Friend

From the edges of this darkness

Caving in around me

I see light arching through this

Emptiness surrounding

The cold and tepid waters

I horrified awoke to

Instead of falling farther

I held tight when I found you

Upon the buoy of our good times

I keep afloat in the torrent

Long after we've said good bye

You'll never know how much they meant

You're not just a friend to me

You're a fragment of my soul

A spark in my identity

A jewel that makes me whole

Through the hellfire and the maelstrom

Your essence will sustain

No matter where I go to or come from

I'll always call you friend

Risk

Caught up in the echoing serenade
These words upon the mirror speak
From the roads where memories made
The paths that we still seek
And still we find from time to time
Tokens that remind us of affection
But in love; no reason nor rhyme
Our hearts left without protection
But in struggling toward that failing light
We reach moments that in brilliance shine
So if the treasure is worth the plight
Then grasp each moment and make it thine

Best in You

When the world seems to be testing you

Circumstance besting in you

Want to just rest, be through

Of those trying to get the best of you

But they don't want the best in you

They want the worst in you

They want you to see the world

In the sordid way they do

Their emptiness deep inside

In vanity they try to hide

The part of them dead and dried

With the mangled altar to their pride

No matter how bad they make you feel

How much they cheat and steal

Their joy will never be real

Let that reinforce your will like steel

For they'll never know the peace you'll know

At the end of each day

From the dastardly lengths they'll go

To get their own way

Their avarice

Ugliness

Cowardice

Vacuous

Web that they've woven

Each curse that they've spoken

Tangles around them

Pulls down to drown them

In looking over their shoulders

Paranoid on their radar

That they'll be mistreated

By someone like they are

So enjoy satisfaction that

They'll never know

They can watch you from where they're at

Achieving your goals

They don't run the same race as you

So you don't have to beat them

Let your own heart be true

While their ugliness eats them

And shake the dust off your shoes

As they recede in the distance

For all that you have to lose

Is left back their with them

Deviated

Oxygen measured in the moments

Stolen

By distraction, contraction

Within face and chest

and all the rest

Blurs, receding in a distant vacuum

Another, one more gloom

Day, as my nose and mouth heave
That today I just can't breathe

Drugs and nose guards and stimulants

Just don't increase the performance

Of what I was born with

But can no longer enjoy

Gulps of breath stolen

Glands swollen

And I awake gasping

Throat rasping

Teeth and gums dry

And I cannot deny

That I would try

Anything, to return my respiratory functions

To employ

My eyes and dark circles

Hand fulls of red pills

To make one more night bearable

But I feel like I'm failing

As nothing's prevailing

To help drag me through one more day

Stimulants clustered

So that I can muster

Enough strength

To face another day

I greet each day ragged

From my breathing so jagged

That it alarms my lovers

Fills them with dismay

Hours of sleep threaded together

By drugs and drinks

And whatever

I can find

to get me through

One more night

Each night a patchwork

Of panicked wakings

My body shaking

My chest heaving

Because I just stop breathing

And I'm fighting to drag

Each drought of oxygen

Into starving lungs

That yank the air

From an ever tightening sieve

Clawing for breath

From deep in my chest

I'm not greedy

But I just want to live

And I drag myself from bed

My face aching

My will breaking

Not knowing how much

More I have to give