Running Away

Our love is like a lion lost at sea,
How we got there is far beyond me,
But what I do know, and what seems to be true
Is that we're running away, both me and you.


Running away from our fears and our faults,
Running away from all the things we did wrong,
Running away from all the love that we lost,
Running away... in hopes of being found


And now it seems that I've been away for so long,
We don't speak and when we do it seems wrong,
And the feelings I once had are now gone
So I'm running away...
Running... away.


Running away from our fears and our faults,
Running away from all the things we did wrong,
Running away from all the love that we lost,
Running away... in hopes of being found


And I know that the faith you had in me's gone,
And the love you had for me seems wrong
It's ceased to exist,
So you're running away...


Running away from our fears and our faults,
Running away from all the things we did wrong,
Running away from all the love that we lost,
Running away... in hopes of being found


I know that they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder,
But when you're out of sight, you're out of mind.

American Beauty.

 "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."


- Ricky Fitz (American Beauty)


The first searing screech of a new born child.
The song of the lonely blue jay, looking for a companion near the end of mating season.
The cold wind blowing against your face as you take a long bike ride going no where.
That feeling you get the first time you see the girl of your dreams.
The feeling you get when you lose her, or find out she's just not interested.
The euphoria that overwhelms you after your first successful football game.
The sadness that keeps you and the entire team silent on the way home from a lost game.
The taste left in your mouth after your first kiss.
That bitter taste left in your mouth after drinking a cup of coffee.
The warmth and love given at Christmas time.
The pain and sorrow felt during the funerals of loved ones.
The brutal swelling of your eye, after getting punched in the face for the first time.
The bruises on your legs left after starting your first riot.
The freedom of the open road and the feeling it gives you.
The oppression of the institution, how it traps, kills our imaginations, yet if you're lucky, inspires us.
The warm embrace of your mother after a long hard day.
The scolding she gives you for not picking up your room.
The mere fact that you woke up in this morning.
The fact that you slept a couple hours last night.
Having someone you know will stick you through thick and thin.
Having people that abandon you when times get tough, so you learn who your real friends are.
The crisp taste of fresh water in your dehydrated mouth after taking a long run
The sweat and blood dropped while in the middle of it.
The feeling you get after a having a long day, and you finally get to lie on your bed.
The relaxation achieved during a nice hot shower.
How you can get strength out of even the bad times in life, where nothing seems to be going right.
The fact that you can find love in almost anything.
The tingling you get in your chest when you know you've done something right, even if you got absolutely nothing out of it
The satisfaction you get when you give your time away, to help others.
The cold, hard feeling of rejection.
The warm, elated feeling of hearing the word "yes".
The first few drops of sweat that fall off your forehead after weeks stripped of exercise.
The taste of that first tempting red velvet cupcake, after months of being on a steady diet.
The feeling in your hair when you stick your head out of a car window in a foreign country, embracing the difference in smell and sound, yet knowing its the same sun you feel back at home


I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's beauty in everything, the good and the bad. 
You just need to look for it

Faceless.

I was standing in line,
At a coffeeshop.
When I saw her,
Her eyes bursting with energy,
Only complimented the warm smile she gave me,
that made my heart melt,
Like a marshmallow over an open fire.
Her voice rang out when she spoke,
It was almost melodious, as if she were in song.
She ordered her drink,
Gives the cashier her name,
and disappeared into the crowds of the many faceless people.


I quickly ordered my drink,
Trembling,
Scared of the fact that..
I might never see her again.
I pay give the cashier my card.
And run off in a hurry-
Follow her,
Into the crowd,
of the many faceless people.


I run in desperately.
It smells of cheap perfume and cigarettes.
I can hear constant chatter,
But I don't seem to get what they're saying.
It's all just gibberish,
Or so it seems to me.


I search everywhere,
For hours it seems,
But all I see,
Are the many faceless people,
Lost to the world,
And it's pleasures.


They then started closing in on me.
I pushed them away,
Started to run,
But nothing helped
they kept coming at me,
and coming at me.
I broke down to the floor.
And I looked at the door....


