to decide

If friends were true and families molded as together
I would never have to choose between  staying inside or battling the cold weather

Biography

The optical spheres in your head
Generous, with the time they spend connecting to mine
I thought time wasn't taken, given, created, or destroyed
But every time you send a package the clock stops just for me

Your hands a source of vast intellect
Symbols and gestures of endless subtlety but so profound
They knew just how to position themselves
So that mine might join them in conversation when we got scared
And lonely
And happy
Tired
Sad

Fingers more careful than the hands of an angry father
The words they spell on my back reassure me I'm not completely illiterate
The way they run through the forest on my head creates a drug more potent than any handful of Advil PM
Or whatever the kids are using these days

The ways your toes cringe allow me to know your exact thought process through our most silent conversations
Inward usually means you're nervous and I hate that but it's cute too
Curling up and I know I either need to tuck you in or talk about something actually interesting

No matter how bushy your eyebrows, they tell me about all your anxieties
Each curve and contour has a story to tell
The way they dance across your face when you smile
Or keep me in check with a downward glare

Your earring racks prove so patient
I've been told I mumble
And the hearing aids I bought you don't even work
It's hard to know what I am saying through the numb lips and dull sense of humor
Somehow you've managed to dissect my dialogue and retain the most important parts

Lungs
I'm not sure if you have those anymore from all the screaming you've done
If you do I know they would be strong just like the rest of you

A wet heart reminds you it's there just as my incessant text messages and phone calls do
When your tongue dries up at night because it's allergy season
You wake up not sure if it's still there
Your wet heart provides texture in an assurance of it's residency
It provides assurance I'm not completely gone
Like brail I have left my mark on it
Both good and bad

Nosey as you are you're sense of smell is more keen than a hungry teenage boys
Smelling out my doubts and fears
Insecurities and opinions
I always thought you were a mind reader but I just haven't bought strong enough cologne to cover up my emotions

An Introduction to Sadness

A hole
Caused by a shovel from and unknown hand, perhaps your own but you couldn't know that
In your heart
Your head
It doesn't really matter
The void in the necessary part

Tying feelings to something tangible helps bring a reality to the feelings you may not understand
Like how I cringe at the people who park in front of my house only to go to the neighbors
A show of their superiority
They think can park there
Making me think I was almost worth a visit of theirs
I was almost worth a minute of their time
I guess I make better parking stalls then conversation
That's why unfamiliar cars make me sad

Acknowledge those things you don't want to become solidified in your mind
I think of how the two front trees are my favourite.
Maybe because I have had so little exposure to their fallacies
Perhaps this extends to other realms
Do those I love only have their place because of how little I know of them
Because I am blind to all the hearts strung around their neck
Am I unexposed to their true nature

Tears come to those who need them not to those who want them
In a vein desire for attention the water droplets refrain themselves
It seems they more openly come in dark corners and places if solitude
Do not try to make a show for others
This is a desperate attempt for attention rather than expression of feelings of sadness

Think and overthink
Numb your mind
Don't read about heroes or vigilantes
And don't try to be sad
Sadness will find you

Sadness will find you

Can We?

Can we sit by the river bed and get lost in the wrinkles of our hands?
Recounting
the stories they tell
Realizing
that some are scars and they still hurt
Reminiscing
in the memories
Reminded
that we barley made it out with our own two thumbs
Rationalizing
the fact that we stole others  emotions to patch the holes in ours

As we sat we talked
With our mouths and our minds
Our hands forming their own opinions
The duplicitous lives we have lived
A shame to their hierarchy

You watch the river pass by
Leaves and friends alike drowned in the dark abyss
I'll watch the insides of my eyelids if that's okay with you
They're a lot more understanding
The blackness no longer cold
A bold
representation of everything old
We told
them to make it what they wanted and that no mold
would cause a decay in their dreams to create a mould
of something they didn't want

I  carry my keys always
Half expecting the doors to be locked and the other half knowing it
Lets open them and run inside
Explore around while running our hands along the edges of picture frames hoping to upload those memories to our minds through our bleeding fingertips
Rushing through the blood, our veins, electrical wires
Stopped by another splinter to an already bloody patch of mangled flesh
Stopped to think
No one has ever done this
No one loves and stays

Love and leave now synonymous
So many have tried to stay and failed

Can we?

Soliloquy of the Single Strand

Those who listen close can hear the voices of our apparel

Soft subliminal messages from within
The interworkings of the tapestries 

Each strand helps those around us understand who their owner is

What would happen if I tried on your clothes?

If I wore numbers on my back

Kept my ankles warm with TEAM ONLY socks

Could they speak out my acceptance?

Would I then be allowed to walk safely in the commons?

Would I be allowed entrance to the v.i.p. club by the knight?

