Psalm 14

I've always been determined
to find a bit of God in everything
which is why I revel
in the cloying sweetness
of sulfur of your breath
and fell in love with the aftertaste
of fire and brimstone on your lips
because you linger in the back
of my subconscious
like Catholic guilt

and it has been too long
since I waltzed down
the road to perdition
encased within
the jugular vein
I tried to chew through
to get to redemption

Marshall

I have moments where I wonder
who you are to question God's will
as if I am some omnipotent interpreter
of the way our tongues spoke a foreign language
since I haven't been held like that in over a year;
but I find a hint of nostalgia
in how you shattered my self worth
the same way he did

because I spent the weekend
preaching on false-lye soapboxes
trying my best to make sense of
accidental miscommunication
turned deception, and perhaps
I am wrongly denigrating you,
but I am losing the willpower
to fight against your professed truths

so I will self medicate on despair and opiates
as if I could prescribe myself a mental escape
from this misery because I have learned
in the past, that if I mix equal parts
hydrocodone, heartbreak, and alcohol,
sometimes, I can finally summon the strength
to stop struggling against loneliness

An Apology to John Donne

I must admit that I grow weary and restless
due to sublunary love because my base mind
found no solid foundation, save hubris,
to build commitment on top of

Nowadays, I can do nothing but glorify misery
through technological innovations you'd blanch at
because our fast-food-shotgun-love world
has forgotten subtlety

so I write him no valediction,
no preemptive farewell to mourning
because I am determined
to follow Love's diet
as if I could train my heart
in an emotionless marathon

but I have grown tired of running from myself
and I confess a concession to cheating
by indulging in emotional vulnerability
because my will to starve is long gone

spent too long waiting

although I will always believe
in love like a mustard seed,
I have grown so sick of life-like parables
about empty heartaches and broken promises
that I find it bittersweet to repeat after Job 1:21
as if I can get comfort from monotony--

which isn't to denigrate religion,
but it's difficult to flourish
when you start out
beginnings ablaze at both ends
and I am finally fading and flickering

and while my faith remains strong
in modest beginnings,
we burned out so quickly
my heart can't even find
the time to break

black clouds and silver linings

on muggy days after thunderstorms,
I sometimes manage
to work up the courage to walk past your door,
wondering if I can let the warmth of your sideways grin
soak into my skin
like sunshine
that breaks through rain-clouds
because your touch is my silver lining
on the maelstrom of my life,
and I would haven't it any other way
because I've recently found myself
caught in cliches; waltzing with optimism

and it would be a lie
to say I am not terrified of happiness,
but there are nights where I sit by you,
watching your eyes weary with sleep
refusing to give into exhaustion
so we stay up 'til odd hours of the morning
talking about nothing and everything in between
because you have taught me the wisdom of simplicity,
the beauty in simple-chord-progressions;
taking things slowly,
and the joy of finally stopping to savor
the brightness of the future
that seeped in when I met you;
cracked my defenses open
the way light shyly peeps through your blinds
like a reminder that it's already morning because
we've stayed awake together too long again,
as if an excess could never be enough

but I am at peace
with wanting more :)

what is this demonry

I have been love-struck-so-sick
that this amoration
could be a venereal disease

but I do not intend to subjugate
this to dull sublunary lust
that Donne once scrawled about
in candle-light, staying up
'til odd hours of the night
much like I do when I can't get you off
my mind, so I can do nothing
but let scrambled word-play
frolic on-text-screen
because I haven't heard from you
since last Thursday, but I can still feel
your smile's effect on my ruddy cheeks
painted so rosy with your warmth

and i have feelings now this is gay and i don't want to finish it why am i listening to taylor swift fml

Psalm 3

although I can imagine
empathizing with emotional ineptitude,
I have survived through far too much
to expend sympathy on lost causes
that deserve a far more righteous wrath
like a divine sign from the Heavens
that I am in the clear

and I offer no condolence
or contrition for finally finding
lucid pathways leading me towards positivity

and I refuse to be dragged down
the road to perdition paved with
your supposed good intentions
because I will not wallow in pessimism

so I have nothing to spare you
but virtuous vindictiveness
lest you get in my way

love like a self-inflicted disease

it would be denigrating
to say that I no longer miss
your carcinogens in my lungs,

reminisced about inhaling asthma
as if the one saving grace
from my lung capacity
was the wispy smokes of cancer
dancing around my alveoli

but though I know
I only kissed your memory
goodbye last night,
breathed a rasping breath
as if your lips' feathery touch
could asphyxiate me,

it has already been too long
to hang onto the nostalgia
behind falling in love
with your waltz
that life-like
deadlines cut
in between

so before you leave me,
may I have this last dance?

