Tag Archives: friendship

And Now You Are…

In all attempts to retreat from the tide,

I see you turned about to reside in fantasies of watered-down lungs,

bent over in a decomposing spine resigned to thinned marrow.

There’s no hand to snatch an arm going under,

shrugging off the pounding as an expected conclusion’s calling.

And in a calculation of futures real or unknown,

I’d be rather found knee deep and lower still in grains,

standing you up on my shoulder blades as the sentry of your youth

when the best is tried to let it cascade into monochrome.

Like running colors washed down a leaking canvas,

I’m cradling the droplets to fix you again

were it to be possible to arrange the image exactly as it were,

but the paint you’ve chipped away never fit the same.

I remain standing to allow you to stand;

to repair what’s been torn apart to be torn once more,

for I’d sink first before watching your eyes become swallowed by the surface.

It would never fit the same,

but I’d sink fist before witnessing your grave.

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Shuffle Towards the Entrance, Eyes Upward

In aftermaths passed,

a wrecked portrait of greenery

endeavors to deprive ash of its permanence,

reconstructing to the idyllic image of youth

as if never harmed before.

He was to be found inside,

entangled in vines

that aspire much higher

than a mind had conceived.

He was found then

when no one searched,

and in a way

had more power

and more to discover

than in crowded rooms.

( ❤ Mitch)

Crown the Kings of the Taproom

Gray slate has no reflection to state.

Penciled in are the features I know of you,

but nothing’s to show that speaks of a person.

Were it a mirage, none would blink twice.

Pressed into a walking statue makes no difference

when placed into the populace of a city of naught but stone,

where the self is rendered nil,

satisfied in its barest form of a predatory instinct.

Follow the fermented pool wherever it leads,

passing thru stranger’s doors for the promise of escape,

digging into the trenches of a barstool to stake out the closing time.

A final drop is a disappointment.

An empty hand must be a fallacy.

Clamor for the coming round as Malthus brings his thumb down.

There’s never enough to feast upon.

Disregard that which compels pause.

Everything is false and the hunt is where truth lies.

I no longer perceive whoever you could have been.

I no longer know what I shared with.

A car door slam accompanies a squeal towards the night,

dragging my ribcage behind as it’s thrashed about,

tugging out ligament by ligament until firmament empties.

And in the carnage, I’ll caress the carnal urge to be subjected to,

having spied the edge of the bottle’s domain and strayed clear.

Plunge me in.

Drown me in.

About without the thought of me.

Plunge me into the meaninglessness of mine.

Drown me in the impact I’ve lacked.

It’s clear I’m the losing half.

( ❤ Mitch)

A Boy, in Parts

Truth comes foul

when the comfort of falsehood

loses footing in reflection,

geometry proven irregular in critique

with wanting eyes plowing for faults.

Unsustainable, the boy mutters,

tripping over cigar ash smiles

and knife hugs.

Dead-end motives

seek the next trial

to fall first, headlong,

losing by default in absent glances

where lust swings wild,

its direction uncaring for appearances

like cigar ash smiles

and knife hugs.

Unsustainable, the boy mutters,

enraptured by the rupture

cleaving through action and reason.

Desire comes aimed for the aimless;

quick fix dilemmas.

Lipstick scars

bandaging the whispers of displeasure

until withered

as plastic roots undo,

support decayed in reflection

when wanting eyes see only “no” as an answer.

( ❤ Mitch)

Lean Into It

Painted into the darkened clouds,

past the rim of eyesight locked on looming waves,

have you come to pull me out?

Shades are drawn over the cot.

I’ve been induced to statis again

under a marching fog’s watchful guard,

wrapped around my knees to bear down my feet.

A runaway set of tracks runs straight onto my head,

leading flying train carts to the top of the bed,

the force of a million hammers dropped carelessly onto,

and the aching never departs,

nor the thought that births its strength.

On a better day in a mirror’s rays,

it’s said I’m a carcass in a dancer’s gown,

confident in clothing that hides my darker colors

and the cracks I’ve inflicted.

Stuck out as a limb on a precipice,

jutting from the face of a pitfall,

you’ve got a shoulder I’m dropping my heavy weight on.

I don’t deserve this cushion or this ladder up.

I want to shout a question out to you,

but you’ve put forth an answer with a smile and a shrug,

lifting jetsam up the cliff as if it was air,

and on the trip to the surface I feel a rush.

