Damaged at Best, My Apologies

Why is it that I seem so stuck?
Like I can't move forward without you.
Even when I've been making headway.
I feel like I've been unraveling for years.

I try to get stronger for you.
You left because I was broken.
I fear I still am.
I think I always will be.
The curse of my very being,
I'm afraid I was just made like that.

I keep thinking of you.
And even when I don't,
Knowing and secrets travel hundreds of miles to my subconscious.
How do I explain that and sound sane?

If we're not meant to be lovers,
Then what is it that we're meant to be?
Your the last person I wish good night to.
3 years down the road,
I still whisper "sweet dreams, I still love you" to the ceiling every night.

Time's supposed to fix me.
But I think maybe times not functioning correctly,
Or maybe that it's forgotten about me,
Because even with all the miles, the years, the avoidance,
I feel like you left just yesterday.

I'm still sitting there,
Legs pulled tight to my chest with my back pressed to the door
Of our now half emptied apartment
All traces of you erased except for a note declaring your official good bye clenched in my fist.
Breath everywhere but my lungs,
And a cocktail of pain and numbness like nothing I've been able to yet explain.

That feeling still lives in me.
Every single day.
More numbness than pain though.
Still, nothing feels the same.
I don't trust.
I don't love.
I don't cry.

Time stopped that day.
And I'm so sorry
Because it's all my fault.
And now, I'm trying my best to move on for you
Because I know that's what you want.

But the only thing I want to be is a better person for you.
And I know I shouldn't hope,
Or do anything for you.
I try desperately not to.
because it's not you that's the broken one.
But I still hope that I can make you proud one day
And maybe then you'll notice and give me just one more chance.

Still,
In the mean time,
Just in case,
In the dark,
Where no one can see me,
And when no one can hear me,
I'll always whisper "sweet dreams"
"I still love you"

With ounce of my being
 And with hope that the universe will carry my message to you by the moonlight.

Locked Up

You cut me open again.
Body stitched with traces of your sins.
A suffering easy to forget.
As narcissistic hearts use distance to forget.

I'm still a human being.
I'm still flesh and bone.
Born with a heart and soul.
Both meant for you alone.

Still, I wish that I,
wrote more happy songs.
Because in time,
rain and frozen snowflakes
fall from clouds and gray skies.

I wish things were like they used to be,
When we both just understood,
a love that was never ending,
in each other's eyes.

Vulnerable,
in the safety of each other's hearts.
But now we're out of sync,
eyes no longer destined to meet,
like they did before hatred twisted it's keys.

Limits

You didn't know your limits girl.
Tried to do too much at once.
Got swept away by the world.
Got caught up in having fun.

Now you've come back.
Calling for me.
Asking to be swept right back up off of your feet.
I'm the only good thing,
you've brought into your life.
The best man you've found.
The love of your life.

And this time you're sure.
But girl,
I've heard it all before.

It can't happen again.
I can't be the one.
Don't come to me.
Girl, with you I am done.

Forget my number,
forget my name.
I'd break down for you,
and I just can't handle the pain.

You have the options you've wanted.
The freedom to explore.
What happened to adventure?
What happened to finding more?

Just leave my heart here,
bleeding for you.
It's taken enough beatings.
It's all black and blue.

I can't be the man who saves you from his rage.
I've tried protecting your heart.
Now, it's mine I must save.

We didn't know our limits girl.
Tried to do too much at once.
Got swept away by the world.
Got caught up in having fun,

Is it my fault?
Did I toss you away?
Am I too sensitive at the end of the day?
Did I hold on too tightly?
Force you to go?
In the end, it doesn't matter, because I'll never know.

Because it can't happen again.
I can't be the one.
Don't come to me,
Girl, with you I am done.
Forget my number.
Forget my name.
I'd break down for you,
and I just can't handle the pain.

Go be with him.
He says it won't happen again.
See how it works out.
Best of luck to the both of you I send.

Contradictions?

Just let me sweep you off of your feet.
I'll show you what a real man should be.
Protect you from assholes who will break your heart.
Assholes like me.

I'm not saying I'm the best,
But teach me, and I'll teach you.
Teach you to love again.
Just hold on, and I'll hold tight for you.

I'm calling to pull you close.
Pull you in.
Hold on to me.
I'll catch  you in the end.

Let me be your distraction.
I'll let you be mine.
Good or bad?
We'll see in time.

700 Miles

I know that I’m soft spoken.

And I know it’s time to go.

I’ll make my way across the room,

to denounce my presence again, from you.

It’s late, and I’ve been walking on back roads.

Searching for old bottles and weird walls.

Taking photos just to prove some relevance of an artist.

So, that you don’t see anything but me walking tall.

Like some kind of seed, I’ll plant myself in your mind.

Please water me at night.

And open the blinds in the morning.

And remember I’m somewhere lost inside a room without a light.

A weekend to put a puzzle to start.

Questions of silence.                   

It’ll be such a shame for us to part.

Just when the sun shines on our seedling so bright.

Anstis' Journey Into Negative World

In a negative world
black skies pour light in black paint
shatter assumptions
and confusion reigns.

Critical clues of the world
facial features and expressions
shapes and depth are subverted
and the result is illusion.

What It Means to Dream

Please do not wake me.

For now, I am in a world all my own, created and empowered by my own subconscious and deepest thoughts.

A dark, mystical world where the conformity and constraints of reality can be ignored and anything is possible and free to occur.

I fly through a mist on a warm summer's night over the white waves of the rocky shore of an island on the Pacific.

I run through the streets, naked as a newborn, free as a bird and no one seems to provide a passing glance.

I stare into a lake of unknown creatures entombed in a murky, muddy water as I glide over the small body to the other shore.

I get onto a terrifying rollercoaster that shoots me into a never ending vertical drop.

I change the layout of well known buildings to connect with them and make them my very own.

I make love to an unknown yet perfect person.  Pure intentions and sweetness linger on my lips and emotions tug at my core for more, more, more. Until alas she is gone...

I drive at a speed not yet measurable to man as I look for my past and yet find a labyrinth of asphalt suspended hundreds of feet in the air without supports, suddenly ending as fate is handed to me. 

I get lost in a maze of childhood memories, in a series of tunnels of incredible colors, and the only way out, once it is found, is the very same never ending roller coaster of an almost impossible vertical drop.

I run from unknown creatures as I walk through a forest that will one day be my hell.  Filled with glowing, neon creatures of the night, buried beneath the Earth's surface so as to hide it from humanity and prevent one exiting the bowels of such fear, pain, anguish, and agony.  The whole place stinks of broken souls.

I scramble to retrieve my books as the clock moves faster and faster yet my motor skills fail me as I move at the pace of one who's been swallowed up in quicksand.

Then, finally, I'm walking along the cool sand of the Atlantic in a brisk breeze possessing such liberation only characteristic of that of the of the early morning hours.  As I watch the sun rise above the great, tumbling waters of the sea before me, I am reborn again.

These are what I dream.

My fantasies of such dynamic adventures that they cannot be ignored.
And I love each one, as each instills a certain emotion within my soul necessary to have made me the man I am today. An experience, a connection, a subconscious journey.  

Please do not wake me.  I'm only working