A silver lining in a golden age of fools where my mind forsakes my follies yet relishes the rules set forth by crooked chaplains who scribe the straightest lines They provide the widest brush yet command we “stay inside” Why do we pay such dogmatic costs? I’ve lost track of what it is that I’ve lost So I will whisper wretched wormwood soliloquies so soft the saints still sing to me songs of sunflowers and sabbaticals spent sailing seven seas in search of stoned saviors not meant for me Psalms pulsating forth from palms calloused from pornographic patronage Why do we destroy our humanity in attempt to fit God’s image? But this isn’t a snapshot it’s more a moving picture A new age interpretation of an old time scripture So tell me how you shine while your heroes fade Tell me how you identify the corpse in the coffin when the ground is already decayed It’s a stoners stigmata; Ash Wednesday on his palms Saying “I’ll quit when I gotta, You don't call the man the devil just because he wears prada. It was our silver lining and I admit we were fools But I've stopped forsaking follies and worshiping their rules I've started living for myself, for my family, and for my friends. If that is not a suitable "means", than I don't want your end.

Epidermis of fractured bark; split and splintered by divergent roots. I was a lonely oak; clinging to dying, and brown leaves of you. You arrive when I have full, verdant branches that are beautifully adorned. You took your chances, and you built the tree-house next to the canaries nest; The chirping songs stopped with the hammers lost rest. You tied the tourniquet for the tire swing ‘round my limb. Broke your arm on the fling, and you blamed him. How many branches have you snapped? How often do you sit by my base in desolate winters? You are my moss, growing in the soft underbelly of my shade. Peel you off, and see how that affects me. Epidermis of fractured bark; split and splintered by divergent roots. I am a lonely oak; shaking free dead memories of you.

Fuck this. Fuck writers block. My mind is scattered, ten words in. The sound of shattering glass resonates from the other room. Drunken singing cracks the cerebral cortex, segregating thoughts before they procreate into sentences. Orphaned thoughts stumble through synaptic gaps, falling down. Falling down while scraping palms and knees; learning to ride a bicycle for the first time. Hard to focus through countless lessons on what it takes to hurt less when you fall but it’s a lesson necessary to all. Would racing down a hill have any sense of exhilaration if there was no chance to fall? It’s not a possibility that leaves me enthralled. The thoughts of others are racing down, and pulsating through each muscle, commanding movement. These thoughts tell me to “stop thinking and start acting.” Stop sitting at a blank computer screen. Stop listening to the sound of your friends laughing from the other room. Stop feeling the sun resonate heat through the window. “Make your own heat,” the thoughts say to me “Go hit the ground harder than you are hitting these lettered keys”. I could start writing outside, but each blade of grass acts as a catalyst for the attention deficiency I am already contending with. An artist shut off from his art. Shut off. Just shut it off. Shut off the computer. Shut off the phone that beeps incessantly. Power it down. “It’s empowering isn’t it?” Empowering like a standing ovation, or like the admittance of a requited love. Love. The first time I felt love, I was getting a tattoo. I always think of the girl who breathed caffeine and nicotine, the girl who made me take the leap and embrace the needle; embrace the pain. I’ve learned from the pain. I learn from the fall; like learning to ride a bike. Love is the gravel dug deep into your palms. Love is the broken vase you cut your heel on. Love is the distraction of laughing friends. For me, love is a tattoo; a memory containing cathartic pain, commitments and lessons learned resulting in art well deserved.

Mother I have been lost, And oh brother I have found; That the hardest things to hear in life, They hardly ever make a sound. I have seen the devil in my best friend. I have found Christ in the most destitute of men. I have seen hope littering the city streets. and I see the weak masked in the elite. If you want to call life black and white, Than you better call it a coloring book. It's filled with suggestive societal lines, And blatant adolescent hooks. That are begging and pleading, For you to fill them in; With the fires of our desires That transpire while we sin. So open your eyes and see the world for what it really is. A picture, waiting to be painted by your happiness. Let your blues bleed through and keep the reds in your chest. Save those for the pieces you dont often share with the rest.