In every life there is a line you do not wish to cross

In every life there is a choice you make which leads to loss

A choice which leads you down a road that comes across the line

And in the darkness it will bind you to the other side

The other side is where the people that you love will die

The other side is where the truth of all our actions lie

The other side is what remains of who we used to be

The versions of ourselves who used to look at us with jealousy

In truth, we all have left someone below the line

For most of us a lot of time has passed since their decline

But now it’s time to look inside and find the truth again

For if you don’t, and leave emotions there to rot within

You may find that when they rise again this time they’ll win

And there will be no one to hold you back from death or sin

To those who are done searching, what is it you were looking for?

Did you find it? Any sense of peace or lasting stability?

Who helped you along the way? Why do you think they did it?

To those who are still searching, what are you looking for?

Do you think you will find it? The idea that you are loved and cared for?

Is anyone helping you? Why?

To those who have given up, why did you stop searching?

What did you hope to find? Someone to love, or the ability to love yourself?

I’m sorry no one was there to help. Why wasn’t I there to help?

Why is no one here to help me? Why am I not here to help me?

Why do I bury my feelings deep inside and then get angry when no one notices them?

Why am I the problem? Why do I view myself as a problem? Is that just another reason to hate myself?

To those who never got the opportunity to finish searching, where did you go?

Who took you from us? Why did you have to go away?

Why didn’t you take me with you? I could have helped.

But it isn’t my fault. I don’t control the world, only myself.

I may feel the hammer pushing my feelings deep down inside,

but all I need is a little motivation and a shovel to dig them back out before I bury myself along with them.

Fortune is sitting on the beach surrounded by sand

Fortitude is my eyes meeting his, covered in a white windy veil

Wind is the compression of my lungs, our wedding in hail

Wedding me is a sinking feeling of denial, egged on by the beached Whale at my side

When I'm around her I start to sweat

My heartbeat quickens as waves crash around my mind, tormenting the Whale

hurting as much with physical pain as the eternal feelings of loneliness dwelling inside us

Inside me, the beached whale tells spineless lies, his grief and depression echo over endless miles of watery rejection

Rejection; what I fear, what I lack, what calls me in the moonlight

Rejection: the response to me asking, at least from the Whale,

How will I know when we are close enough?

How will I know if he feels the same way when all signs point to rejection?

But do I even love her? How do I think I feel? How does the Whale feel?

Am I so desperate for love as to look to the nearest acquaintance?

Should I look elsewhere? Who else would love me? Will anyone love me?

Or are relationships simply destined to end with beached Whales crying "Wolf!" inside tormented minds

I help him, I help her, I help him with her and her with him

Was I thrown overboard? When? No one wants me to jump in and swim

I swim away from the sharks in fear of being bitten off by a relationship the Whale deems unnatural

Are standards developed in sands of time to ensure love remains supernatural?

"Of course not, it's you," the Whale speaks true.

But what shall I change about myself?

I'm in love with her as much as I am with the sand beneath my feet

How do you know when the crashing waves are real?

I sweat when I'm around her. My heart beats quickly with him.

But also with her, and him, and so so many others because I do not reach for love.

I reach for a friend, and grasp only a headache.

I lost myself in the music of time, awoken by hands I know are not mine

This body is riddled with age and decline, its wrinkles hold tears of a past I can't find 

My life is below the established line, the line that I set in my youth, in my prime 

I fancied myself in a future sublime, but now I am less than alive

I lost myself in the tree of time, shaking with pain, the burden of fame

At age 47 I roll with the tide, my roots are too deep, my trunk has grown wide 

To burden oneself is to damage the love, love was a path that my youth had run from 

To value oneself is to work until done, once done I will not be alive

I wake back in time, heartbeat, overdrive, age young unpleasance, 18, 25

My life remains stuck at the established line, a line that I'm building in time rhyme by rhyme 

If 12 year old me who looked up at the sky and wondered where he would be later in life, 

could look at me now he'd say 'how'd we survive," I don't know, but I'm glad we're alive 

So now as I look up and wonder the same, I know in the end that we'll all be okay 

At times I may crash, burn, or drown in my shame, but time is like music, it shines through the haze 

Soon I will learn, in time I will find, the knowledge I'm more than alone, I am lined, 

with shiny tall pieces that make up the line. The line that I built, I know I'm alive

It isn't hard to understand

why we lived our lives in tandem

starting our days hand in hand

walking in a gentle sand

It isn't hard to remember

How you took my doors and slammed 'em

Our gentle sands were turned to glass

I'll keep those shards forever

It isn't hard to overlook

The greatest fault of all

By chopping down your only tree

I tore the branches that helped you be:

confident in your skin—the possibility of validation

a chance to believe in yourself—the truth that you're unstable

the fact that you were right—and I was just unable

to give a part of me—to save our souls for later

It isn't hard to understand

The way the tides have shifted

God created us with hearts

and shoulders to be lifted

It isn't hard to recognize

our friendship is forever

No chain can break the bonds we made

I'll grow forever fonder

Tonight I saw a most beautiful sight

A man dressed up in sparkly delight

His high heeled shoes and rosy cheeks

Were dancing on stage with all that I seek

His joyous gaze, untamed as his hair

His fiery poses struck golden in air

Although I loved how he lived without care

I couldn’t help feel, a touch of despair

It was him I enveyed, all based up on stage

To a point it inside me lit fires of rage

“You’re beautiful! Stunning! Gorgeus!” they’d say

While I wept in the corner, watching me fade away

In moments like these, I oft try to rise

To pull myself out and light fires of pride

Yet sleep I did not, due to prior night’s lies

I missed half the show! Can I show that I tried?

Half-hearted response, she questions me cleanly

“Are you okay?” I respond, “Not really.”

What difference it makes? Well, none to be sure

Alone in a world with this man has no cure

This man is me, as much as it’s not

We long for the same, though differ a lot

The child on stage whispers in my ear

You sir are worthy, though life’s hard to bear

The drive back home fills my head with tomorrow

With death in my window, life’s hard to follow

What will I do? Is my life now over?

No! He shouts, regain your composure!

Though try as I might, uncertainty seized me

I love him far more, than he ever will see

To be there’s a challenge, for all unsung reasons

I wish I was him, in all different seasons

North of the river ran she

She who knew not, she who knew lots

I who brought the rain

Rain like the river, the river ran she

In times of pain she looks to me

For the river knows not, as she knew lots

Returning to the river with strings of rope

Rope cannot hold me down

South of the river ran he

He who knew little, he who knows pain

Much and more than me

Me as the river, the river like rain

Them who shuts the river down

Rivers of rust, he who I trust

Rain upon the river

He who I cannot drown

Why do they read? Why do they care?

It’s just a poem. It’s not even rare.

Why do they learn? Why do they care?

They are just students. The choice is not there.

Why do we lie? Why do we care?

We’ve told far too many, we’re starting to tear.

Why do we cry? Why do we care?

Life is too hard, we’re starting to wear.

Why do you run? Why don’t you care?

You’ve lost all you can. It’s too much to bear.

Why do you hide? Why don’t you care?

To hide from truth is to entertain fear.

Why do I try? Why do I care?

No one will listen. I simply despair.

Why do I write? Why do I care?

The words are for me, so why do I share?

I hear whispers from snakes

The people, the snakes, there is no difference

Time after time I hear their words

They crawl down my throat, a viscous poison

I hear whispers of snakes

The people, the snakes, it makes no difference

Time after time I feel their words

They puncture my skin, my death’s rejoiced in

Needles crawl beneath my skin

Four legged beetles march over again

Time after time snakes poison my kin

They hurt far less than the whispers within