Ink

It is ink that I write with,
The pages are printed in
And is tattooed to my soul.
Yet these words I speak do anything but fill me up

Once more I am speaking with knowledge found with an old mans heart
Yet with the type of innocence a kid would have making a fool of himself.

I am empty
And the echo resonates within my bones
Lies stammer out of my mouth
My teeth cry out in anguish, but I'm not heard
My body will wither without truth
Show me a way, and give me an out to this disease.

Help me detox this state I'm in
My words endlessly echo in my head
Pumping through my blood
Up to my eyes it boils within me and i see red.

Our conversation haunts my innermost being
Don't listen to me- sometimes nothing is something.

Unbreakable, that's how I seem to come across
Strong, is only what I seem to be.
I need comfort.
Yet the only sound that sooths my senses is a monotonous heartbeat
The sound of my heart

Id rather have not spoken those words at all.
For deaf is the ears they fall on
Like snow in the jungle my presence is deemed unwanted
This shot of memory has all but overtaken my mind

Poem by J.A.D. © 2007

The Vacant Expression


Going to the end of the earth to crack open some hidden secrets
Where the lions roar becomes nothing more than a cats weeping.
As we make our approach my thoughts rapidly swirl

In my head like a wild animal with no regard for anyone
These offensive ideas, these tentacles--
They surround me and strike at me with no particular order
Without any charge of wrong doing.

Yet I talk like I know something more
Like something struck me while at a coffee house
Scribbling some theological verse on the back of a napkin

In a blink of brilliance
But I only write these tragedies as I see them

Creeping in through the back door.

I have arrived
And I have to block out certain thoughts so I don't lose my mind.
That's why you see my vacant expression
I block it out
It leaves me with empty feelings, like bullets that have already fired.
Yet despite this my thoughts remain scattered like the rain

I fear you will hate me and see me as I am
For I am just one of so many crying out in this circus of life.
A life where my generation would rather be publicly embarrassed

Than socially ignored.
Our new found democracy is nothing more than hypocrisy
I can smell it, thick in the air like a storm brewing overhead.

I tend to pack these thoughts like a madman in the hunt
Because I'm nothing more than a fraud, a failure.
And yet these words seem to give me some magical power

A right to spew my fight from within.
And even after all is said and done, my words just stand still
Smoldering embers and no flame in sight
A fire that has been pushed to the verge of being extinguished.


Poem by J.A.D. © 2007

The Inept Clown

I have come to realize
I am incapable of understanding a love for me that isn't broken
Incapable of understanding the love I receive isn't blemished.

Yet, I feel so put out.
Am I capable of being loved?
The love that a father gives to his son
A kind of passionate, phenomenon I've come to adore

Maybe I pose the question wrong,
Perhaps I am just as incapable of loving.
I don't think my heart really believes this,
Unless all of these times I cried
I've just been shedding tears of a clown.
Oh God, my God.
Please don't prove me to be a fool.

Why does it seem so impossible?
I am in a constant battle between logic and formula
Yet the formula makes no logic

It makes as much sense as someones innocence being stolen,
Or someone really loving me for who I am.
Oh my God
Help stop tears from flowing down my face.
I can taste the makeup that has been covering me
Maybe I am the clown...

I just want to be reminded that I am loved,
Instead of how weak and broken I am.
I still carry this same hunger for love I have all my life.
Packed up like a suitcase that never leaves my side
The biology of it calls my name.

I love with no boundaries
But that does little to ease the sting of being lonely.
My body somehow reacts to closeness like one would react to a disease
Rejecting the contact before it spreads.

Time will move on and with it old friends.
Even as I fight against this and try to keep these connections

Alas, my fight is like a child trying to stop an escalator
It has already been set in motion
I can only feel the movement under my feet,
Yet remaining incapable to change anything about it.

Poem by J.A.D. © 2007

iPray

I hear but I don't understand
In the midst of friends and laughter
I hide behind a shell of what remains from battle
What you see is my vanity bleeding,
This is my sobering touch of reality.