...She was leaving,
She'd escaped.
But more then that,
I'd lost her.
So I wept,
I wept for hours,
or so it seemed.


I then stood up,
And felt something was wrong,
I had a slight headache,
But it just wasn't that.
I sat for a while,
then dismissed it,
And continued my chatter,
With my friends,
Without faces.

Lives Lost at Sea.

There once lived a girl,

Who was in love with the world.

But what she loved most of all,

Would have to be the sea.

In the streets of London we met,

Both in a hurry,

to get,

Nowhere.

but everywhere.

I guess that's just how it goes.

The look in her eyes,

gave me quite a

surprise.

Because I felt as if

I'd never felt that way,

before.

And so I called her by name,

and we danced in the rain,

Then she followed me home,

Spoke of the places we'd go.

Her head on my shoulders.

My heart on my sleve,

I loved her,

And she loved me.

Then we walked down the road,

We followed the path,

The one that,

leads to,

The sea.

She said 'baby it's cold'

So I gave her my coat,

And we trudged down the road,

that leads to,

the sea.

We got to pier,

There was nobody near,

So we hopped on my boat,

and we sailed,

Across the sea.

And as we drifted away,

Not a siren rang,

Just me and her,

And my thoughts,

and the sea.

We followed our dreams,

We chased after our hearts,

And many a year,

We spent on, 

The sea.

But as time came to pass,

We grew tired at last,

And we decided,

to head home,

Get away,

From the sea.

So as we drifted a shore,

Said our prayers,

and mourned,

For we soon would be leaving,

the sea,

her and me.

We hopped off the ship,

Steady, yet quick.

Looked back on our lives,

Lost with the sea.

And so I took her hand,

Now withered and old.

And we walked down the road,

That leads to,

Our home.

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.

“How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.”

-Alexander Pope.

A clean slate.

A fresh start.

A new begging.

How often does man think of these things?

I know that I, myself, do so daily.

And that many, many others, just like me, feel the same way.

The Innocence achieved, 

Everything would be new to you.

Your senses would be stimulated like never before.

There would be no sorrow, 

No depression, 

No weakness.

Just new,

New emotions,

Thoughts, 

experiences.

We know much more then anybody has ever known.

It's not a gift,
If anything it's our greatest burden,

It's what's holding us back.

No longer can we be happy with the simple things that pleased our ancestors, our past selves

Day after day I constantly hear girls saying

"I don't know but I couldn't live without my cellphone or my tv or my laptop or my ipod or my blah blah blah"

It makes me sick.
"Money is the most important thing in my life, I NEED material things to survive."
Are you kidding me?
What have we come to?


We've become materialistic zombies,
Feeding not on brains but money.
People no longer live to enjoy themselves, to make a change in the world.
They live to participate in the vicious cycle which has consumed our parent's generation,
and their parent's generation.
and the one that's soon coming for us.


We need to break free,
my friends.
We need to break away,
Live life for today.
Fuck the future,
Forget the past.
Life is best when it's at it's peak.
Why not keep it there?

Madness.

There's a tremor named madness,
Shaking the world around us.
He know's your name.
He know's where you've been.
And where you're going.
He know's your secrets
And your innermost thoughts.


He lives inside all of us.
And only those who embrace it,
Truly understand me,
and the others who have done so as well.
The madness that dares us to be strange,
Tells us to be different,
To look at the world in a different perception.
It makes us always question,
Be inquisitive,
Be amazing.
Be human.


Which is what so many of us are not.
They've become the drones society wants us to be.
They follow orders,
They don't think.
At least not in a greater sense.
They all like the same things,
And they don't feel.
Not the way we do.
They avoid pain, love and anger.
When all it really is,
is a release.
A release from the chains who tie us down to the ground.
The chains we're all secretly afraid of breaking.
Because we know that beyond those chains.
Is the unknown, and unfamiliar.
The wicked, the weird,
and infinitely,
Our true souls.


They might lie deep in another dimension.
They might live far, far away in a distant desert.
Or in the Black Forests of Germany.
They might live in your very homes,
Maybe even in your hearts.
But you'll never find them if you don't break away.


