Life on hold,
Locked on sight.
Chasing Grails —
Wooden wants,
Lacquered gold.

Over, under,
All but through —
It's not your life.
It's you.

Thoughts fluttering
Like south-bound wings,
Basking in the dreamland sun.
Overhead far out of reach,
I shoot them down, one by one —
Dead ducks laid out in even rows,
From the gutter, back to task.

Secluded,
Lest our eyes betray us,
Silent,
Lest we might hear evil —
Boarding up the outside world,
Battling our inner demons.

Feelings,
Relieved nor sorry.
Life, a story —
Long and boring,
A collection of if-only's,
Polished to a dream.

Trouble surfacing
From under milky veils
Of drunken laughter —
Nothing's scarier
Than the bloody morning after.

Rip your heart out,
Tear it open —
Pour the pain out,
Fix what's broken.

Not every journey
Has an end,
Some merely have
A change in travelers —
Whichever start,
Begin, resume,
If you so choose to play the part,
Don't hesitate.
Embark with all your heart.

Proceed, go forth,
Fear be damned,
It can't be stopped
Once it began —
What had a start,
Will have an end.

Soul-crushing gravity,
Rippling out
Beyond the mortal realm —
Evil's rarely contained
To the lives that raised it.

Peace is for the dead,
Death is for the living —
Time, the train that separates,
The gift that keeps on taking.

Puppets in the limelight,
Tangling their strings.
Stake your claim
To sing a verse —
Poor victims of
The scripted dream.

Driven by the spotlight,
The bedazzled and the blinded —
Unaware that no one
Has the wheel.

Here we are again,
The place where pain
Dictates our movements —
Know that I'll never
Blame you, love.
Do your worst.

Life erratic,
Kill the static —
Turn within.

Politics are lies,
Dividing life
In theirs and ours —
Don't fight the people,
Fight the power.

Spinning on
A broken axis —
Round and round
We plunge to hell.

You are
All the things
I dislike —
Yet, I'm smitten.

Let us pray, that
When the red fades,
Anger dies —
Wrath is so much worse
When it survives the night.

I'll save you
From the bright side,
Where you know not reality,
And take you
To the downside,
To teach you about misery,
And show you
What life is like
Outside your golden cage.