A moment to spend beside your warmth

has me barreling towards a future,

holding in my heart the confidence to stand up straight.

Any slip towards the drop no longer has me panicking

knowing I’ve always you to know as my friend.

( ❤ Mitch)

Every Win is a Loss

Dip me into a bed of snakes and I promise I’ll breath fire.

These worries will not survive another calendar page.

I’m at the task with nothing to ask,

only for a bridge between

to map out the continent we’ve come to create

with an arm linked up beside its holder.

Is it enough

to hold a marching people afloat?

Is it enough

or should I wait for an answer?

Thrown to the pack of wolves from your rage,

I’m taking teeth marks to drop your rapier

as you’re taking a fable out of rock,

willing to lay down upon a could-have been

for the would-have been have done their work,

and the lifeboat you’ve seen across in my sea is deflated:

False hope to a dreamer.

Is it enough

to guide you towards me?

Is it enough

to guard a speared self?

I’m here waiting for an answer as you’ve gone.

I’m down here waiting for an answer as you’re scrambling up the canyon edge.

If you’re calling then your voice is too distant to hear.

If you’re calling then I can’t see any lips moving.

At the flames I’ve beckoned I saw fear running

and thought it was fair enough to call it enough,

yet all I see is a cracked gray,

encasing memories around it,

and all I see is dried

into scars that surround me.

And I have severed hands,

laced with the single stress

that if you’d go to battle for me

there’d be no fire from your mouth,

and I don’t think you’d be there at all.

( ❤ Mitch)

As Justified by Fallacy

Spare a moment.

Stay sleepless this eve for one time.

I’ve exhausted all recommended remedies

and any cent that could be dropped for a call.

Have a second aside.

If for a passing space in the progression of our trajectories we may cross,

I’ll complete any labor to secure your forgiveness.

Made driven by a lingering madness,

the innocence that buoyed my ankle to Earth was severed,

and the simple truth of another’s gravity was pulled away:

a tug at the cloth that kept me composed,

now spilling over the fabric as shards and fluid illuminate the split-brain life,

never properly in sync without a sun to dance for.

Spare a moment.

Hang on the wires for the siren scream.

I faced the prospect of emptiness and not a laugh emerged from the tapestry of lights.

No consent or contest was challenged as an undeniable absolute dared to be questioned.

Shivering in this cold leaves me begging for smiles that aren’t there.

Faces that swim in and out on a whim,

never present in a room present with me,

lacking form and emotion to provide any sort of knot to ground me.

Spare a moment.

This is when I need the you of the now,

not the you that’s already past when you come around for me.

Pry me off of the sidewalk.

I’m just dreaming again.

Body is resting on industrial soil.

Brain is stuck climbing several feet higher.

Peel me off the walls,

I’m just wishing again.

I flick drama at a canvas and damn it to silence,

kindling a hope that you’ll peek.

But you’re concentrating on blinking.

Each eye and ear are shut.

I’ve lost the signal from my interstellar radio

as I’m drifting off to a supernova star.

Is it purely mathematical to depart from a ship that sinks on any blueprint,

or did you spare a moment and simply find me lacking?

( ❤ Mitch)

Touring Our Future Tragedies

On the edges of the sidewalk she’s spiraling,

sending a numbed mind pirouetting down the boardwalk,

bouncing from every open door like a pinball without a course,

sinking into any empty bar stool that beckons her over.

I’m tethered to where fear tells me not to go.

With dragged footsteps I’m thrust around every dark corner.

We fall and stumble and march and step forth but we aren’t falling deeper together.

To the balcony she’s caught swaying,

saying she’s spotted the Golden Gate bridge and the waving water

lapping up against her ankles as if Atlantis called from beneath,

promising respite for a weary traveler.

Faulty heartwork machinery prints desire out for the mind to follow.

I bear the same cannonball she cradles to her chest.

We trip and tumble and forge on and forward but we aren’t coming closer together.

In the shaded bedroom haunts she’s hiding,

claiming discovery of personality in manufactured throes,

driving up and down streets that forgot her name,

visiting faces that forgot their duty to not turn about,

calling Atlas names for holding the world up when he should have let it drop,

and she could’ve taken a swan dive off to a finality frontier.

But she exists in still frames of a head on a shoulder blade,

propping her dancing body upright as she sails around the tables.

I promised myself to never blink in the case I’d lose a single illustration of happiness.

