The Poet & The Liar

Words...
where do you come from,
and where will you go?
Will you ever mean something?
Will you ever be known?

Words...
are you from my heart,
or just from my head?
Are you going to be remembered
when all of this ends?

Words...
I know you have saved me,
and I know I'm alive,
but what will you be worth
if tonight I just died?

I've been writing since the early days of junior high, and I simply cannot explain how many various notebooks I have hidden under my bed, or all the ones I have burned because of what the pages scream from the inside. It's a funny thing, taking the time to alleviate your chest and scribble poems or confusing sentences onto loose-leaf, then just watching them turn to ash and blow away within the ways of the winds. It may seem unproductive to some, but you don't understand the relief of letting your thoughts fly into the air.

I haven't burned a poem in years, because I actually promised myself I would keep everything I ever write, and hold it close, hopefully 'til the days of my last breaths. I think this may allow for a more productive relief; a release of thoughts, but chaining them to be forever remembered in my heart. 

Although writing into hidden diaries has always been a brilliant escape from reality, as I grew up I realized that the last thing you ever want to do is escape from reality, rather express your thoughts of where the mind drifts, because someone may also feel that way too. Showing your work to world is what makes an artist real... or at least that's the way I've been feeling lately. 

Having said that, I feel like an absolute hypocrite!...'cause yes, I show as much work to as many people as I can, but there is always more out there that could feel the words I write, if only I would just balls' up and do it. I keep telling myself that I am a poet- an artist of words, but in the grand scheme of things, I am nothing more than that little boy I once was burning notebooks. It's time to be heard by everywhere, by everything, and to stop lying through my teeth when I say, "I am a poet". It's time to give these paragraphs a purpose. It's time to do more, to become something better. It's time to take everything I write and burn it into the atmosphere, but without the flames. No ash, no fading, no disappearing... just let it sink into those breaths so many are dying to take, right at the time when they think they cannot breathe anymore. 

I'm not saying I will ever amount to the words of Shakespeare, or be remembered along side that same darkness of Poe. I'm not saying I will ever write the beautiful choppiness of E.E. Cummings, nor will I ever even understand the words of Whitman, but I am saying is...

My words, they are true, from my heart and soul, stitched together like sweaters to keep you warm, because I know so deeply how cold life can become. It's time to stop claiming the glorious title of a Poet, and actually be heard. Then, maybe, just maybe... one day, I too, will be remembered...

...or at least, when all is said and done, have my words not be forgotten. 

96 (a new place to call home)

The snow fell that night,
a man sat thinking on a bench,
and I watched him fade away
into a beautiful white-out.

With my feet frozen stuck,
my body- somehow still warm,
I began to disappear too.

We both stared at each-other,
with gargoyle eyes and
slowly-cemented chests.

He told me about his life,
how he wouldn't rather
sit anywhere else...

in the whole entire world.

I'll save my breath and not waste your time with the tedious details about how it all went down, because it's not about how we ended up here, but more about what is to come; what is right up ahead. Plus, I don't really think I could explain to you how it all happened, everything just happened so fast, and now I find myself laying in a new bedroom at night. You'd think a switch-up of this magnitude would have helped my sleeping problems, but no, I still find myself writing poems with my eyes glued to that little clock that continues to read: 3:00 am. I title them "Insomnia", because I guess you could say it's merely fitting, right?

In an old city house that has five bedrooms, a very opened layout, and wooden floorboards that date back to before I was born, it's safe to claim that the nights up ahead will be far from silent. It's okay though, as I said before... I suck balls at the whole sleepin' thing anyway. Although I have fallen in love with this house its'self, I personally think I could share a box with the homeless person down the street, 'cause it's not about what I'm living in, it's about where I am living. Also, I like to think the homeless man has made that box his own- an old lamp from the antique store on Monroe possibly taped to the ceiling, some modern artwork tacked to the cardboard wall made from egg-cartons and spoiled milk jugs, and a message somewhere on his door in which was cut out using a broken rusty razor blade that the neighbor threw out when they realized that there actually is beauty out there somewhere. Sloppily scribbled in red colored pencil, the message will read: Will Work For Love... And Hope

I've quickly grown to realize why people have so much trouble leaving here- the homeless man and his cardboard castle... the statue of the man sitting in the tiny park up the street, on the corner of Alexander and South Avenue, it's not that they don't want to leave this area, it's just they simply cannot; it's much too breathtaking to risk not breathing again. Yeah, so what? I may or may not have just dramatized the description of the lives of two men I have never met, but you must understand, this street... it sings poetry every single day, every single night.

To my right side, there is a tattoo shop, and next to them is a coffee shop. Across the street there is a fairly new Mexican restaurant, and on Thursdays in our parking lot there is a farmers market; what more could you ask for? I can almost here the buzzing sounds of ink being forever pressed into so many different shades of skin, and at night, from the coffee shop, I can smell the strong burning scent of espresso being made. I love espresso too, the way it enters your body like a liquidated pinch of adrenalin. Although I cannot claim myself to be a Mexican food lover, I'm going to have to try it just because. And for the farmers market, I simply can't wait to go to every stand and buy the freshest fruits and veggies. Speaking of farmers, why don't they get paid more for what they do? Without them, we would starve. They should seriously stop production one year, just so we could all know what the homeless man feels like on every brisk night when only he and the moon sit down for dinner and imagine  what it's like to slice dollar bills with golden forks. I feel as if it is difficult to cut loose-change in half with plastic silverware, don't you?

But besides the fact that this location is simply wonderful because of all the amazing businesses around, it's the natural ambiance that truly gets me. Just the other night, I walked up and down the street as the first snowfall of the year touched my body, and everything just made sense during that moment. Have you ever felt reality in the form of a snowflake? Though it may appear solid and freezing, it's still hollow enough dream at the same time. I haven't exactly felt a wintry cold Rochester in quite sometime, but something about the other night, it just overcame my soul. I walked up and down this winter-wonderland like a child, throwing snowballs at nothing, staring at trees that looked like Christmas; I just walked with no destination, no purpose, and it felt nothing short of liberating.

I'm going to love this place, I just know it... and maybe one day, just maybe, I too will freeze myself to death every night, or turn to stone, just so nothing can make me move away.