Or would my clothes hold their tongue because no matter how hard they tried to speak my insides wouldn't let them

Couldn't let them

They contradicted everything I was

I am 

Please be quiet

I'm trying to say something

I never was a loud person though
But my actions were deafening to you 

I'm sorry about that

About the cuts

The bruises 

The tears and fears

I'm sorry about the car ride I yelled at you for two hours

I'm sorry about it all 

Well I guess my clothes are more sorry than I am

After all they speak louder than I do 

Where I Am Standing And Where I Was Have Never Been So Close

Its nice to see places I have been to from a new perspective
With feet in a new spot I get a new appreciation for where I have been
For what I have done
And those I did it with

The Insecurities of a Boy Without Insurance

Gathered around time froze in the millions of pixels on an iPad screen
We were our cuffed pants
Our hairstyles
The ages of our clothes somehow gave us their years of wisdom
As undefined as we may have seemed
Football players in skinny jeans and eye glasses
Still smelled like their sweaty helmets
They smelled of their true nature

They had no idea
They didn't want to have any
Unsympathetic to my pain
My aches and internal blood pools
Their guns and kinfes caused

What I contributed to them wasn't mine
Their thanks tied to the inanimate
Somehow the machinery became much more intricate than I

In my bed but no sleep tonight
Not because I am a loyal servant to a blog constantly asking me to read it
Asking favors it promises to return
Never does
Sleep won't find me because of you
Because of the way you contaminated me
Tricked my brain
My thoughts tainted

You were the farmer and I was the field
You plowed me, planted me, and caused me to believe I was beautiful
But for what?
To impress the farmers society
The neighbors
Well neither of them care

In a drunken rage you set me aflame
My grounds black and scarred

Next time you ask
Or state
I will offer a supple smile
I'll look to the side
Downwards fixated on some speck of space
"It's a shame really"
" I can't say I am surprised you don't remeber"
You were there when it all happened

Coat Hangers and Gun Slings

As sure as I feel them in my fingers
As sure as the pressure on my shoulder
As sure as seasons come and go
Like they do
Like they did

Through tree branches and rope swings
We grew strong and so did the branches

One day
One tree
A branch not quite yet grown strong
Our weight too much
The four hands and four feet
Like four tons of bricks

Even though we were only ten we still had some weight
Too much weight

The branch broke
He fell as I clung to the trunk
Separated by ten feet
Broken branches
Religion
Motives
Goals
On and on

We were two different boys
Too different boys

Eventually tracks split
People part ways as do trains and cars
All it took was a simple branch snap

I could feel the pain
Like the hangers in my fingers
Like the weapon on my shoulder

THE LOST HERO

The long hair clouded others vision, not his
Every day the walk
Thought he "what of this day?"
But thinking wasn't for him
Reserved for teachers
Calculators
Computers

A low riding backpack, his scarlet letter
A pariah
Unfortunately the train passed him by
Left with only the 3:00 departure he tired to make do

The day he found 5 lost iPhones and returned them to the school front office
"Punk kid must have stolen them"
Trading water bottles with a neighbor so they would have more
They already drank most of theirs
Stealing they called it
That wasn't his water bottle
He never "stole" again

Cutting his hair helped his peers see better
The sun however blinded him
But dry and cracked eyes are far better than the slimy names stuck to his back

He grew
Taller
Faster
Older
He grew tired

Slithering to the souls of his feet, the grime weighted him down
Walking became a chore

Stopping him in front of two beams
The sticky words had won
Tread marks tattooed his back and face
His body looked tired
Rain droplets  gathered to carry his pitiful corpse
Washed him down the gutter
Gone

Peers much later question his absence
Only because suddenly their lunch tables were dirtier

"I heard he moved"
"I heard he transferred schools"
No one heard him
Never compensated
Admirated
Instead relocated

The Lost Hero sleeps soundly in the sewage below
Not even the sludge dares cover the subtle smile he died with
He always carried
Not even the sludge

She'll Always Be Mine

I dont know what's harder to swallow
My pride
Or this handful of pills

It's hard to admit to those things
I just can't do
There's never been a field I can't plow
A mountain I can't climb
A river I can't cross

This task is foreign to me
I've never had to deal with something like this
Her body growing smaller and smaller
Bones protruding
Nothing sounding appetizing because food is bad
If I could kill the world for saying that I would
Without hesitation

Stairs become a rigorous feat
Feat feet
Tired feet
From walking, running, supporting
There is something quite different from plowing fields and cultivating minds
Training them
Making them believe they are strong
Beautiful
Kind
Everything she is

She still is all those things
Just a little smaller
Lighter
Weaker
She's still mine though
And I wouldn't trade her for any team of horses

A Game of Hide and Seek

Love drives a big black car
Residing alone in the back seat I sit still
Each row satisfies two lovers with room enough for them to sit in each other's arms
My legs filled with envy from the comfort seen in front
Eyes turned aside to avoid seeing that which I desire
But my ears provide imagery much more powerful