I want to sit and be soaked.
Drenched in the starlight from the sky as it mystifies my every thought
It is these divine lights that swirl above my head and give me hope as I pray to God above
"Brings fire to our souls
Peace to our minds
Makes us burn for more..
As you make a kindred fire in our heart
Your never consuming fire."

You know these unspoken words,
I am hurt
As much as I can see clearly
Understanding this mess I call my life
I fear I'll never do.

Hurt takes on a multitude of faces
From unspoken circumstances
To looks and turned shoulders
The fire of hate that burns within so many,
Mistakes that haunt and expose scars
And a failure that I am forced to look at everyday in the mirror.

Each takes a mind numbing stab at me for a greater cause
Bringing me down in a new way
Making me fear this thing called love.
If I could only push inward - past these numb feelings
To Love ten times more than I've ever hurt,
It would be so brave

Herein lies the problem
I am not brave.
And I ask myself, is fear really at the heart of love?
Or just at the heart of my love...

Poem by J.A.D. © 2007

Failures Unseen

As the woman drives down the street
She wipes away tears from her eyes;
Cars pass her by on this unforgiving night.
Arriving at a park she stops and gets out,
So now she walks down this never ending street.

Someone stops her to say hello,
she greets them and smiles
She can't - she won't breakdown in front of you,
only when nobody is around,
can you really begin to understand who she is.
Greet me with a smile and I’ll look past your puffy eyes,
I don't want to see that you've been sleepless
To see you and acknowledge you in your broken state of being
Would require a little something of me.

And will you take notice when I'm gone?
Do you realize that this seat is empty and dusty?
How many times I've seen you and others move on,
Many times I've sat back and watched a section of my life
Move to the dormant stage.
And myself? I move backwards... away from the limelight

My flame still burns for you,
The candlelight falls to the dark of the world
And the wax has built itself up
Now I am content with my thoughts in the back of my mind,
But I am disconnected from you.

All of this anger I have,
Is aimed at all of my very own downfalls
Something I can never seem to do right
Is just be... Yet, I continue on-
Each day bringing new heights of failure to my naked eyes.
I fail so much that I fear it is becoming a norm
Something I don't wish for anybody.
My only friend is the emptiness inside me...
It truly can relate to how I feel all the time.
I struggle with life, I struggle with God

Poem by J.A.D. © 2006

A Rivers Withdrawal

I feel as if I must put up this wall
Cold sweat drips off my forehead,
To let you think things go deeper than they are

You will let me shed a tear and write theological words
As I impose my will, you will think of me higher,
Think of me deeper...
Think of me everything I am not when I think in this river of thought.

It cascades around me
So let me withdraw and pull back from any true relationship
As I repeat my own history that I despise.
I fail at everything I try,
And I suceed at doing everything I wish I didn't.

I am endlessly bleeding these thoughts.
Every heartbeat hurts
No love in the sky but maybe
Someday you will love life like my heart aches to live..

Poem by J.A.D. © 2006

Mind over matter

What is it, this film...
The taste of a lie in my mouth.
You look at me, we lock eyes in this glorious moment,
But I look away knowing I simply can’t,
You call my name knowing what to say.
Pleasure and excitement fills me from head to toe…
I know that I'm not doing it…If I tell myself enough times...
I might believe it.
I keep telling myself mind over matter
That lie resonates in my brain and the echo’s of it look down
They look down the empty hallways I call memories

Mind over matter
And now I've gone too far.
I turn back to my girl and the shame fills my body.
Feeling dirty all over I struggle to keep eye contact
My hands shake as I realize what a mistake I have just made
I bought this self discovery on impulse
And it costs dearly.

I turn my head and offer a prayer,
And shiver at the cool silence that crashes over me.
Help me make the right choice,
My mind is willing, my flesh so weak.
I finally start to realize its matter over mind.

Poem by J.A.D. © 2006