When I was young, I was told by my school counselor that I was terribly mad.
Never have I been complimented more greatly.
I've always been considered 'weird' by my peers.
This might have actually scared a couple away.
but that didn't bother me.
I was but a child.
I was free to be me.
And then I grew,
And social pressures started hitting me more greatly.
And I was lost.
I became a conformist.
The spark of insanity I had as a kid,
was doused.
By the sudden hit of puberty and self-consciousness.
It was the saddest time of my life,
I too learned to hide my emotions,
To not feel anything.
I was just another fish in the sea.


I then realized how ridiculous that was,
and gave up.
I became me again.
Let my madness,
My soul,
overwhelm me.
And it was the greatest decision I ever made.

What Poetry Means to Me.

"You will always be a poet" A wise man once told me.
"Others might not think of you as one, but you will" 
'Why?" I asked
"is the singing of the birds not music to some?"
"yes but..."
"make your life an epic poem, as Odysseus or Dante did."


This conversation with Simon got me thinking. What is poetry? The soft spoken word of a sensitive intellectual? The cry of a mocking bird in the early morning? Words of love from one romanticist to the other? Maybe even the cry of a man in danger, asking for help and forgiveness? Then I realized that poetry is all of these things, and so much more.


It's what gives a soldier the will to fight.
What gives the blind man new found light.
It keeps the guilty men awake at night


To some poetry and art as a whole, is just people trying to confirm their own existences, but to me poetry is a way to express myself and my beliefs in a way no other art form can. It lets me take off my mask, the one I use with my family, the one I use with my friends, the one I use with almost absolutely everybody, and simply become me, the me I was born to be. The reckless, mad, and terribly inquisitive me. The me I was as a kid, and still am deep, deep inside the trenches of my soul. If I needed a confirmation of my existence, I would get into a fight, get hurt, get hit, feel the mix of emotions swell my mind, and let them overwhelm me, become me, let me be free from the chains of everyday life. That would certainly confirm my existence.


My friend Robert E. Guerra told me recently that "writing is a bit like talking to yourself, because you're saying what your soul wants to say, and you are your soul." He said that "an artist's painting is like a mirror of your inner thoughts and mind, maybe even his soul. A musician's tones and vibratos are the sound of their soul and such, well poetry is just another form of art, so it's essentially the same all artists can see, hear, read what and who they are.. some might be dark and gloomy.. others bubbly and peppy.. and us, philosophical and questioning and recently I've come to think that it isnt because we are old souls that have come to understand the forces of nature and life.. because if we were we'd be pretty gloomy.. because life is very depressing.. you've got conformity, robbery, lust for power, money and sex.. but young souls, which is what I think we are, question the world and marvel at the beauty of simply and extravagant things together.. they enjoy everything from taking a piss to reading a book to looking at landscapes and even other people." These are probably some of the wisest words I have ever heard in my entire life. Not only because it helped me achieve a whole new level of enlightment, but because of the sheer brilliance of the fact that we're not old souls but in fact young, young and inquisitive, young, inquisitive, and brilliant.


I've also come to realize that there is no good or bad poetry, poetry is your soul speaking. Some people just need to learn how direct their thoughts in a more clear manner. And to learn how to write you must infact start writing. There's no need to be discouraged, because "You might look stupid" I myself, had never written a poem before my dear friend, Carina Martinez, got me into it by saying she wrote poems herself. This inspired me in two ways, the first being me wanting to impress her, and the second was of course mere curiosity. I wanted to see how well I could write and how far I could take it, and that pushed me to go as far as I've come. I've made a lot of friends through out this journey, such as Paul Soto who deeply influenced my writing style, and was one of the first to enlighten me into greater thinking, and Simon or "Suffered Sage" who has given me some of the greatest advice I have ever gotten, and has enlightened me much more then anybody else.


What I'm trying to say is that Poetry is not just a bunch of rhyming words on a piece of paper, it's a way of life people need to learn to embrace, live and love. Because it's inside all of us, just like our blood and our arteries. But it's thicker, it's thicker because it's real. Real not in the material sense, but in the spiritual, which is what really matters.