Love makes its way into the lives of everyone
Somehow there is a burier laying in front of me
This invisible wall stronger then the curtains of iron
It seems to have broken Cupid's arrows
Not that he has that great of aim anyways

Whatever definition of love you may have it hasn't found me
Maybe in this game of hide and seek my spot proves too good
Too excluded
Too dark
I have ventured off afar into a ravine that love would never think to look in
Perhaps if I uncover my eyes I'll see what they do
A valentines day worth being awake for
But sleeping is comfortable

I'll keep my eyes open but never my heart
I can always live without my sight
But take away my heart and I go cold
If love is of the eyes one day I'll see it
But the deeper love people talk about feeling in their hearts I'll never have
For if I take out the stitches in my ventricles to let in gentle hands
Even their soft touch will leave me pale
Lifless on the floor
Love can kill you or love can save you
I guess I'll never know what it has in store for me
I'm staying right here
In this perfect hiding spot
Waiting for love to come and poke me
Exclaiming it has finally found me
Found ME

I worry about my shoelaces

The cup slides across the marbled counter top
The screeches resonate in my ears only
Resembling that of fingers on a chalk board
These pitchy screams miniscule
I worry about far greater things

Those who are curious
Curious towards the origination of their next metal
Curious about life and it's end
Curious about things irrelevant to out age

We grow fast
Necessity demands it

I used to play
Now I drive
When I used to reside in the fields
Never thinking I would be contained to a desk

My shoelaces told me the other day
They had seen too much of the gas pedal
Not enough grass
Not enough dirt
Not enough sun

Their absence reminds of more joyous times
Shoes now flop and flail
Useless
I wonder how they are
Are they happier than I

Maybe they have found anther pair of shoes

The Daemon Within

I find myself consumed in the midst of that which I am not
Or at least those things I don't want to be

When I yawn I cry
Or maybe I cry because I yawn
Because I am tired
It's hard to cage the daemon within me when it keeps cutting away at my stomach lining

I wish I could walk across the nail beds in front of me
But the taunting spires sneer
Acknowledging my in capabilities
I am human

I wish you and I could run away
My stomach and the daemon inside snicker
They know as well as I do
Return is inevitable
I am human

I wish for many things
Most of which I can't attain
A lingering but sturdy barricade proves unsurpassable
I am human

I am what I am not
Coming to know myself through those experiences I haven't had
I want to have
Determining my composition by that which I lack
I lack so many things

A black cat crosses the street and pauses
Inquiring towards my solemn stare
I reply to him
Melancholy and weary
The cause of this self pity is simple 

I  am  human

Let's Write

We are all scared
Scared of others
Of ourselves
We are scared of what we don't know
But if we don't know it, what's to be scared of?

We all want the perfect post
The most comments
The top five debut
How many of us will actually get it?
Not enough
Not nearly enough

"But man's capacities have never been measured; not are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried"

Let's all try
Let's not measure, but build
Let's write

I Don't Want to be Grey

The soles of my shoes fade fast
Colour fades faster
When I dress my hallow frame
Grey is all my skin emulates
My bones protrude from my tired skin
Providing the only variance of value
In the monotonous, melancholy, weak skin of mine

Often I desire a sudden sickness to sweep me away
The green skin that would accompany me
A break from this old grey
Something new to entertain my eyes
I'd dance as I was reminded of the color of the lush grass I once played in

Colour, a commodity most fail to recognize
My problem is I have forgotten what it looks like
It's not that I fail to try and see it
I simply am incapable

Colour, an old friend
Long since passed on
One day I'd like to shake his firm, welcoming hand again

I fear if I were to attain colour again
I'd lose it just as quickly
Crayons retain their colour quite nicely
But I am not wax
I am pale
I am frail
I am grey, although I don't want to be

Let You See Me (if you want to)

I will let you see me if you want to
Take of the mask and show my scarred face
The face of a wretch
The hollow eye sockets of mine I can never seem to close
Anyone can see in but I figured a defense
Curtains, walls, and iron doors block the entrance

I am what I want to be and nothing more
Although sometimes I confuse what I want with what others have told me I want
Tap tap tap, always knocking trying to get into me
Telling me how to be

The mountains, immovable
Riverbeds run dry
A rock not beaten smooth but broken to bits
Fields of grass swaying with the wind
Them and I alike

I am the boy sitting in a dark corner crying out for a lifting hand
Too stubborn to grasp the fingers trying to pull me out
I am a boy I can do for myself
For myself I can do nothing

The quiet one in the halls
Eyes about to burst from the pressure of a brain so desperate to interact
I am a fasod
Maybe the tangible things are what I am
My shoes
My hair
My clothing

The truth is, I do not know what I am
If I give you the key to my heart will you explore with me?
Will you aid me in my endeavours?
Will you tear me apart?
After all, once I let you in I can't get you back out

I will let you see who I am if upon return you tell me what you have found
I don't know who I am
I will let you see me
But only if you want to