Marshall

I found myself early this morning
stuck in between mix tapes and Bible verses;
woke up to an insistent tapping in the corner of my mind
from a beggar asking for change-of-hearts,
as if my memories were loose coins
that fell out of my cerebral cortex
and without context,
the two-cents I had to contribute were worthless

so I will pick myself back up;
keeping walking sideways sidewalks
up my spinal cord until I reach
the subconscious reason
I have fallen so hard for you,
twirl and pirouette up and down
my vertebrate until I reach gray matter
that can decode the warmth of your aura

although I have grown tired
of dancing around your inaction,
I am naive enough
to accept the wisdom
of your band-aid solution to "hurt"
being your attempt to save the world

single-
handedly

and I, too, have learned the value of solitude,
but I am sick of walking the winding streets of my mind alone
because all I have left to wrap myself around is your smile

texas flood

baby it's dry outside my window,
but I can hear the storm clouds rollin'
like foreshadowing in the lulls of my heart beats,
whispering and dancing through trembling leaves
that shake the way my fingers wobble when I'm bending strings
just a little too heavy for my conscience

but I am safe from the lightnin'
as long as I tune my leeriness down a half-step
so there is less tension when I kiss your neck
with digits that intertwine in the strings
so I can better understand how it feels
when rosewood cries the blues like a hurricane

because we exchanged numbers digging our toes shyly in the sand,
beached inhibitions lying in the surf
where high tides couldn't even reach our ambitions
in the eye of the storm so baby, hold me close
'til the typhoon is done crashing on the grainy interlude of this limbo,
and I will dial your soul as soon as this Texas flood is over

absolutely

it's hard to not qualify the last
nine-days with a numerical proposition,
because I haven't tasted your kiss
since the last of never, but until then
I will wake up to church bells
like a lucid embrace day after day

and while I think clarity is overrated,
I can hear optimism in the way you say
my name, as if the repetition could
will me to never want to leave your side

because I could lie, but I'm happy
two steps away from security

she will be loved

I have aged prematurely
since we last spoke; spent my time
scrawling lines on walls like
long-lost-dead sea prophecies

the way your memories
leave cloying remnants
in my cerebral cortex

but I will wake up the next morning
missing your presence between the sheets
less and less as acoustic chords
strum you out slowly like a
progressive change in my life

I'm so lonesome I could cry

I first taught my fingers
how to walk the blues pentatonic
over Hank William's chords

sat for hours as they roamed
over rosewood, listening for
silent falling stars

and tonight, it is cloudless
over heavens that regard
calluses as hard-earned medallions

and blue-collar-moons
don't mean nothin' ornery
in the countryside of
a worn down acoustic

that shapes its hillsides
with the tension set just a little
too high

life is not a graphic novel

while I refuse to reduce my life
to comic book cliches, I remember that
the last time I let lovers so close,
I wound up with adamantium fused
to my skeleton like a defense system

so I will wake up tomorrow
with forced optimism tattooed on my soul
knowing it's easier to get through the day
not needing a kryptonian savior
who is so busy saving the world
he forgot about Lois Lane

because I have learned my lesson;
let the blues shake my body like sobs
so that my callused fingers can wail better
on strings rusted over with Texas floods

but I can only wish
that I could give myself that much credit,
because I have forgotten how it feels
to be close to fretboard necks

in the same way that I have become leery
of my susceptibility to attachment
thanks to being taught yet again
that sometimes, even heroes fall short

life as an expiration (date)

I want to stay awake all night
shaping poetry out of your guitar strings
because lately my life has been so
melodious-mellifluous-serendipitous
that I have tuned myself a half-step up
in the hopes that I will trip upwards
towards redemption
and finally run in the direction
of something meaningful

because my life had subscribed
myself to a deist perspective;
refused to attribute personal growth
to a force beyond me

settled for mediocrity
and forgotten what it felt like
to follow Corinthians 1:13
until I felt a presence
outside my being

felt the will to follow the trinity
and let my faith guide me towards
hope for a new beginning
and I swear
I know

I'm following the wrong path towards love
for the right reasons
but I will keep walking
in Your image

the little demon on my shoulder

it's been years since I substituted
my insouciance towards carcinogens
with spoken lyricism

and while I always attributed my tremors
to nicotine addiction

tonight was a night where even
the dying embers
of the eve's last cigarette
couldn't shake off heart palpitations
that can't help but wonder if you will skip a beat
in the rhythm of abandonment

because I am so disused
to the susceptibility of attachment
that I have become inured to the grasp
of chemicals around my throat
to soothe broken muses
that refuse to let me sleep

and it's been almost a year since we touched,
but your oaths of contrition make my head spin
with broken record promises; make me
wonder about the time you taught me to

never-hang-on
but I have yet to
let
go