Every poet has their collection of poems that show a bit of their darker side... this is more of a dark red... blood red in fact.

Things As They Are...
Blood...
Rage...
Black...
Damn Spot...
Mr. .44...
Let...
What Have You Done...
The Poem About the Gun...
Written in Blood...

Things As They Are

The sun shines, and the children play.
Parents look on their children with pride,
and the children look to their parents with respect.
I sit and watch as the breeze blows through my short hair.
I reach up and run my hand across my clean-shaven chin and smile in wonder at the beauty of the world.
It disgusts me, to the very core of my soul.

The sky darkens and rain falls softly, then harder until the playground floods and the children run in terror.
They run toward the only safety they know and the parents smile as they take them into their arms, run their hands over their bodies and tell them that everything will be all right. "You can sleep in my bed tonight, mommy's out of town."
I sit and watch as the wind blows my long hair over my shoulders.
I reach up and scratch at my short beard and smile in wonder at the insanity of the world.
Anger runs through me, cold anger that feeds on itself, growing and seething, I revel in it, this is my world. These are things as they are.

I see the world as it truly is. Dark, isolated, painful. I feel myself slowly dying, clinging tightly to my shroud as I grow colder, colder. The blood spills out, staining pale white flesh, dropping to the floor and splashing out, like solar flares or those slow motion videos of milk drops. A wondrous, darkly beautiful shade of red. The water of life. I watch as all that I am soaks slowly into the dirt--my knowledge and my ignorance; my pleasure and my pain; past, present, and future--everything that is me, but I don't want it anymore. I don't want to remember.

The rage seems gone.
But I know better than that. It's lurking near the surface, pretending its not there, but it is. Want to see? No? Aww, come on. It's fun. You don't want to make me angry, do you?

God damn it! I just lost my pen cap!

Aaron's seen my rage. He didn't like it, didn't approve. He told me to calm down. I didn't.

The words are slowly forced out.
Shoved together like tectonic plates;
With similar result.
The words stain white paper black.
Wonderful, beautiful black.
What is dark without the light?
What is black without the white?
The joyful day, the welcoming night.
The words come hard, the white falls away,
And so I pass another day--
Searching for the right things to say, or do, or write.
And so I pass into the night,
Seeking love. And seeking light.
And searching for the words to write.

Mr. .44

I killed a man today.
It wasn't hard, you just let go.
Hard is holding back.
Hard is holding in.
Hard is watching as people get away with whatever they want; because they're rich, because they're beautiful, because they're the biggest, meanest badass who ever walked the face of the earth. Because they know you won't tell. Because there is no one to tell. Because the people you tell don't care, or tell you to tell someone else.
Killing's easy.
We're all just natural born killers.
We all kill.
We kill and we don't even realize we've killed.
It only seems wrong when its big, or its cute, or when it looks you in the eyes and begs you to let him live, he's sorry. He wont do it again. Well it's too fucking late!
You did it.
You can't take it back, you did it. And now you're dead! You're all dead! Everybody!
You just don't know it yet.
Because the stimulants you suck down keep your body twitching and your mind spinning. You don't know why. You don't know what it means. You sing along, you shoot your gun, you join in all the reindeer games. You follow the other cattle to the slaughter.
But I know.
I know because I am the reaper. I am death, and I've come to take you home.
I've allies in Heaven, Jack. I've comrades in Hell...
Say "Hello" for me...

Let these be my last words.

Let this be my last message.

Let my blood, and pain, and joy, and hope, and fear, flow out onto the page.

Let these words stir my friends.

Let them weep.

Let them smile.

Let them know that I care.

Let them know that I'm better now.

Let them know that they were wrong about me.

Let them know that they were right.

Let them see the world through my eyes.

Let them know what it is to be me.

Let them see how much they really have.

Let them see how much they have taken.

Let them see how much they have to give.

Let the vodka wash away my troubles.

Let me see my troubles for what they are.

Let me see the way through.

Let me find what I am looking for.

Let me know what I am looking for.

Let me feel again as I once did.

Let me feel.

What have you done?

If I slit my wrists and let the blood flow out of me, would it form the words I've wanted to say for so long? Those words I could not bring myself to speak aloud? Would the crimson ink tell of my pain? Of my joy? Of the freedom I finally felt? Of my regret? Would they show the world who I was, painting my soul on the dust and rock beneath my feet? Would the world see those words, and finally come to see what they had driven their brother to do? Would they see the wounds they inflicted? Would they see the tears they caused? Would the blood cry out as I can not, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

And I know those words will go unspoken.
And I ready myself for the last time.
And I draw the blade across my arm.

The blood pools within the wound, then overflows, running down my arm and off my fingers. The wound begins to itch, but it is not an itch that I can scratch. I endure, by reminding myself that soon the itching will end. Soon the pain will end. And I watch the blood form into puddles on the ground. And I see, what I had until now ignored...

Crimson stained the ground in this place. Long dried blood smeared across the floor. How many had gone before me? How many stories had ended in this place? How many words unspoken? How many deeds left undone? What had brought them here? Why had they done as I do now? Was their pain as great as mine? Was mine as great as theirs? What might the world have been if they had lived on?

Too many questions unanswered.
Too many words unsaid.
Too much pain to live with.
Too much joy to deny.
Too much life yet to live.
Too many questions.
Too much regret.

Too much blood on the floor.

The blood formed words on the floor. But only I could read what they said. They spoke of love that had lived, when I had only remembered the pain that followed. They spoke of friends who would live on, in pain. They spoke of dreams left unrealized. They spoke of the life that I had given up. And when the blood asked "What have you done?" it asked not of the world, but of me.

What had I done?

I had chosen death over life. I had chosen void over form. I had chosen an end to pain. What a fool I had been. But, I'm too tired now to question. I'm too tired to worry about the future. I'm too tired to worry about the past. I just want to lie down... And sleep.

I bought the gun with the money I got by pawning my old acoustic guitar.
It was a nice guitar.
It was an even nicer gun.
But I guess there is beauty in purpose.
I don't know why I bought the extra ammunition when a single bullet is all I would need.
Maybe because I could.
Maybe in case I changed my mind about who needed to die.

It was a nice gun.

Written in Blood

Would the words mean more if I wrote it in blood? Carried it on a feather quill from an open vein, to stain the blank page and smear and spread and pump my life out into the world for all to see and gape and gawk at the helpless little boy with the pen curled up in a ball in his room afraid of the sun and the cold light of day...
Or can I breathe life into ink by my will alone and show the world the beauty of my eyes and my soul while still clinging to the life I have yet to truly begin living?

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