But she only exists in still frames of a head on a shoulder blade,

and I’m trying to chase Jesus down a bottle of pills.

Stare off into the azure abyss and it sits silent and still as a blanket,

as unassuming as a force could be.

“Dive into Atlantis to find me.”

A selfish part of me clung to the cables like a dying leaf grasping its tree branch.

We fell and stumbled and marched to our beat but we didn’t fall deeper together.

( ❤ Mitch)

Spitting Venom Through a Revolving Door

Steady sits the firing squad.

Limbs rest primed for motion.

An array of trigger fingered opportunists.

An itching desire craving a name to stand and aim for.

Send the shackled judged down the factory line,

churning out excuses to wave away porcelain cracks.

There’s always a chance the seams may break.

There’s a chance the wandering eye may catch a weakness in the design.

Let scissor blades cut picture frames.

Fold corners over the wrong parts.

Tear paper into the perfect words.

Make flawless out of flaws.

Play camouflage with origami

and pray the lying world will stay tucked inside.

Dressed up puppet master when working at the strings,

yet bleeding softly through irises when no other gaze can see.

Commanding pawns from the crack of the dawn.

Leaking precious misdirection to satisfy the hypocrite’s diet.

Blink once shifting pieces and the guns are reversed.

Pursuing prey to pronounce the blame on the targets.

Hastily taping over holes in parchment that emerge in vulnerability.

Blink once shifting pieces and the guns are reversed.

Hear the call from the choir: Liar.

Here comes the call from the choir: Liar.

The prize is yours to keep as only backs are visible now.

News travels fast if there’s a trace of blood to gnaw at.

Shot across the bow and out come the paper scars.

Shot down by your own gun who took you for a target.

Unchained watch idly by.

You burned down every bridge you could’ve run down.

Ready, at attention, accept the newfound burden.

No contours to disguise the deceiver exposed.

That which acts with abandon always swings back in time.

Rendered Wingless

She always knew that spring was her favorite season.

Shedding cobwebs in the leaves’ glow she sang:

“This is where I turn over.

This is where the heart begins.”

Scribbled in the edges of a notebook, hope lived out its days,

tracing flower outlines as an anniversary of promises years past.

Wake and rise.

Come outside.

I’m aglow when I see you shine.

I live inside this light.

With fingers intertwined, she believed in different days.

Someday there will be a gaze that sees past simple flesh.

There was no warmth from your address then.

Kept your troubles huddled up in peeling bedroom walls,

projected into images full of faces never known.

Faces that weren’t yours.

Wake and rise.

Come outside.

I’m in the driveway tonight.

I live to see the light.

Pale skin was quaking under suspicion of being found out.

Somewhere tucked away was a sharpened edge made dirty.

Someone was drawing disappointment on those arms.

There were black lakes growing on her back.

And she sang, “that’s probably what I was worth when I opened my mouth,

and I was nervous enough that I needed a punch back in line.”

And I tried to say something rehearsed in a new way but tripped on the memories.

The crows were knocking on your heart’s door,

Banging on for more.

Wake and rise.

Come outside.

I haven’t left you to this fight.

I live to know the light.

With fingers intertwined, she marched to olden days.

The ink on the notebook edges had dried up under shaded branches.

The sun had melted clean and dried up the clouds.

I was tossing stones at the bedroom window looking for a smile.

She was speaking in romantic tones, turning a lying boy into a saint.

And I tried to say it never had to be carved that way into the fabric of your history.

I wanted to reach out and hold a setting star, breathe color back inside.

But she sang, “this is my lot and I will not buckle under any swing.

This is how and where I’ll lay my weary head and I won’t need another’s warmth.”

The crows were clawing at her heart’s door.

Hanging on for more.

Wake and rise.

Come outside.

I’m waiting to see my friend.

Where has she been?

I always knew that spring would be the hardest time.

Tracking trails of dust on a book shelf to untouched reminders.

Brush the age away and her face seems frozen in place.

Hindsight is barking in my ear that I should’ve read the fear.

There’s a marker laid to enshrine the name but I don’t see any of you.

Fading numbers tell a story but they’re short on the details.

The light of you doesn’t shine through and I think I’ve lost the thought of you.

Staring deep into the fabric of your history, wondering why you engraved it that way,

knowing I existed inside that vibrant glow and there’s no traveling back.

Here come the gang of crows fluttering about the rocks.

They’re digging talons into your memory,

hanging on for more.

( ❤ Mitch)