If I lose my mind before meeting the love of my life, tell her I said, “Hi”; 

also, please make sure she knows cancer isn’t caused by Red 40 in food dye;

And it’s probably better you don’t tell her I died, that’s lame, just lie; 

say something cool, like I flew to Cancun with my boys but never arrived.

She doesn’t have to know that none of “my boys” desire a trip to Cancun; 

Or that sometimes I anxiety-vomit at work in the afternoons; 

She won’t care about my sordid relationship with pills and ice cream;

Just please, please don’t mention the women I date who are all still married.

You can tell her kindergarten-age me once stole a Power Rangers shirt; 

from a kid who laughed at me during recess when I fell into the dirt;

I wore my brand new drip on the bus ride home proudly since I deserved it; 

But when Dad saw the shirt, I confessed, and he made me return it.

That was the day I learned about the risk-to-reward ratio of telling a lie; 

And why we all pick and choose what we tell people throughout our lives;

So if in fact you meet bae before me, you don’t have to lie after, “Hi”; 

Tell her I was super cute, funny, and overall just a really great guy.

An ambient light’s flicker keeps the soft pulse of darkness beating at night;

It shines from your study, flaring higher as each page turns in your mind;

In pursuit of true wisdom, you torch both wax ends of joy and despair;

Alone in the madness, your morbid longings and dark secrets laid bare.

No one can miss your devilish wish to be enlightened and all-knowing;

But those who truly know knowing know there to be no total knowing;

Knowledge persists as inexhaustible, immortal, unbound, and undying;

You know this, of course, but infinity’s hurdle is one you’ll die climbing.

Under what stars endure, our whole waking world sits alone in the dark;

Natural order’s chaos in symmetry leaves us all with holes in our hearts;

Those blind to the heartache and misery pump blood that’s gone rotten;

To know the divine is to know well the darkness they’ve all but forgotten.

The Acheronian undercurrents surge through the psyche’s river of self;

While the curious one stands at the edges, under wicked twilight itself;

Resilience heals only scars you deem worthy when night turns to day;

To know the thrills of love, don’t let the heart’s scars become chains.

************************************************************************

Trust the fine geometric lines of your tastes along every abnormal twist;

Keats speaks to you in autumn notes, rich shades of brown in the mist;

Verdant tints of forest vigor conceal your once bare walls and your doors;

A map of the heavens hangs in constellation with scribblings of Yore.

Books line the ground, line the wall, line the soul of the curiously inclined;

Death’s kiss leaves dried blossoms with a forever stain of beauty in time;

Once we wilt and snap like old stems to live only within frames on a wall;

The curious one sees tragedy not in death, but in never having lived at all.

Never feasting on what philosophy lurks in libraries and flea markets alike;

Never making love while Chopin serenades you under the bare moonlight;

To never have questions of the cosmos answered back to you in a dream;

And to never find God in rolls of film as they project onto a cinema screen.

So, curious one, pack your old soul in a bag before it knows any better;

Turn days into words you’ll write out by hand for loved ones in letters;

To tell the tale of your own secret history will be your greatest endeavor;

Go and be the one to alter existence so furiously that you live on, forever.

By thorns you've learned to keep sharp all your life.

But a vibrant blooming rose whose pretty petals grow and fall away;

Wouldn’t be much of a rose at all without its sharpest thorns anyway.

I'm not crazy;

Just a bit deranged;

I guess to some;

It's all the same.

The whole waking world sits together, alone in the dark;

How many of us do you think have holes in our hearts?

And whose just have a few scabs that won’t ever go away?

Because they like to rip them off and bleed again each day.

To preach “life equals misery” (as if we’ve forgotten);

Or “existence free of pain turns human beings rotten”;

Well, resilience heals only scars you deem worthy, I say;

And love making life worth it is a much stronger cliché.

So remember, we’re alone with the world in the dark each day;

And a lucky few have other lonely someones around them who stay;

Darkness is only wicked if you see it that way;

So please, don’t let your heart’s scars turn to chains.